Ash stays at the treeline. Darker. Watching.
Flint reaches the fence and stops.
He looks at Maya.
Maya goes still, but not from fear. It's complete attention.
Flint holds her gaze.
Wolves maintain eye contact longer than almost any other animal. It's not aggression. It's assessment. Maya doesn't look away and he doesn't look away and something settles in the space between them. The wolf is deciding about her. She's letting him decide. That requires a quality of steadiness that most people don't have.
Flint takes two steps closer to the fence, trying to sniff my hand.
"He recognizes you," Maya says.
"He—"
"He sure does." Colt Mercer comes up the path behind us, collar up, bag over his shoulder, rain on his glasses. "Reid bottle-fed that animal since he was just a pup."
"They recognize a food source," I say. "That's all."
Colt extends his hand to me and I shake it. He turns to Maya with the full force of his attention, which with Colt is considerable. "Colt Mercer. Local vet. And who are you?."
Maya smiles. She takes his hand. "Maya. I'm staying nearby."
Colt looks at me with the expression he uses when he thinks he's being subtle. He is not subtle. "Good to meet you, Maya."
Maya looks back at Flint, then at me. "You bottle-fed them."
I look at both the wolves. Ten years ago their entire bodies fit inside my jacket. Their mother had been dead two days when I found them, caught in a coyote snare half a mile inside the tree line. I called Wildlife. Wildlife called every education center within three states. All of them full, all of them sorry.
"Found them as pups," I say. "Orphaned. I took them in while the center was getting established." I shrug. "It worked out."
"Every four hours," Colt says, "around the clock, for six weeks, he fed those animals by hand. I know because he called me at three in the morning twice asking if they were eating enough."
"The center needed founding animals," I say.
"The man refused to let them die," Colt says to Maya.
"Let's look at the females," I deflect.
We spend the better part of two hours in the rehabilitation area. Colt works methodically through his checks, two pregnant females, both tracking well, one showing the early behavioural signs of den selection. Maya stays close, watching without crowding, asking the kind of questions that tell me she's been paying attention since the moment we arrived.
We end up back in reception. Colt writes his notes. I make mine. Doris refills everyone's coffee without being asked.
Colt caps his pen. Looks at me with the expression I've seen before and don't like. "You need to come down to Briarhaven. You've been up on this mountain long enough."
"I come into town."
"For supplies. That's not the same thing." He glances at Maya. "Now you've got company worth showing off, come out properly. There's a karaoke night at the Rusty Nail next Friday. You're both coming."
Maya's colour rises. I say nothing.
He picks up his bag, points at me, and walks out. We hear his truck turn over in the lot and pull away.
I look at Maya. "That wasn't awkward at all."
She laughs, loose and unguarded, and I'm watching it happen on her face when a sound comes from the parking area. Heavy engine. Air brakes.
