Rafe Muñoz, 62, spent 28 years spotting wildfires from a 60-foot steel tower in the Deschutes National Forest before retiring three years ago. He lives in a one-room cabin 12 miles outside Bend, survives on his federal pension and sales of hand-carved cedar walking sticks, and hasn’t spoken to Lorna Hale since his 2005 divorce. For 17 years, he’d sworn she’d ratted to his ex-wife Karen about the unapproved fishing trips he’d lied about to skip family weddings and boring holiday dinners, and he’d made a point of crossing the street or ducking into a convenience store whenever he saw her around town. He’s at the Elks Lodge’s monthly fish fry on a frigid mid-October evening, rain lashing the building’s metal siding so hard it drowns out the jukebox half the time, when he spots her walk in. The ends of her auburn hair are matted with rain, her plaid flannel shirt is unbuttoned over a faded navy tank top, and her work boots squelch loud enough to turn a few heads when she crosses the linoleum.
Every table in the room is packed. She scans the crowded space, spots the empty metal folding chair across from him, hesitates for half a second, then walks over. Rafe tenses, jaw set, ready to mumble that the seat’s taken, but she beats him to it, voice dry as kindling: “Every other spot’s full. Ten minutes, I’ll inhale my cod and get out of your hair.” He nods, doesn’t say a word, goes back to picking crumbs of hushpuppy off his frayed Carhartt work shirt. She sits, and their knees brush under the Formica table, hard enough that he flinches like he’s been burned by a spark. She smirks, dabs tartar sauce on her first bite of fish, and says “Still jumpy as you were when you mistook a distant lightning strike for an ignition back in ‘03?” He blinks, stunned she remembers that specific detail from a work training they’d both sat through 20 years prior. When she drips sauce on her wrist a minute later, he passes her a stack of paper napkins without thinking, and their fingers graze for half a second. Her skin is softer than he expected, warm even through the thin paper, and he yanks his hand back like he touched a hot stove burner.
They make stilted small talk at first. She runs the downtown mystery bookstore, just got a shipment of vintage western paperbacks that morning, and when he mentions he collects first edition Louis L’Amour novels, her eyes light up. He can’t hold back the question he’s been sitting on for almost two decades, voice sharp enough to cut through the noise of the room: “You know I spent 17 years thinking you told Karen I was fishing at Crescent Lake instead of at her sister’s wedding?” She freezes, fork halfway to her mouth, then laughs loud enough that the two guys at the next table glance over. “I covered for you, dumbass,” she says, shaking her head. “Told her you got called out for a pre-fire monitoring run. She found the gas station receipt in your jacket pocket when she was doing laundry, had a date stamp matching the wedding day. I tried to tell her you’d just stopped for snacks on the way to the wedding, she didn’t buy it.” Rafe feels his face go hot, embarrassment coiling tight in his gut. He’s spent almost half his adult life hating this woman for something she didn’t do, and he can’t even meet her eye for a full minute.
The crowd thins out as the night goes on, and the rain comes down harder, drumming so loud against the roof it’s hard to hear the person next to you. Rafe sees her glance out the fogged window, frowning, and she admits she parked three blocks over and forgot her umbrella. “I got an oilskin jacket,” he says before he can think better of it. “Walk you to your truck.” She grins, teasing, and says “Sure you don’t want to leave me out here to drown, after all that grudge holding?” He snorts, pulls the worn dark green jacket out from under the table, and holds it over both of their heads when they step outside. The rain is ice cold, seeping through the edges of the fabric, and their shoulders are pressed tight together the whole walk, close enough that he can smell lavender from her hair, wet pine from the trees lining the sidewalk, and the faint lingering smell of fried fish and draft beer on both of their clothes. She wraps her hand around his forearm to steady herself when she steps over a deep puddle, and he doesn’t flinch this time.
They reach her beat-up 2008 Toyota Tacoma a minute later, and she fumbles in her purse for her keys, dropping them on the wet asphalt. They both bend to pick them up at the same time, their foreheads knocking together hard enough to make both of them laugh, loud and unselfconscious. She takes the keys from him when he hands them over, unlocks the truck door, then pauses, leaning against the truck bed, rain dripping off the brim of his faded baseball cap onto her shoulder. “I got pot roast slow cooking at my place,” she says, eyes bright, no awkwardness, no hesitation. “And that first edition of Hondo you mentioned? I’ve had it in my back stock for six months, couldn’t find a collector who’d pay what it’s worth.” Rafe hesitates for half a second, the old grudge still a faint hum in the back of his head, but the rain is seeping through his jeans, the thought of warm pot roast and a book he’s been chasing for 10 years makes the hesitation fade fast. He nods, and she grins, tossing him a frayed cotton towel from the passenger seat when he climbs in. She turns the key in the ignition, the heater kicks on blowing warm air over his cold hands, and when she reaches over to adjust the vent, her knuckles brush his knee where it’s propped against the dashboard, and he doesn’t move away.
