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Page 13 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)

KILLIAN

L ightning sends another vibrant flash through the living room, and thunder cracks immediately after it and close , shaking the cabin and violently rattling the glass in the window frames.

On and on and on…

The storm continues to rage, just as it has for the last several hours since I came home—almost as if the mountain sky is as agitated as I am tonight and can’t settle into any semblance of quiet calm.

Lying in the recliner, I alternate between watching the light show and the fire, the flames crackling and popping, filling the silence save for the sounds of the storm.

It should be peaceful.

But each clap of thunder and flash of light that fill the cabin merely seem to enforce the fact that I won’t be able to find peace again until I figure out what happened to Willow.

With so little to go on, I’m not holding out much hope of getting a restful night’s sleep anytime soon.

How can I when her world has been upended and I can see her spiraling?

How can I when I’m spiraling just as badly?

The bedroom door opening issues a low creak that echoes through the high A-frame cabin ceiling almost as loudly as the following crack of thunder.

I freeze, my right arm tucked beneath my head, and watch the hallway, waiting for her to appear with my heart in my throat.

Having her back here, in this space we once shared, where we planned our future together, without knowing what’s going on in her head, has left me more rattled than I care to admit even to myself.

On edge.

Vibrating with an intense, writhing tension only made worse by how badly I still want this woman I can’t have right now…or maybe ever again.

Willow comes out slowly, her arms wrapped around herself, emphasizing how thin and frail she’s become since I last saw her in this cabin a year ago.

The flickering light from the fire illuminates her features as she steps farther into the room, and even with the red scrapes and cuts, the bruise on her cheek, and the bandage covering the stitches over her eye, the woman still takes my breath away.

Every bit as beautiful as the last time I saw her before she disappeared.

Her gray eyes meet mine, and the hesitation I see there makes my stomach twist violently.

My Honeybee has never hesitated when it came to me before. Always so confident. So sure of what she wanted. Never afraid of my moods or reputation.

But not tonight.

Tonight she’s shaken.

I hold her gaze, waiting for what feels like an eternity for her to say something. “Can’t sleep?”

She shakes her head and approaches slowly. Another flash of lightning brightly illuminates one side of her face, and her flinch at the sharp crack of thunder contorts it violently.

Of course…

“The storm keeping you awake?”

Willow shakes her head again and makes it to within a few feet of me. “I mean…yes. But it’s more than that.” Her lips twist as she considers her words, as if she has to choose them carefully around me. “It’s just…weird.”

“What is?”

She glances behind her toward the bedroom. “Sleeping in that bed without you…”

Fuck.

I squeeze my eyes closed, letting her words wash over me and sear my skin like acid.

The pain real.

Powerful.

Intensity I couldn’t have predicted I would have felt.

They’re precisely what I would have killed to hear any time over the last twelve months, if she had come back to me.

Because I know that feeling all too well—how wrong it is to be in there without her.

That’s why, half the time since she’s been gone, I’ve ended up falling asleep in exactly this position out here rather than torture myself with the bed I shared with this woman.

Where I still smell her, despite replacing the sheets.

Where I still feel her beside me, despite her side of the bed being long cold.

Where I still hear the echoes of her gasps and moans as I slid into her.

And for her, we shared it only days ago.

In her mind, I should still be there, holding her through this kind of storm that has always unnerved her so much, despite spending her entire life on this mountain.

The sheer agony of the reality in which we find ourselves threatens to tear me apart, but I force my eyes open to find her watching me carefully, as if she’s not sure if she should turn around and retreat to safety or if I’m the harbor she’s seeking from the storm her life has become.

God, I wish it were the latter…

“You need to get some sleep, Honeybee.”

My voice wavers slightly with the issued warning, but it doesn’t deter her.

She continues her approach and settles on the arm of the chair, though somewhat cautiously, still holding trepidation in her gray gaze. Her slender fingers, covered in cuts and scratches, trail over the warm, worn dark leather. “I can’t believe you still have this thing.”

I can’t fight my smirk. “Did you really think I’d ever get rid of it if you couldn’t make me?”

The corners of her lips curl up slightly. “I guess not, but I understand why you still have it. I was always half-joking when I suggested it was too ugly to stay in the cabin.”

And I always knew that because she knew what it meant to me.

“It’s the only thing I really remember about my dad, other than him teaching me to swing an axe.”

Willow gives me a sad smile that darkens her eyes and pulls at that cut on her lip. “Sometimes I wish I had known mine, but I feel like maybe I didn’t miss out on all that much.” Her throat works hard, like she’s fighting emotion she doesn’t want to let out. “Mostly because of your mom.”

A knife slices through my heart at the agony in her voice for the woman who took her under her wing and gave her what her own mother couldn’t. The one who stepped up to raise Connor, Liam, and me all alone in this wild place and always kept her doors open to anyone who needed help.

Against my better judgment, I let my left hand drift down to cover hers on the chair arm. “She loved you, you know? Like you were one of her own.”

She nods, tears pooling in her eyes. “She did have a habit of taking in strays.”

“You weren’t a stray.”

A little laugh fills the night, followed by another crack of thunder that makes Willow shudder. “Yeah, I was.”

“You had your mom…”

She snorts. “Yeah, and she was Mother of the Year.”

“She had her issues, no one can deny that, but she loved you and did the best she could. My mom just”—I shrug—“was there to help pick up the pieces and fill in where your mom couldn’t step up.”

“She did that for a lot of people.”

“I know.”

More than I could possibly count.

Everyone in McBride Mountain knew they could come to her for anything they needed—money, a warm place to sleep, advice on life or love, or just a warm, motherly hug.

Willow assesses me in the firelight, her gaze roaming over my face before it connects with mine again. “You got that from her.”

“Got what?”

Her eyes soften into a look I longed for so much over the last year. “Your big heart.”

The way she says the words rips said organ in two.

If I had as big a heart as she believed, none of this would have happened.

She never would have left.

I may spend most of my free time helping people on the mountain and in town, donating my skills and money where it’s needed across this vast swath of North Carolina wilderness, but none of it could ever be enough penance or wash away the sin of what I did to Willow that day she drove away from me and this place.

No one has been able to get close.

Nothing has brought me joy since the moment she left.

I would give up anything and everything I own if I could have had her back this entire time, if I could retract those words I said to her. And the way she’s staring at me, I know I won’t be able to put off having the conversation about it much longer.

She deserves to know the truth about that as much as she does about what happened to her.

Outside the window, lightning streaks across the sky again, and another rumble of thunder rolls through the house.

Willow shudders again, this time clenching her eyes.

“You never did like the storms up here…”

She reopens her eyes and gives me a tight smile. “No. Something about them, the volatile power they possess, it just scares me.”

I trail my fingers over hers lightly, wanting so badly to twine them together. “Why?”

Her slender shoulders rise and fall, then she presses her free hand against her ribs with a wince. “I guess because it’s not something we can control, and I don’t like feeling out of it.”

“Like you do right now?”

She swings her legs toward me more fully, a tear trickling down her cheek. “Yes. How can I when everything is so fucked up ?”

The way her voice breaks on those final words makes my hands itch to pull her into my arms, but I can’t do that.

I don’t trust myself.

And I won’t ever put her in that position.

Another sharp crack of thunder makes her wince even harder than tweaking her ribs did, and something clicks in my head. Something that’s been bouncing around in the back of my mind since I first saw her bare footprints pressed into the damp ground.

“There was a storm that night, before I found you in the river…”

She nods, swiping at her tears. “I know.” Her voice cracks. “And I wouldn’t have gone out in it if I had any other choice.”

Whatever happened up there, it wasn’t good.

It sent her running outside during a storm she was terrified of, with no shoes, improper clothing…

Pure wrath floods my veins, heating my blood and solidifying my resolve.

Tears continue to fall faster, and I finally can’t take it anymore.

I glide my hand up around her hip and tug her toward me gently, giving her every opportunity to resist or say no. But she accepts the invitation and slides into my lap, resting her head to the crook of my neck and snuggling tightly against me in the spot she fits so perfectly.

This.

This is what I’ve been craving, what I’ve been needing.

All of her pressed up along all of me.

The familiar feel of her in my arms again, her scent that somehow hasn’t changed over the last year invading my breath and giving me life in a way oxygen can’t.

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