Page 32

The day of the party arrived. The trees that circled the sanctuary stood like proud guests.

Songbirds waited on branches, their calls light and sharp, notes flitting through the canopy like threads being sewn into the morning.

The sky was a pale, hopeful blue, smeared at the edges with soft cloud.

Sunlight poured like honey across the open clearing beside the lodge, where volunteers and neighbors had gathered since dawn to help string lights, unpack tables, and warm spiced cider in enormous metal pots.

By early afternoon, the party was in full swing.

Rustic tables groaned under platters of baked goods, charred vegetables, gamey cuts of venison stew, and no fewer than six kinds of pie at Olivia’s insistence.

Jars filled with wildflowers and flickering tea lights lined the pathways, and a wooden platform, hastily built by Mason and Davey the day before, served as a makeshift dance floor.

Children in boots and wool sweaters chased one another through the soft mud, their laughter spilling through the clearing like music.

A small local band played in the corner near the edge of the lodge porch, fiddle, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and an old harmonica that rasped out joy like a memory reborn.

Natalie floated through the crowd, radiant.

She wore a pale cornflower-blue dress that hugged the curve of her belly just enough to make the pregnancy visible for those paying attention.

Her cheeks were pink with the chill in the air and the sheer energy of the afternoon.

Her hair was swept back in a soft braid, pinned with tiny sprigs of lilac.

A soft mohair shawl kept out the chill and the ring on her finger glinted every time she gestured or lifted a cup of cider or reached out to clasp someone’s hand.

She was beaming. Glowing. Alive in a way that made people turn to one another and whisper things like, she looks so happy . And she was.

As the music carried through the trees, Natalie greeted every guest, offering hugs, laughter, and pieces of the story they all wanted to hear.

She told it like a good memory, softened at the edges by time: the fire, the rebuilding, the friendship that had turned to love, and the new life growing inside her.

Every sentence was woven with gratitude, humility, and the wonder of how far they had all come.

“I’m so happy for you,” said a woman who ran the local feed store, squeezing Natalie’s hands tight. “We all saw it. You and Mason, it was only a matter of time.”

“You’ll make beautiful babies,” someone else said, and Natalie only laughed, hand slipping protectively over her stomach.

From across the clearing, Mason stood by the edge of the trail that led to the wolf enclosures, holding a mug of cider and watching her.

She moved with such grace through the people, her smile real, her eyes soft. Every once in a while, her hand would catch at her belly, almost unconsciously, like she was reminding herself that yes, it was true. Yes, something sacred had begun .

Mason’s chest swelled with a quiet, reverent pride.

He had known love before, weaker versions of it.

Fleeting and shallow. Bright enough to warm him briefly, but never strong enough to hold through the dark.

But this? This was different. Natalie was different.

She had dug through his silences and found the man beneath.

Not just the rehabilitator, not just the loner in a cabin with birds and wolves, but the man who wanted a home. A future.

His thoughts were interrupted by the soft tap of a cane behind him. He turned to find Olivia, her silver-streaked hair braided into a crown across her head, her knit shawl pulled tight over her shoulders. She looked at him with an expression that was neither hard nor fragile, just real.

“You two pulled it off,” she said, looking toward the clearing. “This place, this day. I wasn’t sure we’d ever get here.”

Mason exhaled a quiet laugh. “Neither was I.”

They stood in silence for a moment, watching Natalie lean over a pie table, laughing with a woman from town.

“She’s good at country life,” Olivia murmured.

“She was born for it,” Mason said.

There was a long pause. Then Olivia spoke again, more gently.

“I want you to know… I don’t carry any of it anymore.”

He looked at her, uncertain.

“The past,” she clarified. “The mistakes. The half-truths. I let them go, Mason. You don’t owe me anything.”

His shoulders eased. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” Olivia said. “Not really. We had history, sure. But it wasn’t ever meant to be this. Not what you and Natalie have. You were always my friend and that’s all I wanted fr om you, still do.”

Mason swallowed the knot in his throat. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” She gave him a small smile, then added, “You love her the way people pray to be loved. I’d thought I’d found that, but I was wrong, and maybe I was a fool to think nobody else would match up, and if they did they’d break my heart again.

If I could go back in time and give my young self some advice, I’d tell me to take a chance, be brave. Kinda like you have been with Natalie.”

“There’s still time, Liv. Don’t write love off just yet.” Mason turned to his friend and smiled, receiving a raised eyebrow in return.

A gust of wind blew through the trees, stirring the lights above them. Somewhere nearby, a child shrieked with delight as two dogs tumbled through the grass.

Olivia reached out, touched Mason’s arm gently. “Be good to her. Keep showing up. That’s all she’ll ever need.”

“I will,” he promised.

She nodded and turned back toward the fire pit where a group was starting to toast marshmallows. Mason lingered a moment longer. Then, cider still in hand, he made his way through the crowd, toward Natalie.

The sky over the sanctuary had turned to burnished gold.

Long strands of twilight threaded through the trees, the lights strung above the clearing now flickering gently in the dusk.

Laughter had mellowed into something softer.

Groups had formed around fire pits, mugs of cider passed between mittened hands, and the fiddlers had slowed their tune to something more wistful, more suited to stories and memories than dancing.

The setting itself, the wild, scarred, breathtaking piece of earth nestled deep in the Colorado mountains seemed to exhale in time with the people who had come to celebrate it.

The sanctuary had always been more than a workplace.

More than a mission. It was a patchwork refuge, pieced together with raw wood, muddy boots, and the kind of stubborn hope that could only grow in wounded soil .

Along the perimeter, the silhouettes of animal enclosures stood like quiet sentinels, gently lit by lanterns and solar lamps.

Inside, owls stirred on their perches, rescued raccoons nested in straw, and one of the older wolves, Ash, with his greying muzzle and pale amber eyes, paced in slow, calm loops as though marking his place in this moment, too.

Pine trees wrapped the clearing like tall guardians, their branches dusted with the last breath of snow.

Beneath them, wild sage and curled bracken made their slow emergence from winter’s hold, casting the ground in tones of silver and green.

In the distance, the hills rose like folded cloth under the fading sky, their lines softened by shadow.

Natalie stood near the trellis arch Olivia had decorated with pinecones, cedar boughs, and sprigs of mountain laurel, cut from the sanctuary’s own edge trail.

The arch stood beside the old barn, now converted into an education center for local schools, and the scent of hay and wood lingered faintly on the breeze.

She turned her face to the sky, then to the crowd. The ring on her finger caught the amber light like it was stitched into the landscape itself. She didn’t know when Mason had approached. She only felt it, a familiar hush settling over her body, the unmistakable sensation of him nearby.

“You’ve been glowing all day,” he said softly, his breath warm against her ear.

She turned and found him standing just behind her, hands tucked into the pockets of his flannel-lined jacket, eyes locked on hers.

“I think it’s the pie,” she said with a half-smile.

He reached out and gently ran a knuckle along her cheek. “No. It’s something else.”

They stood in a quiet pocket of the celebration, framed by soft lights and the hum of contented voices behind them. Natalie tilted her head, watching him as he looked at her like she was the only thing in the world.

“I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way again,” she said.

Mason reached for her hands. She stepped into him, pressing her forehead against his chest. The rhythm of his breathing, steady and sure, wrapped around her like the familiar rise and fall of the hills behind the sanctuary. Somewhere nearby, a hawk called low from the ridgeline, returning to roost.

They swayed gently where they stood, not quite dancing, just moving with the hush of the music drifting from the porch.

“When I first got here,” she whispered, “I thought I was just passing through. Like I was too broken to root anywhere again.”

His hand came to rest on the curve of her back. “You’re rooted now.”

She nodded, eyes closed. “So deep it hurts.”

He kissed the top of her head, and they stayed like that, anchored to one another as the celebration turned to memory and the first stars slipped into view.

Later, after the guests had wandered home, pie tins emptied and music faded into the hush of the trees, Olivia sat on the front step of the lodge, her shawl pulled tight over her shoulders. The air had turned colder and blue with moonlight.

Behind her, the lodge glowed from the inside, lamplight spilling out across the porch where muddy boots had been kicked off, chairs tilted back, and laughter had hung in the air only hours before.

She watched the last of the cleanup: Mason carrying folding chairs back into the barn, Natalie gathering dishes with the help of a few lingering volunteers.

The barn stood beneath the shadow of the ridge, its beams worn smooth by years of use, its loft now home to the sanctuary’s supply of hay and medical crates.

Beyond it, the trail curled up into the hills, where the more sensitive releases took place, hawks and foxes, coyotes and deer, all given a second chance under the dark, watchful eyes of the pines.

Davey approached quietly, a blanket tucked under one arm.

“You should be inside,” he said, settling beside her.

“I like the cold,” she replied. “Reminds me I’m still alive.”

He chuckled, handing her the blanket anyway. “Humor me.”

She took it and draped it over her lap. For a moment, they sat in companionable silence, watching the lights dim one by one across the sanctuary. Somewhere far off, an owl hooted, and a chorus of frogs joined in from the wet patch near the lower enclosure trail.

“You ever think we’d get here?” he asked finally.

Olivia’s eyes stayed on the trees, the way their silhouettes reached toward the stars like old hands.

“Some days,” she said, “I didn’t think we’d make it through the storm. Not just the wildfire. But all of it. The years before. The silences between us.”

Davey nodded slowly. “Me too.”

He shifted, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “I was angry for a long time. About what happened with school. With Mason. But I think… I think I was angrier that you never let me see you struggle.”

Olivia blinked. “You think I was trying to protect you.”

“I know you were,” he said. “But sometimes, we need to see the fight. We need to see how the people we love survive.”

She looked at him then, really looked, and what she saw was no longer a boy lost in the shadow of other people’s mistakes. She saw a man. One still learning, still healing—but strong. Rooted .

“I wasn’t always brave,” she admitted. “I got tired. I made mistakes.”

“I’m still here,” he said gently.

She reached out and took his hand. “So am I.”

The wind picked up again, carrying the scent of pine and fire and damp earth. Above them, the moon rose fat and full, casting silver light across the fields. Somewhere beyond the trees, a wolf called out—a long, lonesome sound, not sad, but solemn.

“You’re going to be an amazing big brother,” Olivia said after a moment.

Davey looked down, a soft smile on his lips. “I hope so.”

She nudged him. “You are.”

“And you’re going to be the most stubborn grandmother, aunt, whatever, this town has ever seen.”

Olivia laughed, her voice light with something rare, joy.

“Damn right I am.”

They sat together until the moon climbed high, and the fire burned down, two silhouettes beneath a quiet sky. Mother and son. Bruised but whole. And finally, finally, at peace.