Ronan O’Malley, 58, retired forest fire lookout, leans against a splintered cedar fence post at the Ashland summer beer garden, sipping a hazy IPA he didn’t even want. He’d shown up only because his next door neighbor, a retired teacher named Marnie, left a free entry ticket taped to his door that morning, with a note scrawled in purple ink that said You spend too much time talking to sawdust. He’d planned to stay 20 minutes max, avoid the small talk, slip back to his cabin before anyone could ask him about the 22 years he spent manning a fire lookout tower 7,000 feet up in the Siskiyous. That’s his blind spot: he’s spent so long avoiding pity after his wife left him for a real estate agent in Bend seven years prior that he’s built walls thicker than the cinder block base of his old tower.
He spots her across the lawn before she sees him. Elara Voss, 54, the new town librarian, the one he’s deliberately avoided making eye contact with every time he drops off dog-eared western novels at the front desk, because the first time he walked in she’d smiled so bright he forgot his own address. The whole town whispers she’s off limits: her late husband was a beloved park ranger who died on a backcountry search and rescue mission six years back, and the local volunteer fire department has collectively appointed themselves her personal guard dogs, side-eyeing any guy who so much as offers to carry her grocery bags.
She’s walking straight toward him, holding a peach seltzer in a neon koozie, her linen shirt dotted with tiny sunflower prints, hiking boots caked with the same red dirt that coats the trails behind his cabin. “Ronan, right?” She stops so close he can smell lavender shampoo and the sweet, sharp tang of peach off her drink. “I recognized the scar on your left hand. You told me last month you got it when a saw kicked back on you, restoring that 1950s crosscut for the county fair.”
He blinks, surprised she remembers. He’d mumbled that line, stared at his shoes the whole time, figured she’d forget 10 seconds after he left. He nods, takes a slow sip of his beer, and when he speaks his voice is rougher than he means it to be. “You went to the fair?”
“Went specifically to see the woodworking entries.” She leans against the fence post next to him, their shoulders brushing when a group of screaming kids chases a golden retriever past. She doesn’t move away. “Your saw won first place, didn’t it? I loved the little carving of the pine marten you put on the handle. You don’t see that kind of attention to detail much these days.”
He feels the back of his neck heat up. He hasn’t had anyone notice that little carving before—he did it late one night, drunk on cheap bourbon, missing the pine martens that used to climb the tower steps to steal his peanut butter crackers. He glances across the beer garden, spots three of the volunteer fire guys staring daggers at him, arms crossed over their department t-shirts. Part of him wants to make an excuse, leave, avoid the drama, go back to his quiet cabin where the only judgment he gets is from the barn cat that steals his lunch meat. But the other part of him, the part that’s been starved for someone who gets the quiet, dirty work of caring for things that most people don’t notice, leans in a little closer.
They talk for 45 minutes. She tells him she used to hike up to his old lookout tower when she was a kid, leave little crayon drawings for the person manning it. He tells her he found dozens of those drawings tucked into the tower’s logbook, kept a stack of them in his duffel when he retired. Every time she laughs, the corner of her eye crinkles, and when she gestures to point out a blue jay perched on the fence above them, her hand brushes his forearm, the light touch sending a jolt up his spine he hasn’t felt in 10 years.
He’s still half waiting for one of the fire guys to march over and tell him to beat it when she leans in, voice low, like she’s sharing a secret. “I have a 1947 crosscut my husband left in the garage. I’ve been trying to get it sharp enough to cut the dead oak in my backyard, but I can’t get the teeth set right. Wanna come back to my place and take a look? I have that 12-year-old bourbon you said you liked last week at the library.”
Ronan glances over at the fire crew, who are now glowering so hard he can practically see steam coming out of their ears. He smirks, takes the seltzer can from her hand to hold while she bends to tie the loose laces on her hiking boot, his knuckles brushing hers deliberately as he passes. He doesn’t care about the gossip, doesn’t care about the stupid unspoken rules the town made up to keep her locked away like some kind of museum exhibit. He can see the faint flush on her cheeks, the way she’s biting back a smile, and he knows she’s just as tired of being treated like she’s made of glass as he is of being treated like a reclusive weirdo.
She stands up, takes her seltzer back, and nods toward the exit. They walk side by side down the tree-lined street, the summer air warm enough that he doesn’t need his flannel, their hands brushing every few steps when they swing their arms. She doesn’t speed up, doesn’t slow down, matches his pace exactly, like they’ve been walking together for years. He spots a pine marten dart across the road ahead of them, and he lets his pinky brush hers when they take their next step.
