Page 87 of Beneath the Mountain Sky

I shake my head. “It wasn’t just that.”

It was everything.

Every word she said.

Every look she gave me.

Every move she made.

But what happened today pushed me over that very narrow edge I’ve been balancing on between controlling my anger and frustration and completely losing it.

“Then what?”

I drag my gaze from the sky and return it to my brothers, first glancing at Liam and then Connor. “I took her all the way up to the gorge today.”

Connor’s jaw drops. “You’re shitting me. That’s like a five-mile hike from the river.”

Nodding slowly, I remember every labored breath and step she took to get to the gorge this morning. How her face pinched in pain. But she wouldn’t stop, despite how utterly exhausted she was after hiking to the river yesterday, then pushing farther today.

That strength she’s always had and always demonstrated also makes her stubborn, and she had her mind set on seeing the gorge.

Willow wasn’t going to fail, even if she was miserable.

Which meant I spent the entire day with the taste of her release still on my tongue, my cock still aching to be inside her, and my breath catching each time she stumbled or struggled at all.

“Probably longer than that from where we were…”

Liam shifts forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Why did you go all the way up there?”

Because she asked me to.

Because I couldn’t say no to that woman.

“She could describe it to me. In detail.”

His brow furrows. “When would she ever have been up there? Did you ever take her?”

I shake my head. “No. Which made her think that maybe it was a memory from the past year returning. I took her up there to see if it triggered anything else to come back.”

Connor taps his beer on the chair arm, raising a brow as I look over to him. “And?”

My hand tightens around my own bottle until my fingers ache, and the desire to chuck it into the fire makes my entire body tremble. “And fucking nothing.” I take several more gulps of my beer, and even though I’m on my third one, the alcohol hasn’t helped quell any of the churning turmoil threatening to drown me. “She didn’t remember a goddamn thing. It felt familiar to her. We spent an hour exploring it, walking back and forth to both sides. But absolutely nothing new came to her that might help us.”

“Shit.” Connor runs his hand over his thick hair. “And you didn’t see any evidence that she came through there?”

I shake my head. “You know nobody lives up there. It’s too steep to farm. And it’s fucking chilly. The days don’t get much warmer than, what, forty-five, fifty that high up even in the summer?”

They both nod.

“So, how could she have been in the gorge?” I concentrate on the fire, the flames flickering in the darkness. “The only thing past it is endless rough wilderness and a bunch of wild animals.”

And to get from there to the river during a storm would have taken…

An act of God.

Liam shakes his head. “I don’t know, man. This whole thing…” He shudders. “It gives me the creeps.”

Connor nods his agreement. “Me, too. Something just isn’t right.”