Page 30 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)
And once he was gone, Mom did everything with us that he would have.
Took us fishing and hunting…
Taught us how to run the lumberyard…
Most importantly, showed us what love really meant.
I may not have a clue about children and have no idea how to even hold one, but the woman in my arms could teach me.
Willow wouldn’t let me fail.
“I told you I realized how absurd it was, how stupid I had been, but by the time I did, it was too late. You were gone.”
She stares at me for a few moments longer before she finally sighs, releasing so much of the frustration she’s held on to for the past two weeks. “I understand why I would have been upset. Why I would have felt betrayed and lost. But…”
Her eyes glaze over slightly.
“But what?”
She tilts her head slightly, her face still angled up at me, but she’s not looking at me.
Willow is somewhere else.
Her brows draw low together, and she frowns. “But I didn’t leave you.”
“What?”
That tempest-filled gaze clears, snapping back to meet mine. “The whole time I was in here, I was thinking about what you said. About what you told me that day, and how I packed up everything and left. And it felt…wrong. Like I was hearing a story that didn’t make any sense and was missing pieces.”
Missing pieces.
“Your memory is still messed up?—”
She shakes her head. “No. I remember now.”
“Remember what?”
“Not everything. God, I wish I did. But enough about that day.” She chews on her bottom lip, thinking.
“I did pack up. I did intend to leave. I had even started down the mountain, intent on spending a few days, maybe even a few weeks, away from this place, away from you, somewhere I could think and process what you said and how much it hurt me. But then I stopped.”
“What do you mean?”
She stares up at me, her eyes wide as the memory floods her. “I stopped . I didn’t make it to Asheville. I turned around, and I came back .”
My heart stutters.
My hands tighten on her.
My knees tremble.
“Are you positive?”
Willow nods adamantly. “Yes. I realized you only would have said that if something else was wrong, if you were terrified. You’ve never intentionally hurt me, with words or otherwise, in our entire lives.
And I didn’t believe you would have for any other reason than that you were scared.
So, I came back so we could talk, so I could figure out why you felt like you needed to say that… ”
“But you never made it.”
“No.” Her body tenses. “And I can’t remember why.” She squeezes her eyes closed. “There’s something else there. Something important I can’t remember.”
* * *
WILLOW
Killian holds me steady, silent. Giving me time to sort through the flashes of memory assaulting me.
When I finally open my eyes, he stares down at me, his jaw locked hard, his eyes glinting in the moonlight streaming in from the windows. “Maybe you changed your mind and turned around again to leave because of what I said, because you couldn’t forgive me.”
His words just don’t feel true.
Deep in my heart, I know that didn’t happen.
What he said was awful.
It was a personal blow that did exactly what it intended—drew my attention away from his insecurity. But it wasn’t something that should have sent me running from the mountain forever .
A piece is still missing.
Something vital.
Yet even with that gap still there, I know I came back that day.
I shake my head. “No. I remember driving back through town, up the mountain. I was coming home . There was something I needed to tell you…”
Killian lifts his other hand to cradle my face between his palms. “Why? You had every reason to hate me that day, to want to leave me. I took the worst thing in your life, the thing I knew would hurt you the most, and used it as a weapon against you. You should have wanted to get away from me.”
Hot tears streak down my face. “Because I know you, Killian McBride. I had already forgiven you before I even made the decision to come back and turned the car around.”
“Christ, Willow.” His thumbs brush across my cheeks, wiping away my tears as his own threaten to fall. “I never deserved you?—”
And that’s always been his problem.
Killian has never believed he deserves anything.
He’s always working. Always pushing himself. He never thought he did enough for his mother, his brothers, or the town. There was always more he could be doing. More he could be giving.
He took on the weight of caring for McBride Mountain and its residents when his mother died and let it crush him.
That’s what led him to believe he wouldn’t be a good father.
That’s what made him panic.
His need to give everything yet somehow never believing it was enough.
It’s the reason I’ve always loved him.
The reason I still do, despite everything.
I push up onto my toes and feather my lips across his, desperate for the one thing he hasn’t given me since I’ve been back.
Us.
That ignitable spark that’s crackled there since the moment my eyes met his in that hospital. That magnetic pull that’s dragged me to him and his arms each time the darkness releases another memory. That heat and passion only he has ever given me.
The small taste of it in the tent last night proved it all still exists.
For both of us.
He tunnels his hands into my hair and tugs me back from him, halting the kiss, but I can feel how much he’s trembling. Hear the hitch in his breath. “You don’t want to do this, Honeybee.”
I slide my hand over his heart. It beats rapidly under my palm. Solid. Strong. Like the man who lives by it and sometimes lets it get the best of him.
“I do.” I nod. “I miss you, Killian. My heart knows how long it’s been, even if my head doesn’t, and it knows I forgave you a year ago, before whatever it was interceded and stopped me from getting back to you.
” Pushing my hand tighter against his chest, I emphasize my point.
“This is where I belong. Where I’m meant to be.
This mountain, this cabin, with you. The rest we can figure out. ”
“Fuck…”
The word comes out more growl than spoken.
A rumble beneath my palm.
I can feel his resolve breaking.
The tension and the way his body vibrates along mine.
He’s close to giving in.
To handing over what I really, truly want.
He’s so.
Damn.
Close.
I tug against his hold on my face until I can kiss him again, pressing my lips to his in a greedy taking that usually comes from him.
He hesitates for a moment before he returns the kiss, his hand sliding to cup the back of my head and angle it so he can glide his tongue across my lips and delve deep in, tasting me, consuming me the way I’ve longed for.
Every nerve ending in my body flares to life.
A low whimper slips from my lips, and he captures it, slowing the kiss and then pulling away.
“Fucking hell, Willow.” He pants wildly, his chest heaving against my own. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I promise. Every fucking minute. Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll give it to you.”
I cling to his shirt, clutching the soft fabric in my hands. “You always do.”
“I thought you’d hate me after I told you what I said.
” He drops his forehead to mine and heaves out a long, uneven breath that’s as shaky as he is right now.
“I thought…God, when I found you in the river, I prayed maybe it was God giving me a second chance to make up for what I’d done.
But then I thought there was no forgiving that. ”
“There wouldn’t have been, if I actually believed you meant it. If I didn’t know you and how you react…often badly.”
His temper, shortness, and volatility toward pretty much anyone always stemmed from his desire to just get things done quickly, efficiently— right .
No bullshit.
No wasted time.
It scared people, but the time I spent in this cabin with him and his family showed me who he really was.
“I’ve always known that about you, Killian. Impolite in public, rough with anyone who disrupts your day, volatile when someone crosses a line.”
I thought he had never been that way with me, but he was right.
He did cross a line that day.
But he didn’t say what he did to hurt me; he said it because he was scared. Because he was hurting himself. Because he didn’t know what to do with all the feelings he had of his own potential inadequacy.
He hates to fail.
And failing at being a father would have been the ultimate failure for him.
After losing his at such a young age, he undoubtedly thought he wouldn’t know how to be a good one, but he couldn’t have gotten it more wrong.
It was stupid, idiotic, but he never stopped loving me.
He did it because he loves me, because he thought he would lose this.
Us .
He kisses me again, his groan rumbling through his chest and into mine as he reaches down and grasps my hips, lifting me easily.
I wrap my legs around his waist, the dull ache in my side at the motion barely even registering anymore.
How can it with his hands buried in my hair, his mouth moving over mine, our breaths mingling with each desperate meeting of our lips.
Killian stalks into the bedroom, laying me down across the comforter gently as he settles above me, kissing his way across my cheek to my ear.
He nips at it gently, making me twist and arch under him. “Don’t move.” His hand glides down to my rib cage, pressing against it. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Is he fucking joking?
Don’t move when he does something like that to me?
Fucking impossible.
Hot, urgent lips glide down my neck, and I tilt my head away, giving him better access. He makes his way to the V of my T-shirt, then grasps the hem, lifts it from my arms, and tosses it aside, exposing my bare breasts to him.
They pebble instantly under his heated gaze.
Anticipating what’s to come.
“Fucking hell. Even more beautiful than I remember them.”
He dips his head and sucks one taut nipple into his mouth.
“Oh, God…”