Chapter 8
LIAM
She’s going to run.
I don’t know how I know that, but I do, deep in my gut. The moment she saw Sheriff Tony Briggs walk in, Lucky shut down and hid behind that wall of blue hair like it was a waterfall concealing her. But then I saw it in her eyes when she reached the door.
Lucky wasn’t just leaving the shop.
She is going to flee from McBride Mountain—today.
Whatever brought her here, whatever she’s running from, seeing the sheriff has set her in motion now.
She won’t stay.
She’s been threatening to leave since the moment she walked into the diner, and that gave her the reason to do it.
The thought of her disappearing, especially after that kiss, when every breath I take still smells like eucalyptus was enough to make me rush through my conversation with Tony as quickly as possible. To get out of the shop. To stop her before she bolts.
My hands tighten on the wheel as I barrel down Main Street, away from Willow’s shop and toward Elaine’s house.
The few short blocks feel like thousands of miles, though. Each second that ticks by might as well be hours as far as my anxiety is concerned. It’s all time Lucky has to gather her things and find a ride out of town.
By the time Elaine’s finally comes into view, I’m vibrating. Every muscle in my body is tensed, ready for the argument I can see coming—if I get there in time.
Please, God, let me catch her…
I pull into the driveway, throw the truck into park, turn off the ignition, and launch myself out of the cab, racing toward the steps that lead up to her apartment.
My boots thud heavily as I take them two at a time, and the door opens as I reach the top. Lucky steps out with Gizmo in her arms, a backpack on her shoulders, and her purse strapped across her.
Ready to leave.
“I knew it.”
Her gaze meets mine, filled with so much fear it makes my heart clench.
I grip the banisters on either side of the stairs, channeling my frustration into the wood instead of directing it at her. “You’re running.”
Lucky’s mouth opens and closes a few times, as if she isn’t sure what to say. She swallows thickly and locks the door behind her. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to stop you.”
She turns to face me fully. “Stop me from what?”
I release my death grip and throw my hands out. “From this! From leaving!”
Fuck.
That came out all wrong.
I hadn’t meant to yell, to sound so…unhinged like that did.
But she can’t seriously be asking me that after what just happened in the candle shop—both the kiss and the very obvious way she avoided the sheriff.
Lucky gulps in air, as if she’s gathering up the nerve to say whatever she’s about to. “I told you the day we met that I wasn’t going to stay, Liam.”
She did.
I didn’t like it then, and I certainly don’t like it now.
“Yeah, that was then, and things are different now, Lucky.”
“Are they?”
Her attempt at deflection stings, but it isn’t going to work on me. I am not going to turn around, march down these steps, and walk away from her after everything that has happened.
I am not going to walk away from how this woman makes me feel simply because she’s afraid of it.
“You know they are.” I level my gaze on her and watch her shift in her worn Chucks as if she can physically feel it. “Open the door, Lucky.”
“Why?”
“So we can go in there and talk.”
She shakes her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Like hell there isn’t.”
I reach out and grab the key from where it’s still clutched in her hand.
Her eyes flare wide. “Hey!”
There isn’t any time to worry about her incredulity over my actions. I simply unlock the door and throw it open, then motion for her to head inside.
She glares at me, and I don’t miss the way she has inched toward the steps in the time it took me to get the door open. Gizmo watches me, too, his ears perked up as if he can sense the tension permeating the air between us—which he probably can.
“Please, Lucky…”
I don’t have it in me to fight with this woman.
It feels like I’ve been fighting with myself, the rest of the McBrides, and the entire town endlessly for months.
All I want is a conversation with her—to plead my case.
Lucky considers me for a minute, glancing down the street toward downtown, then back at me.
Without her even saying it, I inherently know what she’s searching that pavement for. “The sheriff isn’t looking for you.”
She does a really shitty job of hiding her surprise, her lips falling open and eyes widening slightly. “What do you mean?”
Instead of answering and potentially getting into this while standing out here on the porch, I close the distance between us, slide my hand on her lower back beneath the backpack, and usher her into the small apartment.
She doesn’t fight me, but her entire body vibrates with tension.
Anger?
Fear?
Both?
Lucky sets Gizmo on the floor, and he excitedly jumps at my legs until I pet him as I toe the door closed behind us.
When I turn to face her, she hasn’t relaxed at all. “Take off your backpack and set it down.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to have a conversation without being worried that you’re going to run out that door with everything you own on your back.”
She stiffens before she slowly lets it slide off her shoulders and onto the floor. But just because she gave me that doesn’t mean Lucky intends to make this easy on me.
Her glacial gaze locks on me, and she crosses her arms over her chest, wrapping them tightly around herself as if she needs that protective layer for what’s about to come.
Maybe she does.
A lot of things I’ve let go since meeting her aren’t so easily brushed aside now that I’ve seen her fear when the sheriff appeared.
This doesn’t seem like a woman who just wanted to get away from a stale or boring existence.
She isn’t here because she wanted to try out small town life. She was actually afraid.
“I saw the way you reacted to Sheriff Briggs coming into the shop. You know…”—I rub at the back of my neck, trying to release some of the tension building there along with my frustration—“when you first showed up, I suspected you might be running, that something brought you here to McBride Mountain that wasn’t just the Memorial Day Festival or your desire to experience the Blue Ridge Mountains in all their majesty.
And you’ve said a few things that had me wondering if you were running from something in your past, if you had something you wanted to put behind you, which, shit, I, of all people, can understand, but what just happened with the sheriff is more than that. You’re terrified.”
She flinches at my choice of words, confirming precisely what I feared.
Lucky has been hurt. Badly. By someone. By something. Enough that she’s living in actual terror every day.
“This isn’t just you wanting to leave something in the past. This is you actively being afraid of it. What are you running from, Lucky?”
Please trust me.
I’m terrified to say those words, to ask that from a woman who clearly doesn’t trust anyone and who doesn’t know me at all. She has no reason to open up to me except that I’m asking her to. And that might not be enough.
She watches me with her big blue eyes, her whole body trembling the longer we hold each other’s gazes.
I risk taking a few steps toward her, and when she doesn’t retreat, I close the last of the distance and take her arms in my hands. “Please. What I said about wanting to help you, about everyone here being willing to help you, is true. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Her bottom lip quivers, and she bites it to try to stop it and prevent me from noticing, but I reach up and brush my thumb over it until she releases it.
“Don’t do that. Talk to me.”
“Why?” Her question comes out breathy and filled with her distress. “Why do you want to help me?”
“Why do you think?”
I don’t want to have to say the words because, honestly, I never have before.
I don’t know how to tell a woman that I’m basically obsessed with her.
That since the moment she waltzed into the diner and accused me of stealing Gizmo, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her—day and night.
That the only time she doesn’t occupy my thoughts is when I actually fall asleep and the nightmares come.
That she’s been the only thing that’s kept my mind from drifting there when I’m awake, too.
I don’t know how to tell her that without making her want to run even more because it makes me sound fucking irrational.
We barely know each other.
We don’t really at all.
And yet the thought of her leaving makes me want to get in my truck and follow her wherever she goes.
That plump bottom lip that still bears the indentation from her teeth quivers. “You don’t know me, Liam.”
“I want to, if you would let me.”
She shakes her head, and her eyes start to fill with tears that she tries to blink away. “It’s better if you don’t. Safer for you.”
“Safer?” Her choice of words stiffens my spine, and I tighten my grip on her arms. Not enough to hurt her, just enough that she understands how serious I am about this. “If you’re in trouble, Lucky, tell me. I can protect you. We can protect you here. You don’t have to keep running.”
“You only say that because you don’t know.”
“Then tell me.”
She shakes her head again. “I can’t.”
Frustrated, I release her and take a step back, running my hands through my hair and focusing on Gizmo where he waits at our feet, watching our conversation as if he understands it and somehow comprehends how important it is.
“Let me ask you something.” I peer back up at her. “If you left, where would you go?”
She glances toward the door. “I had been making my way toward Charlotte.”
“What’s in Charlotte? Family?”
Why did I bother asking when I already know the answer?
She shakes her head no.
“Friends?”
Another small shake.
“Do you know anyone there?”
One more.
“And would you stay in Charlotte?”
She doesn’t have to respond at all this time because she knows I know.