Page 24 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)
KILLIAN
W illow shivers in her sleeping bag that’s laid out next to mine in the tent.
Though it’s hot when the summer sun is high on McBride Mountain in the afternoons, once it goes down and the mists roll in, the temperature at this altitude can drop into the fifties this time of year.
A chill definitely permeates the air, but it isn’t merely the weather that’s causing her physical reaction.
The entire hike back from the clearing, Willow didn’t say a word.
She barely spoke as I set up the campsite near the river, well away from the wildlife trail in case any animals come down in the night to drink from the water.
Her eyes never left the flames burning in front of the tent while I cooked our simple dinner.
She only muttered a “thank you” as I handed her some of the food.
It’s as if she were in a completely different place, rather than sitting across from me underneath a canopy of trees and the sparkling, clear night sky that hangs over the mountain she knows so well.
But maybe she doesn’t feel like she does know it anymore.
Everything must seem different to her now.
The life she knew is gone.
What we had, long buried beneath regret.
I can’t even imagine how confusing it must be not to remember, not to know where you’ve been for such a large chunk of time. To know something happened, that something’s very wrong, and not be able to piece anything together.
It makes me furious.
It makes her terrified.
Her trembling continues, and I reach over and slide my hand onto her shoulder, where it sticks out of the top of the sleeping bag. “Are you okay?”
She rolls onto her back and looks at me, and the shimmer in her eyes tells me that she’s been fighting tears for a while now, not wanting me to see. “Not really.” Willow pauses to try to gather herself. “I could lie and say I am, but you know me too well…”
I gently brush away one of the drops trailing down her cheek with my thumb. “I do. Have you remembered anything else?”
Hope and dread war within me as I await her response.
There are so many reasons we need her memory to come back, but her very real fear that she is suppressing them because of how awful they are quells any excitement I might have had for their return.
She shakes her head. “No, but I’ve had this…just deep sense of dread and a franticness ever since we found the game trail and saw the clearing. Almost like my body’s remembering how I felt even if my mind can’t.”
“You were running from something. Or someone.”
Her lips press together, as if she’s fighting a sob, but she fails and releases it, the sound filled with so much anguish it rips my heart apart. “I th-think so.”
Oh, hell.
I can’t bear to see her like this, to see her falling apart, to see the strong woman I once knew collapsing under the weight of so much uncertainty.
There are so many things between us.
Time.
Secrets.
The few inches that separate us now seem like miles.
I unzip my sleeping bag, then hers, and drag her carefully into my arms, careful not to squeeze her still-healing ribs.
Willow buries her face against me and cries.
And I let her.
There’s nothing else I can do.
I failed at every turn to help her, to make things better, to find an answer for her, and if this goes on much longer, I don’t know that she’ll survive it.
Or that I will.
The only thing I can think of to help take her mind off what’s going on in her head possibly also means opening the door to the memory I’ve been trying to keep at bay and the conversation I don’t want to have.
But I have to do something, and whispering placations to her that don’t really mean anything won’t cut it tonight.
I twirl a strand of her hair around my finger. “Do you want to play Twenty Questions?”
She tenses and then draws away from me slightly, wiping away her tears. “Are you serious?”
A grin pulls at my lips. “Sure. What else are we going to do up here all night?”
Before, we would have been wrapped up in each other with far less clothing by now.
Before I could have occupied her racing mind by getting her to concentrate on something else entirely.
And the corners of her mouth curve as she realizes her thigh is pressed squarely between my legs and against my cock. “Who goes first?”
“You can have the honor.”
She grins and bites her bottom lip. “Okay. Gosh, what is there to ask that I haven’t during our many rounds?”
Considering how many times we’ve played this over literally decades, I can see her brain spinning to come up with something.
And it’s exactly the distraction she needed.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Honeybee.”
Those eyes that have been so filled with turbulent uncertainty shift to an almost sadness as she examines me, and a stone settles into my stomach.
Shit.
I knew this might open the door for questions I don’t want to answer, and the look she’s giving me now suggests I was right.
She chews on that lip again for a moment before she finally musters up the courage to ask whatever is on her mind. “What have you been doing for the last year?”
I force myself to hold her gaze, even though I want to drag my eyes away. Because I’m embarrassed to admit it to her. “I already told you. I’ve been an asshole, apparently.”
“Yeah, but…” She runs her fingers through my beard, scraping her nails along my cheek in a way that makes me bite back a groan and wish her knee wasn’t wedged up against my cock. “But you must have done something with all your free time, not having me around.”
Wallowing in self-pity.
Berating myself for losing the only woman I ever loved and the most important person in my life.
Beating myself up physically.
Pushing myself to the brink until I’m ready to collapse as penance.
Chopping down tree after tree by hand until my palms bled, rather than use the equipment that would make the job so much easier, just so I could feel the physical pain that matches what I feel inside.
But I won’t tell her any of that.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
When we do finally talk about what happened between us, I won’t give her any reason to feel sorry for me because I deserved every single thing I suffered.
“I mostly spent time alone in the cabin or out in the barn working on my carvings.”
Her eyes flash with interest. “What have you created since I left?”
“It’s my turn to ask a question.”
She presses her lips together, fighting a smile. “Okay, go.”
I probably should have thought this out, planned something that wouldn’t lead us down a dangerous road, but staring up into her gray eyes, I can’t help but wonder about how she ended up in my arms in the first place. “Why didn’t you walk away from the bonfire that night?”
If she had, it might have saved both of us a lot of heartache.
She might have been happy instead of suffering right now.
Willow’s brow furrows deeply. “What?”
“The night we first kissed.” Even six years later, the memory still lives vividly in my head.
Every brush of my lips over hers. The way her hands clung to my shirt.
That little sound she made in the back of her throat.
“Everyone else left the fire and walked to their trucks to head home, but you lingered with me…”
“I did.”
And sealed our fates.
“Why didn’t you leave? I’m pretty sure Raven was trying to drag you away.”
In fact, I distinctly remember the feisty blonde physically grabbing Willow’s arm and trying to lead her to where the trucks were parked rather than allowing her to sit around the fire where I lingered, staring up at the mountain sky.
“Oh, she definitely was.” Her lips curl into a little knowing grin. “Because she knew why I was going to stay.”
“Why was that?”
No other woman even tried.
The couple who had in high school and the few years following, before Willow and I got together always left cursing my name and threatening violence because I wasn’t interested.
And I wasn’t exactly known for letting them down easily.
But Willow was different.
Not scared away by my reputation or attitude—probably because of all the time she spent with Mom and us on the homestead when she was younger.
Or maybe just because she always saw me in a way no one else ever could.
Her cheeks pinken slightly, almost as if she’s embarrassed to reveal something I’ve wondered about for so many years. “Because I’d had a crush on you since we were like, twelve years old.”
“Really?”
She nods, and I picture that little dark-haired girl sitting quietly in the front of the classroom, raising her hand with every answer and sticking her nose in a book during recess.
Somehow, I missed it.
The way she must have looked at me…when I wasn’t busy looking at her.
I didn’t notice it until that night.
Her steely eyes warmed as she looked through the flames at me, where I sat on the log on the other side of the fire pit on the far side of our property.
“You talked to me when no one else really did…”
“Talk?” She slides fully across me, settling her pelvis against mine, and my cock aches where it’s pinned between us. “As I remember it, we didn’t end up talking.”
Heat sizzles across my skin at her sultry tone and reference to what went down that night.
“No, we certainly didn’t, Honeybee.”
“And we would have gone all the way had we not been interrupted by the crack of thunder and the skies opening up on us.” Her lips twist slightly, her playfulness doused by some thought I can’t read. “Do you think it was God trying to tell us something?”
I slide my hand up her side. “Is that your question?”
She scowls at me. “Does it have to be?”
Our “fun” game just took a very serious turn I never anticipated. But Willow has always had a strong belief in something bigger than us. A creator who gave us this mountain and all the beautiful things on it.
I wasn’t sure I believed in it until I pulled her from that water and immediately began praying…
The fact that she could think we were doomed from the beginning makes emotion clog my throat.