Page 17

A week passed in a blur of strategy, sweat, and stubborn hope.

Mason and Natalie now, officially a couple, moved through each day like twin engines of calm resolve.

The days were packed with effort, fortifying the sanctuary's perimeter, fielding media calls, prepping for the community open house, and driving to schools and local organizations to share the truth of their work.

But the nights? The nights were their own. They’d fall into bed bone-tired, the weight of the day replaced by the warmth of shared breath, whispered promises, and a growing certainty that whatever came, they would face it together.

Natalie had always believed in the power of doing, of proving her worth through effort and resilience. Mason, more than anyone, understood that language. It was why they worked so well in tandem. They didn’t need fanfare or ceremony. They just needed each other.

The open house weekend arrived like a stormfront, fast and full of energy.

By Friday afternoon, the sanctuary had been transformed.

Hand-painted signs welcomed visitors at the gates.

Volunteers set up booths for educational displays, animal tracking games, and interactive rescue demonstrations.

Kids in matching T-shirts walked goats along the lower field, while others offered face painting in the barn.

Olivia, now walking longer distances with her cane and occasionally without it, supervised everything with hawk-like focus and maternal pride. Her confidence had returned with a vengeance, and no one dared cross her path with half a plan or a hesitant tone.

“Keep the media booth by the entry path,” she told Davey. “If they catch our story before the crowd, they’ll write from the heart, not the headline.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, scribbling furiously on his clipboard.

Natalie and Mason took the lead on school outreach. By Saturday morning, they were standing in the main room of the local elementary school, surrounded by twenty-five wide-eyed fourth graders and a projector that occasionally made whirring noises like it was going to explode.

“This,” Natalie said, pointing to a photo of a young, injured bobcat, “is Meadow. She was hit by a car last year near the edge of our sanctuary. She lost her mother, had a broken paw, and was dangerously underweight.”

One girl raised her hand. “Did she make it?”

Natalie smiled. “She did. It took three months of care and learning how to trust again, but she’s back in the wild now. She lives near the east ridge. And she’s thriving.”

The kids erupted in applause.

Mason took over from there, talking about animal tracking and how they monitored released wildlife.

“You mean, like... spy gear?” one boy asked, eyes wide.

Mason chuckled. “Kind of. Except instead of catching bad guys, we’re making sure the good guys, our wildlife, stay safe.”

By the end of the hour, they had two teachers requesting sanctuary field trips and half a dozen kids asking how they could volunteer.

“It’s working,” Natalie whispered to Mason as they packed up.

He nodded. “They’re starting to see the truth of us.”

That night, back at the sanctuary, after the last visitor had gone and the booths were stacked neatly by the tool shed, Natalie and Mason walked the long path by the wolf pens, hands clasped.

“I talked to one of the parents today,” Natalie said. “She used to be one of the loudest voices against us. Thought we were going to bring predators into her backyard. Today, she thanked me. Said her daughter wants to be a vet now.”

Mason’s grip tightened slightly. “It’s happening. The tide’s turning.”

They stopped near the viewing platform, where the moon lit the treetops, and the smell of pine drifted up like a promise.

Natalie looked up at him, something hesitant in her eyes. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you ever have kids?”

The question hung between them.

Mason looked away, jaw working.

“I mean, you’re so good with Davey. With the interns. You’d be an incredible father.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, silent for a moment too long. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than she’d expected.

"There was a time..." he began, then stopped, searching the shadows for words. "There was someone. A long time ago. We weren’t married, but it was serious. She got pregnant. We were both scared. I told myself I was ready, but the truth is... I didn’t know how to be ready. "

Natalie listened, her eyes not leaving his. He shifted his weight slightly, as though the memory was a coat too heavy to keep wearing.

"We lost the baby," he said. "And after that, everything fell apart. She needed something I couldn’t give. I didn’t know how to grieve properly. I didn’t know how to stay."

"You left?" Natalie asked gently.

"She left," he answered. But his voice didn’t carry certainty. "Or maybe we both did, in different ways."

There was a beat of silence. The wind moved through the trees.

"After that, I just... I kept telling myself I wasn’t built for it. For family. For that kind of responsibility. And after a while, it became easier to believe that than to ask if I’d been wrong."

Natalie stepped closer, slipping her hand into his.

He didn’t speak. His gaze was distant, as though he was still trying to let go of something that clung to his past. She studied him quietly.

There was more he wasn’t saying. Something behind his eyes that suggested there were pages to his story that hadn’t been opened yet. She didn’t press. Not now.

But later, she would wonder. Later, she would remember this moment, the hesitation, the shadow.

And she would begin to ask what he hadn’t yet dared to share.

For now, they stood together in the quiet, the stars blinking overhead, and the sanctuary slowly exhaling around them.

They didn’t have all the answers. But they had each other.

The morning after the open house dawned bright and clear, with a sky so blue it almost seemed performative, like nature itself was congratulating the sanctuary for a weekend well done.

Olivia stood by the kitchen window of the main lodge, stirring a second cup of tea she barely tasted.

Her cane leaned against the wall, untouched.

It had been three days since she’d last used it.

Her gait was still careful, but her confidence had returned like muscle memory.

On the table in front of her was a stack of envelopes, thank-you notes from visitors, donation receipts, and pledge forms from new community sponsors.

A local organic co-op had offered to partner with them.

A retired veterinarian wanted to volunteer part-time.

Even the mayor’s office had sent a message of support.

They’d done it. At least for now, the sanctuary’s future felt less like a cliff’s edge and more like solid ground. She exhaled slowly and sat down, her body aching in familiar ways. But the ache wasn’t heavy with dread anymore. It was simply the cost of effort.

Davey entered a moment later, his boots tracking dry pine needles across the floor. He carried a clipboard and a look that didn’t quite match the morning’s optimism.

"Mail’s up. The new donor cards came in," he said.

Olivia nodded. "You’ve got a good system. Better than mine ever was."

He shrugged, eyes on the envelopes. "It’s just sorting."

"It’s more than that," she said. "It’s keeping us going."

Davey smiled, but there was something behind it. Something guarded. Olivia didn’t push. Not yet. She was just starting to win back the balance of their relationship, the kind forged by shared crisis and rebuilding. But she also sensed it. A space opening between them again, subtle but tangible.

Later that day, Olivia took a walk down to the welcome center where volunteers were restocking brochures. As she approached, she overheard two women in low conversation near the front desk.

"I heard he was expelled from school, not just dropped out."

"Really? Olivia’s boy? He always seemed quiet. "

"Too quiet, if you ask me. Like a coiled spring."

The words sliced through the air, chilling her blood to ice.

Olivia stopped just short of the door, heart thudding in her chest. Their voices carried with the kind of easy cruelty reserved for gossip passed under the guise of concern.

She waited until their voices trailed off, then stepped inside, her expression neutral.

The two women looked up guiltily, their faces coloring.

She greeted them with her usual calm professionalism, asked after their work, and made a note to herself not to confront them. Yet.

But she felt it, that familiar judgment, quiet and cruel.

The kind that lingered and infected, whispered at church gatherings, muttered at town meetings.

As Olivia walked back to the lodge, her mind swirled.

She had tried so hard to shield Davey, to let him carve his own path.

And still, the past clung to them like fog.

She couldn’t change where he’d been. But she would damn well defend who he was becoming.

Across the property, Natalie and Mason were giving a tour to a group of high school students from the community center.

They moved as a team, weaving stories into facts, laughter into structure.

Watching them together was like watching two hands of the same body.

It was a beautiful thing, especially because she remembered the old Mason who could have had ‘trouble’ tattooed on his forehead.

He’d come a long way from the angry young man he once was, and she was glad he’d finally found happiness.

Sighing, she turned and made her way back to the lodge, not allowing wistful thoughts of what might have been, or the face of a man she’d loved and lost any space in her head. Now wasn’t the time and it never would be again .

At the center, after the group departed, Natalie wiped her hands on her jeans and turned to Mason. "You’ve gotten good at this."

He raised a brow. "You mean not scaring kids away with my quiet intensity?"

She laughed. "Exactly."

They walked together through the enclosure trails, past the fox dens and down toward the overlook. Mason paused at the ridge, leaning on the fence.

"Olivia told me the donations were more than expected. Enough to keep us afloat through winter."

Natalie nodded. "She deserves every bit of it."

"So do you."

She looked at him, seeing something guarded in his eyes. "You okay?"

He hesitated. "I saw Olivia earlier. Something’s bothering her. She won’t say it, but... I know that look."

Natalie frowned. "You think it’s about Davey?"

"Maybe. He’s been sullen lately."

Natalie considered that. She had noticed it too. A kind of restlessness in Davey. He was doing the work. But his focus had shifted somehow. That evening, as Mason and Natalie sat on the back porch of the lodge, sipping tea under the stars, she brought it up again.

"You ever think that not knowing his dad is the root of Davey’s troubles?"

Mason nodded. "All the time."

Natalie looked down. "Olivia never talks about him. I never pressed her, just respected that it was private, and she’d tell me if she needed to."

Mason didn’t answer right away. "Some stories are hard to tell. And some kids go looking for answers whether they’re ready or not. Davey’s got a lot of baggage he needs to sort through, in my opinion. And maybe Olivia needs to help him with that."

Earlier that afternoon, Mason had stopped at the local feed store to pick up supplies. As he loaded bags of seed and straw into the back of the sanctuary truck, he caught the tail end of a conversation between two men standing near the register.

"…ain’t surprised he’s working up there. No real job and got kicked out of college so what can that tell you. That family’s always been strange."

"Thought he’d be locked up by now."

Mason froze. He realized they were talking about Davey and it hurt.

He didn’t speak, didn’t flinch, just kept loading the truck until he was sure he wouldn’t crack.

When Olivia passed him on the path later that day, he nodded, forced a smile, and kept moving.

She didn’t ask if he was okay, and he didn’t offer an explanation why he might have looked cross.

“Maybe I’ll have a word with Davey myself and you could speak to Olivia, see if we can help them in some way.” Mason suggested.

“It can’t do any harm, if we tread carefully.” Natalie rested her head on his shoulder, both losing themselves in thought.

They stayed on the porch long after the stars bloomed overhead, enjoying the evening, now the weather was turning.

"We’ve become something, haven’t we? A kind of family."

Mason nodded. "The kind you choose."

And beneath the silence, beneath the soft hush of leaves and the distant call of an owl, Natalie’s heart swelled.

She had good friends. And love. Two of the most precious things in life.