Roland Voss is 59, spent 28 years leading U.S. Forest Service wildfire hotshot crews across the West, and hasn’t let anyone other than the cashier at the general store talk to him for longer than two minutes since he moved to this tiny Oregon coastal town three years ago. His wife, Ellen, died of ovarian cancer eight years back, and he’d built up a thick, impenetrable wall of routine and gruff silence since, splitting his days between fixing vintage outboard motors in his cluttered garage shop and hiking the coastal trails alone, no company required. He only showed up to the annual volunteer fire department crab feed that rainy March evening because he owed the fire chief a favor, and even then, he’d planned to eat fast, slip out before the auction started, and be back in his quiet cottage by 8.
He’d claimed the farthest corner table, back to the wall, a cold can of IPA at his elbow, when it happened. Mara Torres, the 51-year-old part-time marine biologist who’d moved to town six months prior and had pestered him three separate times at his shop about finding a working 1970s Evinrude for her 14-foot research skiff, slipped on a puddle of rainwater tracked in off someone’s rubber boots. She was carrying a tray stacked high with garlic bread, and stumbled sideways directly into his table, her hip slamming hard against his denim-clad knee, her free hand flying out to steady herself on his bare forearm.
He flinched first, reflexive, before he registered how warm her palm was through the light layer of crab grease on his skin, how she smelled like coconut shampoo and brine and the faint, sweet vanilla of the lip balm she wore. Her hazel eyes went wide, her left ear turning bright pink as she fumbled to set the tray down on the edge of his table, stammering out an apology. The room was loud, chatter from 200 locals bouncing off the cinder block walls, old Johnny Cash playing low over the speakers, but for a second it felt like all the noise had been sucked out of the room, just the two of them sitting there, her hand still on his arm.
He opened his mouth to tell her it was fine, no harm done, that he was just leaving, but she slid into the bench across from him before he could get the words out, wiping her wet hands on the thighs of her oilskin work pants. She said she’d been meaning to apologize for bugging him at his shop, that she’d asked every other guy within 20 miles about old Evinrudes and none of them knew a carburetor from a crankshaft. He gritted his teeth, already mentally mapping his escape route, but then she started talking about the Dungeness crab population decline she was studying, how the recent ocean acidification was wiping out juvenile crab beds along the coast, and he paused. Ellen used to organize monthly beach cleanups, used to ramble for hours about coastal conservation, and he found himself leaning forward a fraction, listening, without meaning to.
He was so caught off guard by the way she talked, fast and animated, hands gesturing as she explained her research, that he didn’t notice the glob of crab butter stuck to the edge of his jaw until she reached across the table, her thumb brushing the rough stubble on his face as she wiped it off with a crumpled paper napkin. He froze, every muscle in his body going tight, because no one had touched him that softly, that casually, in almost a decade. He felt his own neck go hot, equal parts annoyed and flustered, half ready to snap at her for overstepping, half desperate to lean into the warmth of her touch for just a second longer.
He could see Marnie, the woman who ran the Main Street bakery, glancing over at their table from across the room, a little smirk on her face, and his first instinct was to push back from the table, leave, go back to his empty house where no one watched him, no one tried to get close. But then Mara leaned back in the booth, crossing her arms, and said she knew what it looked like, that she wasn’t trying to hit on him, that she’d lost her partner in a commercial fishing accident four years prior, she got the whole “wanting to be left the hell alone” thing, she just didn’t have anyone else to ask about the motor.
The tension drained out of his shoulders all at once. He told her he had a 1972 Evinrude in his shop, fully rebuilt, almost ready to test, that she could come by next Saturday if she brought a loaf of that sourdough Marnie baked, the crusty kind with the sea salt on top. She grinned, knocking her work boot against his under the table, and said she’d bring two loaves, and a six pack of that hazy IPA he bought every Friday at the general store, like it was a secret she’d been holding onto for months.
They finished their crab, picking the last bits of meat out of the shells, talking about fire seasons and fishing regulations and the time Ellen once got stranded on a sandbar during a low tide. He didn’t even notice when the auction started, didn’t notice the time slipping by, until Mara glanced at her phone and swore, said she had to get home to feed her rescue greyhound.
He walked her out to her beat-up old Toyota pickup in the rain, holding an old golf umbrella over her head to keep her dry, his shoulder brushing hers as they walked across the parking lot. He opened the driver’s side door for her, and she leaned in for a quick, one-armed hug before she climbed in, her rain jacket cold against his chest, her hair tickling his chin. He stood there in the rain, umbrella tilted against the wind, until her taillights disappeared around the curve of the coastal highway. He reached up, touching the spot on his jaw where her thumb had brushed earlier, still a little tingly. He tucked the crumpled napkin she used to wipe his jaw into the pocket of his frayed flannel shirt before turning to walk home, rain dripping off the brim of his weathered USFS ball cap.
