Figured you could use this as much today as you needed it fifteen years ago. Happy Pop Your Cherry Day!
It’s exactly something I would say.
I toss it back onto the pile and run my hands through my hair—more confused than ever. “So, what does any of this mean? I clearly sent you all these. I was clearly traveling, but somehow, I got back here. Why would I return without telling you or contacting anyone? And why would I be up where not even the McBrides go and out barefoot in a storm?”
“You haven’t remembered anything?”
“Only a few flashes. Something with a fire and lightning, maybe thunder or a gunshot, but I don’t…” I shake my head, squeezing my eyes closed as my temples start to throb with the struggle to bring up the memories. “But everything else is just black.”
A gaping, endless abyss of nothing.
Raven offers me a soft smile. “Maybe the boys will find something today that can offer some insight.”
It’s meant to be reassuring, but the hesitation in her voice tells me she shares the same concern I do—that I might never remember. That there might not ever be answers.
“I sure hope so. It’s only been a few days, but there’s this giant hole that I can’t fill. And part of me doesn’t want to because I’m afraid of what I’ll find.”
Her brow furrows. “Are you and Killian okay? Are you sure you don’t want to come stay with me?”
I should have known she’d ask again.
With their history and how I apparently left things with Killian, it’s only natural she’d be worried about me being cooped up with him in the cabin.
Sleeping in the bed we shared…
And she has no idea I woke up in his arms this morning, still snuggled up on the recliner where we fell asleep…
With his warm blue eyes watching me as my eyelids fluttered open.
“I don’t know. Things are…weird.”
She snorts. “I would expect so.”
“To me, it feels like…”
“Like you’re still together?”
I nod.
“Just be careful with him, Willow.” She shakes her head. “He isn’t the same person he was a year ago. And even if he was, that’s the man who sent you running.”
“I know.”
She purses her lips, suddenly looking very serious. “He could be as dangerous to you as whatever you can’t remember.”
KILLIAN
“Send. Them. Back. Out.”
My words come out more snarled than spoken, more feral animal than human, bearing the weight of the desperation currently simmering in my veins.
Sheriff Briggs stares me down, arms crossed over his barrel chest, mimicking my posture as he takes his stand against my demand. “Killian, you know I can’t do that.”
I issue a low growl and step toward the man I seem to have been at odds with all day, despite the fact that we’ve been friends since we were in diapers. “Yes, you can.” I point my axe in the direction we know Willow came from. “Send the fucking dogs back out there.”
Tony scowls, his dark brows dropping low over even darker eyes. “They’re not my dogs, and according to the handler, they’ve lost the scent. There’s nothing more we can do.”
It’s the same bullshit he’s been telling me for the last ten minutes, and hearing it again only seems to aggravate the already-festering wound our fruitless day of searching has created.
