CHAPTER 5 — A Stranger with a Wounded Bird

The man on my doorstep didn’t look like someone who brought injured animals to strangers. He looked like the kind of man people stepped out of the way for without realising they were doing it.

Tall. So tall the garage doorway seemed to narrow around him. Broad shoulders under a dark jacket. Black hair that fell forward in a careless sweep, like he’d shoved his hands through it and forgotten to fix it after. His face held the quiet severity of stone: sharp jaw, straight nose, mouth set in a line that wasn’t unkind, just… guarded.

But it was his eyes that made my breath catch. Deep blue. The colour of stormwater. The colour of the wolf’s gaze that had burned into my memory like a brand I kept pretending wasn’t there.

He held a small bundle against his chest. A towel wrapped carefully, as if gentleness were a skill he’d practised in private.

“I’m Nora,” I said automatically, because my brain wanted something normal to cling to. “You said a bird?”

His gaze flicked to my face, then away again. “Yeah.”

His voice was low and even. Not friendly exactly. But not rude, either. More like he didn’t waste words unless they mattered. He stepped forward a fraction. “It flew into something. I found it by the tree line.”

The towel shifted slightly. A tiny movement. A fragile life. My hands rose on instinct. “Bring it in. Please.”

He hesitated, just for a beat, before he stepped into the garage. The air changed when he did. Not in a supernatural way. I refused to let my mind run into that direction but in a physical way. He carried cold forest air with him, pine and damp earth, and something darker beneath it, something that reminded me of smoke after rain.

And ridiculously, coffee. Black coffee. It clung to him the way sugar clung to me. I shut the door behind him and forced myself to focus on the patient. “Okay. Let’s see.”

He came to the folding exam table and laid the towel bundle down with a careful precision that made my chest tighten. Not everyone knew how to be gentle.

I peeled the towel back slowly. A bird. Small, brown speckled, likely a young thrush, lay on its side, one wing at an ugly angle. Its beak parted with shallow breaths, eyes half lidded in shock.

“Oh, sweetheart,” I murmured, my voice softening without permission. “You’re okay. We’ve got you.”

The man’s gaze stayed on my hands. Watching.

“Is it going to die?” he asked, blunt and quiet.

I glanced up, startled by the question’s rawness. People usually asked that like they wanted reassurance. He asked like he wanted the truth.

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But it’s alive, and that’s something. Shock kills more animals than people realise. We warm it up before we can assess it fully.”

I reached for a small heating pad I’d set up in the recovery corner and turned it on low. Then I gently lifted the bird, supporting its body and wings, and placed it on a folded towel over warmth.

The bird shivered, then stilled. “Do you… do this often?” I asked as I pulled on gloves.

He shrugged once. “Enough.”

That answer should’ve been simple, but it wasn’t. It was clear he had more than a few clumsy rescues. I grabbed a penlight and checked the bird’s eyes, then its mouth for bleeding. No obvious head trauma. Breathing shallow but steady. Then I palpated the wing carefully.

The bone shifted under my touch, fracture, mid wing. Possibly a dislocation too. The bird flinched weakly.

“Easy,” I whispered. “You're okay.”

From the corner of my vision, I saw the man’s hands clench at his sides. Like he wanted to reach out and couldn’t decide if he was allowed.

“Do you have a name?” I asked, partly to keep things human. His eyes lifted to mine again. Blue, steady, too intense for the casual setting of my messy garage clinic.

“Colt,” he said after a pause.

“Nora,” I repeated, though I’d already said it. “Thanks for bringing him in, Colt.”

His mouth moved slightly, almost a smile, quickly swallowed. “It’s… her, I think.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The bird,” he said, eyes returning to the patient. “I think it’s a female.”

Something warm loosened in my chest. “You might be right.”

I busied my hands with supplies: sterile gauze, a tiny splint material, vet wrap cut into thin strips. “What happened exactly? Did you see it hit something?”

He shook his head. “Just heard it. Found it under the pines. It was… flapping. Not getting up.”

My fingers paused for a fraction. I kept my voice neutral. “Tree line near town? Or deeper in?”

His gaze shifted. Not quite evasive, but cautious. “Near town.”

A lie, my instincts whispered. I swallowed the thought. I wasn’t here to interrogate. I was here to heal.

“I’ll need to set the wing,” I said. “It’ll hurt. We usually sedate, but I don’t have full stock yet. I can do a light restraint and keep it as gentle as possible.”

Colt nodded once, like he’d already decided. “Do it.”

His certainty made my stomach flutter, annoying, unwanted. I hated conflict and force. Yet there was something strangely comforting about someone who didn’t wobble under decisions.

“Can you hold her?” I asked.

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Me?”

“Yes,” I said, then immediately worried it was stupid. “Only if you’re comfortable. The safest restraint is calm hands.”

For the first time, his expression shifted into something like surprise. Then he stepped closer to the table, rolling up his sleeves. I saw the tattoos.

Black ink climbed his forearms, wolves in motion, jaws open, bodies coiled as if they might leap from skin. The detail was so sharp it looked alive. And there were scars too, thin pale lines crossing muscle like old stories written in a language I couldn’t read.

My breath caught. I told myself it was because I’d been awake too long. Because adrenaline still lived in my blood. Because I was in a new town, alone, with a stranger too close. But my eyes kept snagging on the inked wolves.

“Just support her body,” I instructed, forcing my gaze back to the bird. “Keep her close, like a cup. Gentle pressure, no squeezing.”

Colt’s hands moved carefully, surprisingly delicate for someone built like a doorframe. He cradled the bird, fingers curved to protect, not trap.

The thrush trembled, then settled. “Good,” I murmured, impressed despite myself. “You’re steady.”

A low sound left him. Almost a hum, almost a breath of laughter. “I don’t usually get called that.”

“What do people call you?” I asked before I could stop myself.

His eyes flicked to mine. “Not much.”

It wasn’t flirtation. Not exactly. But it landed in my chest like a stone dropped into deep water, quiet, sinking, rippling. I worked quickly. I aligned the wing as gently as I could, feeling the small bone shift into a more natural position. The bird let out a thin, sharp chirp of pain.

Colt’s jaw tightened. His fingers steadied more firmly, not rough, just refusing to let the bird thrash and worsen the break.

“There,” I whispered. “There. I know.”

I wrapped the wing with gauze, then placed a lightweight splint, then secured it with thin vet wrap. I kept tension snug but not constricting, checking circulation in the toes.

When I finished, the bird sagged slightly, exhausted. I exhaled. “Okay. She needs warmth, quiet, and fluids. I can give a tiny bit of subcutaneous fluids, but I don’t want to stress her too much right now.”

Colt watched my hands like he was memorizing the process. “Will she fly again?” he asked.

"If the break heals cleanly,” I said. “Bird bones are delicate. But they also heal quickly. We’ll keep her immobilized, check in a few days. If she eats and stays stable, she has a chance.”

His shoulders eased a fraction. That tiny release made me realise how tightly he’d been holding himself. I moved the bird to the recovery corner and slid a small box over part of the enclosure to dim the light. Then I turned back.

Colt hadn’t moved. He stood by my exam table, hands empty now, as if he didn’t know what to do with them when they weren’t protecting something.

“Thank you,” he said.

Two words. But he said them with appreciation.

“You’re welcome,” I replied, then gestured toward the battered chair near my workbench. “Do you want to sit? I can, um. Make tea?”

The offer slipped out before I could edit it. I offered tea when I didn’t know what else to offer. Tea was peace in a mug.

Colt’s gaze dropped to the half empty bag of lavender macarons on my counter shelf.

His mouth did something complicated. Not disgust, more like wary dislike. “No, thanks.”

“Oh.” Heat crept up my neck. “Not a tea person.”

“Coffee,” he said simply. Of course he was. I tried not to let myself notice the way that fit the scent I’d caught on him. Or the way it felt like a detail my body already knew.

“Right,” I said, clearing my throat. “Well… your bird will stay here a day or two at least. I’ll keep you updated.”

He nodded. “I can come by.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

The words were quiet, but the intention in them made my pulse stumble. I forced myself to stay professional. “Okay. I’ll write down your number.”

He pulled out his phone, typed quickly, and handed it to me without hesitation. His screen background was a dark sky scattered with stars. Star gazer, my mind supplied, unhelpfully.

I typed my name and number into his contacts and returned it. Our fingers brushed for the briefest moment. Heat sparked through my skin, tiny, immediate, confusing.

I drew my hand back like I’d touched a hot pan. Colt’s gaze flicked to my face again, sharper now, as if he’d felt it too. The air between us thickened with something that wasn’t spoken.

I broke it first, because I always broke tension first. “So… are you from Moonbrook?”

He hesitated. “Yeah.”

A pause. Then, like he’d decided to offer something more. “I work outside town. Forest service.”

“Like… a ranger?” I asked, though Moonbrook didn’t seem big enough to have official anything.

His shoulders lifted and fell. “Something like that.”

My instincts bristled again. Half truth.

“Does that mean you’re the one who’s supposed to tell people not to go into the woods?” I asked, trying to make it light.

Colt’s gaze turned sharp, not angry, just focused. “You’ve been going into the woods.”

My stomach dropped. It wasn’t a question. I forced a shrug that probably looked as stiff as it felt. “Just the edge. My house is right there. I hear things.”

His eyes dipped to the faint scratch on my cheek.

“How’d you get that?” he asked.

A flash of last night, branches, blood, the heavy drag of a blanket over roots, hit me so hard I nearly flinched.

“I’m fixing the place up,” I said quickly. “Clumsilyif you can't tell.”

Colt stared at me for a long moment. His silence felt like pressure. Then he spoke, low and careful. “Don’t go in at night.”

Grace’s warning echoed so perfectly that it made my skin prickle. “I’m not a child,” I said, and immediately regretted how defensive it sounded.

Colt didn’t react to the bite in my tone. He just nodded once, like he accepted that I would be stubborn whether he liked it or not.

“You’re alone out here,” he said. “People do stupid things. Set traps. Drink. Hunt things they don’t understand.”

My throat went dry. “You’ve heard that too?”

His jaw tightened. “I’ve seen it.”

A chill slid down my spine. I thought of the silver chain coiled on my garage floor, pale as moonlight and just as cold. I forced myself to stay in reality. “If there are illegal traps, shouldn’t you report them?”

His eyes flashed, something dark, something old. “Sometimes reporting doesn’t fix it fast enough.”

It wasn’t an answer. Not really. It was a promise of action without permission. I didn’t know what to do with that. So I did what I always did when the world tilted toward something too large: I retreated into small talk.

“You… you said you found the bird near the tree line,” I said. “Do you see many injured animals?”

“Yes,” he said, and the word sounded like a stone. “Too many.”

My chest tightened. There was a heaviness in him I recognised, not the same as mine, not trauma shaped like bruises and shouted apologies, but the weight of responsibility. Like he carried things other people didn’t see.

“Do you…” I started, then stopped. My mouth felt suddenly clumsy. “Do you want to.”

Help me fix my porch, my brain finished, but it sounded too intimate. Too domestic. Too much like inviting someone into my life.

Colt glanced toward my house through the garage window. The porch sag was visible from here, like a tired shoulder.

“You need help with that,” he said, as if he’d heard my unfinished sentence anyway.

Heat bloomed in my face. “It’s not urgent.”

“It’s unsafe,” he corrected. “Rot spreads.”

I stared at him. Something in his voice, firm, practical, reminded me painfully of the kind of care that didn’t ask permission.

“I can pay someone,” I said, automatically defensive again.

Colt’s gaze returned to my face. “I’m offering.”

Why? The question sat on my tongue, but I didn’t ask it. Asking would mean opening a door to answers I wasn’t ready to hold.

Instead I said, softly, “That’s kind.”

The word looked like it surprised him. He shifted his weight, like discomfort had found him. “It’s… work.”

“You’re allowed to be kind,” I murmured, and then immediately wanted to swallow the sentence whole.

Colt’s eyes held mine, blue, deep, unreadable. For a moment, the garage felt smaller. The air felt warmer. The world outside, town gossip, traps, myths, blurred at the edges.

Then the bird made a faint, restless sound in the recovery corner, and I remembered myself.

“I should check on her,” I said quickly, moving away.

Colt didn’t stop me. He watched as I adjusted the towel, checked her breathing, and dimmed the light again. When I turned back, he was already moving toward the door.

“I’ll come by tomorrow,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied, too quickly.

He paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked over his shoulder.

“Purple suits you,” he said.

I blinked. “What?”

He nodded toward the lilac wall I’d painted, visible through the open garage doorway into the house. “It makes the place… softer.”

My throat tightened. Compliments always made me suspicious. Kyle had used them like sugar to coat poison.

But Colt’s voice held no performance. Just observation.

“Thank you,” I managed.

He nodded once, then stepped out into the late afternoon. I watched him walk to a dark truck parked near my driveway. When had it gotten there? He didn’t look back as he drove away, as if looking back would mean something.

I stood in my garage for a long moment after the engine sound faded.

My hands smelled like antiseptic and feathers. My heart wouldn’t settle. Because my mind, traitorous again, kept replaying the impossible coincidence of it all: Blue eyes. Forest scent. A man who moved like a predator pretending to be tame.

And a wounded black wolf who had vanished before morning, leaving blood on my windowsill. I told myself it didn’t mean anything.

I told myself myths were just stories people told to make their days a little more interesting.

Still, when I turned back to the recovery corner, I found myself whispering, so quietly even I barely heard it. “Are you the same?”

The thrush didn’t answer. But outside, far beyond my yard, the forest sighed. And somewhere in that green darkness, something alive listened.