Page 78 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

The few inches that separate us now seem like miles.

I unzip my sleeping bag, then hers, and drag her carefully into my arms, careful not to squeeze her still-healing ribs.

Willow buries her face against me and cries.

And I let her.

There’s nothing else I can do.

I failed at every turn to help her, to make things better, to find an answer for her, and if this goes on much longer, I don’t know that she’ll survive it.

Or that I will.

The only thing I can think of to help take her mind off what’s going on in her head possibly also means opening the door to the memory I’ve been trying to keep at bay and the conversation I don’t want to have. But I have to do something, and whispering placations to her that don’t really mean anything won’t cut it tonight.

I twirl a strand of her hair around my finger. “Do you want to play Twenty Questions?”

She tenses and then draws away from me slightly, wiping away her tears. “Are you serious?”

A grin pulls at my lips. “Sure. What else are we going to do up here all night?”

Before, we would have been wrapped up in each other with far less clothing by now.

Before I could have occupied her racing mind by getting her to concentrate on something else entirely.

And the corners of her mouth curve as she realizes her thigh is pressed squarely between my legs and against my cock. “Who goes first?”

“You can have the honor.”

She grins and bites her bottom lip. “Okay. Gosh, what is there to ask that I haven’t during our many rounds?”

Considering how many times we’ve played this over literally decades, I can see her brain spinning to come up with something.

And it’s exactly the distraction she needed.

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Honeybee.”

Those eyes that have been so filled with turbulent uncertainty shift to an almost sadness as she examines me, and a stone settles into my stomach.

Shit.

I knew this might open the door for questions I don’t want to answer, and the look she’s giving me now suggests I was right.

She chews on that lip again for a moment before she finally musters up the courage to ask whatever is on her mind. “What have you been doing for the last year?”

I force myself to hold her gaze, even though I want to drag my eyes away. Because I’m embarrassed to admit it to her. “I already told you. I’ve been an asshole, apparently.”

“Yeah, but…” She runs her fingers through my beard, scraping her nails along my cheek in a way that makes me bite back a groan and wish her knee wasn’t wedged up against my cock. “But you must have done something with all your free time, not having me around.”

Wallowing in self-pity.

Berating myself for losing the only woman I ever loved and the most important person in my life.

Beating myself up physically.

Pushing myself to the brink until I’m ready to collapse as penance.

Chopping down tree after tree by hand until my palms bled, rather than use the equipment that would make the job so much easier, just so I could feel the physical pain that matches what I feel inside.