Page 18 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

And that incessant pounding in my head only grows.

Right now, I don’t have it in me to push, not when even breathing and thinking hurts.

I tear my gaze from his to focus on Raven and what she said earlier, which makes more sense, coupled with this revelation. “So, I went to Charleston?”

She shakes her head. “No, we loaded up your truck, and you said you were heading to Asheville, to those friends you met at that market.”

“Julie and Rob?”

“Yeah.” She nods. “You stayed with them for a while before you went to Williamsburg.”

“Williamsburg?”

Killian snarls. “What the hell, Raven? First, you said Charleston, now it’s Asheville and Williamsburg. Where the hell was she?”

Raven glares at him, then turns back to me. “Over the last year, you’ve sent me maybe half a dozen different things. A birthday gift, a Christmas gift, a few postcards. It seemed like you were spending a couple of months in one place and then moving on. Hitting up local markets and selling your candles in various shops. You always sounded so happy when you wrote, and I didn’t think there was any reason to worry, as long as you were.”

A shadow falls over her as Killian shifts closer to the bed, blocking out the light and looming over Raven in a way that would intimidate someone who wasn’t so used to dealing with him. “So, you don’t really know where she was before today?”

His question fills the room, along with a thousand other unspoken ones.

Raven pulls her lip under her teeth and shakes her head. “No.” Her eyes meet mine. “The last postcard I got was from Charleston a few months ago.”

Months?

Shifting his weight, Killian scowls deeper, his brow furrowing as if he’s trying to process all this information just as I am. “A lot can happen in a few months…”

And a year, apparently.

Killian issues a frustrated growl, shoving his hands into his hair again. “None of this makes any fucking sense. Why would she come back to McBride Mountain and not tell anyone?”

I suck in a long, slow breath, that same question battering my brain.

Even if I wasn’t in Charleston. Even if I had moved on to somewhere else. Even if whatever happened with Killian kept me from wanting to see him, I would have driven straight to Raven’s the moment I pulled into town. “I wouldn’t have…”

Raven seems to understand exactly what I’m saying, tears brimming in her emerald eyes as she squeezes my hand. “When are you getting out of here? When can I bring you home?”

“Tomorrow, but?—”

Killian moves again, towering over Raven, who is half his size at best—David and Goliath going head to head again in a battle I can sense in the air. “She’s not going to your place.”

His tone offers no room for argument.

Raven gapes up at him. “Excuse me?”

He thrusts an outstretched finger toward the door. “That doctor isn’t going to get me to leave her bedside, and there’s no way in Hell she’s not coming home with me.”

KILLIAN

Raven glares at me from where she sits beside Willow, clutching her hand possessively when it should be me doing it.

The woman who has been a thorn in my side since basically the day she was born appears to want to continue that placement—and fester in the wound she created by not telling me where or how to find Willow over the last year.

So many arguments.

So many times I tried desperately to get any information about how to find Willow.

Only to get nowhere because of Raven.