Rafe Marquez, 51, propped his bad left knee on the lower rung of the Formica VFW table and twisted the cap off a frosted Pabst Blue Ribbon, the cold metal stinging the calluses on his palm. The room hummed with the noise of the post’s weekly Friday fish fry, extra packed that night after the Bozeman High football team took their first playoff win in 12 years. Fried catfish and apple cider vinegar hung thick in the air, the jukebox in the corner spitting out Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* at a volume just loud enough to drown out the dad jokes coming from the table of retired drill sergeants two over. He’d put in 12 miles of trail clearing that day, his non-profit building accessible paths for disabled vets, and his scarred left bicep ached almost as bad as his knee. He picked at a crumbly hushpuppy, half ready to finish his beer and head home to his quiet cabin on the edge of the national forest.
The only empty seat left at the table was the one across from him. He didn’t look up when someone slid into it, until a paper plate stacked high with coleslaw and extra hushpuppies landed on the Formica between them. “Sorry, everywhere else was standing room only,” a warm voice said. He glanced up. She had auburn hair pulled back in a loose braid, hazel eyes flecked with green, a smudge of dirt on the knee of her khaki work pants. He recognized her as Clara Bennett, the new county extension agent who’d moved to town three months prior. Everyone in town said she was engaged to Earl Hargrove, the loudmouthed county sheriff who’d spent the last six months fighting Rafe’s team over trail access on public land. Rafe nodded, went back to picking at his catfish, determined to keep his mouth shut and not cause trouble.
She leaned forward to grab a handful of napkins from the dispenser next to his elbow, and her bare forearm brushed the thick, silvery scar running the length of his bicep. He flinched, not from pain, from the unexpected warmth of her skin through the faded cotton of his work shirt. “Sorry,” she said, pulling back, then paused, her gaze locking on the scar. “That’s a smokejumper scar, right? My older brother was based out of Missoula, got one almost identical when he landed in a stand of lodgepole pines back in 2018.” Rafe blinked, surprised. Most people saw the scar, looked away, asked no questions. He nodded, told her he’d gotten it on a jump outside of Yellowstone in 2019, a wind shift pushed him off course, he’d crashed through a tree branch, then carried his 200 pound rookie partner two miles out of the burn zone with a fractured knee.
He didn’t know why he was telling her all this. He’d barely said two full sentences to anyone who wasn’t on his trail crew in the last six months, deliberately closed off after his ex-wife left him for a Denver real estate developer eight years prior, convinced his beat-up body and low-paying, messy job made him unappealing to anyone worth his time. He kept waiting for the awkward shift, the point where she’d remember she was supposed to be with the sheriff, make an excuse and leave. But she leaned in, elbows on the table, and asked follow up questions, didn’t flinch when he described the acrid smell of burning pine, the way his knee had throbbed so bad he’d almost passed out halfway out of the woods. Her hand brushed his wrist when she passed him an extra packet of hot sauce, and the little jolt that ran up his arm made him fumble the packet. Disgust warred with hot, unnameable desire in his chest; he’d spent so long telling himself he didn’t deserve any softness that reaching for it felt like stealing.
Earl’s voice boomed across the room before he could make an excuse to leave. “Clara! There you are, been looking all over for you.” She tensed up, her shoulders hunching, and she mouthed help me at Rafe, eyes wide. Rafe didn’t think, just rested his hand on the back of her chair, pulling her a little closer to him, and lifted his chin to meet Earl’s glare. “We’re just catching up, Earl. Give us a minute.” Earl’s face turned brick red, his hand hovering over the taser on his belt, but he knew better than to pick a fight with Rafe; everyone in town had heard the story of Rafe taking down a 180 pound black bear with a pocket knife when he was stranded on a jump back in 2017. Earl muttered a curse, turned on his heel, and stormed back to the bar.
She exhaled so hard her braid slipped over her shoulder. “I’ve been trying to break up with him for three months,” she said, laughing a little shaky, and her hand landed on his bad knee, right over the spot that had been throbbing all night. The pain faded so fast he thought he was imagining it. “He keeps acting like it’s just a fight we’re going to get over. I don’t want to marry a guy who thinks public land is his personal playground to block off for his rich friends.” She kept her hand on his knee, her thumb brushing the faded denim of his work jeans, and Rafe couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him that gently, without expectation.
They stayed until the VFW staff started stacking chairs, the last of the beer tapped out, the jukebox cut off for the night. He walked her to her beat up Ford pickup, the cold Montana night air stinging his cheeks, and she paused with her hand on the door handle. She leaned up, kissed him on the cheek first, the soft press of her lipstick leaving a faint pink mark, then kissed him on the mouth, slow, tasting like sweet tea and hushpuppy crumbs. She asked if he’d take her up on that scenic overlook trail he’d been talking about, the one with the view of the Bridger Mountains, that Saturday. He nodded, his throat too tight to speak for a second. She pulled out of the parking lot, her taillights fading into the dark, and Rafe stood there for a long minute, the cold air biting at his exposed wrists. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his work jeans, already mentally mapping the easiest, most scenic stretch of trail for Saturday, and grins so wide his cheeks ache.
