Jax Marlow, 62, retired wildland firefighter who now restores vintage fire suppression equipment out of his cinder block garage outside Missoula, leaned against the dented tailgate of his 1998 F-150 and stared at the half-empty can of Pabst in his hand. He’d shown up to the annual volunteer fire department cookout only because his old crew chief had guilt-tripped him into it, and he hated small talk so much he’d parked at the far edge of the park to avoid the worst of the crowd. A scar snaked pale and ridged across his left forearm, memento of a 2007 blaze that jumped the Bitterroot Range line he’d spent 36 straight hours digging, and he’d spent the last 12 years building just as thick a line between himself and anyone who might try to get close after his wife left for a software salesman in Portland. He’d convinced himself vulnerability was just another kind of fuel, something that only let the fire burn hotter when it hit.
A kid chasing a squirming golden retriever cut between him and the cornhole pit, and he stepped back to avoid getting bowled over, right as a woman carrying a heaping plate of pulled pork and coleslaw stepped back to dodge the same dog. Her hip knocked hard into his, her elbow brushing the raised edge of his forearm scar, and he flinched before he could stop himself, not from pain, but from the shock of a stranger’s warm, even if accidental, touch. She apologized immediately, a low, warm laugh in her voice, and when he looked up he met hazel eyes flecked with gold, crinkled at the corners from smiling. She was 58, he’d guess, tanned from working outside, wearing a faded flannel shirt rolled to the elbows and jeans cuffed over scuffed work boots, a silver tree of life pendant on a thin chain around her neck. She said her name was Lila, she was his next door neighbor Ellie’s niece, just moved back to town to run the small independent bookstore on Main Street after her husband of 30 years passed from lung cancer the year prior.
He nodded, ready to mumble a polite reply and go back to staring at his beer, until she nodded at the sticker on the back window of his truck, a faded decal for the 1956 Mack fire truck he’d spent the last six months restoring in his garage. “Saw that rig parked in your driveway last week,” she said, leaning in a little so he could hear her over the chatter of the crowd, her shoulder pressing light but steady against his bicep. “My dad drove that exact model when he was on the wildland crew out of Kalispell back in the 70s. I used to beg him to let me sit in the driver’s seat when he’d bring it home for maintenance.”
Jax froze, because no one but his old crew ever asked about the Mack, most people just thought it was a beat-up old junker he was hoarding. He found himself talking before he could second-guess it, telling her about tracking the truck down on a farm outside Bozeman, how he’d had to replace the entire carburetor by hand, how he’d gotten stuck under the chassis three weeks prior and had to yell for a kid riding by on a bike to help pull him out. She laughed, hard, when he told that story, and he could smell lavender and cedar in her shampoo, hear the way her voice dropped a little when she asked him what it was like to drive that old truck down the highway, wind coming through the open windows.
He spent the next two hours talking to her, forgetting about the crowd, forgetting about the rule he’d made 12 years prior to never let anyone get close enough to leave a mark. He kept catching himself staring at her hands, tanned, a faint ink stain on the side of her thumb from marking up books, the way she tapped her index finger against the side of her can of hard seltzer when she listened to him talk. When the sun dipped below the mountains and the fire department started setting off fireworks, they sat down on the edge of his tailgate, and her knee brushed his every time she shifted to get a better view. He fought the urge to reach for her hand, disgusted with himself for even wanting to, for breaking the line he’d built so carefully, for letting desire creep in where he’d only let cold detachment live for so long.
The first big shell went off, a burst of bright red that painted the whole valley pink, and Lila jumped a little, grabbing his wrist right over the scar on his forearm. He didn’t flinch this time. He looked down at her hand wrapped around his wrist, then up at her face, and she wasn’t looking at the sky, she was looking at him, her cheeks pink from the cool evening air. He didn’t say anything, just laced his fingers through hers, his calloused palm against her softer one, and she didn’t pull away, just squeezed his hand once, tight.
They sat like that through the rest of the show, not talking, just watching the fireworks burst above the mountains, the sound echoing off the hillsides. When the last shell faded and the crowd started packing up their coolers and herding their kids to the cars, he walked her to her beat-up Subaru, parked a block over, the air smelling like gunpowder and pine, crickets chirping loud in the grass along the sidewalk.
She stopped at her driver’s side door, turning to face him, still holding his hand. “I’ve got a box of my dad’s old fire patches and crew photos up in my attic,” she said, her voice quiet. “If you want to come over tomorrow around 10 to look through them. I’ll make blueberry pancakes, the kind with extra butter.”
Jax nodded, his throat tight, because he’d planned to spend tomorrow sanding the Mack’s door panels alone, like he spent every weekend alone for the last decade. “I’ll bring the dark roast you said you liked,” he said.
She squeezed his hand one more time before she pulled away, climbing into her car and rolling the window down to wave as she backed out of the spot. He stood there on the sidewalk until her taillights disappeared around the corner at the end of the block, the faint warmth of her hand still lingering in his palm, and he didn’t reach for the mental fire line he’d carried for 12 years to shut the feeling down.
