Chapter 1

ONE

Falcon paused, hands on his thighs, gasping for air. The torrential rain was icy cold, barely above freezing, and the wind was knifing through him. He was cold all the way to his gut, but it didn’t matter. He’d been this cold many times. He felt like he lived in this level of cold, and it had never stopped him before.

He would never stop.

Never stop hiding, and never stop hunting.

He’d been so close a dozen times, and the ghost had always slipped through his fingers.

But today…today felt different.

Something was humming inside Falcon, an energy that felt intoxicating and poisonous at the same time.

He looked up at the trail ahead of him. He’d been climbing for hours, following the faint trail of clues he’d been uncovering for almost twenty years.

He saw, up ahead, a glint, and he stiffened.

He pulled out his binoculars and saw there was a hut up ahead. Small. Wooden. Blue trim.

Son of a bitch.

It was really there. But was it the hut he’d been looking for?

He paused to consult his spirit guides, to hear the truth inside him that he’d learned to listen to. In the dark places he’d spent much of his life, he’d learned to find relief in places that he never would have expected, like tapping into the higher truth and guidance that didn’t judge him for being the man he was. Is this the place? he asked.

Yes.

The answer was clear and unequivocal. His guides didn’t give him much, but most of the time, when it really mattered, he could get a sense of yes and no if he asked the right question.

There had been no doubt about the answer they gave him this time.

This was it. This time, it would end.

He shoved his binoculars in his pocket and pulled out his gun, stepping off the trail into the wet underbrush and moving out of sight.

Years of living on the edge of humanity had taught him to blend into the vegetation, as he moved silently and swiftly up the mountain, closing in on the cabin that he hoped like hell held the man who had consumed him since he was ten.

The Harts, his found family, had told him so many times to give up, to build a home on their Oregon ranch, to let himself live.

He wanted to. Every damned night, he dreamed of that ranch, of waking up in a bed, in a home. Of walking out the front door and being able to breathe. To be with the horses. To have dinner with people he cared about every night, not just when he skated into town on the back of a shadow.

He dreamed of her. Every damned night.

But he couldn’t choose that for himself. He couldn’t walk away from this life. This was all that mattered to him.

The sun was setting, casting the stormy mountain into long shadows as he forced his exhausted body to forge ahead.

He reached the clearing beside the hut and crouched, watching, waiting. Was he home? Was this monster he’d been playing cat and mouse with for so long there? Waiting for Falcon? Was this a trap that would end Falcon? Or the prize that would finally set him free?

Falcon reached out with his mind, and he could feel the undercurrent of dense energy surrounding the house. He didn’t know the energy signature of the man he’d been hunting, but this felt like what he would have imagined it to be.

Falcon waited in the underbrush for several hours, watching for any sign that the hut was occupied.

There was no movement. Not even a whisper.

So Falcon waited some more, patient. Willing to wait for the end of this quest that had been his life for two decades.

It was after three in the morning when Falcon finally eased from the bushes, sliding through the shadows hiding from the moon, working his way to the hut.

He paused outside the door, listening, his senses attuned to the night for a breath that was out of place, a leaf that shouldn’t be moving, an alert from the animals who made this mountain their home…

But there was nothing.

So Falcon tried the door.

Locked.

He quickly remedied that, and then eased the door open.

He waited for someone to shoot him or stab him, but no one moved.

After one more check behind him to make sure he wasn’t walking into a trap, he leaned around the corner, shining his penlight, gun ready, scanning the interior.

There was a man on the floor, sprawled face down.

Falcon studied the man for a long moment, but his face was turned away. He didn’t know if it was the man he’d come for. But his heart started racing, and he felt like it was. Like it was him.

But Falcon had to be sure before he pulled the trigger. Had to be sure he wasn’t going to perpetuate the legacy of his father by killing an innocent.

He stepped into the room, fully alert to every sound, scent, and whisper of information on the wind, but he could sense no threat.

His boots silent on the wooden floor, Falcon approached the inert figure. He saw a photo in one of the man’s hands…a photo of Falcon less than a year ago, with Bella Hart, the sister of the men he considered his brothers, none of whom were related by blood. Only by heart.

His gut congealed at the sight of Bella’s face. Fuck. He’d stayed away from her to keep her safe, and this monster had known all along that she was his kryptonite?

Sudden rage burst through him. With a roar of fury, of twenty years of pent-up rage, Falcon leapt across the floor, grabbed the man by his shoulder, and hauled him to the side, rolling him over so he could see his face.

Falcon’s gut contracted when he saw the face, the face of his memories, the face that had taunted him, hurt him, scared him, and haunted his every moment for so long. The face of the man who had stolen everything from Falcon.

It was him.

But his glazed, unfocused eyes and the emptiness of the air around him told Falcon that someone had beat him to it.

He was dead, and Falcon hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger.

It was over.

After twenty years…it was over.

Falcon’s legs gave out and he went down to his knees, suddenly too weak to stand. He bowed his head, fighting to control the emotions running through him, the images flashing through his mind. He fought off the memories, fought off the past, fought off both the relief and disappointment that he hadn’t been the one to end it.

It took only a second, maybe two, before Falcon raised his head. Whoever had killed him might still be around. There was no time to process. He had to get out.

He shoved the man away from him, grabbed the photo of Bella, and then staggered to his feet. He did a quick search of the cabin, tension wrapping tighter and tighter as he found more pictures of himself, of Bella, of the Harts, and their ranch in Oregon. This monster had known so much about him, toying with him for so long. Except for the initial photo of himself and Bella, Falcon took every last bit of evidence of the Harts and himself and shoved it into the wood stove. He lit it, and stood there, watching until the pile that represented his heart was consumed by flames.

He stood, staring into that fire, into the orange flames, fully focused on what he was doing. On making sure the people he loved were safe.

Once the pictures were gone, he closed the wood stove, strode to the door, and walked out, not turning around, not looking back, walking away from the past that had trapped him for so long.

He made it halfway down the mountain before he dropped to his knees and bent over, his knees sinking into the mud, his chest burning with pain, his mind spinning as his brain fought to grasp the truth.

The purpose he’d had since he was ten was gone.

The man he’d had to be since he was ten was no longer needed.

The life he’d endured for so long had no purpose anymore.

Who he was…was over.

What was left for him? Who the hell was he now?

He looked down at the photo in his hand, at the woman he’d known since he was twenty and she was sixteen. Bella.

He closed his eyes, letting the rain wash down his cheeks, breathing in the cold, cold water as it seemed to cleanse a lifetime of filth from his skin.

Bella.

Did he dare?

He looked down at his knees, buried in the mud. At his pants, wet, torn, dirty. He touched his face, the rough beard he never seemed to care enough about to keep trimmed.

He’d been on the run for so long, he felt like a wild animal.

He was a wild animal, in truth.

But there was one place on this earth where he didn’t have to be civilized, pretend he was okay, or talk to people who didn’t understand the darkness that still clung to him, and always would.

That place was the Hart Ranch in Oregon, home of the nine Hart siblings, the place the Harts had been offering him for so long.

Finally, he could go there.

To the men who were his family, even though he had never let them in.

To Bella, who right now, would be in her kitchen on the dude ranch part of the Hart ranch, working her magic, whipping up fantastic grub for her guests. He thought of her sassy smile, her favorite pink cowboy hat, and her pink camo pants that she loved to wear when she was four-wheeling around the ranch.

He’d never made a move on her.

Not once.

Not ever.

Not even when she was sixteen and she’d begged him for a kiss.

Because he’d known there was a monster following him, and he’d never risk any of the Harts, especially not Bella.

But now…he took a breath. The monster was dead.

Falcon was damaged goods. Dirty. Scarred.

He knew that.

But he also knew the Harts didn’t care about that, because they all carried their own stories.

Was he too scarred for Bella?

Probably.

He paused to ask his guides. Should I walk away from Bella?

He waited, but there was only silence. Was it because the answer was to walk away, and he didn’t want to hear it? Or because his guides already knew he’d made up his mind?

Maybe he wasn’t enough for her.

Maybe he was.

But it was time to find out.

After all these years, it was time to find out.

He dragged himself to his feet and started hiking down the mountain again…walking faster. And faster.

Until he was in a dead-on sprint, and it still wasn’t fast enough.