Page 79 of Wild Heart

“No,” he said. “She’s perfect. You’re both perfect.”

And it was true. But it wasn’t all the truth. Natalie sighed, slipping back into sleep, the baby nestled against her chest. Mason stood and walked slowly back to the window, the phone still in his hand. Davey didn’t move.

“She’s not okay,” he said. “Is she?”

Mason turned his back to the light and let the tears fall silently. “I don’t know.”

But he did know. He knew Olivia wouldn’t have left that wolf. Knew she would have kept going, because that’s who she was. Because she had told them, again and again, that the wild was her church. That saving something, even at a cost, was in her blood.

Davey sat down heavily. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to push the truth away. “She was supposed to come back.”

“I know.”

“She was supposed to meet the baby.”

Mason let out a sound, part breath, part sob. “I know.”

They didn’t speak after that. They just sat. The baby stirred, let out a small cry, then settled again against Natalie’s chest. Mason moved back to the bed, reached out and touched her tiny hand. Her fingers wrapped instinctively around his.

“She’s beautiful,” he whispered. “You’re going to love her, Liv. We’re waiting. Hold on. Don’t give up.”

Davey stood behind him, hand on Mason’s shoulder. Together, they watched the sun rise.

Not with triumph. Not with joy. But with reverence. For what had been lost. And for what had been born in the same storm.

The hospital room remained quiet. Mason sat on the chair beside the bed, his elbows braced on his knees, his head bowed. Davey stood behind him, one hand resting gently on his father’s shoulder, his other arm curled across his stomach like he could hold the grief inside if he just pressed hard enough. Neither spoke.

The silence was thick with the weight of what hadn’t yet been said aloud. They hadn’t received confirmation, it had been hours, no final word, no official statement. But it didn’t matter. They knew. There were some truths that settled intothe chest long before they were spoken. Some absences that made themselves known in a way the world couldn’t understand.

Mason rubbed his eyes, already raw. His heart felt like it had been cracked in two, half still beating for the sleeping woman beside him and the tiny new life that rested on her chest, and half lying somewhere up in the mountains beneath wet stone and pine.

He thought of Olivia’s face, the way it lit up with firelight, the crinkle at the corners of her eyes when she smiled. He thought of her last words.

“Go. Don’t miss it.”

And now… she had.

Natalie stirred softly in the bed. The motion was small, a ripple beneath the blanket. Her eyes fluttered open slowly, groggy from the fog of exhaustion and joy. She looked down first, instinctively checking that the baby was still there, still warm and breathing against her chest.

She was. Still perfect. Still new.

Then Natalie turned her head toward the corner of the room and blinked into the blurry shapes of Mason and Davey, bent and crumpled in the hush of a new day, their shoulders bowed, Mason’s hand cupped to his mouth, Davey pressing his forehead into the crook of his arm.

“Mason?” Her voice was thin, dry.

He turned at once, rising to his feet and crossing to her side.

She took in the red rims of his eyes, the tension in his jaw. And then she looked at Davey who hadn’t moved but whose breath had hitched at the sound of her voice.

“Mason,” she whispered again, more urgent. “What happened?”

He didn’t answer at first. He reached down and touched the baby’s back, grounding himself.

Then he brushed a curl from Natalie’s damp forehead and sat beside her. “There’s been an accident.”

Natalie’s eyes darkened. “Who?”

His voice broke. “The ridge. Olivia was on the mountain. With Asha.”

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