The first thing Eliza Mercer heard when she woke was a man speaking to someone who wasn’t there.

“I found her, Margaret. After all these years, I finally found her.”

His voice was so full of grief that she almost believed he was crying.

Then she remembered the name he had whispered in the mountains.

And terror swept through her.

Eliza opened her eyes to a low wooden ceiling, a stone fireplace, and a narrow window overlooking a valley filled with pine trees.

She was lying in a bed beneath a heavy quilt.

Her left hand had been carefully splinted. Clean bandages wrapped her ribs. Someone had washed the blood from her face and braided her tangled hair away from her injuries.

For one beautiful second, she thought she might be safe.

Then she saw the photograph.

It stood on a shelf beside the fireplace.

A young woman with dark curls sat in a wooden chair, holding a little girl in a white dress.

The woman’s face was unmistakable.

It was her mother.

And the little girl was Eliza.

She had never seen that photograph before.

“Where did you get that?”

Rowan Creed turned from the stove.

His expression changed when he saw where she was looking.

“You’re awake.”

“Answer me.”

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He set down the kettle.

“That picture belonged to your mother.”

“My mother died seventeen years ago.”

“I know.”

Eliza pushed herself upright despite the terrible pain in her ribs.

“Who are you?”

Rowan stared at her for a long moment.

Then he said something that made her blood run cold.

“Your mother called you Lark.”

Eliza stopped breathing.

Lark.

Not Eliza.

Not Mrs. Mercer.

Lark.

It was a name from another lifetime, spoken only inside a small yellow house in Missouri.

Her mother had called her that because she sang before she learned to speak.

After the fire, Eliza had buried that name alongside everything else.

“Nobody knows that,” she whispered.

“I do.”

“How?”

Rowan pulled a chair beside the bed but remained standing.

“Because I knew your mother before you were born.”

Eliza searched his weathered face.

There was something familiar in his eyes.

Not their color.

The sadness behind them.

“Are you my father?”

Rowan’s expression tightened.

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

“Then why do you have our photograph?”

“Because your mother gave it to me.”

Eliza felt her heart hammering.

“Why?”

Rowan looked toward the window.

“Because she knew one day you might need someone who remembered who you really were.”

Before Eliza could demand an explanation, a horse whinnied outside.

Rowan went still.

He crossed the cabin and lifted his rifle from the wall.

“Stay in bed.”

“Who is it?”

He moved to the window.

Three riders were approaching through the trees.

One wore a black coat.

One carried a shotgun across his saddle.

The third rode a familiar chestnut horse.

Eliza recognized the horse immediately.

It belonged to Caleb.

Her husband.

“He found me,” she whispered.

Rowan’s jaw tightened.

“Not yet.”

He closed the shutters.

“There’s a trapdoor beneath the rug. You’ll find a cellar with a second exit.”

Eliza stared at him.

“You expect me to crawl through a cellar with broken ribs?”

“No.”

He crossed the room, lifted her carefully, and carried her toward the hearth.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure he doesn’t find you.”

He lowered her into the hidden cellar and placed a lantern beside her.

Then he handed her a small pistol.

“Can you use this?”

Eliza nodded.

Her mother had taught her to shoot when she was twelve.

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Rowan’s expression changed at that answer.

“Of course she did.”

He closed the trapdoor.

Seconds later, someone pounded on the cabin door.

“Creed!”

Caleb’s voice.

Eliza clamped a hand over her mouth.

“I know you’re in there!”

Rowan opened the door.

“What do you want?”

“My wife.”

“Then you should be looking somewhere else.”

Caleb laughed.

“Don’t play games with me, mountain man. I followed your tracks from the pass.”

Eliza heard boots enter the cabin.

Furniture scraped.

A chair overturned.

Then Caleb spoke again.

“There’s blood on your floor.”

Rowan said nothing.

“Where is she?”

“Not here.”

A heavy blow struck something above Eliza’s head.

Then another.

She heard Rowan grunt.

Caleb laughed.

“You think you’re protecting some innocent little woman?”

Eliza’s stomach twisted.

“Did she tell you what she did before she married me?”

Silence.

Then Caleb delivered the words that made Eliza forget her injuries.

“Ask her why the authorities in Missouri have been looking for a girl named Lark Whitcomb for seventeen years.”

A floorboard creaked.

Caleb moved closer to the fireplace.

“Ask her why three people disappeared the night her mother’s house burned.”

Eliza gripped the pistol.

Three people?

She remembered the fire.

She remembered her mother screaming.

She remembered running barefoot through the snow.

But three people?

Above her, Rowan finally spoke.

“You don’t know what happened that night.”

Caleb’s answer was almost cheerful.

“Oh, I know more than you think.”

A metallic click echoed through the cabin.

Someone had cocked a revolver.

“Because I wasn’t the first Mercer to go looking for that girl.”

Eliza’s heart stopped.

Caleb continued.

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“My father was.”

Then a gunshot shattered the silence.

And blood began dripping through the floorboards directly above Eliza’s hiding place.