Chapter 22 #3
Raven doesn’t need to explain what she means by that.
We both know what happened, even if neither of us wants to admit it.
Somehow, somewhere along the way—maybe during that brutal, forced hike up, perhaps during our arguments about me kidnapping, potentially when we finally had it out about the past and we fucked out years of tension, or ultimately, when we made love and connected in a way neither of us ever has with anyone else—we fell in love on the mountain.
I squeeze my eyes closed, all the emotions warring in me threatening to unravel the very real wall I’ve tried to rebuild the past two weeks after this woman so violently forced it down.
I’ve never been happier or more content than I was lying in that tiny bed with Raven in my arms. Even working on the cabin and knowing she was only a few feet away, doing what she’s best at, and that at any moment, she would walk out of that door and come over to check in with me was far more soothing to my soul than I ever wanted to admit.
But with those wonderful memories come the more complicated, violent ones.
How on edge I was.
How I almost hurt her that first night.
How angry I got with her.
How insistent I was that I was right about needing to be there, needing to rip her away from her life.
How wrong I was about being able to protect her.
“Raven…I-I have to go…”
Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “No, you don’t. Everyone here needs you to stay.”
“So I can snap at them? So I can be angry and on edge all the time? So I can dive back into the bottle and try to drown my nightmares?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
She searches my eyes, pressing her palm more tightly against my chest. “Because you weren’t with me. Not up there. You weren’t even drinking after the first few days. At the beginning, yes, but—”
“But that was up there.” I grab her upper arms gently, not wanting to hurt her or aggravate her healing wounds. “It’s why I’m going back.”
A tear slips past her lashes and trails down her cheek, and I can stop myself from reaching up and brushing it away.
She leans into the touch, pressing her cheek into my palm, and the feel of her familiar smooth, warm skin under makes my entire body remember every single time we touched like this.
“But you’ll be alone, Connor, where you’re going to sit and think about all the ways you believe you failed everyone, the way you believe you failed me when you didn’t.
” She slides her hand up from my chest to cup my face the same way I am hers, preventing me from looking away.
“You saved my life. Multiple times. You can work through all these feelings instead of drowning in them. If you stay here with us. I’ll help you. ”
I wish I could believe her.
I wish her words didn’t instill a deeper fear than I’ve ever felt before, even worse than the night of the attack on the homestead or when I knew she was in trouble or what we found when we came back to McBride Mountain.
The fear that this might be real.
“Why would you do that?”
The corners of her lips curl up. “Because I want to sleep again.”
“You’re just using me to get a good night’s sleep?”
Her slender shoulders rise and fall, and she drags her nails through my beard. “So what if I am? Are you going to object to it?”
Fuck.
I swallow thickly, my blood heating at the look in her gaze and the intimate touch I’ve missed so much. “I don’t know. What about the arguing?”
She grins. “I do love arguing with you. You can be as stubborn and bullheaded as you want as long as we get to make up like that. The way we did that night in the rain…”
Fuck.
She’s really serious.
“I’m asking you to stay, Connor. Not for your brothers, or Willow, or Lucky, or Niall.
I’m asking you to stay for me.” Her voice breaks slightly.
“If you believe you owe me something, which I don’t agree with, then this is my demand for reparations.
That you stay here with me. That we talk, that we argue, that we scream at each other if we have to.
As long as it always ends up with you over me or under me in bed.
” She trails her fingers across my lips.
“And with your mouth on me in all the right places.”
Fuck.
There are so many apologies I owe her. So many things I can never make amends for. So much I wish I could take back.
But this woman has seen me at my literal worst.
And she wasn’t afraid.
She didn’t back away from me. She never ran. She stood her ground and then some, invading not only my personal sanctuary but making it into something even more powerful.
A home.
Even if it was only for a short time, and even if it was under the literal worst of circumstances, it was real.
I tug her up against me fully, burying my face against her neck. “God, I’ve missed your smell.”
She laughs, pressing her lips to my collar bone. “I hate to say this, Connor McBride. You know how much it pains me to. But I’ve missed just about everything about you. So please, don’t shut me out like that again.”
“I can’t promise you I won’t.”
The mountain calls to me. That place does. I can’t stay away from it.
“I’ll know where to find you if you do, right?”
“Right.”
I spilled blood here on the homestead to defend the McBrides, to protect the mountain, and now her blood has become a part of it, too.
But Raven’s story is so much bigger than just McBride Mountain and the people on it.
She has saved hundreds, maybe thousands of potential victims of the Lorells with her tenacity, her focus, and her insistence on doing what was right even when she knew what it might cost.
And I may have fucked it all up, but if she’s seriously giving me a chance, I won’t fuck up again.
“You really sure about this, Firefly?”
She drags her head back and nods, kissing me gently. “I’m positive. And so was my pregnancy test.”
I jerk back, searching her face. “What?”
Her brow furrows, and she offers a little shrug. “When we went up the mountain, you had me pack my bag so quickly that I didn’t bring my birth control. I just found out today…at my follow-up appointment.”
The room spins, and I stagger back a step, glancing down at her flat stomach. “You’re pregnant…”
She nods. “There’s going to be another little McBride running around on the mountain soon, so I need to make sure you’re really in this.”
“I’m going to be a father.”
I’m going to be a father?
All the things that seemed to matter so much only a few minutes ago suddenly don’t mean anything.
My head swims with a thousand reasons why I’m going to fail.
Why I’m going to be awful at it—
Raven captures my face in her palms. “Don’t do that.” She shakes her head. “Don’t freak out. You’re going to be okay. You said those words to me and got me through almost dying. This is a way better reason to believe it.”
“I’m…not not happy, I’m just… Fuck. Firefly, I don’t know how to be a dad. I can barely take care of myself right now.”
Her gaze softens. “You took care of me, Connor McBride. You did everything for me up there. And I don’t know how to be a mom, either, so I guess we’ll figure it out together. Because that’s what McBrides do, right? Stick together.”
We do.
That’s what we’ve always been good at.
The promise we made to Mom before she died—that the McBrides—whether by blood, name, or choice—would always stick together.
I nod. “Always and forever, here under this mountain sky.”