Roman Voss, 62, spent 38 years perched in fire towers across the Willamette National Forest, scanning the horizon for the first wisp of smoke that could turn 10,000 acres of pine to ash. He retired three years back, and since his wife Elara died of lung cancer eight years prior, he’s perfected the art of vanishing from small town gatherings before anyone can ask him to stay for a second beer. His worst flaw? He treats every new connection like it’s a wildfire tinderbox, ready to blow up and leave him with nothing but scorched memories if he gets too close.
He’s at the VFW chili cookoff only because his old fire crew buddy Mike threatened to change the locks on his cabin if he didn’t show. He’s leaning against a chipped cinder block wall by the back door, a paper bowl of five-alarm chili in one calloused hand, the other stuffed in the pocket of his oil-stained Carhartt jacket, when he spots her. She’s 10 feet away, laughing so hard at the county road crew foreman’s terrible deer hunting joke that chili dribbles down her jaw, a smudge of deep red against sun-freckled skin. She’s wearing a faded blue flannel over a thin black tank top, work boots caked in mud, and when she catches him staring, she doesn’t glance away like most people do when they realize they’ve caught the grumpy ex-fire spotter watching them. She holds his eye, lifts her chin a little, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and he feels his neck get hot, like he’s standing too close to a campfire. He scolds himself immediately, calls himself a stupid old fool, thinks Elara would roll her eyes at him for even noticing another woman, but he can’t look away.
She crosses the room to him 30 seconds later, and he can smell lavender lotion mixed with the cedar smoke drifting in from the fire pit outside before she’s even within speaking distance. She says her name is Maeve, she’s the new librarian who moved into the old house on Oak Street last month, and she heard he’s the only person in town who knows the location of every hidden waterfall within 20 miles of the city limits. She’s putting together a self-guided hiking pamphlet for the library’s local history collection, she says, and nobody else will give her straight coordinates. “You got a little chili on your jaw,” he says before he can stop himself, gesturing to his own face. She swipes at the wrong side, misses, and laughs, a low, warm sound that makes his chest feel tight. She leans in a little when she talks, so he can hear her over the Toby Keith song blaring from the speakers, and when she reaches over his shoulder to grab a napkin off the ledge behind him, her elbow brushes the scar on his left forearm, the one he got pulling a rookie crew member out of a 2017 blaze. He flinches before he can stop himself; he hasn’t been touched by anyone who isn’t his primary care doctor in seven years.
For 10 minutes he gives her half answers, grunts, tries to edge toward the door, every part of him screaming that this is a bad idea, that letting someone new in will only end in pain, that he’s betraying Elara by even entertaining the conversation. But she doesn’t let him leave. She teases him about the chili he’s eating, says it’s so hot it could burn a hole through the cinder block, asks him if he spends all his time being a hermit just so he doesn’t have to admit he can’t handle mild spice. She’s not pushy, not overly sweet, just sharp, and funny, and when she rolls her eyes at a guy who walks past and slaps her on the back, he feels a weird little flicker of protectiveness he hasn’t felt in years.
He suggests they step outside to get away from the noise before he can talk himself out of it. They sit on the hood of his beat up 2008 F-150, the metal cold even through his jeans, and she tells him her ex-husband left her for a 28 year old yoga instructor three years ago, that she moved to this tiny town because she was sick of everyone in her old city looking at her like she was a broken old toy no one wanted to play with. He tells her about Elara, about how he still makes her favorite oatmeal raisin cookies every Sunday, even though he hates raisins. He doesn’t realize he’s saying it until it’s out, and he tenses up, waiting for the pity he hates, but she just nods, says she still makes her ex’s favorite meatloaf sometimes, just because it’s easy, not because she misses him.
She reaches up then, wipes a smudge of chili off his own jaw, her thumb brushing the coarse gray stubble on his cheek, and he doesn’t flinch this time. He doesn’t pull away. He tells her he’ll take her out to the three biggest hidden waterfalls next Saturday, if she brings the thermos of spiced apple cider she mentioned she keeps in her truck. She agrees, grinning, and shifts a little closer on the truck hood, so their shoulders are pressed together, warm even through their jackets. They watch the sun dip below the pine tree line, the sky turning pink and orange and deep purple, and the noise from the VFW fades into background static.
When the first crickets start chirping in the brush next to the parking lot, he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out the crumpled, coffee-stained trail map he’s had folded there for six months, and hands it to her.
