Page 46 of Beneath the Mountain Sky
We have nothing to go on.
Absolutely nothing.
He brushes my hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear, cradling my other cheek in his rough palm. “I do. We already found part of your trail today. And with the dogs Tony is getting, we should be able to follow it farther into the mountain. We should be able to find answers.”
That same thought that has plagued me since the hospital returns, the one I haven’t voiced because it’s too painful to consider.
What if I don’t want the answers?
What if I want to pretend that none of this ever happened and go back to my life with this man?
The life I had before, the one that feels like it was yesterday instead of a year ago, was happy. I could so easily fall right back into that life, that routine, the love I shared with this man.
Why can’t I just do that?
Almost as if he can read what I’m thinking simply by scanning my face with his fathomless blue eyes, Killian gives me a sad smile. “I know how scared you are, terrified of what we might find. I am, too, but we have to know what happened. Where you’ve been. Tony already got all the postmarks from the stuff you sent Raven over the last year, and he’s checking into it, trying to track where you’ve been and locate any former residences, friends, credit card usage, anything. We’re going to solve this mystery, Honeybee.”
“And then what?” The question comes out before I can stop it, but it’s the only thing I can think to ask because solving the past doesn’t help me figure out my future. That’s as murky and black as the abyss I fall into trying to look into my memories of the last year. I can’t see what it looks like. “Then I go back to whatever life that was? Go back to hating you because of something I don’t even remember instead of loving this life we had together here?”
His eyes shimmer as another flash of lightning illuminates the room, and he looks so torn. Like the war raging inside him rivals the one happening in the sky outside. “I wish I could tell you we could go back, but we can’t.”
Following thunder rattles the entire building, like even the mountain is angry with the situation.
Tears slide down my cheeks again. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not the same person I was then, and neither are you.”
Wherever I’ve been, whatever I’ve been through…of course it’s changed me. Once I get my memories back, I’ll realize how much. But lying here with him in his dad’s old leather recliner, in a position we’ve spent so many hours in before, with a storm raging outside that rivals the tempest currently blustering in my head, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else than where I am at this moment.
And I certainly can’t fathom wanting to be with anyone other than the handsome, difficult, grumpy, gruff man whose calloused hands move so gently to wipe away my tears.
“You still seem like the same person, Killian.”
He shakes his head. “I’m definitely not. Losing you changed me, Willow, and not for the better. I’ve been…” Killian glances away, focusing on the deluge outside, continuing to drag his hand up and down my spine, the same way he used to soothe me to sleep during storms all those years. “I became a man I don’t like seeing in the mirror. One who’s angry all the time. One who’s quick to argue, quick to temper. I snap at people. I don’t want to do all those things everyone expects of me anymore.” He releases a long sigh, heavy with whatever burden he’s been carrying since I’ve been gone. “It has been like I’m suddenly not in control of my emotions anymore. Like any ability I had to rein in those darker parts of me left when you did.”
“You were always hotheaded…”
He finally returns his gaze to mine and grins, and the genuine affection in the act, the humor underlying it, despite how serious his words were, is enough for me to see that he really hasn’t changed that much. “Yes, I was, but this is different.” His rough fingertips skate over my cheek reverently, and those fierce eyes lock with mine. “I’ve been adrift, lost without you as my true north.”
My heart shatters into a million pieces at the familiar words and the pain with which he says them. “You always said I was that.”
“Because you were. You always guided me away from the places my mind wanted to go to somewhere brighter, happier, to you as my home.”
A small sob of frustration slips from my lips. “Then how did we get lost?”
“Do you really want to have that conversation right now?”
Looking down at him with his long blond hair spread out behind him on the dark leather, his soft, warm gaze locked on me, powerful arms wrapped around me, his firm body supporting me, his heart thumping beneath my palm, there’s only one answer I can give him. “No.”
Right now, I don’t know if I can handle the truth of whatever broke us up.
Living in denial for a few more hours won’t be the end of the world, but not being able to look at him the same way might be.
I lower my head back into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent that’s all Killian—fresh mountain air, leather, and freshly cut wood—and he tightens his grip on me, squeezing me gently, careful to avoid my sore ribs as he adjusts me to be more fully on top of him.
The storm keeps raging outside. Lightning flickering across the dark room. Thunder alternates between sharp cracks close to the cabin and low rumbles that spread across the mountain. The sounds of the storm that kept me awake as much as his absence from the bed are suddenly not so scary anymore.
Not with him here holding me like this.
