Rafe Sorenson, 53, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, sits hunched over a grease-stained paper plate at the Bend VFW’s Taco Tuesday, wiping sour cream off his calloused knuckles with a scratchy napkin. He’s only here because his back has been too sore to split wood all afternoon, and the tacos are three bucks apiece, better than anything he can throw together in the microwave at his empty cabin. The jukebox blares Johnny Cash deep cuts, the air smells like fried beef, cilantro, and beer sweat from the crews that just got off the Deschutes National Forest fire line three days prior. The AC is cranked too high, fogging the edges of the front windows, and every stool at the bar is taken by the time the door swings open again.
He doesn’t recognize her at first, until she stops two feet from his stool, grinning so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle. Lila Carter, his old crew foreman’s daughter, the last time he saw her she was 17, dyed blue hair, screaming at her dad for waving a foam finger at her high school graduation. Now she’s 38, a single streak of silver cutting through her chestnut hair, wearing a faded green flannel unbuttoned over a white tank, jeans that fit snug at the hips, work boots caked in mud from patching her dad’s fence that morning. The bar is so packed she doesn’t even ask before sliding onto the empty stool right next to him, her thigh brushing his when she shifts to get comfortable on the wobbly metal seat.
He freezes mid-bite, a glob of sour cream dribbling down his chin. He fumbles for a napkin, but she’s already grabbing one, dabbing it at his jaw before he can stop her. Her hand is warm, the napkin rough against his stubble, and he catches a whiff of pine soap and vanilla lotion off her wrist before he flinches back, mumbled thanks sticking in his throat. His ears burn, a reaction he hasn’t had since he was 19 and his first crew lead chewed him out for forgetting his fire shelter on a training run.
He berates himself silently as she flags down the bartender for a Modelo. You held this kid when she was five and fell off her bike at the company picnic, you helped her dad teach her to shoot a BB gun when she was ten, you have no business noticing the freckle across the bridge of her nose, no business noticing how her thumb brushes the rim of her beer bottle when she turns to look at him. She tells him her dad’s been asking after him, still tells the story of the time Rafe carried him three miles out of a burn zone when he twisted his ankle in 2011. She leans in when she talks, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep, the flannel she’s wearing worn thin at the elbow, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the fabric.
He tries to keep his answers short, gruff, the same way he talks to the hardware store clerk, the same way he talks to anyone who tries to get too close. He’s spent 17 years intentionally closed off, ever since his ex-wife left a note on his kitchen counter while he was deployed to the 2006 Day Fire, took the dog and the pickup and never called back. He got used to being alone, preferred it, or so he told himself. But Lila keeps teasing him, brings up the time he dressed up as Santa for the crew Christmas party when she was 12, ate so many sugar cookies he threw up in the snowbank outside the station, and he laughs before he can stop himself, loud and rough, the kind of laugh he hasn’t let out in months.
The conflict sits tight in his chest, half disgust at his own wandering attention, half sharp, bright desire he thought he’d buried decades ago. She’s not looking at him like the grumpy loner who cuts firewood for half the county, she’s looking at him like she knows all the stupid, embarrassing parts of his past and thinks they’re funny, not pitiable. When she mentions her dad’s been having trouble with his old wood stove, the same one Rafe helped him install in 2008, he already knows what she’s going to ask before she says it.
She leans in even closer, her mouth right next to his ear so she doesn’t have to yell over the jukebox. Her breath is warm against his neck, smells like lime and the shot of tequila she just ordered. “I tried to fix it for three hours last weekend, almost blew the house up,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “Dad keeps saying you’re the only guy who ever knew how to keep that hunk of metal running. Come over Saturday? I’ll make chili, we can watch the Ducks game, he’d lose his mind if you showed up.” She pulls back, looks him right in the eye, no teasing now, just that soft, steady smile, and she doesn’t look away when he meets her gaze.
He hesitates for half a second, thinks of all the weekends he’s spent alone splitting wood, drinking cheap beer, watching old westerns on his beat-up TV. Thinks of the note his ex left, the way he swore he’d never let anyone get close enough to leave again. “Yeah,” he says, before he can talk himself out of it. “I’ll be there around ten, bring my toolbox.”
She grins, grabs a napkin from the stack next to the ketchup bottle, scribbles her address and cell number on it in loopy, messy handwriting, a tiny doodle of a pine tree next to the digits. She slides it across the bar, her finger brushing his wrist when she lets go, leaving a faint, warm tingle that lingers even after she pulls her hand away. “Don’t be late,” she says, picking up her jacket, waving at a group of friends across the room before she heads for the door.
He stares at the napkin for a full minute, the paper crinkling a little under his fingers. He tucks it into the inside pocket of his own flannel, right next to the crumpled old photo of her dad’s golden retriever he’s carried around since the dog passed in 2014. He takes a sip of his now-warm beer, looks down at the half-eaten taco on his plate, and when the bartender asks if he wants another round, he nods, already mentally making a list of parts he’ll need to fix that old stove.
