Page 48 of Wild Heart

And then he was gone.

Olivia sank onto the porch rail, the photograph still clutched in her hand. In the distance, a hawk called once, then fell silent. And Olivia wept. Not just for the son she might lose, but for the man who didn’t know he’d had a son at all.

20

The sanctuary’s private retreat spot, a wooden platform built above the ridge, nestled in a crown of red pines had become a place of quiet reverence for Natalie and Mason. It overlooked a silver-threaded stream far below, flanked by mossy rock beds and thick fern underbrush. The wind whispered through the trees like the echo of an old lullaby, rustling the leaves with a sound that seemed too intimate for the world below.

Natalie sat on a wool blanket, her legs stretched before her, Mason beside her with one hand resting near her knee, fingers brushing hers now and then. They had hiked up that morning with thermoses, packed sandwiches, and no agenda. The buzz of recent events still rippled through the sanctuary below, new enclosures planned, grant approvals, ongoing repairs but here, they were suspended in another world, just the two of them, just the present.

The breeze lifted strands of her hair, and Mason reached to tuck one behind her ear.

“You look peaceful,” he said.

“I am. For the first time in a long while.”

She tilted her face to the sun, letting the light warm her cheekbones.

Mason looked over at Natalie, his expression soft but intent.

“I used to think I’d never have this,” he said quietly. “Not just peace, or a place that mattered. But someone. You.”

Natalie looked up from the stream, her heart tightening. She studied his face in profile, creased by years of tough weather and a tough life, but gentler now. “I don’t think I ever let myself want it,” she said. “Not until I got here. I thought being self-sufficient meant being alone.”

Mason took her hand more fully then, his grip warm and certain. “I love you,” he said, the words simple and final, like a stone laid gently into soil.

She stared at him, breath catching.

“I’ve loved you for a while now. I just didn’t know how to say it.”

Natalie blinked, her lips trembling into a smile. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes.

Mason leaned in, kissing her forehead first, then her lips. A kiss that wasn’t just warmth or want, but something older, steadier. Like a promise.

When they pulled apart, Natalie’s fingers traced the line of his jaw. “I love you too. This... you... the sanctuary… it’s where I’m meant to be.”

They held each other for a long time, the wind dancing around them. Below, a hawk shrieked, circling above the valley as if drawing invisible lines around their world.

They talked long into the afternoon. Of what they would build. Of what expansion could look like. Of fostering youth programs, of investing in long-term conservation. Natalie spoke of starting an onsite vet technician training, Mason of enhancing wildlife corridors.

“It doesn’t have to be just a safe place,” Natalie said. “It can be a beacon.”

Mason kissed the back of her hand. “It already is.”

And in that moment, with only the sky above and the sanctuary below, they believed it.

They believed they were safe.

It should have been perfect. It almost was. But the wind that whispered through the trees seemed to carry a warning, faint and weightless, like a breath before a storm. Below them, at the sanctuary, cracks had begun to form.

The wind had picked up by the time Mason returned alone to the lodge. The skies overhead had dimmed into a sullen gray, clouds bruising at the edges like the warning of an oncoming storm.

He stepped inside the kitchen to refill the kettle when he heard it, a footstep behind him. Mason turned and faced the doorway, eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of the boy, no, the man he’d watched grow into himself this past year. But tonight, Davey didn’t look like the young man Mason had come to know. His expression was carved from something older. Something wiser.

“We need to talk,” Davey said.

Mason set the kettle down with care. “Okay.”

He expected a question. A complaint. Maybe even anger. But not the next two words.

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