Chapter 4 #2
I end the call that had nowhere left to go and put the phone in my pocket as a familiar truck pulls down Main Street, heading toward the one stop sign and the road that will lead around the mountain and up to the McBride homestead.
Connor.
I’ve managed to avoid him since our run in at the bakery the other day, but it left me more rattled than I would ever admit to anyone else. Especially Willow or Lucky.
It’s so hard to see him like this when I remember what he was like twenty years ago, when we were in school, when he was the big, shy, quiet guy all the girls had a crush on.
Before he became an asshole.
Before he became a fucking grump.
Before he became so aggressive and volatile.
Now that’s all I can see; the new Connor, not the old one.
I hope he doesn’t stay very long.
For everyone’s sake.
CONNOR
Flames crackle and pop in the bonfire pit on the homestead, sending sparks drifting into the sky over McBride Mountain. I lean back in one of the Adirondack chairs Liam built and follow those tiny specks of light up until they blend in with all the twinkling stars against the sea of black.
It’s so crystal-clear tonight that I can see everything.
All the constellations Mom used to point out and explain to us as we sat out here roasting marshmallows as kids are laid out before me like a page out of an astronomy book.
Pegasus, Hercules, the Big and Little Dippers, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Cygnus, Lyra, and Aquila, plus so many more. Even Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter glow brightly tonight.
It’s beautiful.
This is why people come here—to experience this. A perfect night under a perfect sky with nothing but the glory of nature as a companion.
The same quiet stillness that usually consumes the homestead settles over me. It should be comforting. It might be to anyone else. Instead, my body tenses, almost painfully. Because it’s impossible for me to truly relax anymore.
I’m always on alert, waiting for the sound of a twig snapping in the thick blanket of the forest, the rustle of clothes or footsteps, anything that would alert me that someone is on our land who shouldn’t be.
There hasn’t been a single night since the attack that I have been able to sit out here, or even lie in my own bed, without listening for it, without wondering if there will be another assault, without worrying that the Lorells will renege on their agreement with the federal government and us and reappear with another hit squad to finish what they started.
A shiver rolls through me, and I lift my glass to my lips and down another few gulps of bourbon to try to calm the growing unease. The spicy liquor burns on its way down, and that far too familiar warmth fills my stomach.
God only knows how much I’ve drank tonight trying to keep myself on the level.
I stopped keeping track months ago.
Aside from recognizing there are far too many empty bottles in my recycling, I don’t have a fucking clue how much I down. All I do know is it’s been far too much.
But it’s the only thing that remotely helps quiet the voices in my head. That helps control the shaking in my hand. That even temporarily calms the brutal pounding of my heart in my rib cage the anxiety brings and eases the pain of every breath that I draw into my lungs.
It’s so much worse down here.
After only a handful of days back, I’m already itching to go up the mountain again…
I squeeze my eyes closed and listen, but all I hear is the soft rustle of leaves in the late-night breeze, the crack and pop of the logs in the fire, and the scurrying of animals along the forest floor.
Normal sounds.
I try to force myself to relax.
Slow, deep breaths. Long exhales. Visualizing the releasing of the tension in my back and shoulders. Each muscle giving way—
Then my ears catch it, and I tilt my head to the side, listening more intently.
Footsteps.
Whoever is approaching isn’t trying to hide it.
It isn’t anyone trying to sneak up on me, but that’s almost worse. Because Killian is back from his work beyond the gorge, and that means the reprieve I was granted the last few days will soon evaporate.
Shit.
But these steps are light, which means it can only be one of two people on the homestead—Willow or Lucky—and they’re coming from the direction of my older brother’s cabin.
I open my eyes to find my dark-haired sister-in-law approaching, wrapped in a blanket against the chill of the evening.
She offers me a tight smile and settles into the chair next to me. “Hi.”
There’s so much in that single word.
A thousand questions that I’m not sure I can answer, nor do I want to.
I’ve been avoiding her and she knows it, but there’s a very real reason for it.
Willow has always been able to get under my skin in a way no one else can.
She’s too sweet.
Too innocent despite everything she’s suffered.
The need to protect her and the life she and Killian have with Niall is what drove me to take action that night. To take those lives. To permanently taint my soul. Defending this place and the people I love on it were all I could think about when I should have been considering the consequences.
“I would ask how you’re doing, but…” She trails off, and I glance over to find her looking at the glass in my hand. “I know you don’t want to talk, but will you listen?”
Every fiber of my being wants me to push up to my feet and stalk away, to head back into those woods to disappear again, to allow this world and all the bloody, brutal memories the homestead holds to vanish behind me, but I can’t do that to Willow.
Not when she’s so good to me and everyone else around her.
The least I can do is hear her out and let her say whatever she needs to, even knowing full well that it will hurt.
I nod, keeping my eyes on her.
Willow leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, raising her hands to the fire to warm them.
“When I first got back to the homestead after Killian found me in the river, I was a wreck. I didn’t know what had happened to me over the year that I couldn’t remember, and I had just been told that Killian and I had broken up, which didn’t make any sense to me.
Nothing did. Except this place.” She spreads her hands wide and glances at me.
“This homestead has always felt like home to me, even when I was a kid and would come up here, even when I wasn’t a McBride and didn’t really belong, it felt like I did.
Your mom made me feel that. Killian made me feel that. Liam and you made me feel that.”
Her voice cracks on her final words, and my chest tightens painfully.
“So, even though I didn’t know what had happened, even though things with Killian and I were tense and uncertain, to say the least, this was the only place I wanted to be, the only place I felt safe and secure.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
It’s such a loaded question, and we both know it.
Everything changed that night for the people on this homestead.