Rafe Sorensen, 53, retired smokejumper turned wildfire mitigation consultant, had only shown up to the Lolo Volunteer Fire Department chili cookoff because his former crew chief had threatened to drag him off his 40-acre property by his bootstraps if he bailed again. He’d spent the last 8 years holed up alone outside of town, still prickly from his ex-wife leaving a month after he’d shattered his ankle on a 2015 jump, stubbornly convinced any personal connection was more trouble than it was worth. He’d posted up by the steel beer cooler by the back door, half-hidden by a stack of folding chairs, when she bumped into him.
She was Elara Voss, wife of the county commissioner who’d been grandstanding all night about cutting wildfire prevention budgets to fund a new sports complex. Rafe had only seen her in town meetings before, polished in blazers and pencil skirts, standing silently by her husband’s side while he kissed babies and shook hands. This time she was in a soft cream sweater, holding a paper cup of spiced hard cider, and a slosh of it spilled over the rim onto the sleeve of Rafe’s frayed gray flannel when she stumbled over a loose floorboard.
She apologized immediately, leaning in close enough that Rafe could smell lavender hand lotion mixed with the cinnamon from her cider, her free hand dabbing at the wet spot with a crumpled napkin she pulled from her jeans pocket. Her knuckles brushed his forearm through the flannel, and her dark brown eyes locked with his for three full beats too long before she looked away, a faint pink flush rising on her cheekbones. Rafe’s throat went dry. He knew better than to even make small talk with her. Half the people in the room were donors for her husband’s upcoming state senate run, and any hint of impropriety would get both of them dragged through the small town rumor mill before the sun came up.
He mumbled that it was fine, that the flannel was already stained with chain saw oil anyway, and turned back to the cooler, fully expecting her to scurry back to her husband’s side. Instead, she showed up 10 minutes later carrying two paper bowls of chili, sliding into the folding chair across from him at the only empty table in the room. She said her chili was the brisket one that had won first place the last two years, and he’d be an idiot to turn it down. The hum of the crowd faded to background noise as they talked: she told him she’d been a backcountry forest ranger for 7 years before she married the commissioner, that she’d given it up because he’d said a politician’s wife shouldn’t come home covered in pine sap and tick bites, that she hated every minute of the campaign events and the forced smiles. Rafe told her about the jump that shattered his ankle, about the months he spent rehabbing alone, about the way he still went out on 10-mile hikes most weekends just to feel the pine needles under his boots.
Her hand brushed his when she passed him a cornbread muffin across the table, and this time she didn’t flinch or look away. The commissioner yelled her name from across the room, waving her over to meet a group of out-of-state donors, and she sighed, pushing her chair back. Before she stood up all the way, she leaned across the table, her mouth inches from his ear, and slipped a crumpled piece of paper into the front pocket of his work jeans, her fingers brushing the skin of his hip just above the waistband. “I’m supposed to fly to Boise tomorrow for a forest policy conference,” she said, her voice low enough only he could hear it, no trace of the polished politician’s wife lilt she used for crowds. “I’m driving myself to the airport at 8 a.m. Stop me if you don’t think I should go alone.” She walked away then, head held high, not glancing back once.
Rafe sat there for another 20 minutes, sipping his beer, staring at the crumpled paper in his pocket, knowing every part of this was stupid. He’d lose half his county consulting contracts if the commissioner found out. The whole town would talk. He’d spent 8 years building a life where he didn’t have to answer to anyone, and this would blow all that up. He thought about the way her eyes had lit up when she described summiting Trapper Peak alone when she was 27, about the way she’d laughed so hard at his story about getting stuck in a ponderosa pine during a 2018 fire that she’d snort-laughed and had to cover her mouth.
He was parked in the airport park and ride at 7:45 the next morning, his truck packed with a cooler of beer and his hiking boots in the back seat. He saw her silver SUV pull in 10 minutes later, her wearing a flannel shirt and hiking boots instead of the blazer she’d worn the night before, a duffel bag tossed on the passenger seat. She pulled up next to his truck, rolled down her window, and grinned when she saw him. She tossed her duffel into the bed of his truck before he even had a chance to say hello.
