Chapter 2
ONE WEEK LATER
CONNOR
The bell jingles above the diner door, and Elaine’s head whips in my direction, her pale eyes narrowing on me the moment I step onto the familiar tile floor.
My stomach rumbles in response to the glorious scents permeating the air, and I can almost taste all the delicious things Matt is cooking back in the kitchen.
After a week on the mountain, surviving on beef jerky, mixed nuts, granola bars, and processed canned crap, I desperately need something hot and fresh.
I could have stopped at the homestead this morning and eaten with the family around Killian and Willow’s table—our usually ritual continued from the days Mom was still around and insisted we have a good breakfast to start the day—but I just couldn’t bring myself to walk through their door and see that look on their faces…
Again.
The worry.
The disappointment.
The trepidation and unease.
It’s the same every time I come back.
They never used to look at me like that. Before the attack on the homestead, I was just one of the McBride brothers. Now, I’m a killer. Someone they can’t trust. Someone they have to watch, constantly worried about what I might do.
I tried to avoid those looks any way I can, like by ditching the morning meal with the family today, but given the way Elaine is staring me down, she is well aware of my disappearing act over the past week. And she’s just as worried as they undoubtedly all are.
But it’s too late to back out of the diner now.
I’m too hungry, and that old woman is too focused on me to slip away and not expect some serious fall out—like her chasing me down Main Street with a damn cast iron skillet in her hand screaming, “Get back here, Connor McBride, or else.”
I wouldn’t put it past her to do just that.
Elaine may appear to be a sweet, grandmotherly figure, but she has a bite you don’t want to be on the receiving end of. Today, after that hike back down the mountain, I definitely don’t have the energy for it.
The clank of silverware against plates fills my ears as I make my way to the counter and slip onto one of the stools, keeping my head low even though it already feels like all the eyes in the diner are on me.
It would have been impossible to completely hide what went down on the homestead with Brent Lorell and his men.
His uncle’s lawsuits and accusations against the McBrides and Lucky ensured that before we came to our agreement with them, but we’ve managed to keep a lot of the specifics from the people of McBride Mountain.
That has only seemed to stoke the flames of interest when it comes to any of the McBrides.
So has Raven’s silence on the matter in her little column.
Murder on the mountain should have been front page news, instead there has been only whispers and speculation.
That makes coming back from my solitude on the mountain even worse.
Elaine slides a steaming cup of coffee in front of me and leans her elbows on the counter, resting her face in her hands.
She doesn’t say anything, only the sounds of clinking silverware against plates and morning chatter break the uncomfortable pointed silence directed at me from the woman who has become almost like a grandmother to us over the years.
Rubbing the back of my neck with one hand, I grasp the mug and bring it to my lips, drinking down the piping-hot liquid and letting the caffeine flow through my veins.
After my hike back down the mountain before the sun even came up, I need it.
Maybe a few cups, knowing what I’ll face when I walk onto the lumber yard later and have to see Killian and Liam.
By the time I set the mug down on the countertop, Elaine’s lips start to curl into a smile. “Does this work with your brothers?”
“Does what work?”
“Just waltzing in the door after vanishing for a week and pretending it’s no big deal…”
I snort. “I do not waltz.”
“Mmm hmm.” She continues to watch me expectantly, ignoring the other customers filling the diner. “Well, I’m glad you’re back. What can I get you?”
Less judgment.
“My usual.”
Her lips twitch as she nods, then turns back to the kitchen window and calls it out to her son. Thankfully, she doesn’t return to start the inquisition I could feel coming but wanders out into the diner to check on the rest of the people of McBride Mountain.
My relief is short-lived, though.
The bells jingle over the door, and I glance over my shoulder and cringe at the familiar uniform and hat as Sheriff Tony Briggs saunters in.
Fuck.
His booted footsteps eat up the space between the front of the diner and the counter, and he comes to a stop beside me and slides onto another stool.
He reaches up and pulls off his hat, setting it on the other side of him as he releases a long, heavy sigh.
“I’m glad you’re here. Saves me from having to send out the search party I was planning on gathering today if no one heard from you… ”
Another cringe.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“You weren’t really going to send a search party.”
One of his dark brows rises. “Wasn’t I?” A sardonic laugh slips from his tense mouth. “After everything that’s happened with Willow, Lucky, the attack at your homestead…then Raven telling us you stormed off with a bottle of bourbon, your axe, and a shitty attitude and no one sees you for a week?”
Well, when he puts it like that…
He absolutely was going to send out a search party—undoubtedly at my brothers’ behests.
They started out giving me time and space, but at this point, their concern has taken center stage. The longer this goes on, the more they’ve pushed me to talk, to discuss what happened and how I’m feeling about it. That fear for my well-being overtook any inclination to let me handle it on my own.
And maybe it should.
God knows I’m a fucking wreck.
I might have stayed on the mountain longer if I hadn’t run out of alcohol. The bottle in my hand when I left, along with the several I already had stashed, didn’t last nearly long enough.
Barely two days sober was enough to send me scurrying back home rather than face the demons that tear at me even worse when my head isn’t in that fog.
I scrub my hands over my face and release a groan. “I didn’t mean to make everyone worry.”
Tony squeezes my shoulder. “I know you didn’t. But you seem to forget that you have people here who love you, who want to help you. I understand what happened at the homestead—”
My back stiffens, every muscle in my body tensing at his placating tone. “No. You don’t. You can’t.”
By the time he got up to the homestead, the blood had already been spilled.
The dead—the men I killed—were already sprawled across the land that has always been my home.
A refuge from all those things below that could taint the pristine perfection.
I had already marred our mountain with the kind of destruction that can’t be undone.
Just like I can’t ever seem to wash the blood from my hands, the memory of seeing our home defiled that way will forever stay seared in my mind.
A stain that can never be removed from that land.
Tony nods, his dark brown gaze softening. “You’re right. I can’t know what you went through, but I’ve seen some shit, too.”
Guilt over the way I snapped at him creeps up because I know Tony did see a lot when he was a Marine.
Those experiences stayed with him and led him into law enforcement.
They’re what stokes his desire, his need to keep McBride Mountain safe from the outside world, to keep our small community insulated from all those things that could shatter our peaceful existence.
Only, I’m one of those things now.
Which is exactly why I left last week.
It’s why I had to.
To keep everyone I love—and even those I despise—safe…from me.
Elaine appears from the kitchen with a lumberjack breakfast overflowing off the plate and slides it in front of me, but I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.
She offers me a kind smile, then glances at Tony and gives him a knowing hard one before she pours him a cup of coffee.
Perhaps a warning not to push me too hard this morning.
I take a sip of coffee, waiting for what I know is coming. The moment I pick up my silverware and start slicing my pancakes, Tony shifts on his stool to face me more fully and I brace myself.
“Do your brothers know you’re back?”
My grip on the fork tightens. “No.”
The moment I stepped out of the woods, I beelined for my cabin, showered off the hike, and drove down the mountain before anyone else on the homestead was even awake.
It was a cop-out, pure and simple. An avoidance of the people who were sure to call me out.
Tony knows it, too, given the look he’s directing my way. “You need to call them. Willow and Raven, too.”
Raven?
The mere mention of her name is enough to make my hackles rise.
“I’ll see my brothers at the yard today. I’ll call Willow from there.” I clench my teeth, biting out my words. “And I’m sure that viper Raven will find out I’m back through her usual gossip sources.”
Like the people sitting here in the diner.
Tony snorts and offers me a knowing grin. “I know you won’t believe it, but she’s actually worried about you.”
I shove a bite of pancakes into my mouth and chew it, along with his words. Vivid images of the way she eviscerated me with a simple look the night I left flash through my head, and by the time I swallow, that same anger I had then has returned full force.
Swallowing, I shake my head. “Bull. Shit. The only thing she missed was having me around to be fodder for her articles and someone to argue with.”
Tony smirks. “She did write an article about you.”
“Fuck.” I try to swallow the growl, but it slips out. “What did it say?”
He snags his mug and tags a long, slow drink of coffee. “That if anyone should run into you out on the mountain that they should steer clear because you were in a volatile mood.”
Hell.
She wasn’t wrong.
I was volatile.