Page 33 of Wild Heart

C.

That was it. No return address. No full name. No photograph. Just an initial. Davey stared at the page for a long time, anger and sorrow mixing like oil and water in his gut. He folded the letter and slipped it into his back pocket and replaced everything as it was.

Outside, laughter filtered through the window. Natalie and Mason’s voices, low and close, almost musical. He turned his head just slightly, watching them through the glass. They were sitting on the bench near the hummingbird feeders, Mason holding a small tin of screws, Natalie passing him tools as he repaired the warped frame of the enclosure. Her laugh floated up again, soft and unburdened. Mason grinned, that rare expression Davey had only recently begun to see. They belonged with each other. That much was clear.

Not in a showy, performative way. In the way their bodies moved in sync, how their eyes found each other without thinking, they were comfortable.

It made something inside Davey twist. Not out of jealousy, but longing. For something grounded. Something solid. Later that evening, he joined them as they packed away tools and cleaned up the work shed.

“Looks like you two got a lot done,” he said, his voice casual.

Natalie smiled. “Mason does the heavy lifting. I just hand him the right screwdriver and take credit.”

Mason chuckled, giving her a look that made Davey avert his eyes.

“Everything okay, Davey?” Natalie asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“You’ve been working hard,” Mason said. “Go easy on yourself. You’re not running the place solo.”

Davey shrugged. “Feels like I should be doing more.”

“You’re doing plenty,” Natalie said gently.

He looked between them again. “Can I ask you both something?”

“Of course,” they said in unison.

Davey hesitated, then looked directly at Mason. “Did you always know what kind of man you wanted to be?”

Mason blinked. “No. Not even close.”

Davey nodded. “That makes me feel better.”

And he smiled, but inside he still carried the weight of that folded letter. He was unraveling one thread at a time, determined to know the shape of the person whose ghost still looked back in his reflection. He would keep looking. Quietly. Until he found the truth. Not out of rebellion. But out of need. Out of longing. Out of love.

13

The first signs came quietly. It started with the bent trail signs, just off the southern boundary of the sanctuary. Then came the scattered trash near the feeding stations, crushed beer cans, cigarette butts, an empty shotgun shell that hadn’t been there the night before. Mason found it on his morning sweep and held it in his gloved hand for a long moment, his jaw tightening.

By noon, Natalie was called to the enclosure housing the recovering fox kits. The perimeter fence had been tampered with. A metal latch, once sturdy, had been loosened with bolt cutters, likely during the night. Nothing inside was damaged. The foxes were unharmed. But the message was clear. Someone wanted them to feel exposed.

That afternoon, Olivia convened an emergency staff meeting in the main lodge. Her brace propped beside her, she leaned forward in her chair with a ferocity that reminded everyone why she had started this place in the first place.

"I don’t care how subtle they think they’re being. We won’t be intimidated," she said, voice low but firm. "We increase our patrols. We set motion cameras near every entrance and along the ridgeline. And we contact the sheriff. Again."

"What if it escalates?" someone asked quietly from the corner.

Natalie glanced at Mason. He stood at the edge of the group, arms crossed tightly. "Then we meet it head-on. But not with fear, with facts. With visibility. The more public we make this sanctuary, the harder it is for them to tear it down like the cowards they are."

The staff murmured in agreement. But the air was taut. Uneasy. The kind of quiet that usually came before a storm. Olivia, though sitting, radiated a new kind of determination. Her recovery had been slow, but each day she’d grown stronger. The wheelchair that once followed her movements everywhere now sat in a corner of the room, unused. Her cane, now more of a symbol than a crutch, rested beside her chair.

"Soon I’ll be out walking the property again myself," she added. "And whoever’s doing this better hope I don’t catch them on the trail." It drew a few nervous chuckles, but beneath it, a very real pulse of dread.

That evening, Natalie and Mason drove into town to meet with the sheriff. As they pulled into the gravel lot behind the small cedar-sided building, they noticed a fresh poster stapled to the community board out front.

PROTECT OUR FAMILIES. SAY NO TO PREDATOR HARBORING

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