Page 25 of Beneath the Mountain Sky
It still stands there—filled with all her honey harvesting and candle-making materials but somehow empty because she hasn’t been here.
A reminder of what could have been, what should have been, if I hadn’t been such a fucking idiot.
So, having to help her—not because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do but because she needs it—doesn’t sit right.
I tug open her door and reach in to assist her out of the lifted truck. She clenches her jaw and winces, pressing her right hand against the left side of her ribcage as she steps down.
My hand on her hip steadies her. “You okay?”
With gritted teeth that suggest she’s anything but, she nods. “Yeah.”
Broken ribs are truly awful.
Every little movement can irritate them.
I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable she must be from that alone. Not to mention all the bruises that cover her body and the scrapes and cuts in various places caused by the jagged rocks and sticks in the river that abused her on her way down it.
It makes me want to go find each and every one and obliterate them with my fucking axe for what they did to her—inanimate objects or not.
I loop my arm around her waist carefully, kick the truck door closed behind us, and ease her up the two steps to the front porch of the cabin.
She stares up at it, a wistful look in her steely eyes. “It feels like I was just here yesterday.”
In so many ways, it does.
I can still physically feel the pain of that argument. I can see the look in her eyes that told me it was over before I stormed out of the cabin. It might as well have happened for me yesterday, too, the same way Willow’s mind makes her feel like it did.
Fighting my desire to drop to my knees and beg her never to leave again, I give her a tight smile. “I wish you had been; then maybe none of this would have happened.”
I wouldn’t have walked away.
I would have stayed.
I would have pleaded and done whatever was necessary to make her stay.
Before Willow can question me any further about our argument, I turn the knob and urge her inside in front of me, closing the door behind us.
She steps in on unsteady feet, my hand still at her hip, keeping her secure. Her eyes scan the interior of the cabin, from the kitchen with the small table that seats four to the right, and over to the stone fireplace, leather couch facing it, and the old recliner to the side, then to the bookcases that line the far left wall that I haven’t touched since she left.
She glances at me, brows raised. “You haven’t changed anything.”
I offer a shrug. “I liked it how it was.”
The thought of changing anything, erasing any of the memories she and I shared here, was too painful for me.
I’d rather have them.
I’d rather let them haunt me because at least I’d have her in some form, even if it was as a ghost.
She steps in farther, slipping from my hold, wandering to the couch, and resting her hands along the plush leather back. Her gaze remains locked on the fireplace and the space in front of it where we spent so much time—sitting, talking, reading, fucking…
The silence that fills the space between us makes me shift uneasily on my feet.
It was never like this before.
Tense.
It was always just easy.
