Because thinking about her means I’m not thinking about me.
I clear my throat, trying to work out the tension there, as I fall in beside her and we start walking toward Elaine’s house. “So, what do you think about McBride Mountain now that you’ve been here for a week?”
A grin plays at her lips and her eyes warm in the few lights coming from the shops we pass on Main Street. “It’s beautiful here. Quiet. Peaceful.”
All those things are true.
Mostly.
The mountain wasn’t so peaceful when we found out what happened to Willow. When we found out what my father had done to her. When Killian almost killed him right in front of me. But her observations about McBride Mountain are exactly the reasons everyone loves it.
“We’re a small town.” I scan the nearly empty street. “Everybody knows each other. It can be annoying, people constantly being in your business, but it’s home.”
And I’ve never left it.
I never even considered it, until the last several months. But somehow, getting away from the stares and the history here has sounded more and more appealing the longer the nightmares have plagued me.
Lucky watches me out of the corner of her eye. “I can’t help but notice the name of the town…”
Her initial reaction when I introduced myself that first night flashes through my head, and I try to figure out how to explain the family history to her without discussing all the things I have been running from for months.
“The McBrides have been here for 250 years…”
“Wow. I can’t imagine having those kind of roots anywhere.”
Which means I was right—Lucky doesn’t have anywhere to really call home.
I wave a hand out toward the town square. “They founded the town.”
“Wow”—she offers a playful grin—“so you’re like, royalty or something.”
A chuckle slips out of my mouth, but there’s no real humor in it. “Some people might say we are, but I’m actually adopted, not a McBride by birth, so I guess I can’t inherit the throne, anyway.”
She raises a brow. “Really?”
Fuck.
I hadn’t meant to tell her that.
But now that the cat’s out of the bag, there isn’t really a way to put it back.
“Uh huh…”
I kick a pebble and watch it bounce along the sidewalk in front of us, holding my breath and hoping she doesn’t try to delve any deeper into what I just inadvertently revealed. Tonight, after spending the day out on the far side of the mountain, I don’t think I could handle discussing the realities of where I came from.
A moment of silence hangs between us before she glances at me again. “Were those your brothers earlier tonight?”
“Yeah.” I offer her an apologetic smile. “Sorry if they were being assholes. That’s just kind of their usual state.”
She chuckles. “I know what that’s like.”
“You have brothers and sisters?”
A wistful look overtakes her face. “Like you, not by blood. But yeah. A lot of them.”
I raise a brow at her. “How many is a lot?”
“Thirty or forty?”
