Roman Voss, 62, retired smokejumper turned wildfire mitigation consultant, ducked through the tattered screen door of The Rusty Spur at 7:17 PM, the July Missoula heat clinging to his flannel shirt like a second skin. He’d only come to drop off a $500 donation for the local volunteer fire department’s new gear fund, planned to slip back out before the county commissioner showed up— the same man who’d spent the last three months shooting down Roman’s proposed fire code updates for new rural subdivisions, calling them “unnecessary red tape” while he took under-the-table payouts from out-of-state developers. The bar smelled like spilled Pabst, fried cheese curds, and lemon Pledge, the country cover band on the small stage cranking out a too-loud version of a Johnny Cash deep cut that made his molars rattle. He’d avoided all non-work social interactions for eight years, ever since his wife Laurie died in a car crash, convinced letting anyone new get close was a betrayal he couldn’t live with.
He was leaning against the bar waiting for a draft beer when a woman carrying two shots of bourbon stumbled into him, half an ounce of the dark liquor sloshing over the rim of the glass and soaking a spot on his left sleeve, right next to a faded ash stain from a controlled burn he’d run two weeks prior. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, dabbing at the wet spot with a crumpled napkin, her palm brushing his forearm for three solid seconds, the calluses on her fingers rough against his sun-cracked skin. He recognized her immediately: Elara Hale, the commissioner’s wife, 48, who he’d seen at three county meetings, sitting in the back row, rolling her eyes every time her husband opened his mouth. She wore a faded linen button-down and work boots, her dark hair streaked with gray pulled back in a loose braid, perfume like cedar and orange peel instead of the cloying floral scents most politician’s wives wore to these events.
He opened his mouth to make a sharp, snarky comment about her husband, then stopped. She laughed, a low, rough sound that cut through the band’s noise. “Relax, I’m not gonna tell him you’re here. I’ve been begging him to listen to your proposals for six months. He’s too busy lining his pockets to care that those subdivisions are gonna burn to the ground the second a dry lightning storm hits.” She leaned in closer to talk over a guitar solo, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and Roman’s chest tightened. He knew this was a terrible idea. Getting within ten feet of the commissioner’s wife could tank his business, get him dragged into local gossip he had zero interest in, make him feel like he was cheating on Laurie, even if all they did was talk. But when she asked if he wanted the other bourbon shot, he said yes.
They slid into a vinyl booth in the back corner, far enough from the stage that they didn’t have to yell, far enough from the commissioner’s cluster of donors that he wouldn’t see them right away. Elara told him she ran a small textile studio out of their garage, wove wool rugs dyed with foraged pine needles and wild huckleberry, that the calluses on her hands were from four years of working a floor loom eight hours a day. He told her about the scar across his left cheek, from a 2019 fire outside of Bozeman where a falling tree branch had knocked him off a ridge, about Laurie, how she’d loved hiking the same trails he still walked alone every weekend. Their knees brushed under the table when she leaned forward to ask a follow-up question, and Roman didn’t move his leg away. He hadn’t felt this light in years, like he didn’t have to carry the weight of being the grumpy ex-smokejumper who only cared about fire codes, like someone actually saw him, not just his resume or his reputation for yelling at county officials.
Half an hour later, the commissioner glanced over in their direction, his face going bright red when he saw Elara laughing so hard she snort-laughed at a joke Roman told about a rookie smokejumper who’d accidentally dyed his hair neon orange with fire retardant. Elara met her husband’s glare, winked, then slid her hand across the Formica table, rested it on top of Roman’s calloused knuckles, didn’t pull away. Roman didn’t pull away either. The guilt he’d been carrying around for eight years didn’t vanish, exactly, but it softened, like a block of ice left out in the sun. This wasn’t betrayal. This was just… living, something he’d forgotten how to do.
She told him she was meeting her sister at the trailhead to Mount Sentinel at 9 AM the next day, that they were hiking up to the old fire lookout he’d manned for three summers back in the 90s, asked if he wanted to come, said she’d bring cold brew coffee sweetened with vanilla, the way he’d mentioned he liked it ten minutes earlier. He said yes. She squeezed his hand once, stood up, slung her canvas tote over her shoulder, walked straight over to her husband, said something quiet in his ear, then walked out the front door without looking back. Roman sat there for another five minutes, sipping his beer, watching the rain start to streak the smudged bar window, the ghost of her hand still warm on his skin.
