Page 28 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)

He nods slowly. “In the future. Somewhere far down the line that wasn’t immediate.

We weren’t even married yet, and…I thought everything was going to change.

You wanted a baby”—he takes a long inhalation—“and you’d see what a shitty father I was.

” His icy gaze holds mine. “And I’d lose you.

” Killian shakes his head. “Saying it out loud now sounds fucking absurd, but at the time, it made me feel like I couldn’t breathe, the thought that giving you what you wanted would mean the end of us. And I pulled out of your arms…”

Tears flow freely down my cheeks now, a tidal wave brought on by the panic I can still feel in his words.

And the terror I see in his eyes.

He’s holding something back.

There’s more.

The worst part.

“What did you say, Killian?”

The whole mountain knows to give Killian a wide berth.

They understand he can be short-tempered.

Quick to react.

Even mean, when he wants to be.

But no one has ever seen him panicked.

Panicked, Killian McBride would be downright volatile.

Maybe even to me.

His eyes shimmer in the firelight, unshed tears threatening to spill over.

“Fuck.” He shoves up from the chair and paces closer to the fire, staring down into it and giving me his back.

A second passes. Then another. Then he chucks his beer bottle into the blaze, the glass shattering as the flames flash up. “I said the thing that made you leave.”

My blood chills as I wait for him to continue.

He glances over his shoulder, and the regret and apology in his gaze are already enough for me to suspect where he’s going with this.

It’s the most obvious path to take when he wanted to hurt me in order to take the pressure off what he was feeling.

My biggest weakness.

He went for the jugular.

Killian doesn’t look away, watching me as he prepares to shatter me all over again. “I asked you why you’d want to have kids after you’d had such a shitty mother. I asked you why you thought you’d be a good one when you never had one yourself.”

A gasp slips from my lips, and the pain that hits me is ten thousand times worse than anything that was ever physically done to me before I woke up in that river.

He finally turns to face me fully. “I don’t know why I said it.

Because I’m a fucking prick. Because I felt cornered, and that’s the one thing I’ve never been on this mountain before.

Because you were always the only one who could ever get through to me, and that scared the fuck out of me.

Because I took my own fear and threw it back at you so I didn’t have to feel so much. I don’t know?—”

“Fuck you, Killian McBride.”

The tears burn hot, sliding down my cheeks.

His hands fist at his sides. “I deserve that. And I knew it as soon as I said the words. I knew it was unforgivable.” He sighs.

“So, I stormed out of the cabin and disappeared into the woods with my axe, to take all that agony and frustration out on something other than you.” He shoves a hand through his hair, pushing the long blond strands from his face.

“And when I came back to explain, to beg you for another chance, you were gone. Without so much as a fucking note. Just my mother’s ring on the nightstand and all your things gone.

” His body trembles. “I drove into town, figuring you were at Raven’s, but she said you’d left. ”

I gape at him.

My brain can’t process the fact that the man who was always there for me, was always my everything, could have been the one who hurt me the most by hitting me in my weakest point.

The relationship I had with Mom was difficult at best, horrible at worst, and she was never someone who should have had custody of a child in her state.

He was right when he said I didn’t have a good mother, and he’s right in knowing that saying I couldn’t be a good mother because I didn’t have one would cut me to the core.

To anyone else, it might not have stung as badly.

But for me…

“I knew you would probably never forgive me for what I said, but I tried to go after you. I got on the highway, and I drove and drove and drove, but I didn’t know where you had gone because Raven wouldn’t tell me…”

God bless that best friend of mine.

“I eventually had to come back, but I tried every day for a year to get Raven to tell me where you were. I begged for any information. But she stood her ground. She told me you were happy.” His voice wavers again, and he clenches his hands.

“Away from me. Away from the mountain. And I believed her. What you do, your candles, I always knew they’d be a great business beyond McBride Mountain, and I figured you’d found that…

and maybe someone who could give you what you wanted. ”

A sob climbs up my throat as I stare at the only man I’ve ever loved. “All I’ve ever wanted is you , Killian.”

He shakes his head. “That’s not true. You wanted a family, and I wasn’t sure I could give that to you.”

“But why ?”

None of this makes sense—his fear of being a father.

The panic it caused.

Killian throws out his hands. “I don’t fucking know!” He shakes his head again. “Because I never had a father. I don’t know how to be one. I don’t know how to be gentle, or control my temper, or?—”

I push out of my chair and march straight over to him, my entire body vibrating with anger.

“Bullshit! You had one—it just didn’t look like everyone else’s.

Your dad may have died when you were young, but your mother!

Good God, she was both parents for you. And then she took in Connor and Liam, and I’ve never seen a family that was as happy as you guys were together.

She welcomed anyone into your home and to your table as if they were family.

” I fight another sob as my tears rush out completely unbidden.

“How many nights did I call your mom to come get me so I could sleep on your couch when my mom came home drunk or high and I didn’t feel safe there? ”

He winces, squeezing his eyes closed.

Stepping forward, I shove a finger into his hard chest. “You had a role model, you had a family, so why didn’t you want one with me?”

His eyes flutter open again. “That’s just it. I did . Every time I thought about your belly swelling with my child, holding him or her, watching our baby grow up, I couldn’t stop smiling. I was just terrified that I would fail our child and you, and it would be the end of us .”

The fire crackles beside us, its heat warming me while the chill of his confession still tingles my spine.

“Killian McBride, you’ve never failed at anything in your life.”

“I failed to protect you?—”

A twig snaps loudly in the trees to our left, and both of us whirl toward the sound.

Killian’s arm snaps out and wraps around me, urging me behind him. “Get the fuck back in the cabin. Lock the door. You know where I keep the shotgun and shells. Load it.”

“It’s probably just?—”

“Go!” He glances over his shoulder for a second to ensure I see how serious he is. “If anyone else comes to the door, use it.”

His body radiates with tension that leaves no room for argument.

Whatever he’s sensing, he doesn’t want me anywhere near it.

And no one knows what dangers lurk on this mountain better than Killian.