Elias Voss, 53, spent 22 years on wildland fire crews before a blown knee forced his early retirement, now he runs a one-man firewood delivery outfit outside Missoula, Montana. His biggest flaw is he’s spent the last seven years acting like any casual connection with someone who isn’t a regular at the hardware store is a wildfire waiting to jump containment lines, ever since his wife left him for a solar panel sales rep she met at a county fair. He showed up to the west side block party only because his neighbor begged him to bring extra firewood for the pit, and he’d owed her a favor since she fed his hound for three days when he was laid up with knee surgery last spring.
He was loitering by the galvanized steel beer cooler, half hidden behind a stack of folding chairs, picking at the pine sap caked into the tread of his work boots, when she reached past him for a can of Rainier. Their knuckles brushed, rough callus on rough callus, and he flinched like he’d touched a hot spark plug. He knew who she was immediately: Mara, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one who’d showed up to his wedding in mud-caked cowboy boots and spent the reception chasing a stray dog around the parking lot. She was 47 now, same sharp grin, smudge of dark dirt high on her left cheek, cutoff denim shorts showing off a scar snaking up her calf from a horse kick the year prior, he’d heard through the grapevine she ran a mobile vet clinic out of a beat-up white Ford F-150.
She laughed when she saw him, not the polite awkward laugh most people gave him when they realized he was the guy whose wife left him, the real snorting laugh he’d only seen a handful of times back when they were all still family. “You still wear that ratty fire crew hoodie in 90 degree heat?” she said, nodding at the faded black fabric stretched across his shoulders, the white fire number on the sleeve peeling at the edges. He grunted, didn’t know what to say, had avoided every family event for seven years specifically so he wouldn’t run into her, wouldn’t have to face the quiet, stupid crush he’d carried on her since the first time they met, the one he’d spent decades shoving down because it was wrong, because she was family, because he’d been married to her cousin.
He tried to make an excuse to leave, said he had to go check on the fire pit, but she grabbed his wrist lightly, her fingers warm even through the cuff of his hoodie. “I heard you put Buck down last month,” she said, voice softer now, no teasing edge. No one had said that to him, not even his neighbor, everyone had tiptoed around the fact his 12 year old hound, the only living thing he talked to for days at a time, had passed from bone cancer. He froze, stared at her, realized she was holding eye contact, not looking away like most people did when they realized he hated forced small talk.
They ended up sitting at a splintered picnic table off to the edge of the party, far enough away that no one would notice them talking, close enough that their knees brushed under the table every time one of them shifted. The air smelled like grilled bratwurst and pine smoke, kids screaming as they chased each other with water guns, a warbling cover of a Johnny Cash song playing off a portable speaker on the other side of the yard. She told him about the baby goat she’d pulled out of a ditch that morning, the reason for the dirt on her cheek, and he told her about the stand of larch he was going to cut for firewood that fall, the ones that had died in the small fire the previous summer, perfect for burning slow all winter.
Every time she laughed, she leaned in a little closer, her shoulder brushing his, and he had to fight the urge to reach over and brush the strand of blonde hair that kept falling in her face behind her ear. He kept telling himself this was wrong, that everyone in town would talk, that her cousin would lose her mind if she found out they were even sitting together, but none of that seemed to matter when she looked at him like he wasn’t just the grumpy firewood guy who never smiled.
She leaned in suddenly, so close he could smell the lavender shampoo she used mixed with the pine dust on her flannel shirt, and brushed a pine needle off the shoulder of his hoodie. Her hand lingered on his upper arm for a beat, her thumb brushing the faded fabric, and he didn’t flinch this time. “You always got such a raw deal, you know that?” she said, voice so quiet only he could hear it. “My cousin was an idiot for leaving you for that guy who couldn’t even change a flat tire.”
He didn’t say anything, just lifted his hand, slow, like he was approaching a skittish stray dog, and brushed the dirt smudge off her cheek with his thumb. Her skin was warm, a little sunburned, and she leaned into the touch, her eyes not leaving his. No one had touched him like that, gentle, no expectation, since Buck died.
They didn’t make a big show of it, didn’t kiss in front of the whole party, just agreed to meet at the tiny diner on the edge of town the next morning for coffee, no pressure, just to talk. He walked her to her truck, the beat-up white F-150 with a sticker of a dog wearing a stethoscope on the back window, and she gave him a quick hug, her arms tight around his waist for half a second before she pulled away, winked, and climbed in the driver’s seat.
He stood there in the dust, holding his empty beer can, watching her taillights fade down the dirt road, the pine smoke curling around his face. The knee he’d blown on the fire crew ached a little, but he didn’t care, for the first time in seven years he wasn’t already planning how to avoid every social event for the next month. He tossed the empty can in the trash can by the cooler, and turned to go help his neighbor stoke the fire pit.
