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Page 14 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)

All of it envelops me in the knowledge that she’s safe, as long as I have her here.

With me.

A little sigh falls from her lips, fluttering warmth against my neck. “What do you think happened to me?”

It’s a question I had hoped she wouldn’t ask because I don’t want to have to give her the answer—the one that’s been forming, even though I haven’t dared to voice it.

Because I don’t want it to be true.

It opens up a world of horrific possibilities.

Yet, I know Connor and Liam must be thinking the same thing, as well as Sheriff Briggs, given everything we’ve discovered.

But saying it to her when she’s still so shaken and fragile feels like dealing another blow she might not survive.

I run my hand gently down her back, and she relaxes into me, resting her hand over my heart, directly on top of the tattoo of McBride Mountain. “I think you left McBride Mountain with every intention of never returning because of me.”

She stiffens in my arms but doesn’t say anything as I continue to trail my fingers up and down her spine.

“I think, at some point, something happened that made you come back. Some reason you didn’t tell Raven about.

Maybe because you hadn’t planned to stay very long, or maybe to surprise her.

And I think something happened that brought you up to that secluded part of the mountain, but…

” I swallow the lump in my throat that attempts to prevent me from speaking what might be the ultimate truth.

“I don’t think it was by your own choice. ”

Willow tenses again and lifts her head, the tears really flowing now, leaving streaks down her pale cheeks. “That’s what I’m afraid of. What if…what if someone…”

I pull my hand from her back and cradle her face in my palm, brushing away the tears.

“If there was someone else involved in this, if anyone laid a hand on you, I swear to fucking God, I’ll slice him apart with my axe while he’s still alive so he can watch it happen and then rip his throat out with my bare hands. ”

* * *

WILLOW

The absolute menacing threat in his words and the sincerity of it swimming in his blue eyes should terrify me.

It should make me wary of the type of violence Killian is capable of.

I should fear it and him. But the promise settles over me like a warm blanket, comforting me the same way being in his arms does.

Even if it shouldn’t.

Given how things apparently ended, this is the last place I should be now—in the arms of the man who drove me away in the first place.

After five years together and a lifetime of friendship before that, whatever it was had to have been bad.

Maybe unforgivable.

I left the only home I’ve ever known, the town and the mountain, my best friend, and the man I loved, without telling anyone why. It was too painful for me to even reveal to Raven. And it drove me away from my life.

Yet, since the moment I woke up in that hospital, he’s been nothing but the man I always knew him to be.

Protective.

Loyal.

Kind.

Caring.

Sweet.

Moody, certainly…

And gruff.

Even violently rough around the edges, but it’s impossible not to be growing up the way he and his brothers did up here on the mountain.

Fighting to maintain their family legacy after his father died when he was so young, his mother stepped into a role she never intended to take. She had to run McBride Timber, be a mother to a little boy, then she took in Connor and Liam, and also mothered the entire mountain.

He had to be tough. He had to step up, too.

They all took care of each other, and now, he’s doing the same for me, even though I left him.

So, I can’t feel threatened by this man, despite what Raven might think.

Despite the potential warning signs screaming that I wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t needed to.

I can’t be afraid when he says things like that to me because that type of anger and intended violence would never be directed at me.

His promise to eviscerate anyone who may have had a hand in what happened to me isn’t a threat.

It’s hope.

The kind I need right now.

I relax even more against him, his strength and tight hold on me grounding me in a way no one and nothing else ever could. “You really think you can find out what happened?”

Please, God, let him succeed.

I want to believe his promise, pray that it’s true, but it’s hard to know if that’s possible when I still can’t remember anything.

We have nothing to go on.

Absolutely nothing.

He brushes my hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear, cradling my other cheek in his rough palm. “I do. We already found part of your trail today. And with the dogs Tony is getting, we should be able to follow it farther into the mountain. We should be able to find answers.”

That same thought that has plagued me since the hospital returns, the one I haven’t voiced because it’s too painful to consider.

What if I don’t want the answers?

What if I want to pretend that none of this ever happened and go back to my life with this man?

The life I had before, the one that feels like it was yesterday instead of a year ago, was happy. I could so easily fall right back into that life, that routine, the love I shared with this man.

Why can’t I just do that?

Almost as if he can read what I’m thinking simply by scanning my face with his fathomless blue eyes, Killian gives me a sad smile.

“I know how scared you are, terrified of what we might find. I am, too, but we have to know what happened. Where you’ve been.

Tony already got all the postmarks from the stuff you sent Raven over the last year, and he’s checking into it, trying to track where you’ve been and locate any former residences, friends, credit card usage, anything.

We’re going to solve this mystery, Honeybee. ”

“And then what?” The question comes out before I can stop it, but it’s the only thing I can think to ask because solving the past doesn’t help me figure out my future.

That’s as murky and black as the abyss I fall into trying to look into my memories of the last year.

I can’t see what it looks like. “Then I go back to whatever life that was? Go back to hating you because of something I don’t even remember instead of loving this life we had together here? ”

His eyes shimmer as another flash of lightning illuminates the room, and he looks so torn. Like the war raging inside him rivals the one happening in the sky outside. “I wish I could tell you we could go back, but we can’t.”

Following thunder rattles the entire building, like even the mountain is angry with the situation.

Tears slide down my cheeks again. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not the same person I was then, and neither are you.”

Wherever I’ve been, whatever I’ve been through…

of course it’s changed me. Once I get my memories back, I’ll realize how much.

But lying here with him in his dad’s old leather recliner, in a position we’ve spent so many hours in before, with a storm raging outside that rivals the tempest currently blustering in my head, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else than where I am at this moment.

And I certainly can’t fathom wanting to be with anyone other than the handsome, difficult, grumpy, gruff man whose calloused hands move so gently to wipe away my tears.

“You still seem like the same person, Killian.”

He shakes his head. “I’m definitely not.

Losing you changed me, Willow, and not for the better.

I’ve been…” Killian glances away, focusing on the deluge outside, continuing to drag his hand up and down my spine, the same way he used to soothe me to sleep during storms all those years.

“I became a man I don’t like seeing in the mirror.

One who’s angry all the time. One who’s quick to argue, quick to temper.

I snap at people. I don’t want to do all those things everyone expects of me anymore.

” He releases a long sigh, heavy with whatever burden he’s been carrying since I’ve been gone.

“It has been like I’m suddenly not in control of my emotions anymore.

Like any ability I had to rein in those darker parts of me left when you did. ”

“You were always hotheaded…”

He finally returns his gaze to mine and grins, and the genuine affection in the act, the humor underlying it, despite how serious his words were, is enough for me to see that he really hasn’t changed that much.

“Yes, I was, but this is different.” His rough fingertips skate over my cheek reverently, and those fierce eyes lock with mine.

“I’ve been adrift, lost without you as my true north. ”

My heart shatters into a million pieces at the familiar words and the pain with which he says them. “You always said I was that.”

“Because you were. You always guided me away from the places my mind wanted to go to somewhere brighter, happier, to you as my home.”

A small sob of frustration slips from my lips. “Then how did we get lost?”

“Do you really want to have that conversation right now?”

Looking down at him with his long blond hair spread out behind him on the dark leather, his soft, warm gaze locked on me, powerful arms wrapped around me, his firm body supporting me, his heart thumping beneath my palm, there’s only one answer I can give him. “No.”

Right now, I don’t know if I can handle the truth of whatever broke us up.

Living in denial for a few more hours won’t be the end of the world, but not being able to look at him the same way might be.

I lower my head back into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent that’s all Killian—fresh mountain air, leather, and freshly cut wood—and he tightens his grip on me, squeezing me gently, careful to avoid my sore ribs as he adjusts me to be more fully on top of him.

The storm keeps raging outside. Lightning flickering across the dark room. Thunder alternates between sharp cracks close to the cabin and low rumbles that spread across the mountain. The sounds of the storm that kept me awake as much as his absence from the bed are suddenly not so scary anymore.

Not with him here holding me like this.

Slowly, I let myself start to drift toward the darkness encroaching on the edge of my vision. My eyelids grow heavy and droop until a sudden crack of thunder that sounds more like a gunshot jerks me up.

Pain sears my ribs, but it’s the flash through my head of a similar sound echoing through the woods that makes my heart thunder. I gasp, pressing my hand over it, trying to catch my breath as a panic I’ve never felt before engulfs me.

“Willow, what is it?”

Squeezing my eyes closed, I try to analyze the image I saw for only a split second, to figure out where it came from, what it means.

“I…don’t know.” The anxiety continues to rise, though, threatening to steal my ability to breathe as bands tighten across my chest. “I can’t get past that darkness. It’s eating all these memories, but there’s something there. Something important. Something I need to remember.”

Something that sounded an awful lot like a gunshot.

And for some reason, my gut is telling me, deep down, that if I don’t remember, it could be catastrophic to that future I can’t see.

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