Font Size
Line Height

Page 16 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)

Miss you. The candles are selling really well here. It may be my best setup yet. Something about this city speaks to my soul. The history is fascinating. You’d love it here. I miss you.

Love, Willow.

“That’s definitely my handwriting.”

Raven looks up from where she’s been typing, her brow furrowing. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

I chew on the inside of my lip. “I don’t know.

I was kind of thinking…wondering, I guess…

” The thought bounces around my head, but it seems so off the wall and unfathomable that voicing it makes my mouth go dry.

But Raven continues to watch me until the intensity of her stare draws the words from me.

“I was wondering if I was actually the one who sent you all these things.”

Her hands come off the keyboard as she rests her elbows on the table, her wide eyes searching mine. “Why would you wonder that?”

Everything Killian said last night comes rushing back.

“Killian and I are starting to suspect that maybe I wasn’t up there by my own choice.

” She doesn’t immediately reject the idea, so I push on.

“It stormed the night I went into the river. Why would I have willingly been out in a storm like that, running barefoot, anywhere, let alone on such a remote part of the mountain?”

Raven nods slowly, as if she’s processing the idea. “I see where you’re going with this.”

“And if I wasn’t up there by my own choice, of my own free will, then who’s to say I was the one who sent all these things over the last year?”

She reaches out and clasps my hand. “But you were. Look at them.” She rifles through the stack to find one particular note and flips it over to show me, leaning closer as a family with small children hustles past us on their way out of the shop.

“You sent this one with a damn vibrator, for fuck’s sake. ”

“What?”

“On the anniversary of the day I lost my virginity.” She waggles her blond brows. “ No one else would have known that.”

Relief floods through me like a tidal wave.

She’s right.

Her first time wasn’t anything to get excited about—hence the vibrator—so it wasn’t something she told anyone. Except me. Of course, Micah McConnell would know, but he would be the last person to remind her of his failure.

“You’re right…”

I clutch the note and can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips as I read the words I wrote to her.

Figured you could use this as much today as you needed it fifteen years ago. Happy Pop Your Cherry Day!

It’s exactly something I would say.

I toss it back onto the pile and run my hands through my hair—more confused than ever.

“So, what does any of this mean? I clearly sent you all these. I was clearly traveling, but somehow, I got back here. Why would I return without telling you or contacting anyone ? And why would I be up where not even the McBrides go and out barefoot in a storm?”

“You haven’t remembered any thing?”

“Only a few flashes. Something with a fire and lightning, maybe thunder or a gunshot, but I don’t…” I shake my head, squeezing my eyes closed as my temples start to throb with the struggle to bring up the memories. “But everything else is just black.”

A gaping, endless abyss of nothing.

Raven offers me a soft smile. “Maybe the boys will find something today that can offer some insight.”

It’s meant to be reassuring, but the hesitation in her voice tells me she shares the same concern I do—that I might never remember. That there might not ever be answers.

“I sure hope so. It’s only been a few days, but there’s this giant hole that I can’t fill. And part of me doesn’t want to because I’m afraid of what I’ll find.”

Her brow furrows. “Are you and Killian okay? Are you sure you don’t want to come stay with me?”

I should have known she’d ask again.

With their history and how I apparently left things with Killian, it’s only natural she’d be worried about me being cooped up with him in the cabin.

Sleeping in the bed we shared…

And she has no idea I woke up in his arms this morning, still snuggled up on the recliner where we fell asleep…

With his warm blue eyes watching me as my eyelids fluttered open.

“I don’t know. Things are…weird.”

She snorts. “I would expect so.”

“To me, it feels like…”

“Like you’re still together?”

I nod.

“Just be careful with him, Willow.” She shakes her head. “He isn’t the same person he was a year ago. And even if he was, that’s the man who sent you running.”

“I know.”

She purses her lips, suddenly looking very serious. “He could be as dangerous to you as whatever you can’t remember.”

* * *

KILLIAN

“Send. Them. Back. Out .”

My words come out more snarled than spoken, more feral animal than human, bearing the weight of the desperation currently simmering in my veins.

Sheriff Briggs stares me down, arms crossed over his barrel chest, mimicking my posture as he takes his stand against my demand. “Killian, you know I can’t do that.”

I issue a low growl and step toward the man I seem to have been at odds with all day, despite the fact that we’ve been friends since we were in diapers. “ Yes , you can .” I point my axe in the direction we know Willow came from. “Send the fucking dogs back out there.”

Tony scowls, his dark brows dropping low over even darker eyes. “They’re not my dogs, and according to the handler, they’ve lost the scent. There’s nothing more we can do.”

It’s the same bullshit he’s been telling me for the last ten minutes, and hearing it again only seems to aggravate the already-festering wound our fruitless day of searching has created.

“Fuck. That .”

He holds up a hand. “I understand you’re frustrated?—”

“Frustrated?”

I step away from him before I do something stupid, like take a swing. Getting into a fistfight with Tony when we were young, hormone-fueled teenagers was one thing; decking the sheriff is another.

That would end up with me in a holding cell until Judge Byrne decides to roll in—probably around 10 a.m. on Monday.

Something I have no desire to experience when it would mean leaving Willow.

Instead, I shove my hands through my hair and tug on the strands, struggling to get that sharp bite of pain on my scalp to somehow stop the anger and frustration boiling over into something more.

“We’ve been at this all day, Killian.” Tony drops his hand when I retreat a few steps, offering a sympathetic tilt of his lips. “We got farther than we thought we would, but it rained that night and almost every afternoon since. We can’t expect fucking miracles.”

“I don’t need fucking miracles.” I grit my teeth and release my grip on my hair, turning away from him. “I just need some fucking answers.”

Tony sighs. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

I twist back to face him, and several sets of eyes land on our confrontation from across the meadow where we set up our base camp for the continued search.

The team from Asheville stands with the dogs halfway across the wildflower-filled field, taking care of them after they’ve spent the day scouring the mountainside, trying to follow what little trail seems to remain of where Willow came from.

They look exhausted. Lying on the grass, panting heavily. Enjoying treats and a bowl of water.

But their failure feels like it’s my own.

“She’s been gone a year, Tony.” I suck in a sharp breath, fighting against the threatening sob that wants so badly to slip out. “A fucking year. How the hell do you think she ended up in that fucking river up here ?”

He has the decency to look contrite. “I wish I could do more.”

Wishing will get us nowhere.

“You can!”

“I can’t, Killian. The dogs can only do so much. It was a long shot. We knew that, with the weather and time not on our side.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

And all they got us to was the end of the game trail we already discovered with nothing for hundreds of miles and no sign of where she could have come from.

The trail ends here.

Along with any chance of finding out why she was in this spot.

Adjusting his belt, Tony removes his hat, rubs his hand across his head, then reseats it.

He moves to stand closer and drops his voice slightly, probably to dispel any belief that we might be actually arguing.

“You know I’ve had people digging into those postmarks and the information Raven gave us. ”

I nod.

“Well, I radioed in for an update. So far, no one’s come up with anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we haven’t been able to confirm that she was actually in any of these places.

Yeah, there are postmarks and dates, but nothing else we can find.

I’ve checked with the police in every city she was supposedly in.

They don’t have any records of her in any way, shape, or form.

No business licenses if she was selling her candles, no W-2s if she was working for someone else and getting paid.

Not even a 1099. She hasn’t filed taxes in a year.

She hasn’t rented an apartment where they did a background check on her. No signs of her vehicle. Nothing.”

The revelation settles on my shoulders, adding to the reality already weighing me down. “So…you’re thinking the same thing I am.”

He glances around the meadow and who’s around us. “That maybe she was never in any of those places?”

Hearing the words from his mouth makes my stomach tighten, even though I’ve been wondering how it was possible for her to have spent a year away and never to have contacted me, Raven, or anyone else except via random written notes.

But the sheriff confirming it somehow makes it real, makes it so much worse.

The gifts and notes could have been decoys, designed to keep Raven from looking for her…and she may never have set foot in a single one of those cities.

Connor and Liam leave their discussion with a few other members of the sheriff’s department who joined the search today and cut across the clearing toward us, eyes narrowed on the conversation.

Of course, Connor already has that look, like he’s ready to intervene if he needs to—and defend me to the death, even against the man who is the law up here, despite the name of the mountain.

Liam just looks concerned, prepared to try to talk us down. By the time he reaches us, his reddish brows cut deeply over his green eyes. “What’s going on?”

I sigh, shoving my hands through my hair again. “They’re not going to send the dogs back out.”

“Shit.” Connor looks over to the Asheville team, who seems to be packing up, preparing to hike down the mountain. “They’re done?”

As the sun starts to set, it’s exactly what we should be doing, too.

We don’t want to get stuck out here again like last night. But at least there’s no storm heading our way this time.

Vibrant shades of orange, pink, purple, and blue streak across the sky.

I wish I could enjoy them.

But I can’t.

I couldn’t enjoy anything while she was gone, and now that she’s back, it’s almost worse.

The uncertainty.

The wondering.

The constant worry that we’re missing something important.

Liam claps me on the shoulder, squeezing gently. “Head home. Go check on her. I know how worried you’ve been all day.”

I scrub my hand over my beard. “She was terrified last night…”

He raises a brow. “The storm?”

Connor and Liam know her almost as well as I do. Which means they understand her astraphobia, and the fact that she wouldn’t have been out here during a storm like that the night before we found her in the river if she’d had a choice.

I shake my head. “No. I mean, that was part of it, but she had a flash of a memory.”

Tony’s eyes widen. “Maybe you should have fuckin’ mentioned that sometime today!”

“It wasn’t anything she could pinpoint. Fire, and then a feeling, something having to do with the lightning and thunder, maybe a gunshot.

She says they’re just flashes, no real substance to them, but I suppose any memories are better than none.

” I release a heavy sigh. “Unless maybe what we suspect is true.”

I look at Connor and Liam, because we’ve already had this conversation earlier this morning when I collected them from their cabins on our way up here.

The more we look at the facts that we do know, the more it becomes evident that Willow wasn’t up here alone.

Something or someone drove her to that river.

Scanning the clearing and the diminishing daylight, I resign myself to the fact that we aren’t going to get anywhere else tonight, especially with the dogs and the handler already heading out of the clearing to travel down the mountain in front of us.

“Let’s start back. If we can’t do anything more with the dogs tonight, I might as well see if she’s had any luck remembering anything today.”

Tony nods his agreement. “Is she with Raven?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

Connor grumbles, already stalking toward the game trail and the way to the river, the easiest path down the mountain. “I can’t believe she hasn’t posted some bullshit gossipy story about her yet.”

I flash a dirty look at his back. “They’re best friends.”

He glances over his shoulder and raises his dark brows. “Like that would stop her? You’ve seen the stuff she posts about us, about anyone else on the mountain. That woman’s a goddamn terror.”

“I don’t disagree with you. But I also don’t think she’d ever intentionally hurt Willow.”

Not the way I did.

She may be pushy and abrasive.

She might set Connor, me, and just about everyone else in town off with her stories.

But she’s been a great friend to Willow.

The sole person who has stood by her through thick and thin her entire life.

They might as well be sisters.

Connor can hate her all he wants, but Willow needs her. That means I have to set aside my animosity toward the woman, and he needs to make an effort to do the same.

For Willow’s sake.

And ultimately, that’s all that matters now, giving her what she needs to get better, to rebuild the life she lost.

Whether answers come or not, Willow will need everyone she loves at her side, and that includes Raven.

It just might not include me anymore. Not once I’m forced to come clean with her about why she left and how badly I hurt her.

In the dark last night, wrapped in my arms, she may have wished we could pretend the last year never happened and go back to how things were before, but that can’t happen.

The truth will come out eventually—on all fronts.

And it will undoubtedly mean nothing but pain for Willow.

Ad If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.