Keeper of Talon Mountain (Men of Talon Mountain #4)

Prologue

MARA

Phoenix, Arizona

Three Years Ago

The bruise on my cheek has faded to yellow-green, barely visible under makeup, but I can still feel where Derek's fist connected with my face. Fourth time this month. Or is it the fifth? I've stopped keeping count.

"You're not wearing that." Derek's voice cuts through the bathroom as I'm getting ready for work.

He's leaning against the doorframe, coffee in hand, looking like any other successful real estate developer starting his day.

Handsome. Put-together. The kind of man my friends told me I was lucky to have.

I look down at my blouse and slacks. Professional. Conservative. Nothing he could possibly object to. "What's wrong with it?"

"The blouse is too tight. You’re trying to get attention from the guys at your office?"

The blouse isn't tight. It's the same one I've worn dozens of times. But I've learned that logic doesn't matter when Derek's in this mood. "I'll change."

"You do that." He takes a sip of coffee, watching me with those cold blue eyes that used to make my heart race. Now they just make my stomach clench. "And Mara? Don't make me wait. You know how I feel about being late."

I change into a looser sweater, my hands shaking as I button it.

This is the pattern now—constant criticism, escalating control, violence that comes in waves followed by apologies and promises it won't happen again.

Last week, he threw a glass that shattered inches from my head.

Yesterday, he grabbed my wrist so hard I can still see the finger-shaped bruises circling my forearm.

I need to leave. I know I need to leave. But Derek controls everything—the bank accounts, the lease on our apartment, even my phone plan. And he's made it clear what will happen if I try to go. "You think you can just walk away from me? I'll find you. I always find what belongs to me."

That night, I work late at the accounting firm where I've been employed for two years.

Not because I want to, but because staying away from the apartment means a few more hours of peace.

My desk overlooks the parking lot, and through the window, I can see Derek's Mercedes parked under a streetlight.

He's waiting for me. Checking up on me. Making sure I'm really here and not somewhere I shouldn't be.

My phone buzzes with a text: Don't think I don't know you're avoiding me. Get your ass home. Now.

I gather my things with hands that won't stop trembling.

This is my life now—constant fear, walking on eggshells, wondering which version of Derek I'll face when I walk through the door.

The charming one who brings flowers and takes me to expensive restaurants?

Or the monster who corners me in the kitchen and tells me I'm worthless, stupid, lucky he even bothers with someone as pathetic as me?

The parking lot is dark except for scattered lights. Derek's car is gone now, but I know he's already home, waiting. I unlock my car and slide behind the wheel, and that's when I see the envelope on my passenger seat.

My blood runs cold. He was in my car. He has a key to my car.

With shaking hands, I open the envelope. Inside is a single photograph—me, walking out of a coffee shop during my lunch break, talking to a male coworker. Across the image, Derek has written in red marker: Who is he?

That's when I know. I have to leave tonight. Not next week, not when I've saved enough money, not when I have a better plan. Tonight. Because next time, Derek might not stop at bruises.

I drive home on autopilot, my mind racing through possibilities.

I have a little over a thousand dollars in cash hidden in a tampon box under the bathroom sink—money I've been squirreling away fifty dollars at a time whenever I could.

It's not much, but it's something. My friend Suzanne in Tucson owes me a favor. If I can make it there...

Derek is waiting in the living room when I walk in. The apartment is too quiet.

"Who is he?" His voice is calm, which is somehow worse than when he yells.

"My coworker. We were discussing a client file."

"You're lying." He stands, and I watch him transform from man to monster in the space of a breath. "You think I'm stupid? You think I don't see the way you look at other men?"

"Derek, I'm not...”

The backhand comes so fast I don't have time to dodge. Pain explodes across my face, and I taste blood. Then his hands are on my throat, slamming me against the wall, and I can't breathe, can't think, can only claw at his wrists while black spots dance in my vision.

"You're mine," he hisses, his face inches from mine. "Mine. Say it."

I can't say anything. Can't breathe. The world is going dark.

He releases me suddenly, and I collapse to the floor, gasping and choking. "Clean yourself up," he says, his voice cold and flat. "You look pathetic."

He walks to the bedroom and closes the door.

I lie on the floor for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes. I keep telling myself I need to be more prepared, but tonight I realize if I stay, I may never see tomorrow.

I wait until I hear Derek's even breathing through the closed bedroom door.

Then I move with silent precision, gathering only what I can carry: the cash from under the sink and my hidden stash containing my grandmother's compass necklace, two changes of clothing, my driver's license and my social security card.

Everything else—my photos, my books, the life I built here—I leave behind.

In the kitchen, I write a note on the whiteboard where we leave each other messages: Gone to stay with my sister. Need space to think.

I don't have a sister. But Derek doesn't know that, and it might buy me a few hours before he starts looking.

The Phoenix night is warm as I slip out the back door and walk three blocks to where I left my car earlier, parking it away from the apartment in case I needed to leave in a hurry. Smart, I tell myself. I was smart.

I drive south with no real plan except to put distance between myself and Derek. Tucson. Maybe California. Somewhere he won't find me.

I'm forty miles outside Phoenix when I pull into a rest stop to catch my breath. That's when I notice the envelope in my purse—the one the postal worker gave me yesterday that I shoved in my bag and forgot about. Official-looking, forwarded from my old address.

Inside is a letter from an attorney in Anchorage, Alaska.

Dear Ms. Bennett,

We regret to inform you of the passing of your grandmother, Eleanor Bennett.

As executor of her estate, I am writing to inform you that you have been named sole beneficiary of her property, including a hunting lodge located outside Glacier Hollow, Alaska, along with all contents and associated land.

Please contact our office at your earliest convenience to arrange transfer of the property.

I read it three times, each time feeling like I'm hallucinating.

My grandmother. I haven't seen her since I was sixteen, haven't spoken to her since my mother's funeral eight years ago.

We'd exchanged Christmas cards, but that was all.

She'd lived alone in Alaska for as long as I could remember, some kind of hermit who preferred the wilderness to family.

And she left me her lodge.

I sit in that rest stop parking lot as the sun comes up, watching the Arizona desert turn gold and pink, and I make a decision. Not California. Not Tucson.

Alaska.

A place so far from Phoenix that Derek will never find me. A place where I can disappear into the wilderness and start over. A place where I can be someone new.

That night, I'm on a plane north with everything I own in a single duffel bag.

At the airport, I slip my phone into the jacket pocket of a man who looks like a linebacker—let Derek track that phone to wherever this guy is going.

I buy a prepaid phone at a kiosk with cash, use the bathroom to scrub off my makeup and see the full extent of the bruises.

Mara Bennett, Phoenix accountant, is disappearing.

She's dying in that apartment with Derek's hands around her throat.

The woman who steps off the plane in Anchorage is someone different. Someone harder. Someone who's learned that the only person you can trust to keep you safe is yourself.

The attorney meets me at his office with keys and documents. The lodge is three hours north, in a town called Glacier Hollow. Population 312. No stoplight, no chain stores, no way for anyone to find me unless they know exactly where to look.

Perfect.

When I finally see the lodge—a weathered structure of logs and stone nestled against the base of Talon Mountain—I feel something I haven't felt in months. Hope.

It needs work. The roof leaks, the plumbing is questionable, and there's a family of squirrels living in the attic. But it's mine. All mine. No one can take it from me, control it, or use it against me.

I spend my first night in Alaska sitting on the porch wrapped in one of my grandmother's old quilts, watching the northern lights dance across the sky. The air is cold and clean, nothing like the desert heat I left behind. And for the first time in years, I feel like I can breathe.

I don't know what I'll do with this place. Turn it into a business, maybe. A bed and breakfast for tourists who want to experience Alaska wilderness. Something that's mine, that I control, that no one can take away.

What I do know is this: I'm never going back. Never being that scared, broken woman again. Never letting anyone have that kind of power over me.

I touch the bruises still fading on my throat and make myself a promise. This is my sanctuary now. My fortress. And I'll defend it with everything I have.

But tonight, in the quiet darkness of my new home, I can't imagine ever letting anyone close enough to matter again.