Roland Voss, 59, spent 22 years as a smokejumper before a 2018 blaze that killed his crew mate, Jesse Carter, left him with a partially collapsed lung and a permanent knot of guilt in his gut. These days he works as a wildfire mitigation consultant, drives a beat-up Ford F-150 with a dented toolbox in the bed, and avoids the farmers market’s honey booth like it’s a dry tinder pile in a heat dome. The booth is run by Jesse’s daughter Lila, who moved back to western Montana six months prior after her marriage fell apart in Portland. Roland’s only seen her from a distance up to that point, still sees the snot-nosed 12-year-old who used to sneak candy out of his pack at crew barbecues, and he’s too ashamed to face her, convinced he could have pulled her dad out of that burn if he’d just moved ten seconds faster.
It’s 82 degrees on the Saturday he caves. His doctor told him raw local honey would soothe the chronic cough that still wakes him up most nights, and the grocery store’s generic stuff tastes like corn syrup dyed yellow. He tugs his worn cowboy hat lower over his graying temples, shifts his weight on the gravel path that crunches under his steel-toe work boots, and makes his way over. The air smells like roasted sweet corn, lavender sachets, and cut grass, the hum of kids chasing each other and old neighbors bickering about tomato plants wrapping around him.
Lila looks up from restocking jars the second he’s within three feet of the booth, and grins so wide the freckles across her nose bunch up. “Roland Voss. I was starting to think you were avoiding me.” She leans over the rough pine table, and the strap of her yellow sundress slips down one sun-kissed shoulder, a faint sticky streak of honey glistening right above her collarbone. He’s so busy staring at it he almost doesn’t notice when she passes him a jar of wildflower honey, their fingers brushing when he takes it. Her skin is soft, his is crisscrossed with old burn scars and calluses from decades of hauling gear and chopping brush, and the contact sends a jolt up his arm he hasn’t felt since his wife left him three years prior.
He fumbles for his wallet, mumbles something about needing the honey for his cough, and she waves his cash away. “On the house. I owe you for all the times you bailed me out when I snuck out to go to parties in high school, remember?” She holds eye contact longer than she should, her dark brown eyes warm, no trace of the awkward kid he used to know. He’s suddenly hyper aware of how close she is, the sweet, earthy smell of her lavender lotion mixing with the honey from her booth, the way the sun catches the auburn streaks in her dark hair. A part of him twists with disgust, like he’s betraying Jesse just by standing here noticing how pretty she is, but another part of him, the part that’s been lonely for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to be seen, can’t look away.
She scribbles her address on a scrap of brown paper, shoves it into his flannel shirt pocket before he can protest. “I found a box of Dad’s old photos last week. Stuff from the 2007 Salmon River fire, the one where you two got stuck in that cave for 12 hours. Got a bottle of that Booker’s bourbon you like too. Stop by after the market closes, if you want.” He opens his mouth to say no, to tell her it’s not a good idea, but she tilts her head, and he nods before he can think better of it.
He shows up at her small log cabin at 7:30, the sky streaked pink and orange over the pine trees behind the property. She opens the screen door barefoot, wearing Jesse’s old gray fire crew flannel, the one Roland gave him for Christmas 2006, hanging loose over cutoff shorts. The photos are spread out across her kitchen table, two glasses of bourbon poured already, no ice, just how he likes it. They sit side by side flipping through them, laughing at the shots of them covered head to toe in ash, Jesse making a silly face behind Roland’s back mid-interview with a local news crew. When they get to the photo of them sitting outside the cave after being rescued, Jesse’s arm slung over Roland’s shoulder, Lila leans into his side, her warm weight pressing against his ribs.
He tenses for half a second, then relaxes, and when she looks up at him, her face only inches from his, he doesn’t pull away. “I know you blame yourself for what happened to Dad,” she says quiet, so soft he almost can’t hear it over the creak of the cabin floorboards. “But it wasn’t your fault. He always told me you were the best partner he ever had, that he’d trust you with his life a hundred times over.” The knot in his chest loosens, just a little, and when she brushes a stray gray hair off his forehead, her thumb brushing his cheek, he lets her. She closes the gap between them, her lips soft, tasting like honey and bourbon, and he kisses her back slow, no rush, no guilt, just the quiet hum of relief he hasn’t felt in years.
They pull back after a minute, their foreheads pressed together, and she laces her small fingers through his scarred ones, squeezing tight. Outside, crickets hum in the pine trees, and for the first time in four years, Roland doesn’t feel the weight of the fire sitting on his chest.
