Chapter 9
LUCKY
It seems that agreeing to stay in McBride Mountain—at least temporarily—means Gizmo and I are moving up in the world—literally.
With my backpack containing everything I own in the back seat of Liam’s truck and Gizmo on my lap, we set out to head up to his place. As in…up McBride Mountain itself.
Despite trying to remain calm about the change of scenery and what this all means, my knee keeps bouncing, the nerves getting the best of me as we pass all the way through town, pause at the one stop sign that still seems absolutely unnecessary, and move out onto the road that loops around the mountain.
We drive past McBride Lumber to our left and the falls where I spent that night camped out on the ground and finally to a turnoff that leads up the mountain that I barely even noticed when I walked past it over a week ago.
In the pitch-black, it’s hard to see much of anything, but it doesn’t seem to faze Liam. He turns onto it easily, casting a quick glance my way, then slides his right hand on top of my knee, stopping it from bouncing.
He squeezes gently. “You’ll be safe at my place. I told you, this mountain belongs to us, and nobody fucks with the McBrides.”
I wish I could believe that were true, that simply being somewhere with someone with a certain last name was enough to protect me from what might be coming down on us, on him now that he’s done something stupid like gone and attached himself to me—or that I’ve gone and done something stupid like let him.
But his large, warm palm pressed against my knee, the heat of his body seeping into the exposed skin through the rips in my jeans, is enough to at least stop my leg from shaking momentarily.
There’s no telling what will happen as soon as he releases it, but he keeps it there as we move up a dark gravel drive, almost like he knows I need the physical contact to keep myself from spiraling again.
Massive trees loom on either side of the truck, cocooning us in an almost-gothic archway that offers no view of where we’re headed or what lies beyond this very narrow strip up the otherwise wild mountain.
“How can you see anything?”
The headlights of his truck illuminate only a few feet in front of us before the darkness and the trees swallow it up.
He quickly tosses me another grin. “I could probably drive this with my eyes closed.”
My grip on the handle of the door tightens. “Please don’t try.”
His deep chuckle rolls through the truck cab the same way thunder does the sky, but it has the opposite effect most storms do. While billowing dark clouds and sinister skies usually mean I’ll be miserable and cold on the road, Liam’s laughter warms me like lying in the sun on a hot summer day.
“I told you, Lucky, I’ve lived here my whole life. Driven this road more times than I can count. I know every bump, every turn, every tree.”
“That’s reassuring…”
But I won’t release my death grip until we’re out of the trees and squarely on the flat-ish ground where I hope his home stands.
This mountain is intimidating. The way it towers over the town, like an evergreen sentinel standing watch. Seeing how deep the darkness is out here, I can’t believe I slept outside that night beside the falls.
Even with my gun within reach and my flashlight lit all night to attempt to keep away the worst of what mother nature could bring, it was still hard to see anything beyond a few feet around me. And thinking about what is lurking out there—then and now—makes me shiver.
I glance down at Gizmo asleep in my lap, apparently completely unbothered by our sudden change of location.
It could be because he’s tired, but I think part of how relaxed and serene he’s been instead of his usual crazed self has to do with the man beside me.
Since the moment I met Liam, his calm, reassuring energy seemed to radiate from him effortlessly, and Giz feels it, too.
I guess it’s true what they say about dogs being a good judge of character.
If I had only listened to him before…
Things would be so different.
I close my eyes and try to fight off the memory, but it still comes, like it always does, especially at night when I’m sitting by that door. When I’m waiting. When I’m watching. When I’m wondering how much longer I’ll have before this bubble bursts.
Anger. Fear. Panic.
All those old feelings rush back through me.
Liam’s hand tightens on my knee. “You all right?”
I open my eyes and nod, trying to shake off the chill in my blood. “Yep. Just excited to see your place.”
He releases a tiny sigh. “Well, don’t get your hopes up too much. It’s a homestead, not the Four Seasons. We work it, and it’s very rugged.”
“I hope this doesn’t make me sound dumb, but I have no idea what that really means.”
Another light chuckle fills the cab, relieving a little of the tension. “I guess I wouldn’t expect you to. It means we live off the land, for the most part. We have two cows, horses, chickens, goats—”
“Wow, a whole farm.”
He grins. “Not quite, but close. We only raise the animals that have some usefulness to us and that we have room for. When my mom was still alive, we were a hundred percent dependent on everything coming from our own land.”
“Not anymore?”
Even with his focus on the drive, I can see the wistful look overtake his eyes.
“Things have changed a lot, even though I always say McBride Mountain never changes. As it’s gotten easier to get supplies, and as the lumber business has expanded and we’ve had to be at the yard more and out at the logging sites, I hate to say that we’ve become a little more reliant on things we can buy at the general store.
But we still like to do as much of it on our own as we can. ”
“Seems like a fun way to grow up.”
And having that kind of environment explains how he can be like this.
So content.
So happy.
“It was.” He grins at me briefly. “I don’t have any complaints.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” Liam takes the truck around another bend, and all the air freezes in my lungs at how narrow the road gets here. He tightens his grip on my knee again. “Don’t worry, it will fit.”
“Okay…” I release a shaky breath, not entirely sure I believe him, but the truck somehow manages to squeeze between the massive trees overarching it. “You said you were left on the doorstep…”
His body tenses slightly, and he swallows. “Yeah…”
“Up here?”
He nods.
“So, someone drove up this”—I motion to the road—“and left you.”
“Yeah.” His brow furrows. “I mean, I assume so. It would’ve taken hours to walk, and carrying a baby…”
Exactly what I was thinking.
When he briefly mentioned that tidbit of family history to me, it was apparent the entire situation weighed on him in some way.
“So…someone must have really cared about you to have gone to all that trouble, right?”
He nods again, swallowing thickly.
“Do you know who your biological mother is?”
Liam glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “I do, but that’s a very long, very sordid ordeal that I definitely don’t want to get into tonight.” His hand slides higher on my leg. “Some other time.”
“Okay…”
But I’m not so sure he meant that.
For all the promises he made and reassurances he gave me standing in that tiny apartment above Elaine’s garage, he seems to have secrets of his own. Ones he doesn’t want to discuss when this thing between us has shifted.
That warm palm squeezes my thigh. “We’re here.”
No sooner does he say the words than the road opens up into a vast field sitting under a stunning night sky with more twinkling stars than I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Oh, my God.”
I stare up at the breathtaking God-created canopy instead of looking where I probably should—at the cabin that lies in the clearing just ahead, the single porch light above it the only thing that illuminates the area aside from the large moon.
Wow.
Liam doesn’t stop beside the home. “That’s Killian and Willow’s place. It isn’t the original cabin, but one built a little later in the original location.”
“That’s amazing…”
The history this place holds is mind-boggling. I’ve never been anywhere that has been in the same family for two hundred and fifty years, where people put down roots and spent the time nurturing them and making them grow strong.
I can feel the weight of the past here.
We leave the small, one-story cabin behind us, and I hold my breath as we drive deeper onto the homestead—both because the darkness encroaches on us again but also because I have no idea what I’m about to see around each bend on the gravel drive.
“Up that way is Connor’s place.” Liam motions to a gravel path that cuts up to the right a few hundred yards behind Killian’s place.
“Mine is this way.” He points to the left toward a massive barn.
“This is the main barn. Most of the animals are housed there, and Killian also uses it for his woodworking.”
“He does woodworking, too?”
“Carvings mostly.”
Flashes of the various animals that stand sentinel in front of most of the businesses in town race through my memory, including the bear holding the picnic basket at the diner that I walk past on my way in every day. “You mean the ones that were all along Main Street?”
He nods. “Yep.”
“I had no idea.”
His broad shoulders rise and fall. “I guess when you’re chopping down trees and cutting lumber for a living, the most natural thing in the world is to continue to work with it in some other way in your free time.”
It does make sense, but I’ve never been good enough at anything to do what Killian and Liam can.
A Jill of all trades but a master of none—that’s how I’ve always seen myself. Part of moving around all the time and working whatever jobs I could find, even if they were only temporary, meant I didn’t have the opportunity to get truly skilled at any one thing.
I never thought I’d be sad about that, but after seeing what Liam did with the shelves and knowing Killian created the carvings I’ve admired up and down the street in town, I can’t help but feel like I’ve been missing out on something big.