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.
Her slender shoulders rise and fall under her blanket. “Honestly? I don’t know.” She stares into the fire. “What the Lorells did, what happened up here, shook all of us. I don’t think anyone ever thought someone could attack the homestead. That anyone would be able to sneak up here and get as far as they did. I don’t think anyone ever expected the McBrides, or this town, to be a target of anything.” Willow draws in a shaky breath. “And I know Lucky feels guilty for bringing it on us, but it isn’t her fault. Not really. She deserved to have a place where she felt safe, too. A family. And we’re that for her. She’s come to accept that we love her unconditionally and don’t judge her for anything that she’s ever done”—her gray gaze flicks over to me—“but I don’t know if you have.”
Fucking hell.
I take another long swig of my bourbon and have to look away from her. The emotions are too strong—hers and mine—and if I face them head-on and let them envelop me, I’ll get lost in them.
“Connor, what you did for us…we can never repay you. And I know that you feel guilt over it, but you really shouldn’t. If you hadn’t done what you did, what do you think would’ve happened? It would’ve been all our blood spilled on the mountain instead of just Liam’s. They would’ve killed all of us. Your brothers, me and Lucky…Niall.”
I flinch at the mention of my nephew.
That sweet, innocent baby asleep in the cabin.
The next generation of McBrides who is so blissfully oblivious to all the turmoil and trauma surrounding his birth and the time after it.
That’s how it should be.
This is the type of place you should be able to raise a child and build a family without worrying about the kind of violence Willow faced at the hands of Earl Byers or that we all experienced from the Lorells.
Niall should have the kind of childhood we did, free from worrying about anything but how we could talk Mom into allowing us more time to explore the woods when it was time to come in for the night.
“Connor…I need you to know that regret will only eat you alive. You have to think about the positives.”
“What positives are there to killing people?”
I instantly regret the bite in my voice, but it’s too late to take it back.
Willow’s eyes widen, and she wraps the blanket even tighter around herself, as if it might serve as a shield against me lashing out at her. “Our safety.”
“But are we really safe?” I sweep my free hand out toward the trees. “What’s to prevent them from coming again? What’s to stop them from waltzing right back through those trees on a second offensive?”
She presses her lips together, and the uncertainty in her eyes matches the one plaguing my thoughts every damn day. “The agreement that we made?”
“Fuck the agreement!” My voice rises more than I intend it to, and another pang of regret instantly hits me at the way she recoils. “It’s words, Willow. It’s nothing.”
“Maybe it is, but you know what Agent Michaelson said. They don’t have enough information to bring them down and get them behind bars right now?—”
“I know, Willow, but that’s my point. Until they do, I don’t know how any of this gets better for me or for any of us, or even if it does.”
Because it sure as fuck feels like it’s impossible.
The days, weeks, and months since the Lorells came for Lucky haven’t lessened the pain, they haven’t helped ease the guilt or stop the nightmares. They haven’t changed anything for me—at least, not for the better.
