Ronan O’Malley, 52, retired smokejumper turned wildfire mitigation consultant, leaned against the split rail fence bordering the town’s Fourth of July beer garden, nursing a cold IPA he’d grabbed 20 minutes prior and avoiding eye contact with every neighbor who tried to wave him over to their folding table. Seven years out from losing his team in a fast-moving 2018 blaze, six years out from his wife packing her bags and leaving without a note, he’d perfected the art of keeping people at arm’s length. His default was gruff pleasantries, no follow-ups, no invitations to grab coffee, no openings for anyone to get close enough to leave him again.
The sun had dipped below the Bitterroot Mountains ten minutes earlier, painting the sky in streaks of tangerine and soft purple, and kids darted between the picnic tables waving glow sticks that streaked neon green and pink across his field of vision. He was half considering bailing early, heading back to his quiet cabin in the woods to watch the fireworks from his porch alone, when she stepped up beside him.
She was Maeve, Marnie’s niece, the one who’d moved into his next-door neighbor’s guest room three weeks prior to help Marnie recover from knee replacement surgery. He’d waved at her twice from his truck, never stopped to talk, had written her off as off-limits by default—Marnie had brought him homemade chicken noodle soup when he’d had COVID in 2022, had helped him fix his leaky roof the year before that, and crossing any kind of line with her family felt like a stupid, messy risk he had no business taking.
She was holding a can of cherry seltzer, her work boots caked in pine mulch from the native wildflower beds she’d been planting for Marnie earlier that day, and when she leaned against the fence beside him, her linen shirt brushed his sun-warmed left forearm, right over the thick, silvery scar he’d gotten pulling a rookie out of that 2018 blaze. He flinched before he could stop himself, not used to casual, unplanned touch. She huffed a small, amused laugh, not apologizing, like she’d noticed his habit of avoiding contact and found it funny instead of rude.
They talked first about the town council’s laughably bad new fire mitigation plan, which Ronan had spent three hours yelling about at a public meeting the week prior, then about the stretch of backcountry trail he’d been mapping for new fire breaks, then about the native bumblebee populations she was in town studying between beekeeping seasons back in central Oregon. The space between them shrank slowly, without him noticing: first a foot apart, then six inches, then their shoulders were pressed together, warm through the thin fabric of their shirts. He could smell lavender shampoo mixed with pine sap and the faint, sour tang of fermented hops from the beer stand 20 feet away, could hear the low, throaty lilt of her laugh over the chatter of the crowd.
Every part of him screamed to pull away, to make an excuse and leave, to stick to the safe, isolated routine he’d built for himself. This was messy, this was forbidden, this was exactly the kind of thing that led to people leaving you with empty rooms and unanswerable questions. But every time she tilted her head back to laugh at one of his dry, deadpan jokes about the town’s eccentric mayor, every time her knee brushed his when she shifted her weight, that resolve cracked a little more.
She reached up to swat a mosquito off his bicep, her calloused hand lingering a beat too long against his skin, and when he met her eyes, dark brown flecked with gold, she didn’t look away. The crowd roared as the first firework burst overhead, painting her cheeks bright red, and she leaned in close enough that her breath was warm against his ear over the boom of the explosion. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you since I got here,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear. “Marnie says you’re a total grump but you’re the only person in this town who doesn’t treat me like a clueless tourist.”
He didn’t overthink it. He turned his head, brushed his thumb gently across her jaw first, soft, like he was making sure she wasn’t going to pull away, then kissed her. It was slow, not rushed, no messy grabbing, no over-the-top drama, and it tasted like cherry seltzer and mint. The fireworks boomed behind them, he could hear a group of teen boys hooting from a table a few feet away, but none of it registered, all the noise fading to a low hum in the back of his head.
They pulled away after a minute, and she grinned, tucking a strand of wind-tousled auburn hair behind her ear. She said she had to get back to check on Marnie soon, but asked if he wanted to hike that backcountry trail with her the next morning, bring his fire maps, she’d bring her bee identification guide and some homemade peach scones. He nodded before he could talk himself out of it, the old, familiar fear of loss feeling smaller than it had in seven years.
She scribbled her cell number on a crumpled IPA napkin, pressed it into his palm, her fingers lingering against his for a second before she pulled away. She waved once over her shoulder as she walked off into the crowd, disappearing between the picnic tables. He looked down at the napkin, the ink smudged a little from her sweaty palm, and tucked it safely into the breast pocket of his worn smokejumper flannel. The last firework burst overhead, bright cobalt blue, painting the entire valley below for one quiet, glowing split second.
