Page 47 of Keeper of Talon Mountain
The question catches me off guard. I've been so focused on immediate survival that I haven't let myself think about what comes after. A future where I'm not running, not hiding, not looking over my shoulder for the next threat.
"I guess I'll figure out how to be a person again instead of just a problem that needs solving." I look at her, firelight catching the copper in her hair. "Maybe I'll stick around Glacier Hollow. See what it's like to live somewhere instead of just hiding there."
"The lodge could use help. Someone who knows their way around repairs and can handle a rifle when the occasional bear gets too curious."
"Is that an offer?"
"Might be. Depending on whether you're planning to stick around or if you've got other places calling you."
I think about that—other places, other options. Sarah and the Echo Ridge team in Montana. Former contacts who might still remember me. A whole world I used to know that exists outside this mountain lodge.
But none of it pulls at me the way Mara's question does.
"I don't have anywhere else to be," I tell her. "And I think I'd like to find out who I am when I'm not running or fighting."
"Stay then. Figure it out here."
"What if I never figure it out?"
"Then you stay anyway." She shifts closer on the couch. "I'm not asking for answers, Gabe. I'm just asking you not to leave."
The simplicity of it cuts through all the complexity. Not promises about the future or declarations about feelings. Just stay. Don't leave. Be here.
"Okay," I say. "I'll stay."
Outside, snow begins to fall again, covering the mountain. Inside, the fire burns low. Mara's hand finds mine in the darkness between us.
I don't pull away.
15
MARA
Three Months Later
Spring comes to Glacier Hollow the way it always does—slowly, stubbornly, fighting winter for every inch of ground. The snow retreats up the mountain, leaving behind mud and the first green shoots pushing through dead grass. The world wakes up, stretches, remembers what warmth feels like.
I stand on the lodge porch with my morning coffee, watching Gabe work on the deck railing. He's been at it since dawn, replacing boards that rotted through last winter. His movements are efficient, practiced—muscle memory from a life he's slowly remembering in pieces.
The FBI interviews took three weeks. Endless questions, depositions, verification of the evidence against the Committee. In the end, they offered him immunity in exchange for testimony. Crane and eleven other Committee members are awaiting trial. The rest scattered, disappeared into whatever holes people like that crawl into when the light finally finds them.
Gabe's memories have been returning, not in a flood but in steady increments. A face here, a mission there, fragments that he shares with me over dinner or in the quiet moments before sleep. Some of them are hard—operations that went wrong, orders he wishes he'd refused, the weight of choices made in impossible situations. Others are gentler—his grandmother's laugh, Sarah's graduation, the house they grew up in.
He's not the same man who I found half-frozen three months ago. But he's not entirely the soldier from before either. He's something in between, building himself from pieces of both.
"You're going to wear a hole in that deck board if you keep staring at it," I call out.
He looks up, squinting against the morning sun. "Just making sure it's level. Don't want you breaking an ankle."
"My ankle survived thirty years before you got here. I think it'll manage."
"Humor me."
I do, because humor costs nothing and he needs to feel useful. The repairs give him purpose, something to do with his hands while his mind processes everything that's happened. We've fallen into a rhythm over these months—breakfast together, work on the lodge, evenings by the fire. Simple routines that feel profound after everything.
The deck repairs have expanded into a full renovation project. New shingles on the roof where winter revealed weak spots. The front steps reinforced. The storage shed organized and weatherproofed. Gabe attacks each task with the same focused intensity he probably brought to military operations, except now he's building instead of destroying.
I've watched him change in small ways. The nightmares still come, but less frequently. The hyper-vigilance has eased—he no longer checks every window before sleeping, doesn't calculate tactical exits from every room. Yesterday I caught him humming while fixing the kitchen sink. I stopped in the doorway and listened until he noticed.
