Page 57 of Wild Heart

Natalie slid slowly down the wall and sat on the cold tile floor. Her hands covered her stomach. Her body felt foreign. At once miraculous and terrifying. She didn’t know if she should be happy. She didn’t know if she had it in her to hope again. Not now. Not like this.

A memory surfaced then, unbidden. A different bathroom. A different house.

Years ago, Boston. Their bathroom with the rainfall shower and cold marble floors. She had been late. Only by a few days, but her heart had leapt. She remembered how she'd sat on the edge of their tub, gripping a test just like this one, and hoping. Hoping with everything in her that it would be two lines. That maybe a baby could bring her and Giles back together. Thatmaybe she wouldn’t have to carry the feeling of being invisible in her own marriage.

But that test had come back negative. And when she told Giles, hoping for some expression of disappointment, he had only nodded and gone back to scrolling through his phone. She hadn’t realized until that moment how desperately alone she had already felt.

And now here she was again. Alone. Pregnant. Only this time, the father was a man she truly loved, and who had almost broken her heart. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and blinding.

Would Mason want the child? Would he see it as a miracle or a complication? Would Davey feel abandoned all over again?

And Olivia. how could she possibly lean on Olivia after everything they'd said? After the distance that had stretched between them like fault lines. Natalie let her forehead drop to her knees. The storm raged outside, thunder grumbling over the hills, wind shrieking through the eaves. And inside the quiet, bleach-clean bathroom, Natalie sobbed.

Not from regret. Not from joy. But from fear. From hope. From knowing she stood again on the edge of something life changing. And she had no idea if she would fall, or fly.

24

Three days had gone by and the rain had passed. By late morning, the clouds had begun to part, drawing long streaks of light across the still-wet land. Drops of water shimmered on the pine needles like pearls, and the air smelled of bark, earth, and cleanliness.

Natalie slipped away from the clinic before the others arrived, her footsteps soft against the gravel path. She needed space. She climbed the trail to the small rise above the sanctuary, the one Mason had once taken her to, early in the spring when the trees were still bare. It was quiet up there. Removed. You could see the entire sanctuary from above: the winding paths between enclosures, the low roofs of the cabins, the open stretch of field where they released the rehabilitated animals into the wild. It had always felt like a place between two worlds.

Today, she needed that. She sat on a flat rock at the ridge’s edge, pulling her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. A light breeze stirred her hair. In the distance, the wolves stirred, low calls echoing through the valley like echoes ofsomething ancient. They seemed to always know when something was shifting in the air.

She placed a hand against her stomach. It felt too early to feel anything. No flutter, no swell. Just the knowledge that something had begun. Something impossible and enormous. She hadn’t told anyone. Not yet. The knowledge of it was still too fresh, too delicate. The idea of voicing it out loud felt like tempting fate.

But she needed to speak. Even if no one was listening.

She looked down, a soft breath escaping her lips.

“Can I do this?” She whispered.

Her voice sounded small in the open air, like it didn’t quite belong to her. She shifted slightly and pressed her palm firmer against her belly.

“I don’t know how to protect you. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to be your mother. But I want to be.”

Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Your father… he’s a good man. Complicated, flawed, and sometimes too silent for his own good. But he loves fiercely. I know that. I’ve seen it in the way he touches the animals, in the way he looks at the land, in the way he’s trying with Davey.”

Her voice wavered. “I’ve loved and been betrayed before,” she said softly. “Your… well, the man I used to be married to, he broke something in me. And I thought Mason was the person who helped me rebuild. Maybe he still is. Maybe he always will be. But I can’t tell.”

A hawk cried high above, its wings slicing against the sky, circling.

“I wish I could give you certainty. A name. A story with a clear beginning and a happily-ever-after. But the truth is, I don’t even know what tomorrow will look like.”

She paused, her fingers gently stroking the fabric over her stomach.

“But I do know this: You are already loved. Even in this moment. Even in my fear.”

Her throat tightened. “You are not a mistake. You are not a fix. You are a beginning. Yours. And mine.”

The wind picked up again, lifting her hair and brushing it back from her face like a mother’s hand. Natalie closed her eyes. She imagined holding the tiny weight of a child against her chest. A heartbeat tucked close to her own. A pair of eyes looking up at her with trust. A name whispered into the night like a promise.

The tears came then, not the kind that poured out in waves, but the kind that slipped down the cheek without sound. Grief. Joy. Memory. Hope. All of it, together.

And then a moment of pure clarity. This was how Olivia might have felt. Alone, uncertain with choices to make but still, full of love for her unborn child. The thought was freeing.

When she finally stood, the sun had broken fully through the clouds. The wet earth glistened, and the trees shone as if newly washed. She brushed her hands on her jeans and looked down once more, her voice quiet and certain.

“You and me,” she said. “No matter what comes next.”

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