Chapter 5
LIAM
Leaning against my truck, I watch the diner as the lights slowly go off around inside it, plunging it into the same darkness that has descended outside. A few widely spaced streetlights along Main Street and a couple exterior bulbs outside closed businesses provide the only reprieve.
McBride Mountain decided a long time ago that too many harsh lights would impede the ability of citizens to see the stars at night, and the ones placed judiciously around town are just enough to allow a low, warm glow but not enough to block out the beauty of the twinkling dots spread out above us.
I glance up at them, watching them disappear then reappear from behind the few light clouds that also float over the moon.
It’s a peaceful night, like all of them are in McBride Mountain. But Elaine has her quilting bee tonight, and always leaves early. That meant Lucky had to close up the diner alone.
And despite knowing that crime is virtually non-existent around here—save for my own father’s actions last year—the thought that Lucky would be walking home alone in the dark weighed heavy on my chest. Precisely where her eucalyptus scent still lingers from when I worked beside her cleaning up early.
I sat in my truck for almost an hour while Lucky finished her end of the evening tasks required to close the place, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
Not without her.
Lucky steps out the front door, drawing my attention back to the diner. She turns and twists the key in the lock to secure the building without ever glancing my direction.
I push off my truck. “Hey…”
She startles, dropping her bag and the keys, pressing a hand to her chest. “Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.” I hold up my hands, approaching her cautiously as she struggles to regain her breath. “I waited because I didn’t want you walking home alone.”
But I can see now that maybe that was a bad idea.
Lucky’s reaction to finding me waiting makes guilt eat away at me for scaring her.
She releases a long, shaky exhale, then bends down and picks up her things, sticking her hand into her bag to ensure they’re all there. By the time I get over to her, she’s re-secured her bag on her shoulder with everything inside of it and looks up at me with trepidation in her gaze.
If I wasn’t so concerned about her heading home alone in the dark, I might forget the whole thing, but I can’t ignore this feeling in my chest that this woman needs someone to watch out for her, to have her back. That maybe she’s never had that before.
I swallow through my uncertainty. “Do you…mind if I walk with you?”
It’s only a few blocks to Elaine’s house, but that doesn’t relieve the tension that permeates my body as I wait for her response.
She chews on her bottom lip, scanning Main Street, which is quiet tonight. Only a few people meander on the sidewalks. A single car drives down the pavement away from us—someone finally heading home.
Which is what I should be doing, too.
And I will, as soon as I get Lucky to her temporary one.
Eventually, her gaze returns to mine and some of the ice there has melted away. “Okay…”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.”
She forces a smile. “I’m just used to being on my own.”
The way she says that makes an ache bloom behind my ribcage, and I shove my hands into my pockets to keep myself from rubbing at it and drawing attention to my strange reaction.
I’ve never really been alone. Since the day Mom brought me into the McBride cabin, I was one of them. I always had her, Killian, and Connor around me. There was always someone watching over me, taking care of me, offering companionship and whatever else I might need.
Yet, I’ve felt nothing but alone since I learned the truth about who I am.
Like I’m standing at the peak of the mountain in pitch blackness with no way to descend and nowhere else to go.
Maybe that’s why I stayed tonight.
For me more than for her.
Because Lucky and her dog are the only ones who have made me truly smile or laugh in months.
Because thinking about her means I’m not thinking about me.
I clear my throat, trying to work out the tension there, as I fall in beside her and we start walking toward Elaine’s house. “So, what do you think about McBride Mountain now that you’ve been here for a week?”
A grin plays at her lips and her eyes warm in the few lights coming from the shops we pass on Main Street. “It’s beautiful here. Quiet. Peaceful.”
All those things are true.
Mostly.
The mountain wasn’t so peaceful when we found out what happened to Willow. When we found out what my father had done to her. When Killian almost killed him right in front of me. But her observations about McBride Mountain are exactly the reasons everyone loves it.
“We’re a small town.” I scan the nearly empty street. “Everybody knows each other. It can be annoying, people constantly being in your business, but it’s home.”
And I’ve never left it.
I never even considered it, until the last several months. But somehow, getting away from the stares and the history here has sounded more and more appealing the longer the nightmares have plagued me.
Lucky watches me out of the corner of her eye. “I can’t help but notice the name of the town…”
Her initial reaction when I introduced myself that first night flashes through my head, and I try to figure out how to explain the family history to her without discussing all the things I have been running from for months.
“The McBrides have been here for 250 years…”
“Wow. I can’t imagine having those kind of roots anywhere.”
Which means I was right—Lucky doesn’t have anywhere to really call home.
I wave a hand out toward the town square. “They founded the town.”
“Wow”—she offers a playful grin—“so you’re like, royalty or something.”
A chuckle slips out of my mouth, but there’s no real humor in it. “Some people might say we are, but I’m actually adopted, not a McBride by birth, so I guess I can’t inherit the throne, anyway.”
She raises a brow. “Really?”
Fuck.
I hadn’t meant to tell her that.
But now that the cat’s out of the bag, there isn’t really a way to put it back.
“Uh huh…”
I kick a pebble and watch it bounce along the sidewalk in front of us, holding my breath and hoping she doesn’t try to delve any deeper into what I just inadvertently revealed.
Tonight, after spending the day out on the far side of the mountain, I don’t think I could handle discussing the realities of where I came from.
A moment of silence hangs between us before she glances at me again. “Were those your brothers earlier tonight?”
“Yeah.” I offer her an apologetic smile. “Sorry if they were being assholes. That’s just kind of their usual state.”
She chuckles. “I know what that’s like.”
“You have brothers and sisters?”
A wistful look overtakes her face. “Like you, not by blood. But yeah. A lot of them.”
I raise a brow at her. “How many is a lot?”
“Thirty or forty?”
“What?”
Those perfect lips of hers curve up, but even in the relative darkness of Main Street in downtown McBride Mountain this time of night, I can still see the pain flash across her eyes. “I was a foster kid. Moved around to a bunch of different houses when I was younger, so…”
“Ahh.”
For some reason, knowing that one thing about her past explains so much about her.
The way she keeps to herself.
Not wanting to accept help.
Not wanting to open up.
I can understand why she’d be like that, growing up without a family and getting bounced around a lot. Making connections would only have led to pain when she had to leave.
The McBrides might not be blood, but one thing we always were was a family.
We looked out for each other, cared for each other, and Connie loved Connor and me as if we were her own and never treated us any differently than she did Killian.
And now that she’s gone, Killian has held us together and ensured we didn’t drift apart.
Until my blood drove a wedge between us.
And learning something so important about Lucky only makes me need to know more. I need to know everything about this mysterious woman who showed up with the adorable dog and the wild blue hair and has somehow broken through the shroud of fog I’ve been lost in.
The more I know, the easier it will be to figure out how to get her to let down her walls.
What she just told me cracked a door I plan on pushing open. “So, where did you grow up?”
She fiddles with the strap on her purse and continues to stare straight ahead while we walk down the sidewalk toward Elaine’s. A car passes by, and her back stiffens as she watches it until it turns and heads off to the west. “Kind of all over. Mostly in Savannah, but a few other places.”
“Always the city, though?”
Her head bobs, the messy bun she has her hair pulled back in shifting as if it desperately wants to be freed. “Yeah, the way people are around here is…different.”
That’s one way to put it.
And I don’t think she means it as a bad thing.
I grin. “It can make a small town like this feel a little strange.”
Her laugh fills the night air, settling over me like a warm blanket. “A lot strange.”
“That’s fair.” I can’t help but smile at her because seeing her like this—relaxed, almost carefree, happy—is so different from how I’ve seen her over the past week. “You feel like you’re doing okay, though, staying at Elaine’s and working at the diner?”
She considers my question for a minute, long enough that I know she actually needs the time to determine her answer. “I like it here. It seems like the type of place where you can catch your breath.”
Why does she need to catch her breath?
That choice of words seems very deliberate. Something tells me Lucky isn’t a woman who says anything without considering it very carefully first.
So, what’s she running from?
Whatever it is…I don’t like the fact that she ever felt like she couldn’t breathe. That’s a feeling I know all too well and wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.