Page 4 of Keeper of Talon Mountain
The lodge's porch lights appear as golden smears in the distance, growing stronger with each labored step. The sight gives me a second wind, and I push harder, ignoring the way my thighs burn and my lungs ache with each breath of frozen air. The motion-sensor floodlights kick on when I'm still fifty yards out, turning the snow around my house into a brilliant white beacon.
By the time I haul the sled up the ramp I installed for supply deliveries, my legs are shaking and I can barely feel my hands inside my gloves. But I've made it. We've both made it.
Inside, blessed warmth hits me like a physical force. I strip off my outer layers with numb fingers, already planning: guest room on the first floor, closest to the main fireplace. Extra blankets from the cedar chest. Dr. Sage's phone number programmed into my phone for exactly this kind of emergency.
The hallway leading to the guest rooms is wide—I designed it that way specifically for moments like this, though I was thinking more about moving furniture than unconscious men. Getting Gabe to the bedroom and onto the bed takes the last of my strength, but I manage it in stages: first the sled to the bedroom door, then a controlled drag onto the hardwood floor, finally lifting him onto the mattress with a combination of leverage and desperate adrenaline.
I remove his boots first—quality hiking boots that probably saved his feet from frostbite. His jacket comes next, revealing a thermal shirt that clings to broad shoulders and a chest that speaks of serious fitness. The dark bruises I glimpsed are worse than I thought: purple-black marks across his ribs that look deliberately inflicted, and what appears to be partially healed cuts along his collarbone.
Someone has hurt this man. Recently.
I push the implications aside and focus on immediate needs. I check his pulse again—stronger now that he's out of the cold—and run my hands along his limbs, feeling for breaks or sprains. Everything seems intact, but there's something about the scars I'm beginning to see that speaks of violence. Old knife wounds, what looks like a bullet graze along his left shoulder, marks that suggest a history I'm not sure I want to understand.
I pile every quilt I own over him, layering them for maximum warmth retention. Then I light the small fireplace in his room, grateful for the design decision to put one in each guest room. The flames catch quickly, and soon heat begins to pour into the space. I also build up the main fire in the central room until warmth flows down the hallway, the old stone fireplace working with the smaller ones to heat the lodge efficiently even in the worst weather. My grandmother chose the design well—multiple heat sources that could keep guests comfortable no matter how brutal the conditions outside.
Only then do I dig out my phone, my hands finally steady enough to navigate the contact list.
Dr. Sage answers on the second ring, her voice alert despite the late hour. It's nearly midnight, but country doctors learn to sleep lightly. "Mara? What's wrong?"
"I found someone. A man, unconscious in the snow near Grotto Falls. I got him back to the lodge, but I think he's been injured. More than just the cold."
"Is he breathing? Responsive at all?"
"Breathing yes, steady pulse, but he hasn't woken up. There's bruising, old injuries that look..." I hesitate, unsure how to explain what I've seen. "Deliberate."
Dr. Sage is quiet for a moment, and I can almost hear her processing the implications. "How long was he out in the cold?"
"I don't know. When I found him, there was already snow accumulating on his body, but his core temperature doesn't seem too low. He's not shivering."
"That could be good or bad. Keep him warm, but don't warm him too quickly—no hot baths or heating pads directly on his skin. Layer blankets, keep the room temperature comfortable but not hot. Monitor his breathing and pulse. If he starts shivering, that's actually good news—means his body's trying to warm itself."
The line crackles with static as the storm interferes with the cell signal. "Mara? Can you hear me?"
"I'm here."
"I'll be there as soon as I can get through this storm, but it might be a few hours. The main roads are already impassable." Another pause. "Did you call MacAllister?"
I haven't. The thought of involving the sheriff, of turning this into an official incident with reports and questions, makes something clench in my chest. Once Zeke is involved, Gabriel Andrews will become a case file, a problem to be managed. "Not yet."
"Call him. We don't know who this man is or how he ended up out there, and those injuries you mentioned..." Dr. Sage's voice carries the weight of someone who's seen too much in her forty years of rural medicine. "Be careful, Mara. I know your instincts are good, but sometimes people end up in dangerous situations because they're dangerous people."
After Dr. Sage hangs up, I sit in the chair beside Gabe's bed, staring at my phone. The number for the sheriff's office is right there in my contacts. I could call Zeke, explain the situation, let him handle it with professional distance. It would be the smart thing to do. The safe thing.
But safe has become a complicated concept for me. I've spent three years building safety through isolation, through self-reliance, through keeping the world at arm's length. Tonight, for the first time since arriving in Glacier Hollow, I've chosen to bring the outside world into my sanctuary.
Instead of calling Zeke, I stay by Gabe's bedside, monitoring his breathing and checking his pulse every few minutes. The steady rhythm reassures me, but I can't shake the worry about what those injuries mean. After a while, my stomach reminds me I haven't eaten since this morning, so I head to the kitchen to make soup—my grandmother's recipe, the one that sustained me through those first brutal winter months when I was learning to live alone. The familiar ritual steadies me: dicing onions and carrots with the knife my grandmother sharpened hundreds of times, browning meat in the cast iron pot that's fed three generations of women who learned to survive in hard places.
I make enough for two people.
While the soup simmers, I check on Gabe every few minutes. Still unconscious, but his breathing has deepened and his color is improving. The firelight plays across his features, and I find myself studying his face for clues about who he might be. The bone structure is strong, masculine, but there's something almost gentle about the set of his mouth when he's not conscious to control his expression.
The leather pouch sits on my kitchen table next to his dog tags. I've looked at the photograph again—definitely his mother, given the resemblance around the eyes and the way she's smiling at whoever held the camera. The pressed flower is more of a mystery. A mountain wildflower, carefully preserved. Someone who carries a pressed flower isn't all bad, regardless of what the scars on his body suggest.
When I finally sit down with my own cup of soup, exhaustion hits me like a physical weight. The adrenaline is wearing off, leaving behind the deep ache of muscles pushed past their limits and the emotional aftermath of a night that's changed everything. I've hauled a strange man through a blizzard and installed him in my sanctuary, the place I built specifically to keep the dangerous world at bay.
Tomorrow I'll have to explain my choices to Dr. Sage, to Zeke, probably to half the town. Glacier Hollow is small enough that word will spread quickly, and people will have opinions about my decision to shelter a stranger. Some will understand. Others will question my judgment, especially when they learn about the injuries I found on him.
But tonight, listening to the wind howl around my solid walls while someone sleeps safely in my guest room, I feel something I haven't experienced in three years: the deep satisfaction of having saved a life instead of just preserving my own.
