Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired wildland fire crew foreman, leaned against the scuffed pine bar of The Pine Tap, calloused fingers curled around a frosty Pabst Blue Ribbon. He’d only showed up to the annual county fire department fundraiser because his old crew had showed up on his porch that morning with a six pack and a threat to drag him out if he refused. Eight years since his wife Moira died, he’d perfected the art of hiding out at his off-grid cabin 12 miles outside town, turning down casseroles, fishing invites, every half-hearted attempt to set him up with someone. His biggest flaw, the one he’d never admit out loud, was that he equated any flicker of joy unrelated to Moira with betrayal.
The bar smelled like charred bratwurst, pine sol, and the faint smoky tang of the wildfires currently creeping through the western edge of the county. Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” hummed low from the jukebox in the corner, half drowned out by the roar of 40 off-duty firefighters and their families yelling over each other about raffle prizes. He was halfway through his beer, mentally calculating how fast he could slip out the back door, when a boot scuffed the side of his worn work boots.
He looked up. Elara Mendez, 58, the traveling wound care nurse who’d moved to town six months prior, was grinning at him, holding a roll of neon orange raffle tickets. He’d avoided her for three months after she’d stitched up a gash on his left hand last winter, when he’d gotten careless splitting oak for his fireplace. She’d smelled like lavender and rubbing alcohol then, had teased him for flinching when she dabbed antiseptic on the cut, had told him he was the worst patient she’d had all year. He’d hated how fast his face had heated up, how he’d caught himself replaying the sound of her laugh for a week afterward. It felt wrong. She was Moira’s childhood best friend’s little sister, for Christ’s sake. He’d carried her on his shoulders at Moira and his wedding, back when she was 12 and covered in popsicle stains.
“Thought you’d hole up in that cabin forever,” she said, leaning in close enough that he could pick up that same lavender and antiseptic scent, mixed with the faint sweetness of the peach hard seltzer she was holding. Her shoulder brushed his bicep when a group of rowdy volunteer firefighters squeezed past them to get to the pool table. He tensed up, then forced himself to relax. It was just a touch. No reason to act like a spooked deer.
“Crew made me come,” he grumbled, taking a sip of his beer to avoid making eye contact for too long. Her eyes were warm, dark brown, crinkled at the corners from smiling too much. He’d forgotten how much they looked like her sister’s, how Moira had always talked about how Elara was the only person in her family who’d ever had any sense.
“Sure they did,” she said, laughing, and the sound hit him low in the chest, the way no sound had in eight years. She held out a raffle ticket, and when he reached for it, their fingers brushed. Her skin was softer than he expected, warm, even through the thin paper of the ticket. He pulled his hand back fast, like he’d touched a hot coal, and she raised an eyebrow, amused. “You still scared of nurses, O’Malley?”
He scowled, but there was no heat in it. “Not scared. Just don’t need anyone patching me up.”
“Right,” she said, leaning against the bar next to him instead of walking away, like he’d expected her to. They talked for 20 minutes, first about the fires burning west of town, then about how she’d lost her first husband, a wildland firefighter, to a blaze in Idaho 12 years prior. She told him she’d spent five years after that avoiding anyone who’d ever worn a fire uniform, too, because the guilt of being the one who got to go home felt like a stone in her throat. The grand prize was a brand new Stihl chainsaw he’d been eyeing at the hardware store for three months, but he couldn’t summon enough interest to even glance at the table where the prizes were set up, not when she was talking about how she’d taken up rock hunting on weekends when she didn’t have patients.
The tension he’d been carrying in his shoulders since she walked over loosened a little. He’d never told anyone how he’d felt when he got the call about Moira, when he was 300 miles away fighting a fire in Montana, how he’d spent years hating himself for not being there, for choosing a fire over her. He told her that, quiet, so no one else could hear, and she nodded, like she got it, like she didn’t think he was a terrible person for it.
When the announcement came over the speaker that the 50/50 raffle was about to be drawn, she tilted her head toward the back door. “Wanna get some air? It’s too loud in here.”
He nodded, no hesitation this time, and followed her outside. The air was cool, sharp with pine and the faint distant smell of smoke, the sky streaked pink and orange from the sunset. She stopped on the porch, turning to face him, and reached up to brush a pine needle off the collar of his worn Carhartt jacket. Her hand lingered on his chest for a beat, right over his heart, and he didn’t pull away. He didn’t even think about pulling away.
“I’m not asking you to forget her, you know,” she said, soft, like she was reading the thought that had been running through his head all night. “No one’s asking that.”
He stared at her for a long second, then reached up, slowly, to cover her hand with his. His palm was calloused, scarred, hers was soft, a little cold from holding her seltzer can, and they fit together better than he’d thought anything could fit in a decade. He didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. The weight he’d been carrying around for eight years felt a little lighter, just then.
“You got coffee at that cabin of yours?” she asked, after a minute, grinning that same grin that had made his face heat up back when she’d stitched his hand.
He nodded, squeezing her hand a little, before letting go to lead the way down the porch steps. The gravel crunched under their boots as they walked toward his old pickup, their knuckles brushing every few steps, easy, no rush, no guilt, just the quiet hum of crickets in the trees and the faint glow of the sunset at their backs.
