Page 12 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)

Killian’s protectiveness of the mountain and everyone on it never jibed with Raven’s desire to expose details of people’s private lives she considers important enough to broadcast. For her, it’s news. Information essential for everyone to know. But to him, it’s personal attacks.

She smirks. “You have no idea. It’s ten times worse since you left.”

My hand tightens on the book, and I swallow through the nerves. “How come?”

Anything to do with why I left?

An annoyed sigh slips from her lips as she closes the book, clearly seeing through my attempt to get the deets from her since she won’t spill, and neither will Killian.

“Because he was pissed I wouldn’t tell him where you were.

And…” Raven glances up at me, looking sheepish.

“I may have published an article on the site—well, a few of them—about what a dick he is and how people should avoid him.”

“You what?”

It’s no wonder his animosity toward her rolled off him in waves at the hospital.

Raven holds up her hands defensively. “I don’t know exactly what happened between you two, so don’t even ask, but whatever it was, it was bad enough that you left. I lost my best friend for a year, so he isn’t my favorite person on the fucking mountain.”

The unsteadiness in her normally level voice bears the weight of the time I’ve been gone and how much she’s missed me.

“I guess that’s fair…” I fiddle with the book, turning it over in my hands. “I really didn’t tell you what happened between us?”

I’ve been dreading asking her all day, putting it off while we sat and chatted over tea and dinner, and she caught me up on what she’s been doing the last year since I left.

But I have to know what she does—what Killian clearly doesn’t want to tell me.

Raven’s gaze softens, and she shakes her head.

“You really didn’t. You called me up here, and you were in tears.

I asked where Killian was and what happened.

You said he stormed out and that you were leaving and going to Asheville.

I thought you meant just a trip, but then you started packing everything…

and I couldn’t convince you otherwise.” She releases a little sardonic snort.

“Believe me, I tried, begged you to stay with me, to give yourself some space from whatever happened between the two of you, but it was like you had made up your mind and there was nothing I could do or say to get you to stay.”

I tighten my grip on the book, her words settling over me heavily. “So, it must have been really bad…”

Because I tell Raven everything.

Always have.

She knew the moment I started looking at Killian and seeing him as more than the gruff, grumpy eldest McBride brother. She knew the first time he kissed me. She knew when I finally fell—hard. She knew when he proposed and that I said yes without even thinking about it.

Yet, I wouldn’t or couldn’t tell her whatever happened with the man who was my life and future that would make me leave him and my home forever.

“Yeah.” She nods, her blond hair spilling over her shoulder.

“I’d say so. I’m worried about you being up here with him.

Whatever happened wasn’t good, and you don’t have any memory of it, which means that, to you, it feels like the two of you are together, that everything is hunky dory, and it sure as hell isn’t. I don’t know what that man did to you.”

I scowl at her. “You’ve known Killian your entire life. Do you honestly think he would ever do anything to hurt me?”

She shakes her head. “Of course not, but he’s a man.”

Thunder cracks again, almost as if in warning.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She snorts. “Oh, come on. You know damn well how inconsiderate they can be. How oblivious they can be to how what they say and do can affect us. You need to be recovering. You need peace and quiet. You need to be comfortable?—”

“I am. Here. This is my home.”

“It was .”

As per usual, Raven isn’t wrong.

Her blunt advice and ability to cut through the bullshit to the heart of the matter are precisely why she’s such a good friend—and why she pisses so many people off so damn easily.

“Killian and I obviously have a lot to talk about. A lot to work through. And maybe this will give us the opportunity to do that.”

She sighs. “That’s what I’m worried about, hon. I don’t want you to get hurt again after everything you’ve been through.”

“We don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“You’re right, we don’t, but?—”

Heavy footsteps sound on the porch, and my heart leaps into my throat. The front door swings open, letting in a howl of wind and driving rain—and the man I’ve been waiting for.

Killian steps into the cabin, drenched from head to foot, his long blond hair darkened and plastered to his head and shoulders, T-shirt clinging to his sculpted muscles.

His eyes sweep over the room and find mine, anchoring me in place with the intensity of the shimmering blue before I manage to break free from the hold.

I leap to my feet and race across the room, throwing my arms around him, not even caring that he’s soaked—and now I am, too—ignoring the screaming objection from my ribs and several other parts of my sore body.

He stiffens, his entire body rigid, a wet, immovable wall of uncertainty for a second before he finally relaxes.

His strong arms wrap around me and tug me up against him tighter.

The movement pulls at my sore ribs, but I don’t mind the pain.

Not right now. He buries his face along my neck, inhaling deeply as a tremble wracks him.

Matching the way my own body shakes, even though I’m in his solid hold and can both feel and see that he’s all right.

“I was so worried…”

Far more than I should have been.

Killian can take care of himself.

He’s always been the one watching out for his brothers—and just about everyone else on the mountain.

But I can’t stop shaking, and the tears flow before I can stop them.

Thunder rumbles outside, and his large, warm palm settles onto my back, holding me steady, grounding me in the way only he ever could. “I’m okay, Honeybee. Everyone’s okay.”

I want to believe his words, but the weight of everything that’s happened in the last few days finally crushes down on me, making it impossible not to feel like I’m crumbling. “Y-you scared the sh-shit out of me.”

Killian sucks in a sharp breath and releases it slowly, one hand sliding up into my hair to cup my head and hold it against his chest while the other presses into my lower back. “I’m sorry.”

He brushes his lips across my temple, and I lean into it, relishing the feeling of being back in his powerful arms.

Like I’ve missed it…

My memories may tell me it’s only been a few days since we were together, but deep down, somewhere, I know it’s been a year.

I’ve longed for this.

I’ve needed this.

I’ve needed him.

He finally pulls back slightly and takes my face in his palms. Those familiar rough callouses scrape over my sensitive skin, wiping away my tears as he locks his turbulent gaze with mine. “I’m okay, really. Just wet.”

The rain continues to pound on the roof and ping off the windows, a reminder of the deluge he hiked through to get home. In the pitch black of night that rivals the darkness I floated in before I woke.

Raven clears her throat behind us, and he tears his eyes from mine and looks over my shoulder at her. I follow his gaze, one of his hands sliding away from my cheek.

She climbs to her feet, tossing the book onto the couch. “Well, I guess I’m not needed here anymore.”

The annoyance in her tone makes me cringe.

Raven stalks to the kitchen, snags her purse off the counter, and stomps toward where we still stand. She pulls on her shoes and assesses us for a moment before huffing and moving toward the door.

I meet her concerned gaze. “Drive safe…”

Stopping beside us, she narrows her eyes at me. “Be careful.” Then she glowers at Killian. “Keep your fucking hands off her.”

The heat of his hand still at my cheek seems to grow with her warning, but Killian doesn’t release his grip on my face as she tugs open the door and stalks out into the rain to make her way down the mountain to her place in town above Claire’s Bakery.

Killian kicks the door closed behind him without even looking at it, keeping his eyes on me the entire time—as if Raven wasn’t even here. The same intense focus I recognize and have always craved that makes heat flood my core and warms me, despite my now-wet clothes.

His gaze dips to my lips, and I shiver in anticipation.

But instead of kissing me, Killian clears his throat and steps back from me, putting enough space between us for the reality of the situation to slam into me.

You just threw yourself at him…

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about…”

Jesus.

He isn’t my fiancé anymore.

He isn’t my anything.

It might feel that way to me, but I left him.

“Don’t apologize for worrying about me.” The corners of his lips curl slightly. “I love that you did, but you don’t have to. You know this mountain is my home. I know it like the back of my hand. Nothing would happen to me out there.”

“This coming from the man constantly reminding everyone how dangerous McBride Mountain can be.”

“That’s true.” He nods slowly. “But it doesn’t apply to me.”

“Oh, really?”

His lips quirk. “Really.”

The steady drip, drip, drip of water falling off his clothes and body and onto the wood floor finally drags my focus down to the puddle forming around us. “You need to get out of these clothes.”

He nods and retreats another step, and I instantly miss the warmth, shivering as the cold, wet front of my clothes cling to me. I retreat, giving him some space, and he bends down to untie his muddy, wet boots, peel them off, and set them onto the plastic mat beside the door.

The hands that just held my face so gently reach for the hem of his shirt. He tugs it up over his head, revealing the body I memorized. Rippling muscles, peaks and valleys of abs that descend to the belt of his jeans. Tattoos covering almost every inch of exposed skin—even a few new ones.

Christ.

If anything, he’s only gotten more beautiful in the time I’ve been gone.

He tosses his shirt on top of his boots, keeping the wet clothing on the protective plastic as much as he can, but it still drips from his jeans onto the floorboards. “I don’t want to walk through the house like this.”

“Oh.”

I quickly turn around and close my eyes, giving him some privacy, even though I know his naked body as well as I know my own.

The sound of his button popping and zipper lowering stiffens my spine, and heat coils low in my belly at the sound of his jeans hitting the pile near the door.

“I’m going to go take a shower, then I’ll be back.”

I nod, squeezing my eyes closed as tightly as I can so I don’t unintentionally—or intentionally—ogle him. But as he brushes past, that scent of fresh rain and cut wood and mountain that’s all Killian washes over me, and I can’t help it.

My eyes flicker open, and I see him gloriously naked from the back.

Firm ass.

Massive, muscled thighs working as he stalks down the hallway toward the bathroom.

Tattoos ripple across his back and arms, but as he reaches the bathroom, he glances over his shoulder at me.

I quickly close my eyes again—but not before I catch his half smirk—and heat floods my cheeks.

The door clicks closed, and I release a heavy breath, the dull throb between my legs reminding me that I almost died, and I may have broken up with the man for some unknown reason, but it certainly doesn’t mean that I’m not still attracted to him.

In my head, it was yesterday that he had me bent over that couch, pounding into me after the Memorial Day Festival—because I lied and didn’t want to tell everyone my last memory was of getting railed rather than of the festival itself. But after that, going to sleep that night, it’s blank…

What went so wrong?

I can’t imagine anything that would explain what Raven says happened—that I would rush to pack my things and leave the mountain for good . That would make me stay away for an entire year without ever coming back to see her or try to clear the air with Killian…

Releasing a heavy sigh, I make my way to the couch and settle into the corner while the sound of the shower running in the bathroom and the rain pounding against the roof and the glass fill the silence, punctuated by the occasional pop and crack of the wood in the fireplace.

Flames leap and dance, casting long shadows across the pine floors.

I stare into the fire, racking my brain, diving deep into my memories, trying to make more come to the surface.

Pitch black greets me.

My temples throb.

But I keep going.

Pushing.

Trying to delve deeper.

A flicker of another flame.

Different from this one.

Smaller.

My heart pounds.

My skin heats, growing clammy?—

“Willow, are you all right?”

I jerk at the sound of Killian’s voice as he steps into the living room.

His brow furrows deeply. “Shit, did I scare you?”

Shaking my head, I wrap my arms around myself. “No, I…”

“I’m sorry.” He takes a tentative step toward me, running a towel over his still-wet hair in a pair of gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt that clings to his pecs. “Where were you?”

“I don’t know.” I clamp my eyes shut, trying to bring back the memory. “I was just looking at the fire and then…”

Releasing a frustrated sigh, I let my lids flutter open.

“Did you remember something?” Killian stops in front of me, squatting to my level. His eyes search mine, filled with concern and something else. “Willow…”

“I…it was another fire.” I shake my head. “Not here, but I don’t know where it was…or when…or why it would come to me now.”

Killian reaches out and pulls my hand into his. “It’ll come back.”

And what if it doesn’t?

What if not knowing is my new reality?

“Did you find anything today?”

His jaw tightens, a muscle there ticcing wildly as he stares into my eyes, holding my gaze. “Yes. Part of a trail you must have run down before you got to the river.”

“Trail? From where?”

“We don’t know. It’s an animal trail, nothing humans should have been on, but I found your bare footprints and a scrap of the T-shirt you were in. Tony is going to call to get dogs in from Asheville to try to pick up the scent, figure out where you came from.”

Tears pool in my eyes and begin to trickle down my cheeks. “Why would I have been up there?”

“I don’t know.”

I shake my head, my body trembling as that flicker of flame flashes through my head again, somehow sending an icy chill through me, despite the warmth it should bring to mind.

“Neither do I, and that’s what scares the fuck out of me.”