Roman Voss didn’t want to be at the fire department fundraiser. At 62, the retired smokejumper turned custom axe restorer had spent the last eight years holed up in his workshop outside town, talking to more vintage felling heads than people, and the crowd of screaming kids and drunk locals made his jaw tight. He’d only agreed to come because his old chief had begged him to run a small restoration demo, figured the crowd would eat up the chance to watch someone turn a rusted yard sale axe into something usable.
He looked up. It was Maeve Carter, Elara’s younger cousin, the one he hadn’t seen since the funeral 12 years prior, before he’d ghosted everyone who knew him back when he was still married. She was 54 now, sun spots scattered across her nose, a streak of silver in her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, worn work boots caked in mud from the animal rescue farm she ran, a flannel tied around her waist over a faded shelter volunteer tee. She leaned against the edge of the table, her elbow brushing his bicep when she reached for a stray piece of sandpaper to fidget with, and the contact sent a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt in close to a decade.
“Remember when you fixed my old BMX bike after I crashed it into the creek?” she said, holding his gaze longer than polite, no trace of awkwardness in her voice. She’d just moved back to town three weeks prior to take over the local no-kill shelter, she explained, had asked the chief if Roman was still around the second she’d walked into the fire hall that afternoon.
Roman’s throat went dry. He nodded, tried to ignore the twist of guilt in his gut, the stupid, hot flutter of desire at the way her shirt rode up when she leaned over to run a finger along the polished edge of the axe head. This was Elara’s cousin. He shouldn’t be looking at her like that, shouldn’t be noticing how her laugh sounded just like his wife’s, softer around the edges, like she was always holding back a joke. He mumbled something about needing to load up his supplies before the rain hit, started stacking sandpaper sheets into his dented metal toolbox, but she didn’t move.
She pulled a foil-wrapped dish out of the canvas tote bag slung over her shoulder, set it on the table between them. “Elara taught me how to make peach pie the summer before she got sick. I remembered you liked the crust extra crispy, no soggy bottom.”
The foil was still warm when he peeled it back. The crust crunched when he took a bite, sweet and buttery, the peach filling spiced with exactly the right amount of cinnamon, and he forgot how to breathe for a second. She laughed when a crumb stuck to his stubble right at the corner of his mouth, reached out to brush it off with her thumb, the callus on the tip of her finger from trimming shelter dog nails catching on his jaw, and he didn’t flinch away.
The band cut out right then, and the first firework exploded overhead, painting the sky pink and gold, the crowd cheering so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts. It was dark enough now that no one was paying attention to the two of them by the demo table, everyone’s eyes turned up to the sky. Maeve leaned in, her mouth a hair away from his, and he didn’t pull away. The kiss was slow, tasted like peach pie and the black cherry hard seltzer she’d been drinking, and the guilt he’d been clinging to for eight years melted away faster than snow on a hot truck hood.
By the time the last firework fizzled out, his toolbox was still half unpacked, the leftover pie sitting on the table forgotten, half the attendees already loading into their cars to beat the traffic. She told him the maul she used to split firewood for the shelter had a cracked handle, asked if he could fix it before the first cold snap hit. He told her to bring it by his workshop any time, he’d even knock $20 off the repair if she brought a second pie, extra crispy crust, no exceptions.
She laughed, hooked her pinky through his as they walked toward the parking lot. Her boot scuffed a loose chunk of asphalt across the pavement, kicking it under the back wheel of his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150.
