Page 6 of Red Hunt

The clerk looked relieved and helped me bag everything.

When I rushed out and didn’t see her anywhere, my throat constricted for a second. Had I missed her? But then I spotted her farther down the road. She had made little progress. Probably tired and hungry.

“Ma’am.”

She sped up, and I did, too.

“Ma’am.”

This time she swung around, her loaf of bread in both hands ready to…throw it at me to defend herself? “What?”

“I just wanted to give you this.” I offered the bag filled with the rest of her groceries, and the snacks and candy bars I haphazardly collected.

She looked inside, and her eyes turned huge. Then she looked up at me, her brows squeezed together. “Are you a stalker?”

I shook my head.

“A sex criminal?”

I shook my head again but had to suppress a grin. Really…a sex criminal? And if I was one, wouldn’t I choose someone less…oh, whatever.

“I don’t take any gifts from strangers.”

I bowed my head.

Pride.

Pride—I understood. “I totally understand.”

I put the bag down on the sidewalk, right at her feet, turned around, and retreated to my car. It was hard to be a charity case. I knew that one better than I cared to admit.

“Max Carlos Mullner,” my mother, would always say, “you’ve got Italian blood running through your veins. Pride is part of your DNA.” But I wasn’t so sure about that. DNA from my asshole-Italian father who left my mother to fend for herself mere days after I was born? I rejected everything about him, including his Italian DNA.

And pride only lasted so long. If I’d let myself, I could still feel the humiliation of being a charity case, triumphed by the gnawing pain of an empty stomach. Going hungry was worse than losing your self-respect.

Pride was overrated.

I put the car in reverse and didn’t look back. This woman was down on her luck, and if she’d take the groceries or not was ultimately her decision. I didn’t want to know. Didn’t need to know…hunger usually always won over pride.

Always.

4

MILLI

I huffed and puffed on my mountain bike, disturbing the beautiful sounds of birds twittering as I made my slow ascent. When I finally arrived at the junction halfway up the mountain, I stopped to gain back control over my breathing, inhaling the scent of forest, clean mountain air, and a whiff of dampness defying the summer heat. I looked at the road leading to the picturesque clearing with six identical wooden houses lined up on both sides. Like in a picture out of a holiday-village advertising folder.

An idyllic facade.

And almost too much to bear.

I was steaming from exertion. The summer heat wasn’t quite as oppressive beneath the canopy of trees and at altitude, but it was still the middle of summer, with the sun providing us with an undisturbed heatwave. Oh, how I wished for a good thunderstorm. I wiped the sweat from my forehead. Maybe I should’ve taken Sharon up on her offer to meet in town. At least then I wouldn’t have needed a shower—bad.

Well, too late for regrets now.

Though…later on, I would be thankful. I turned my head to the road leading farther up the mountain. Once back from Whitebrook, I would ride up there, up to the mysterious lodge to feed the kitten, which I still had to find a name for. How that cat got up there and why it stayed was still as much of an unknown as the house itself. But ever since it had shown up, I’d been riding my bike up that mountain daily to feed it. It was wearing on me, but I couldn’t let that poor kitty starve to death up there, and I was getting stronger in the process. Strong and resilient. Two things I had never been.

Plus, I got to be at my dream home every single day, which fed my soul, so why was I even complaining? The day I discovered the wooden lodge, for the very first time, an eerie sense of calmness and a feeling of finally coming home went through me. And that hadn’t changed since.

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