Rafe Soriano, 53, retired smokejumper turned wildfire mitigation consultant, propped his boots on the lower rail of the Missoula brewery bar, calloused fingers wiping condensation off his frosted IPA mug. A thin, pale scar sliced across his left cheek, a souvenir from a 2019 blaze that jumped a fire line he’d spent three days building, and he rubbed it absently as he replayed the town hall he’d just spoken at, mentally tallying which homeowners would actually follow his advice to clear brush from their property lines. He’d planned the entire night down to the minute: 45 minute speech, 15 minute Q&A, one beer, drive home by 8:30, rewatch the last episode of that western he’d been binging before bed. No surprises, no uncalculated risk.
The stool next to him scraped against the hardwood floor, and a warm shoulder brushed his bicep before he could move over. He smelled pine and lavender hand cream, the kind that didn’t reek of artificial perfume, and when he turned his head, he froze. Lila Marquez, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, was grinning at him, a half-empty glass of peach cider in her hand, dirt crusted on the cuffs of her hiking boots, a flannel tied loose around her waist. He hadn’t seen her in six years, not since his ex’s sister’s wedding, where she’d caught him sneaking a slice of cake before the ceremony and teased him so bad his ears burned for an hour. Back when he was married, his ex would snort and say Lila thought he was “the perfect mix of gruff and soft,” a comment Rafe had brushed off, but that had lingered in the back of his head for months after the divorce.
He tensed, half ready to make an excuse to leave. Hookups with ex-family were the kind of messy, unplanned risk he’d spent the better part of a decade avoiding. But Lila leaned in, her knee brushing his under the bar, and nodded at the scar on his cheek. “Heard you got that saving a dog last year,” she said, her voice loud enough to cut through the jukebox playing old Johnny Cash. “You still going out of your way to play hero when you don’t have to?”
Rafe laughed, the sound rougher than he intended. He told her the story, the little terrier that had run into a controlled burn area, how he’d chased it for a quarter mile through ash, came out with the dog tucked under his arm and the new scar across his face. Lila leaned closer as he talked, her elbow resting on the bar only an inch from his, her eyes crinkling when he described the dog’s owner crying so hard she hugged him so tight he thought his ribs would break. When he passed her the bowl of salted peanuts the bartender set down, her thumb brushed the back of his hand, calloused too from years of digging up native plant samples for her forest service botanist job, and he didn’t pull away.
He kept waiting for the guilt to hit, for the voice in his head screaming this is wrong, she’s family, this will blow up in your face, to drown out the hum of warmth in his chest. But it didn’t. Instead, he found himself telling her about the divorce, about how he’d shut down every possible casual connection after he came home to those papers on the counter, scared any unplanned moment would end in loss. Lila nodded, her fingers brushing the back of his hand again, this time on purpose. “I always thought she was an idiot for letting you go,” she said, her voice quieter now, no teasing edge, and her eyes didn’t leave his, dark and warm under the bar lights.
By 9:30, the bar was half empty, rain lashing against the front windows, and Lila groaned when she checked her phone, saying her old pickup had died in the parking lot, the battery shot from leaving her emergency lights on during the town hall. Rafe offered to drive her home, no hesitation, the first impulsive thing he’d done in years. They ran through the rain to his beat-up Ford F150, laughing when they both got soaked, and when he leaned across the cab to pull her seatbelt across her chest, his face was inches from hers, the smell of her lavender hand cream thick in the small space. She didn’t pull back. She tilted her chin up, her hand coming up to tangle in the gray strands at his temple, and kissed him, slow and soft, the taste of peach cider on her tongue.
When they pulled apart, she rested her forehead against his, her breath warm against his cheek. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 22,” she said, quiet, like she was admitting something she’d hidden for years. “Never said anything. You were married, then you were so closed off I thought you’d never look at me twice.” Rafe laughed, brushing a wet strand of hair off her face, the control he’d clung to for so long melting away like snow in spring. “I looked,” he said. “More than I should have. Was too scared to do anything about it.”
He drove her to her small cabin tucked into the trees outside of town, the rain tapping soft against the truck windows, and when he pulled into her driveway, she didn’t reach for the door handle right away. She laced her fingers through his, her calloused palm fitting perfectly against his, and looked over at him, a small smile on her face. He squeezed her hand, the weight of the last eight years of careful planning, of avoiding risk, of being scared to let anyone get close, falling away so easy he wondered why he’d ever carried it in the first place. He leaned in to kiss her again, the sound of crickets chirping through the open truck window mixing with the soft patter of rain on the roof.
