But seeing this house now, my heart sinks.
There’s no one here.
Killian kills the engine and climbs off the ATV, offering me a hand to help me do the same. My legs tremble so badly that I can barely stand, but he wraps his arm around my waist, supporting me as he leads me toward the porch across an unmanicured, weed-infested clearing that can’t even be called a lawn.
I keep scanning the property for any signs of life, for a glimpse of anything that might suggest I was right in my faith that Niall would be here.
A flash of blue in the half-collapsed garage to the right catches my attention, and I stop mid-step.
Killian freezes, too. “What?”
I narrow my eyes on it and slip out of his hold slowly. “Killian. Look.”
That hope re-surges again.
My truck.
That’s why no one ever found it on the mountain. Earl must have knocked me unconscious, brought me here, returned and fixed the overheated engine, then gotten it off the road before anyone noticed it abandoned there.
Once he brought it here, no one would ever find it.
And no one was looking for it, either.
Killian mutters a curse and turns back toward the house. “The place looks abandoned, though.”
He’s right.
That same fear ripples through my heart—that I got it completely wrong—but so does something else.
Some instinct that calls to me.
The one that reached out in my dreams, even when I couldn’t remember, telling me I had to go back up the mountain, that I was missing something important.
“He’s here.”
Killian offers me his hand again, and I allow him to pull me toward the house.
We step over two broken treads up onto the porch and weave around a gaping hole in the middle of the old wooden planks where it’s collapsed under the weight of time.
He peers through the dirty, frosted glass on the front door, and I do the same, through a window to the right.
A flicker of movement makes me stagger back. “Someone’s moving inside.”
Killian nods and reaches for the door handle with his left hand and the gun he took from Connor with his right. “You stay out here.”
“What?” I shake my head, my disheveled hair, blown into a rat’s nest by the whipping winds during our frantic drive down the mountain, floating across my face. Shoving it out of the way so I can see him, I stand my ground. “No, I’m going in with you.”
“We don’t know what’s in there, Willow.” He practically hisses the warning, leaning closer so he can lower his voice. “I’m not going to risk your safety.”
“Our baby’s in there, Killian. If you think for one fucking second that I’m not going with you, then you don’t know me at all.”
The corners of his lips twitch, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’s fighting a grin or a scowl. “Stay behind me.”
Thank God.
I don’t have it in me to fight Killian McBride right now.
It seems like that’s all I’ve been doing.
