Elias Voss, 57, spent 22 years as a smokejumper for the U.S. Forest Service before a 2019 blaze in the Bitterroot Range left him with a webbed, silvery burn scar snaking up his left forearm and a doctor’s order to stop jumping out of planes into wildfires. He’d pivoted to building custom fly rods out of the converted garage of his small Montana cabin, and for the three years since his wife left him for a 38-year-old realtor who sold her a lake house without so much as mentioning Elias existed, he’d kept his social circle limited to his old jump crew buddy, Ron, and the cashier at the local feed store who let him run a tab for hay for his two mules.
The only reason he was at The Burnt Pine’s annual fire department fundraiser that Saturday night was Ron had shown up at his cabin at 6 p.m. with a six-pack of Pabst and a threat to hide all his rod-building blanks if he didn’t come. He’d planted himself against the cinder block wall by the pool table 45 minutes prior, nursing a neat bourbon, ignoring the rowdy darts games and the way the local ranchers were yelling over the twangy country jukebox. The silent auction table was set up a foot to his right, and the 7-foot, 4-weight rod he’d donated sat propped against a stack of gift cards for the local diner, its guide wrap done in the forest service green he’d worn for decades.
He’d just lifted his glass to take a sip when a shoulder brushed his, soft but firm, the knit of a thick wool cardigan catching on the frayed edge of his faded plaid flannel. He looked down, and there was Mara, the new part-time librarian who’d moved to town six months prior, the one he’d seen hauling stacks of western paperbacks into the tiny downtown library every Tuesday, the one who’d smiled at him at the grocery store last week and made him fumble his carton of pasture-raised eggs. She smelled like pine soap and vanilla lip balm, the kind that leaves a faint, sweet tang in the air even when someone’s a foot away, and she was leaning in to squint at the spec sheet taped to the rod’s cork handle.
“Yours, right?” she said, nodding at the rod, not pulling her shoulder away from his even when she turned to look up at him. Her eyes were hazel, flecked with amber, and she held his gaze longer than strictly polite, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a lopsided smirk when he froze for half a second before nodding. She reached past him to tap the spec sheet, and her hand brushed his forearm, right over the raised edge of his burn scar. He felt the faint callus on her index finger, the kind you get from turning thousands of rough book pages, and he didn’t flinch, a small miracle considering he’d spent three years yanking his sleeve down any time someone looked at the scar too long.
“Build them in my garage,” he said, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. He was torn, half of him screaming to make an excuse and leave, to go back to his quiet cabin where he didn’t have to feel that sharp, hot buzz of attraction he’d thought was dead for good, the other half rooted to the spot, desperate to hear whatever she said next. He’d spent three years telling himself he was too gruff, too scarred, too boring for anyone to be interested in, that the only thing he was good for was wrapping rod guides and feeding his stubborn mules.
She laughed, soft and low, the kind of laugh that makes your chest feel warm even if you’re not the joke, and tapped the starting bid written on the sheet. “I saw these on your website, you charge three times this much for custom builds. You giving the fire department a discount, or are you just bad at pricing silent auction items?” She was teasing, no bite to it, and he found himself snorting a laugh before he could stop himself. He explained he donated one every year, for the families of firefighters who got hurt on the job, and she nodded, like she already knew, like she’d asked about him before.
They talked for 20 minutes, standing that close, their shoulders brushing every time one of them shifted, their knees bumping when a group of rowdy volunteer firefighters jostled the table next to them. She asked about the scar, and he told her about the 2019 fire, about how he’d gotten trapped under a fallen cedar, how he’d thought he was gonna burn alive before his crew dug him out. She didn’t pity him, didn’t say she was sorry, just nodded and said that sounded like the kind of story you don’t tell people you just meet unless you want them to stick around long enough to hear the rest.
When the silent auction closed, they announced she’d won the rod, outbidding a local cattle rancher by $120. She walked back over to him, holding the rod in one hand and the winning bid slip in the other, and leaned in so he could hear her over the cheers from the darts team that had just hit a perfect 180. Her knee pressed firm against his, her wavy auburn hair falling forward to brush his cheek, and she said she’d been trying to teach herself to fly fish for months, kept tangling her line in the willows by the river, and she wanted him to teach her. She said she’d heard about his ex, that everyone in town gossiped a little, but she thought he had better stories than any of the guys under 40 in this county who only ever wanted to talk about their lifted trucks and how much beer they could drink.
He stared at her for three full seconds, no words coming, then he nodded, said he knew a spot on the Blackfoot River no one else went to, the water was clear this time of year, lots of native cutthroat. He told her to meet him at the diner at 7 a.m. Saturday, he’d buy her blueberry pancakes first. She grinned, pulled a crumpled napkin out of her jeans pocket, scribbled her cell number on it, and pressed it into his palm, her thumb brushing the raised edge of his burn scar slow, deliberate, like she was memorizing the feel of it.
She tucked the rod under her arm, waved, and walked out to her beat-up forest green Subaru, a stack of mystery novels in her other hand. Elias folded the napkin, tucked it into the inner pocket of his flannel, and took a slow sip of his now warm bourbon. He didn’t reach for his phone to text Ron he was leaving early, for the first time in three years, he wanted to stay.
