Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired U.S. Forest Service fire spotter, leaned against the splintered cedar fence lining the Yamhill County Harvest Fair’s food truck row, his left knee throbbing where the old 2017 wildfire fall had mangled the joint. He’d only shown up because his 16-year-old niece had begged, threatening to stop dropping off homemade sourdough at his remote cabin if he skipped her little brother’s apple pie contest entry. The air smelled like fried elephant ears, burnt hot dogs, and the faint sharp tang of pine drifting down from the Coast Range a dozen miles west, a bluegrass band sawing through a worn Johnny Cash cover off by the livestock barns. He’d been nursing the same cup of spiced cider for 20 minutes, avoiding eye contact with the group of retired teachers from his old high school who kept glancing his way, ready to offer the same tired “how are you holding up” lines he’d heard every week since his wife Maggie passed four years prior.
He was just considering bailing early, knee screaming too loud to stick around for the pie awards, when she stepped into his line of sight. Elara Voss, 58, the woman who’d bought the abandoned ranger station on his old patrol route two years prior, the one the entire town side-eyed for posting unhinged rants about logging companies on the local Facebook group, the one who’d dated a 28-year-old forestry intern the summer before, the one who sold native wildflower starts out of a beat-up 1998 Ford Ranger at the weekly farmers market. She was wearing paint-splattered work jeans, a faded Fleetwood Mac tee, a flannel tied around her waist, work boots caked in dark mud that matched the dirt crusted on his own. She was holding his beat-up brown leather binocular case, the one he’d dropped while hiking the ridge above her property six months prior, too stubborn to go back and get it once his knee locked up halfway down the trail.
She stopped a foot away, closer than most people dared get to him these days, and held out the case, her dark eyes steady, no trace of the pity or wariness he was used to seeing in people’s faces when they talked to him. “Found this wedged under a Douglas fir root last week,” she said, her voice rough, like she spent half her time yelling over wind through the trees. When he reached out to take it, their fingers brushed, her palms calloused from hauling planters, warm even though the October air had dipped into the low 50s. The scent of lavender soap and pine resin drifted off her flannel, and he had to resist the stupid urge to lean in closer, to breathe it in deeper. He glanced past her, saw the three ladies from the local Catholic parish staring from the pie judging table, their mouths pinched like they already had a new gossip item for their weekly coffee klatch.
He fumbled for a thank you, his usual gruff one-liners dying in his throat when she grinned, a faint scar slicing through her left eyebrow lifting with the expression. “Figured you’d want it back,” she said, shifting her weight so her shoulder brushed his, accidental, not forced, and he felt heat crawl up the back of his neck. “You used to leave notes on the ranger station bulletin board back when you worked that route, right? The ones about where the bear cubs were denning, where the huckleberry patches were ripe? I still find them tucked in the desk drawers sometimes.” He nodded, his throat tight, because he’d written those notes for Maggie, when she used to hike out to meet him during his shifts, bringing him cold beer and peanut butter sandwiches. He hadn’t thought about those notes in years, had assumed the new owners would’ve thrown them out.
The bluegrass band cut out for a minute, and the announcer yelled that his niece’s little brother had won first place in the 10-and-under pie category, the crowd cheering so loud his ears rang for a second. Elara whooped along, clapping, and when she turned back to him, she was still grinning, the pink of the setting sun hitting her cheeks. He knew he should say goodbye, head over to congratulate his nephew, go home to his quiet cabin where no one stared, no one expected anything from him, where he didn’t have to deal with the buzz of desire low in his gut that he’d thought died with Maggie. But instead, he asked her if she wanted to grab a beer at the dive bar on the edge of town after he said hi to his family, that he’d buy her a basket of the fried cheese curds they served there as thanks for bringing the binoculars back.
She laughed, the sound rough and warm, and said she’d only go if she could buy the first round, since she’d hiked three miles out of her way to return his stupid binoculars, and she wasn’t letting him get off that easy. He nodded, his own smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, a real one, not the tight fake one he used for people who wanted to talk about Maggie. When he limped away to go find his niece, he glanced back over his shoulder, saw her leaning against the fence where he’d been standing, watching him, no embarrassment, no hesitation, like she knew he’d be back. He passed the three church ladies on the way, and he didn’t even bother looking away, didn’t care what they had to say about him talking to the town’s supposed weirdo.
An hour later, he walked out of the fairgrounds with her, letting her hold his arm when his knee locked up stepping off the curb, her hand warm through the flannel of his shirt. She told him she’d been meaning to ask him for months to show her the best hidden huckleberry patches on his old patrol route, that she wanted to plant native bushes there to support the local bee population, and he told her he’d take her Saturday, as long as she brought the peach turnovers she sold at the farmers market, the ones with the crumb topping. When she squeezed his bicep to agree, he didn’t flinch, the cool October wind carrying the faint sound of the bluegrass band behind them as they walked toward her truck.
