I hadn’t wanted to do this, here, in my truck, when she’s in the middle of a fucking panic attack—maybe rightfully so—but she needs to hear it.
“Not everything I love is in McBride Mountain. Not if you’re not here.”
Her breath catches, her bottom lip quivering. “Liam…”
I reach up and grasp her chin in my fingers, dragging her across the center console toward me. “I love you, Lucky. I have since the moment you walked into the diner and accused me of stealing Giz. You’ve done more for me in the past month than anyone I’ve known in my entire life was able to over the previous nine. I need you.” Shaking my head, I hold her gaze, refuse to let her look away. “I don’t need to be in McBride Mountain. Not anymore. I was already considering leaving before you showed up. Thinking about putting space between me and this place and the memories and nightmares. But now the nightmares are gone. Now that I have you beside me in bed every night.”
“But your family?—”
“Will still be here. They’re not going anywhere. But I can. We can have a new life somewhere else. We can start over. Is that what you want?”
She shakes her head. “No. I want to be here. This place, it’s…”
Watching Lucky struggle to find the right words makes my lips curl. “I know. It’s kind of magical, isn’t it?”
She nods.
“So just trust that we’re going to figure it out. Trust me. Trust in the magic of the mountain and in the McBrides.”
Her gaze softens. “I do trust you.”
Those are the only words I needed to hear, and I lean in and press a kiss to her lips, silencing her tears and making her the same promise I have been for weeks.
That I’m not going to leave her to face this alone.
She’ll never be alone again.
16
LUCKY
My knee bounces rapidly, all the nervous energy overwhelming my body seeking an outlet. I attempt to hide it underneath Liam’s desk so he doesn’t see it and worry, but the way his eyes are narrowed on me tells me I’m doing a shitty job of concealing my building distress.
Either because I’ve been trying to for so long that it’s written all over my face, too, or simply because Liam can read me so easily.
He sees me so completely and knows exactly what’s going on in my head, even when I try to protect him from the dark places it often takes me.
In moments like this.
This is our only chance.
One shot to potentially find a way to dig me out from under the shit I’ve found myself buried in.
If this doesn’t go well…
My stomach roils, and I press my hands to it, trying to settle it before I dry-heave all across Liam’s desk.
Liam stalks over from where he had been standing by the window, watching for our guest to arrive, spins me in the chair until I face him, then squats, resting his hands on my thighs. “You don’t have anything to be nervous about, Lucky. This is a good thing. Attorney Truman is coming to help.”
I absently chew on my bottom lip—a habit I have never been able to break no matter how many times I try to be conscious about not doing it.
A familiar heat flares across Liam’s gaze, and even though the tension permeating the room is heavy enough to suffocate us, he grins.
That slow, quick tilt of his lips that first drew me to him.
I quickly release my lip, knowing full well what’s going through his head after the warning he issued me about my lip before.
“After the meeting.”
