Page 66 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

She turns to face me fully, resting against the door. “Because it sure as hell would explain why you act like this.”

I bark out a laugh and shake my head. “Act like what?”

“Like I’m the fuckingenemy.”

The words come out so full of anguish that it actually feels like I’m being cut again. She might as well be driving a knife into my heart and twisting it. I flinch and inhale deeply, continuing to stare at the road ahead, unable to look at her, knowing she believes I think of her like that.

The gravel path winding up the side of the mountain seems to go on forever today. Each bump and dip jarring the tense silence between us that only worsens the higher we climb.

By the time we reach the halfway point, Lyla is vibrating with anger—her small body trembling where she still sits defiantly with her arms over her chest, jaw locked, eyes never leaving me as if she can bore a hole straight through me by glaring hard enough.

Whiskey leans against her, offering her comfort the way he usually does to me. Which I guess meansI’mthe asshole…

“Look, Lyla, I’m sorry if you feel that way, like I think you’re the enemy. I don’t. I just…”

Living alone for so long with no one else to talk to except Whiskey has made me even less of a conversationalist than I was before I moved onto the mountain. I can’t ever seem to find the right words when I’m around her, and everything Idosay seems to only upset her or piss her off.

She stares at me, waiting for me to finish my statement. “You just what?”

“I just can’t trust anyone anymore, even you.”

Trusting someone who should have had my best interests at heart is what made me this way. It is what twisted me so badly inside and out that I no longer know how to live a normal life.

Lyla sinks back in her seat a little bit, her eyes starting to shimmer with tears. “Then you shouldn’t have married a total stranger and brought them into your life.”

“I didn’t have a fucking choice…” I mutter it under my breath and instantly regret it as she flinches.

Smooth, Silas.

“Stop the fucking truck.”

I whip my head back toward the road to make sure I’m not about to hit something like a deer or a goddam bear. But it’s clear. “What?”

She clenches her teeth. “Stop. The. Goddamn. Truck.”

I slam on the brakes and turn to face her. “Why?”

Her hand darts to the door so quickly that I don’t have time to register it. She snatches her bags from the floorboard and leaps out onto the narrow gravel road with the steep drop-off only a few feet to her right.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

She whirls back to face me, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I’m walking back to town.”

“Are you insane? That’ll take you hours.”

Given how high we are up the mountain already, potentially longer. Thirty miles on this road on foot is nothing I’d ever want to attempt, especially in the afternoon when the sun is going to start going down.

Lyla shakes her head. “I don’t care. I’m used to being on my feet for eight to ten-hour shifts. It’ll be a nice, brisk walk.”

She slams the door so hard that it makes the truck shake, and Whiskey leaps into the seat she vacated and presses his face against the glass to watch her walk away.

“Fucking hell.”

I throw the truck into park, toss open my door, and climb out after her. She’s only managed to make it a few yards, and I jog to catch up with her, then grab her bicep to jerk her back toward me.

“Lyla, stop.”

She whirls to face me, the tears streaming down her face now after she’s apparently abandoned her attempt to keep them at bay. “Why should I?”

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