Chapter 12
LUCKY
The constant clicking of Raven’s fingers against the keyboard mixes with the music playing from Willow’s phone to fill the space as we work.
I glance over at Willow’s best friend, who has her head dipped toward her computer screen where she sits at the display case counter beside the register.
She’s deeply engrossed in whatever she’s working on and doesn’t seem to be paying us any attention.
Neither is Giz, who has curled up on an old blanket Willow brought in for him from the truck when we came into the shop.
I lean in toward Willow so Raven doesn’t hear me. “Doesn’t that incessant clicking ever get on your nerves?”
Willow snorts and hands me another candle to slap a label on. “Yes. Which is why I don’t normally sit with her while she works. Most of the time, she’s at Claire’s.”
“The bakery?”
Nodding, she continues organizing the candles she pulls from the boxes brought down from the homestead.
“She used to work here.” She spreads her hand out.
“But Old Man Murray wanted to retire, and he shut down the paper. She lives above the bakery so she kind of took up residence at the corner table there.”
I glance again at Raven, whose brow is furrowed, blond hair falling over her shoulders as she leans into her computer, her lips pressed together in deep contemplation about something.
“Then why is she here now?”
Willow laughs. “That’s a good question.” She tips her head toward her friend. “Raven, why are you here since you’re not helping?”
Raven drags her gaze off the computer screen and scowls at her. “I will help. I’m just busy at the moment.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying all day.”
It’s true.
She has been.
In the few hours since we came down the mountain and started digging into the boxes of product Willow had readied for the store, Raven has barely moved from her spot at that counter, and certainly hasn’t helped with anything other than occasionally picking up the baby out of the playpen we moved out here while he was awake.
Now that he’s napping in the office, she’s dived right back into her work as if we don’t even exist in the same space.
“And what is it you do, exactly, Raven? I know this place used to be a newspaper…”
Raven nods, blowing hair off her forehead. “I was a reporter. The only reporter who worked with Murray. But when he shut down the paper, I became a freelancer.”
“So, what does that mean?”
She shrugs. “I research and write news articles for papers and websites all around the world on a bunch of different topics. And I also have my own social media page where I post important news about McBride Mountain since we lost the only real source of information for everyone.”
Willow elbows me. “What she means is, it’s a gossip column.”
Raven gapes at her. “It is not!”
“Tell that to the McBrides.” Willow laughs, turning to me with an exasperated look. “My husband and his brothers aren’t too keen on some of the things Raven posts.”
My throat starts to tighten as some of what they’ve just told me starts to fall into place in my head. “What sort of things does she post?”
Raven sighs. “Only information everybody in town needs to know.”
Willow rolls her eyes. “She has definitely posted some very unflattering articles about Killian and Connor over the years.”
Well, that’s better than what I was imagining…
For someone worried about staying under the radar and anonymous, hanging out with the small-town gossip columnist who is likely constantly looking for juicy, sordid details to post isn’t the smartest idea.
Right now, any excuse to move the potential topic of conversation away from me is one I want to latch onto. Plus, being able to learn anything about the man I’m losing my heart to and his family is too good an opportunity to pass up.
“Really?” I haven’t really spent much time with them other than pulling the gun on Connor and the awkward breakfast, but there wasn’t anything that would have caused me any concern during our brief interactions. “They seem nice.”
Raven barks out a laugh, her green eyes flashing with humor. “Yeah, you don’t know the McBrides.” Her gaze cuts to Willow. “Killian can be a real asshole…and a grump and a half.” Annoyance hardens her gaze. “And don’t even get me started on Connor…”
Willow grabs my wrist. “Please don’t get her started on Connor, or we’ll have to hear it for hours, literally an all-day dissertation, about what a dick he is.”
I sit back on my haunches, considering them. “I…have a really hard time believing that.”
Liam has been nothing but sweet and kind to me.
I can’t imagine his brothers are much different people.
Plus, I gave Connor the ultimate reason to show the negative side of his nature this morning, but instead, he cracked a joke and appeared to be more concerned than angry, even with a gun pointed at him.
Killian obviously knew what happened during breakfast, but he only seemed to be worried, not mad.
Willow grins at me. “That’s only because you’ve been spending time with Liam, and the youngest McBride is a completely different story.”
“How so?”
She keeps digging through boxes, arranging the candles in piles for me to price while we talk.
“I’ve known the McBrides since I was a child, and Liam has always been the most level-headed, the calmest, and the one who pushes his brothers and everyone else to do the right thing and to think logically.
He’s always lifting everyone’s spirits and in a good mood.
” Her smile falters. “Or, at least, he was…”
“Willow…” Raven issues the admonishment, giving her best friend a look that tells her to shut up. “Stop.”
“What do you mean he was?”
Willow swallows thickly and pushes to her feet, walking over to the shelves, and toys with the candles already set there nervously. “Oh, forget I said anything.”
“No, please.”
Whatever it is seems serious—serious enough that Raven doesn’t want Willow to say anything.
They seem to know the McBrides better than anyone on the mountain, and if there is something I need to know about Liam, these are the people to tell me.
Willow glances over her shoulder at me and then looks at her best friend. Her lips twist slightly as she considers my request. “Are you and he…you know…”
Shit.
It shouldn’t be awkward—discussing my situation with Liam McBride—since we’re all adults here. But they both seem unnerved by whatever we’re not talking about, and whether I’m involved with Liam may or may not be the dealbreaker in getting this information.
I clear my throat. “Umm, I don’t really know what we are right now, but I guess, yeah?”
We are something.
Last night wasn’t just about sex. Liam said things and made promises that lead me to believe that he wants something more. But I also know I can’t give him that, which leaves me in a very precarious position, especially talking to his sister-in-law.
She returns to the boxes and kneels next to me. “The last year has been really hard on him.”
“How come?”
“Well…”
Raven clears her throat. “Should you really be telling her this?”
I raise a brow, looking between the two of them. “If there’s something I need to know, then please tell me. I don’t like surprises, and I’m not sure I could handle a bad one right now.”
They continue to stare each other down until Willow finally throws up her hands. “Oh, come on, Rave! She’s going to find out eventually.”
Raven glares at her. “Maybe she should find out from him.”
“I have every right to tell her. It’s my story just as much as it is his.”
My chest tightens, that dull ache that appears whenever a situation gets a little too real threatening to steal my breath. “What is?”
Willow glances toward the back office, listening to see if Niall’s awake.
Only the sound of the music still playing from her phone fills the shop.
Once she’s confident he’s solidly sleeping, she takes a deep inhale, like she’s bracing herself for what she has to say.
“So, about two years ago, I was kidnapped.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, goosebumps breaking out over my skin as my body reacts to her words the same way my mind does.
Disbelief.
“What?”
Raven’s typing has stopped, but that damn music fills the silence as Willow gathers what she wants to say, averting her gaze to the stacks of jars on the floor beside her.
“A man who lived high up on the far side of the mountain, well away from town, who had some very serious mental problems, had kind of a break from reality. He found me on the road after my car broke down and thought I was his wife who had left him decades ago and took their son with her. He brought me back to his cabin and…” She shudders a little bit, her hand tightening on the box lid, like she needs something to ground her.
“And some things happened. I was newly pregnant when he took me, and I gave birth to Niall while I was up there.”
“Oh, my God…”
Acid crawls up my throat, my stomach churning violently.
“Killian had no idea.” She inhales sharply, then releases it slowly. “We had an argument, and he thought I left town. Then he and his brothers found me in the river right after Memorial Day last year. I was almost dead, and I had no memory of where I’d been for the previous year.”
My throat starts to tighten, tears and horror at what must have happened to her threatening to break my ability to keep myself together.
Willow shakes her head. “I didn’t know what had happened to me and didn’t even remember having a baby. It took a while for those memories to come back, and some I wish hadn’t, but once we figured it all out, we went back up the mountain to where I’d been held and found the man who did it.”
I hold my breath, waiting for her to continue the story. “What happened?”
She swallows thickly. “Well, Killian almost killed him.”
That doesn’t surprise me in the least.
The McBride brothers don’t seem like the type to let anyone who hurt the people they love get away with it.