Page 17 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

He doesn’t want to explain and hates being backed into a corner like this.

He’s exposed with nowhere to hide. “We…had a fight…”

A fight?

Pain stabs at my temples again, and I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to reconcile his words with anything in my memory.

We never argue.

Like…ever.

What could we possibly have fought about that was bad enough to have him acting like this?

That was bad enough to make me leave McBride Mountain?

I open my eyes again and meet his tentative gaze filled with utter anguish that I have only seen on his face once before—when his mother died. “I left?”

Raven glares at Killian, who finally moves from his imitation of a statue and turns away, scrubbing his hands over his face and through his hair, tugging on the long, blond strands like he always does when he’s frustrated.

He doesn’t seem inclined to shed any light on the situation.

He can’t even look at me.

But my best friend won’t leave me hanging.

She tightens her grip on my hand, casting a hesitant look at him before refocusing on me. “You called me to come up and help you pack. You were…borderline hysterical. Said you had to leave. That you couldn’t stay any longer.”

Killian’s shoulders tighten, back still to me.

But I don’t have to see his face to know how upset he is.

The tension practically radiates off him.

“I tried to get you to tell me what happened, but all you would say was that it was over between you and Killian, that you didn’t have a future on McBride Mountain.”

Those words ring in my ears, almost as painfully as trying to remember.

But they don’t feel right.

Not when the last memory I have of him is the love in his gaze and touch and of the future we were planning together.

“But why?”

Killian spins to face us now, his hands fisted as if he’s fighting the urge to destroy something. “It doesn’t matter.”

Raven sneers at him. “It very much does.”

His gaze drifts to me, and the apology soaking those azure eyes tells me that whatever happened between us, he regrets it deeply. “Please, Willow, you don’t need to be worrying about this right now…” He shoves a hand through his hair roughly. “Later, when you’re feeling better. We can…we can talk.”

There’s a plea there.

To let it go for now.

Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t.

I’ve always had to push Killian to open up, to break free from his natural inclination to shut down and keep everyone out—even those he loves the most. And I was the only one who could ever do it without getting snapped at and paying the consequences for poking the bear.

But bone-deep exhaustion threatens to drag me back under the longer this goes on.