Elias Voss, 59, spent 22 years as a smokejumper before a shattered ankle forced him to retire, and now he runs a 300-square foot backcountry gear repair shop off Main Street in Darby, Montana, where he fixes split tent poles, re-seams waterproof jackets, and avoids all small talk that doesn’t relate to tensile strength or fire-resistant fabric. His most consistent flaw? He’s spent the 8 years since his wife Ellen died turning down every invitation to dinner, every local fundraiser, every half-teasing setup from his old jump crew, convinced that letting anyone new into his life would be a betrayal of the life they built together. He only shows up to the volunteer fire department’s summer beer garden fundraiser because his former crew captain shows up at his shop at 4 PM, shoves a cold IPA in his hand, and threatens to hide all his size 13 work boots if he bails again.
He leans against the pickup truck bed doubling as a beer cooler 20 minutes later, sipping his second hazy IPA, planning to slip out before the fireworks start, when a woman carrying a paper plate stacked three high with smoked brisket sliders rounds the corner of the truck and bumps straight into his chest. A dollop of BBQ sauce splatters across the front of his oil-stained Carhartt flannel, the same one he’s had since 2011, dotted with burn marks from jump fires and gear grease. She freezes, then laughs, a warm, throaty sound that cuts over the bluegrass band playing off by the picnic tables, and steps closer, dabbing at the stain with a crumpled paper napkin before he can protest. He can smell lavender hand cream mixed with hickory smoke from the grill, and her knuckles brush the hair on his chest through the flannel, soft, unexpected. He recognizes her as Mara Hale, the new county librarian, the one the town gossips have been chattering about for three months, ever since she left her 20-year marriage to a local Baptist pastor and moved into the small cabin off the East Fork road.
His first instinct is to step back, mumble a polite “it’s fine” and leave, but she holds eye contact longer than most people do, no awkward look away, no rushed apology. She’s got silver streaks running through her auburn hair, pulled back in a loose braid, and a scar slashing across her left eyebrow, from a hiking fall she offhandedly mentions when he asks about it. She hands him one of the sliders to make up for the sauce stain, and he takes it, the grease soaking through the paper into his calloused palm. When the band kicks up a louder rendition of a Johnny Cash cover, she leans in, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep, to hear him when he explains the burn mark on his flannel came from a 2018 fire outside Salmon, Idaho, where his boot melted to the metal of his axe mid-jump. He hasn’t told that story to anyone who wasn’t on his jump crew, and he’s surprised how easy it is to say out loud, how she doesn’t flinch at the gory detail of the second-degree burns covering his calf.
He’s at war with himself the whole time they talk, half of him screaming that he’s being disrespectful to Ellen, that he should walk away right now, the other half hyper-aware of every small brush of her arm against his, every time she laughs so hard her eyes crinkle shut, every time she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear when she asks him about the gear he repairs. He doesn’t notice the band wrapping up their set until the first firework goes off, a bright burst of red that paints the sky above the Bitterroot Mountains, and Mara doesn’t look up at it. She’s still looking at him, and before he can talk himself out of it, he lifts his thumb, brushes a smudge of BBQ sauce off her lower lip, his skin brushing the soft curve of her mouth for half a second. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t step back, just smiles, and admits she’s been stopping by his shop every Tuesday for the past three weeks, pretending she needs a new carabiner for her weekend hiking trips, because she wanted to talk to him but he always had his head buried in a torn sleeping bag or a split ski pole, too focused to look up.
The admission knocks the breath out of him, and for a second he can’t think of anything to say, can only hear the distant pop of fireworks, the chatter of the crowd behind them, the soft sound of her breathing. He asks her if she wants to ditch the fundraiser, drive down to the river access point a mile outside town, where he keeps his old aluminum canoe tied to a tree, and watch the rest of the fireworks from the water, where the crowd noise won’t drown out the sound of the river. She nods, slips her hand into his, her palm soft against the rough scars on his knuckles, and doesn’t let go when they walk past his old jump crew, who hoot and whistle and raise their beer cans in salute from the picnic table. He unlocks the passenger door of his beat-up 2006 Ford F-150, holds it open for her, and when she climbs in, she leaves her hand resting on the center console, palm up, waiting for him to take it again.
