Page 1 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)

KILLIAN

T here’s only one thing more beautiful than McBride Mountain blanketed in the pre-dawn mist.

And I don’t think about that other thing.

I don’t think about her.

Because I can’t.

If I allowed myself to indulge in those memories every time my mind wanted to wander to Willow, I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed each morning.

I wouldn’t be able to come out here each day to the mountain we loved, where we built a life together, and do my job for all the people who depend on McBride Timber for their livelihoods.

And truth be told…I wouldn’t be able to keep breathing.

Not without her.

So, no matter how badly I may want to, I can’t dwell on the gaping hole she ripped in my chest when she left me and this place, when she turned me into this person I’ve become—one I hardly recognize.

This man traipsing through the thick woods with an axe—and a chip—on his shoulder is so many things I wasn’t before.

Bitter.

Resentful.

Even quicker to anger, which a lot of people didn’t think was possible.

I’ve become something that can be summed up in a single word: miserable.

Instead of obsessing over what I lost, how much I’d love to have her at my side to watch the sun rise and burn off this fog, what I wouldn’t give to see that early morning light hit her face and brighten it the same way her perfect smile did, I concentrate on the bitter mist engulfing me and the rest of the Blue Ridge Range this morning.

Damp.

Chilly.

Clinging to my bare skin the same way it does the ground and the trees all around me.

An ethereal haze—almost like I’m in another world, even though we’re less than a dozen miles from the homestead and cabin.

Yet it’s another world out here.

Remote.

Wild.

Filled with the kind of feral creatures people often accuse me of being.

Maybe I should just stay out here…

That would be easier on everyone, I suppose, to disappear into the wilderness with my regret, into a world where I can live with my failure without interference from anything or anyone else.

But like my bitter mood this morning, this pre-drawn haze won’t last long.

As soon as the sun hits the horizon, the fog will start to burn off, and the heat of early summer will descend on the mountain.

Bright.

Warm.

All the things Willow was and I never could be.

My favorite time of day to be out here, trudging through the trees, alone save for my thoughts and ever-present axe.

Quiet.

Peaceful.

Only my footsteps on broken branches and leaves littering the forest floor, the birds starting to chirp at the lightening of the sky, and animals scurrying about after sleep break the otherwise silence of the crisp air.

It almost makes it possible for me to forget that I have nothing to look forward to once we complete our task today.

That I will return to the timber yard and finish out my day, then return to the cabin I once shared with her and find it cold and empty.

That I will have to sleep in the bed where I made love to her and sleep alone.

I can almost pretend I haven’t spent the last 372 days since she left wandering around in my own sort of fog…

Almost—but not quite.

Her face continues to pop into my mind the deeper I push through the trees and the higher I climb up McBride Mountain.

My hand tightens around the axe handle, eager to use it to work out some of the tension that has only grown since I woke this morning.

I try to concentrate on scanning the area for the goal of today’s expedition—the perfect tree for Liam. The one he says he needs to create his next project. Once we find it, I can put my axe to work, and hopefully, decimating something will make me feel better.

At least for a few minutes.

“Killian, wait up!”

Hell.

Pausing with a groan, I turn back to Liam, watching him thread through the massive trunks and step over a fallen log I just navigated with his own axe slung over his shoulder.

He hustles to catch up, releasing a little annoyed huff. “You got somewhere to be or something?”

I raise a brow at him.

Considering he’s the one who dragged us all out here this morning, when we should be at McBride Timber supervising the final details of the big lumber shipment that needs to go out later today, it’s a bold question.

“What?” He shrugs, tilting his head slightly to the side and offering his boyish grin. “They can handle things ‘til we get back. And you’re kind of rushing…”

“Fuck off.” I shift my axe to my other shoulder. “I’m not .”

I am.

My annoyance at being pulled away from work, plus not being able to wallow in my misery alone because I’m stuck with Liam and Connor, is enough to make me want to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.

Liam gives me a little frown that makes him look like the adorable toddler who used to follow Connor and me around to places he had no business being at that age, instead of the twenty-three-year-old young man he is today.

“Yeah, you are .” His gaze drifts behind us to the path we wove through the trees. “And I think Connor would agree.”

Connor trudges forward, still a good hundred yards back and looking seriously perturbed at either my pace or at having to come out here today at all—probably both.

Running a hand through my mist-dampened hair to keep it out of my face, I scowl at Liam. “Sorry. I didn’t know you two still needed a leash like people put on their children sometimes.”

He playfully bumps his shoulder against mine. “Mom never used that on us.”

“She should have.” I poke him in the sternum, directly over the swirl of ink visible in his half-unbuttoned shirt. “Especially on you .”

Liam gapes in mock offense and presses a hand over his chest. “I’m offended on both my behalf and hers.”

I wave him off. Not really annoyed anymore, just eager to get moving. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Turning back, I call to the straggler. “Come on, Connor, let’s go.”

Our brother mutters something from behind us that gets instantly carried away by the breeze rustling the leaves, but even without being able to hear it, I’m confident it wasn’t very complimentary.

So little of what Connor says ever is these days.

Maybe my attitude has been rubbing off on him…

There are certainly enough people around here who seem to think that’s the case, if the comments on Raven’s posts on the McBride Mountain Community News page are any indication.

The way she portrays Connor and me, warning people away from us and our volatile moods, we might as well be wild sasquatches waiting in the forest to attack unsuspecting hikers and tear them limb from limb.

I have been known to rip someone a new one…but they typically deserve it.

Connor finally catches up with us, releasing a huff that has nothing to do with exertion.

We’ve done hikes far worse than this, faster and harder, before and often, scouting for areas to log and hunt, but he, like me, prefers to choose when we go instead of being told we are by our insistent little brother.

I scan the surrounding area before rotating back to Liam. “Where did you say you thought you saw this ‘perfect’ tree?”

Apparently, the only one specific tree in the entirety of the Blue Ridge Mountains he can use to make his next rocking chair happens to be in a copse, nowhere near town or anything resembling civilization.

Go fucking figure.

Liam motions ahead of us vaguely. “It was up near the river. A grove I stumbled upon last year up here.” A glimmer of anticipation flashes across his green gaze, making him practically tremble. “I’ve been eyeing it for a while, waiting for the perfect project.”

His genuine excitement is enough to make some more of my annoyance ebb, and I do my best to push away all those thoughts and memories that plagued me while I was hiking alone.

I step over a fallen log in the direction of the river that flows down the expanse of McBride Mountain. Liam walks beside me where the trees will allow it, with Connor trailing behind.

Liam smacks me on the shoulder. “Thanks for coming with me, by the way.”

“Did I have a choice?”

A slow grin pulls at his lips. “Not really. I would have dragged you two out here, kicking and screaming, if I had to.”

Connor snorts. “I would’ve liked to see you try, little brother.”

Liam tosses him a dirty look, but there isn’t any malice in it or their words. Pushing buttons, testing limits, and throwing verbal barbs have always been our love language—but it hasn’t come to physical blows in years.

Mom would be proud.

At least, of that.

Not of what I’ve done.

Not of what I’ve become.

Acid churns in my stomach, imagining the verbal lashing she would give me if she knew how I destroyed things with Willow as the three of us continue higher up the mountain, weaving through the endless towering trees and dense foliage toward the sounds of the river finally starting to filter to us.

I push away a low-hanging tree branch with my axe so Liam and I can pass around it and almost allow it to sling back and smack Connor, but aggravating him even more isn’t a good idea. “Which side of the river?”

It’s an important question since I don’t particularly feel like wading through the still-chilly water this early in the morning.

Especially when I know we’ll be out here for hours, breaking down this tree into manageable-sized logs to get it back to Liam’s workshop on the makeshift sledges we’ll put together with the materials stuffed in the pack Liam carries.

A task that would have been far easier if he had chosen a target that wasn’t in such a hard-to-reach part of the mountain.

This portion of our home is completely wild.

Harsh.

Desolate.

Without a hint of civilization that you’ll find as you descend closer to our homestead and eventually the town.

And it’s pristine.

Exactly as Mother Nature intended it.

This is why the McBrides settled here almost two hundred and fifty years ago.

This is why I stay even when the bad memories threaten to overtake the good.

This …and the two men with me right now.