Chapter 2
LIAM
Wait, what?
It takes a few seconds for me to process her words.
Maybe I was too focused on the stunningly beautiful woman standing next to my table to actually hear her right.
I shake my head in an attempt to clear it and ensure I’m processing properly, then climb from the booth and approach the breathtaking stranger with hair the color of the bluebells that grow on the mountain and a dusting of freckles that spread across her peachy skin.
Icy eyes that match the locks spiraling around her face meet mine and don’t look away.
And I have to hand it to her, she doesn’t appear at all fazed by the fact that she just accused a McBride of theft.
Stopping a few steps short of her, I tilt my head, examining her even more intensely now that we’re this close. And I can’t miss the slight blush that pinkens her cheeks the longer I assess her. “Did you just accuse me of stealing your dog?”
She clutches him tighter, like I’m some sort of villain who is going to snatch him straight out of her arms, and even though she’s clearly distraught about her missing pup, a laugh bubbles up from my chest that I can’t contain at the absurdity of the accusation.
The woman seems startled by my laughter for a moment, and her wide eyes that match the sky over the mountain on a crystal-clear day lock on me as I struggle to contain my reaction.
It takes a few seconds before she seemingly realizes how ludicrous the allegation is, and she finally cringes and shakes her head, sending those brightly colored locks floating around her face.
She releases a deep sigh, glancing down at the dog. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
That ache in her voice and how deeply she obviously cares about the dog make it impossible for me to be mad—not that I was in the first place.
I incline my head toward the little fur ball who is snuggled deeply against her as if he never left. “I found him on the road west of town in the pitch-black last night. What were you doing out there?”
Her shoulders tense at my question, and she clears her throat, glancing out the windows toward the street. “I, uh…I’m not sure how he got away from me.”
That wasn’t what I asked, and her avoidance to my real question seems intentional.
There’s absolutely nothing out that way except the lumber yard and the falls, and they’re both several miles from where I found her dog.
If he was with her and they somehow got separated, he either trekked pretty damn far by himself or this woman was on the base of the mountain alone, at night, somewhere she definitely shouldn’t have been.
The business owner in me bristles at the possibility that she might have been trying to do something illegal at McBride Lumber.
The product and millions of dollars of equipment sitting in the yard could certainly bring someone a lot of money if they sold it to the right people, but this woman doesn’t seem like the type to hop a fence to steal a sawmill.
Which leaves the falls as the other possibility, and that’s just as strange because it’s closed after dark due to the drowning danger.
What were you doing out there, Bluebell?
She clearly doesn’t want me to know, and I won’t push.
“It’s all right. No harm done.” I tip my head toward the tiny animal in her arms. “At least, I don’t think. I was going to take him to see Doc as soon as he opens to have him checked out, but he was with me all night and seemed completely fine.”
Her head whips back up, her soft brow now deeply furrowed as her eyes meet mine. “You had him that long?” I nod. “And he…behaved?”
I narrow my gaze on her and the dog, then reach out and run my hand over his head and scratch him behind the ear in a spot that I found that he likes so much. “Yeah. Me and my little buddy. He snuggled with me all night.”
And somehow managed to keep the nightmares at bay and give me the best night of sleep I’ve had in nine months.
“Really?” Her focus darts down to him, then back to me. “I’m surprised. He normally doesn’t like other people. Especially men.”
I raise a brow and shrug. “Well, he sure seemed to like me.”
Her lips purse slightly. “Apparently so.”
She sounds almost annoyed that her dog didn’t put up more of a fuss when I found him.
I fight a smirk. “What’s his name?”
The corners of her lips twitch, like she too is fighting the pull of humor. “Gizmo.”
“Gizmo?”
Her head bobs, sending her blue hair cascading over her shoulder. “Because he kind of reminded me of a gremlin when I got him from the pound. A little nuts, especially if you feed him after midnight. And you better not get him wet.”
My bark of laughter echoes around the diner, drawing the attention of a few people who have wandered in since we started our conversation, as well as Elaine, who gives me a look from her usual perch behind the counter. “Well, he didn’t cause me any trouble.”
If anything, he was exactly what I needed last night to distract me from the darkness that seems to settle around me as soon as the sun goes down. His warmth pressed along my side as I slept did something no amount of alcohol ever could. Something I didn’t know was possible.
His owner gives me a tight smile. “Good…”
An awkward silence falls between us, and I rub the back of my neck just for something to do with my hands. “Are you in town for the festival?”
She pulls her plump bottom lip between her teeth, chewing on it slightly as she shifts, drawing my attention down her over the straps of a backpack on her shoulders, the long-sleeve t-shirt that exposes one collar bone, ripped jeans that hug her thick hips, and finally to the worn Chuck Taylor’s on her feet. “Uh, yeah.”
That wasn’t very convincing.
Plus, I would have noticed a woman like her around town the past several days.
She’s impossible to miss, and not just because of her shocking hair color.
The woman standing in front of me somehow heats my blood despite the fact that she’s icing me out right now—and clearly lying about why she’s in McBride Mountain.
For the first time in a long time, she managed to get me to laugh and smile and really mean it.
I hold out my hand. “I’m Liam McBride.”
Her eyes flare slightly at the mention of my last name.
Shit.
People don’t typically have that reaction, but that’s because everyone here knows me and has my entire life. But this woman clearly doesn’t have any knowledge about our small town or the people in it—including how I got the McBride name or what it means.
She might be the only person in a hundred miles who doesn’t know every single detail of the sordid history I learned about my biological parents and the blood that flows through my veins.
After a few seconds of hesitation, she holds out her hand and slides her smaller palm against mine.
A little zap of electricity shoots up my arm at the contact, spreading through me with a warmth I relish and want to cling to.
And she seems to feel it too, jerking her hand away quickly as if she’s afraid to maintain any sort of physical connection between us.
“Lucky.”
“Your name is Lucky?”
She nods.
Well, how about that…
I grin. “Well, I think Gizmo was the lucky one, that I was the one out on the road last night. If it had been anyone else who wasn’t paying attention…”
A little shiver rolls through me, and she shudders at the same time, clutching him close.
“Thank you. Really.” She smiles, and the genuineness of it only flares that heat to a raging inferno. “And I am so sorry for accusing you of stealing him. I just don’t understand how he got away or why he was on the road.”
Neither do I.
“There isn’t really anything out there.” I watch her carefully as I press to figure out where they were before she lost him, to learn anything about this woman and why she’s here. “He must’ve traveled a long way from town on those tiny little legs…”
She must hear the disbelief in my voice that she was in town for the festival and the question there because she glances away again, toward the kitchen, where the smell of all the breakfast food being cooked emanates from.
And I know better than to push.
People have been pushing me for months, trying to get me to talk about what happened with my biological father and Willow and what I learned, but all they’ve managed to do is poke at me in a way that has left me feeling raw and exposed.
Like I’m bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts and every question directed at me is like a knife being driven into a gaping wound.
So, I won’t force Lucky to reveal what she’s not ready to give me.
At least, not yet.
“Are you staying in town for a while?”
I do a shitty job of concealing the hope in my voice, but in twenty-four years in McBride Mountain, no woman has ever affected me the way this one has in less than five minutes.
She glances back toward me and shakes her head. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“So…heading home today?”
Real subtle, Liam…
Lucky offers another restless shift, averting her gaze again and focusing on the door as if my simple questions are an inquisition she has to escape at all costs. “Uhh…”
I know what that feels like.
For the past nine months, I’ve felt as if I were being raked across the coals by the inquisitor, with my very life in jeopardy depending on the answers I provided.
And the questions came from all sides—Killian, Connor, Willow, Raven.
Not to mention how just about every person in town has been giving me those looks of pity and concern and asking how I’m doing, most without directly flat-out asking how it feels to learn my father’s a murderer, a kidnapper and a rapist.
The small bit of my breakfast I ate before Lucky came in threatens to come up my throat, but I swallow it and watch the way she watches the room, always keeping her eyes on the door, never putting her back to it for very long.