He’s dangerous like this, maybe far more so than he ever was when he was that solid, unmovable wall of anger and animosity that I’m so used to having full-blown nuclear war with every time we’re in the same room.
We’ve never been in such a tight space together before, and certainly never with this type of tension, which is somehow more powerful and frightening than when Connor has been screaming and livid with me.
Both of us have said things over the years that were intended to hurt. Low blows and personal attacks. Lines we never should have crossed were leapt over in the name of winning the argument.
But he just said something that shook me more than anything I’ve ever heard from Connor McBride before.
Something I never would have expected to hear.
It was something real.
It’s a crack in his armor.
A small opening that I can attempt to pry apart further to get to the truths he keeps locked away so deeply inside of his strong, muscular body that seems so impenetrable.
He continues to tremble where he sits on the chair that is far too small for him and scrubs his hand over his face again, his gaze averted as if he doesn’t want to, or can’t, look at me.
It’s likely both.
Rain continues outside, a storm raging around us while it feels like one is building inside, too.
I swallow through the tightness in my chest, forcing down the unease so I’ll have the courage to push him—the only time it hasn’t come completely naturally before. “You were dreaming about the attack on the homestead?”
He nods, still staring at the small window.
But it’s more of an admission than I expected.
“Does that…happen a lot?”
It does for me. Just like I told him when we first argued about the story, he isn’t the only one with nightmares. He isn’t the only one haunted.
They’ve plagued me since I first got the call that night.
Every single detail still lives in my head with crystal clarity.
The frantic phone call from Lucky…
Her barely able to get out the words to explain what was happening as Connor drove them to the hospital in Asheville…
Rushing to get to my car…
Trying to call Willow…
That long drive up the mountain to find Tony’s squad car and my hysterical best friend clutching her baby to her…
A furious Killian still clinging to his gun as if he expected more danger to come…
And soon enough, the arrival of the FBI and eventually Agent Michaelson…
My anger when I was told it all needed to be kept under wraps…
When I was told I couldn’t write a story about the attack on the McBride homestead or what the Lorells had done to Lucky…
They kept me from seeing the bodies, from viewing the real carnage that occurred on the property I loved so much, to the people I loved so much, but I saw enough.
Enough that the nightmares came.
Waking in a sweat-soaked panic…
