Free Hunting Season: A Love Story by Blake Crouch, Selena Kitt Page B

since Ariana had confided to him soon after their wedding that she’d lost her virginity to Ray her sophomore year of high school. Bud could’ve had his wild game processed at any number of butcher shops closer to their estate, but he’d insisted on not only giving Ray his business, but in making Ariana take it to him, throwing in Ray’s face, even all these years later, what the man from Texas had taken from the boy from the UP.
     
    Every week during hunting season, she made the trip.
     
    Hated Bud for making her go.
     
    Hated Ray for how much he hated her, for how much he reminded her of the innumerable failings she’d perpetrated against herself.
     
    Hated herself...Jesus...for too many reasons to count.
     
    She’d come to Ray’s shop a hundred times over the last ten years, and their exchanges had never been more than the bare minimum required to transact business.
     
    She’d leave the meat, special instructions if necessary, and Ray would tell her what day she could return to pick it up.
     
    No small talk, not even about the weather, with the sole exception in all these years being the week Ariana’s father died of a heart attack during archery season.
     
    Ray had mumbled as she headed for the door, “I was sorry to hear about your dad.”
     
    She hadn’t even looked back, though his words had moved her to tears. And it wasn’t just the condolence. It was Ray, her old friend, her old lover, her high school sweetheart, saying something of substance.
     
    But lately, Ray had taken to hiding in the back when she stopped by, leaving her to deal with that kid, Luke. She didn’t mind so much.
     
    Eye contact with Ray felt like someone scrubbing her soul raw with a wire brush.
     
    And still, every time she came and didn’t see Ray, she left feeling empty.
     
    Through the falling snow, her headlights shone on the sign:
     
     
     
    KOSKI MEAT MARKET
     
     
     
    She tightened her hands around the steering wheel’s rubber grip until her knuckles whitened, and then eased her foot from the gas to the brake pedal.
     
    Hit the turn signal.
     
    It was just past four o’clock, and with this winter storm revving up, the day was already heading toward a chill, blue dusk.
     
    As she turned into the parking lot and brought the Chevy to a careful stop on the half-inch of fresh powder, she caught a glimpse of Ray’s clunker parked around back. The Ford had been brand new that last summer they’d spent together.
     
    The things we did to each other in that shiny red truck bed...
     
    She killed the ignition but didn’t get out.
     
    Just sat there staring through the windshield toward the front entrance of Koski’s Meat Market—a refurbed farmhouse built a hundred years ago.
     
    Snow whisked across the glass like confetti, falling harder and harder.
     
    They’d said it was going to be a helluva storm.
     
    Maybe they were right.
     
    She reached for the door, thinking, Ray...poor, sweet Ray...
     
    Will you wait on me today?
     
    If I speak, will you answer?
     
    If I look into your eyes, will you turn away?
     
     
     
    2
     
    Raymond Koski wasn’t a hunter. He hated hunters.
     
    But given his profession, he knew the tools of the trade like a narcotics officer knew a heroin needle or like a priest knew sin. Luke Nyman talked constantly about the weapons he’d collected—from Hoyt to Matthews to Bowtec, not to mention all the firearms—just like the rest of them. Ray had hired him grudgingly given that fact, but you couldn’t swing a beaver by the tail without hitting a hunter in Ontonagon county.
     
    “But I won the lottery!” The appeal came at Ray over a display full of hand-packed sausages, as if Luke thought it safer to make his case from behind a reflective surface than to ask his employer face-to-face.
     
    Luke ducked his head and reached in to take out another tray full of potato brats.
     
    Coward , Ray thought. Why do some guys get all the luck?
     
    He’d never won anything in his