Page 51 of Beneath the Mountain Sky (McBride Brother Lumberjacks #1)
That seems to have left him the moment I told him what I remembered.
Which is why I raced after him before Connor and Liam could get in my way—because I have to stop him from doing something he’ll regret if he can’t stop himself.
I grip his shoulder tighter, digging my nails into him, trying to get his attention and to break this trance he’s in. He’s lost somewhere I might not be able to drag him out of, the kind of darkness that sucks you in and doesn’t let you go. And if he kills this man, I know he’ll regret it later.
I know that the good man who’s truly deep inside won’t be able to live with himself in the end, despite what Earl did.
“Killian…” I shift to his side until I can see his face fully. And his eyes aren’t just icy, cold, they’re glacial. “Please.”
No recognition of my voice permeates through the chill.
I don’t even know if he sees me out of the corner of his eye as he stares down the man who kidnapped me, who tortured me, who stole my child, and left me for dead in that river.
All he sees is his hate, his need for revenge, a burning desire to hurt this man the way he’s hurt us.
But this isn’t the Killian McBride I know.
“Killian, please stop…”
Earl whimpers against Killian’s relentless hold, and blood seeps from his half-severed ear, but Killian stills the blade, and his gaze cuts to me. He keeps his hand at Earl’s throat, and the axe doesn’t budge from where it presses to his skin.
“Let me talk to him.”
Killian’s eyes flare. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I grip the axe and gently ease it away from Earl’s ear. Killian lets me, never taking his eyes off me. And I can finally release a long breath.
Tears stream down my face. Hot with my anger and worry. For Killian and Niall. For what this all might mean for our future.
A future I am willing to fight for.
I turn to the man who took the last year from me, who took my life and my memories and my ability to have everything I ever wanted with Killian.
And I should hate him.
I do, but I also pity him.
He’s not right in the head.
Whatever’s wrong with him has deluded him so badly that he can’t even process what’s right or wrong, and he has lost his grip on reality completely.
He didn’t know who I was. Never once gave any indication that he understood that I wasn’t his wife, that the child I bore wasn’t his son.
Even as he looks at me now, he doesn’t understand that I’m not Bobby.
It doesn’t excuse the abuse I sustained at his hands, the way he treated his “wife” for the past year, through physical blows and threats, but it makes it impossible for me to look at him the way Killian does.
I squat next to Killian, keeping my fingers curled around the axe handle so it’s kept steady. “Earl, I need you to tell me where our son is.”
Killian flinches beside me.
Please, baby.
Just keep it together for a few more minutes.
“Is he in the cabin?”
I only vaguely remember where it is.
Farther up the trail, but deep into the woods, away from where the loggers were working all those years ago.
He so rarely let me outside, save for when he needed help bringing in supplies, hanging the wash to dry, things that couldn’t be done inside. And even then, he kept a close eye on me.
So I couldn’t run.
But those brief moments of freedom where I wasn’t shackled to a bed frame or a radiator or the wood stove with only enough rope or chain to get me around the small cabin or to the bathroom built off the side of it meant everything to me.
They were when I took in everything around us.
Where the sun rose and set. The treelines. How the old trail curved away from the cabin toward something. Every single thing I could see.
I asked innocuous questions to figure out where the gorge was, to know which direction I had to move when my chance to escape presented itself. But I knew I would never outrun him pregnant.
And I couldn’t risk the baby.
I had to wait until he was born, until I was strong enough to run.
Biding my time became a game for me. I spent those months imagining the life we would have with Killian back on the homestead. All the things he would teach Niall. The love he would show him.
That was what kept me going until the opportunity presented itself.
That is what allows me to stare him down now without completely crumbling under the weight of what he did to me.
Earl looks up at me, a mixture of anger and confusion in his green eyes. His reddish hair, graying at the temples, is disheveled, just like the man himself always seemed to be.
“Please tell me where he is, Earl, so I can make sure he’s okay.”
“You think I wouldn’t take care of our son?”
He snaps the words, and Killian tightens his grip on the man’s throat. But I reach out and rest my free hand on the back of Killian’s neck, hoping it will calm him.
Warn him not to press too far.
He seems to relax his hold enough to allow Earl to suck in a ragged breath.
I breathe deeply to steady myself again, so he doesn’t hear the waver in my voice. “What did you do with him, Earl? Let me go make sure he’s all right.”
“He’s with the only person I can trust with him because you’ve proven I can’t trust you .”
Months and months of conversations with him float through my head, ramblings from a man who isn’t all there, and maybe hasn’t been for years, a man lost inside his own head, in memories and fantasies and flat-out hallucinations.
The only person I can trust…
Other things he said to me flicker through my head. My brain pounds against my temples, trying to get my attention, trying to direct me to the right place.
“You don’t trust me because I left with our son.”
He tries to buck free of Killian’s hold, but Killian replaces the axe, ready to push forward with what he has already started and sever Earl’s ear.
“I told you I would make you pay for what you did to him.”
I freeze, my back stiffening.
What the hell is he talking about?
This is the first time I’ve seen him since I fled. He must be referencing something to do with his real wife, Roberta.
Killian seems to sense it, too. “What did you do to her, Earl?”
Earl’s gaze darts between us. Wild, unfocused, just like the man who possesses the information we need so badly. “I slit that bitch’s throat and tossed her in the river.”
I gasp and stagger back as his gaze lands on me.
“You shouldn’t have come back. I should have done it again to you.”
My body trembles. My legs threaten to give out from under me. That threat sounds very real. And with as far gone as he is, he probably would act on it.
Killian sneers in Earl’s face, pushing forward. “And what about your son?”
“We never could find what that bitch did with him.”
We?
“Where’s my son?” Killian pushes the blade slightly, slicing into Earl’s ear, drawing another agonized cry from the man. “Where. Is. He?”
Earl claws at Killian’s hand, desperate to escape the pain he’s suffering, the same way I was to get away from him when he held me against my will. “I told you, he’s with the only person I’ve ever been able to trust my entire life.”
My entire life …
Someone he’s known forever.
There’s only one person he ever mentioned during our entire time together who he would have trusted like that, one person he might have brought the baby to if he needed help after I was gone.
I turn to Killian. “I know where he is.”
Killian snarls in Earl’s face and pushes to his feet, releasing the man’s neck and raising his axe above his head, ready to bring it down on him.
Liam steps forward and catches the handle, stopping the blade. “No.”
One word from his little brother…and Killian shatters. His shoulders relax, slumping. The axe slips from his hand and into Liam’s as he pulls it away.
Earl’s eyes widen when he sees the youngest McBride. “You, but…I…”
He stumbles over his words, mouth opening and closing several times as he stares at him like he’s seen a ghost.
And for the first time, I see it, too.
I don’t know how I missed it in all the time I was staring at this man, or when he showed me the photos of his younger self with Roberta and their son, but seeing them together, it’s impossible not to notice it…
The resemblance.
“Oh, my God.”
I wobble back a step, and Connor seems to have the same realization, but it takes Liam and Killian another second to process what’s happening.
“No.” Liam shakes his head, retreating, Killian’s axe slipping from his hand to the forest floor. “No.”
Someone left him on Connie’s doorstep twenty-one years ago with a note asking her to take care of him.
The timeline makes sense.
And they share the same eyes, the same face shape, the same reddish hair.
Liam is a younger version of my captor.
Oh, my God.
The youngest McBride’s face crumbles as Earl struggles to process what’s happening. Blood flows from under his hand that’s clutched over his injured ear, but he seems more concerned with the young man in front of him than his own wound.
Liam staggers back a few steps, resting his back against a tree to keep himself upright on shaking legs.
Shouts come from the trail along with the sound of heavy footsteps.
Sheriff Briggs appears, running up to us and stopping just short of the log where Earl lies. He’s slightly out of breath, hands on his knees. “We found the cabin, but there’s no one inside it.” His gaze sweeps across all of us. “What’s happening?”
His eyes land on Earl and his injury, cut to a stunned, silent Liam, Connor, Killian, and me…
I open my mouth to try to explain, but nothing comes out.
Connor steps forward. “Was there an ATV up there?”
Briggs nods. “Yeah, why?”
“Good. Killian and Willow are going to need it.”