Free Hunter's Moon by Felicity Heaton Page A

the wind picking up outside, whistling through the trees and down the
    chimney. It stirred the fire, making it dance and roar.
    His eyes lingered there while he drank.
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    Hunter’s Moon – Felicity Heaton

    It had been a long day. Living up here at this time of the year was difficult to say the least but he only had to rely on the generator for power a handful of times in winter.
    The snow rarely affected the power, leaving him free to do his work and stare out of the window at the white
    peaceful landscape. He had the best office in the world.

    It was lucky that he’d gone down into town today and
    got some supplies in. Something in his bones had told
    him that bad weather was coming and once it did, the
    road would become impassable. When he’d first arrived, the people in town had told him that the mountain got
    into your blood and spoke to you. He had thought they
    were joking at the time, but now he was starting to think they had been telling him the truth. Even the old man of the mountain that lived across the valley had been in
    town today, and he only saw him once or twice a year.
    There was something about him that always piqued his
    interest. He never seemed to look any older. He’d been here for years, and the old man had always looked the
    same. His long grey hair and beard were probably hiding his aging. He ran his hand across his jaw. Maybe he
    should grow one so he never looked any older. His
    brown hair was a long way from turning grey, but it
    would one day. He wasn’t a kid any more. Hell, he was
    going to be forty next year.

    Nine years. If he was forty next year, then it meant that he’d arrived in these parts nine years ago. It didn’t seem like half as long.

    He’d been surprised at how well they’d received him. No one had ever asked why he’d come here, not in all the
    years he’d spent in the cabin. This town was like the end of the earth, the kind of place where people came when they had secrets and those secrets were the type that
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    Hunter’s Moon – Felicity Heaton
    people didn’t want others to know about. Every person
    in this town had something to hide. Only the ones that had been born here didn’t, and even then he was sure
    they carried the secrets of their parents. So long as he didn’t ask them about theirs, he knew they would never ask him about his. That was half the reason he loved this place so much. It had been the only place in the world where he’d felt he could start over.

    Finishing his drink, he slouched into the chair and put his feet up on the stool. He placed the empty glass down beside him and closed his eyes, letting the warmth of
    the fire and the sound of the growing tempest outside
    relax him. It was always nice to be safely tucked up
    somewhere warm in weather like this.

    He stretched, yawned and smacked his lips together a
    few times as sleep wrapped its comforting arms around
    him.

    The sound of a gunshot echoing around the mountain
    made him sit bolt upright. All tiredness was pushed right out of his body and his eyes went wide. He blinked and realised that he was tightly gripping the arms of his
    chair. He looked down at his hands. His knuckles were white. He struggled to convince himself to let go and when he did, he shook his hands as though by doing
    that he could shake off how badly that shot had
    frightened him. It was almost as though he’d felt it. He’d been on the edge of dreaming, could almost see the
    mountain and the forest, and then he’d been zooming
    towards a wolf and the shot had awoken him.

    It had been close. The hunters must have circled back
    around. He’d thought they’d be long gone by now, deep
    into the woods.

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    Hunter’s Moon – Felicity Heaton
    He was about to relax back into his chair when a
    shuffling sound on the porch made his heartbeat
    accelerate. He swallowed hard, listening to what
    sounded like the scraping of claws on wood. Standing
    slowly, he eased across the room to the gun cabinet and took