Rafe Holloway is 62, a retired antique map restorer who still takes on one or two private commissions a year to keep his hands busy, and his biggest flaw is that he’s spent the last eight years letting the small town of Silverton, Oregon, box him into the role of quiet, grieving widower. He only showed up to the annual wildfire relief barbeque at The Rusty Ax because his old fishing buddy left three voice messages threatening to drag him out of his workshop by his ear if he bailed again. He’s leaning against the cinder block wall by the walk-in beer cooler, holding an IPA so cold the condensation is soaking through the paper koozie and making his palm prickle, when he first sees her.
Mara Carter moved into the yellow cottage two doors down from his three months prior, took over the town’s only veterinary clinic after the old vet retired to Arizona. He’s only nodded at her from his driveway twice before, too stubborn to walk over and introduce himself even when she left a jar of wild blackberry jam on his porch step two weeks back. She’s wearing faded denim overalls rolled up to her calves, scuffed work boots caked with mud from a morning call out to a local ranch to stitch up a cut on a foal’s leg, and a thin white ribbed tank top that shows the faint outline of a tattoo of a fox on her left collarbone. There’s a smudge of dark dirt high on her right cheekbone, and when she spots him, she grins, cutting through the crowd of people clustered around the grill like she’s got every right to walk straight up to the guy everyone else avoids making eye contact with for longer than ten seconds.
He knows the gossip already. Mara is the ex-wife of his late wife’s cousin, the one who left her husband after he cheated on her with his paralegal, moved up here to get away from the Bay Area drama. The whole town has been whispering about her for weeks, and Rafe has told himself a hundred times to stay away, that getting tangled up with someone connected to his wife’s family will only cause drama, that the last thing he needs is half the town talking about him finally “moving on” like he’s some sort of spectacle for them to dissect over coffee at the diner. But she asks him about the map he’s currently restoring, the 1872 survey of the Willamette National Forest he posted a blurry photo of to the town’s tiny “Local History Nerds” Facebook group last week, and she actually listens, leaning in a little, nodding when he explains the tedious process of patching water damage with hand-made linen paper, matching the original 19th century ink tone with crushed walnut hulls. No one has asked him about his work in years, not even his fishing buddy who only ever wants to talk about salmon runs and Oregon Ducks football.
When the mayor gets on the tiny makeshift stage to ramble about new campfire safety regulations, Rafe suggests they step outside to avoid the 20 minute speech, and she agrees, following him through the back door to the gravel lot behind the bar, stacked high with empty beer kegs and piles of scrap lumber left over from the bar’s back deck rebuild. The sun is low, painting the sky pale pink and tangerine, and the fireweed growing along the chain link fence is so bright it looks like it’s glowing. She leans back against a dented metal keg, sipping her seltzer, and says she knows what the town says about him, that they think he’s a hermit who never leaves his house, that he’s still stuck in grief so deep he can’t function. She says she thinks he just hates small talk, hates people asking him if he’s okay when they don’t actually care what the answer is.
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, staring at the smudge of dirt still high on her cheek, and then he reaches out, brushes it off with his thumb, his fingers lingering on her warm skin for a beat longer than he should. She doesn’t pull away, just holds his gaze, her eyes dark in the fading light, and he can taste the lime from her seltzer on her breath when she leans in a fraction, close enough that their noses almost brush. He kisses her first, slow, not rushed, his hand coming up to rest lightly on her hip, the rough denim of her overalls scratchy under his palm. Someone yells from the front of the bar, calling her name to ask if she can come look at a golden retriever that just stepped on a bee, but neither of them move.
When they pull back, she grins, swiping her thumb across his lower lip to wipe off the faint trace of her cherry lip gloss, and says she’s got a first edition 1890 map of the Cascade Range tucked in a cedar trunk in her attic, if he wants to come over after the barbeque to take a look at it. He nods, setting his half-empty beer can on top of the keg next to her, his fingers brushing hers when he pulls his hand away. A breeze picks up, carrying the sound of the band’s new track through the open back door, and she tucks a strand of hair that escaped her braid behind her ear, her smile never fading.
