“Well, since you didn’t ask, I’m going to tell you. My ex is getting married. My mother asked me to head the family reunion for all one hundred Montgomerys because I have no life. Everybody else has a family, and I have no one. So, I wanted to feel sorry for myself in the mountains.”
I just looked at him then and laughed. Because damn, I would love to have something so trivial be my issue. They might not be insignificant to him, but just then, I didn’t fucking care.
“Seriously? You’re sad because your family is getting married and having kids, and you aren’t? And that your ex is getting married. You already told me that you didn’t like him. That you didn’t care. And now you care, and you need time alone to yourself? Pull your head out of your fucking ass.”
I hadn’t meant to say the words, and honestly, they weren’t even for him. They were for me. I knew it. But by the way that Archer paled and took a step back, I knew I needed to be better.
“Shit. I’m sorry, Archer. I’m having a day, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
Archer held up his hands. “No, I’m sorry. You’re right. I know I need to get my head out of my fucking ass. I’m trying to. And I don’t even know why I told you. You clearly don’t want me to be here.”
“Idon’t even want to be here, Archer.”
“Why? Why are you here, Killian? Sure, I’ll get my head out of my ass, and I will do it right now because frankly, I don’t want to be the guy that a hot, grumpy guy in the woods yells at. But what’s wrong? Why are you here?”
I could have said nothing. I could have walked away, punched him in the face, done anything other than say anything.
But I was just so tired.
“You want to know why I’m here? Because Cora is all I have left. Because I used to be a dad and a husband, I had that life that you are so jealous of.”
The words tumbled out of me, and it was as if the world dropped from beneath my feet. The past rushed back like a slap in the face and my hands went clammy, my face losing all heat and color. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
I couldn’t stop.
Archer moved forward. Froze. His eyes went glassy, his mouth parted like he wanted to say something, then stopped, then started again. “Shit, Killian, I’m sorry. You don’t have to say anything. We can walk away right now and forget this happened.”
That was the problem. I couldn’t forget anything happened. Here I was, trying to live my life when at one point, I didn’t even have a life to live, and there was no going back.
So the words escaped me, and I let them.
Finally.
I let them.
“No, I’ll say it. I don’t say it often, so I should say it to you.”
I wasn’t sure that even made sense to me, let alone Archer, but he was quiet and let me speak.
I didn’t know whether to yell at him or thank him for letting me.
“I had the perfect wife. Danielle was amazing. She was kick-ass, smart, brilliant, worked hard, and the chemistry we had? Off the fucking charts. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. And she loved it.”
Archer again stood there, his face pale, his emotions etched on his face, but he let me speak.
So I continued, even as my heart shattered into a thousand new shards. “Our kid? Cassidy? She was the best thing in my life. From the first moment I held her, I knew that I wanted to be the best girl-dad ever. She was a daddy’s girl through and through. She followed me around, helped me with my work. I used to be a carpenter. I used to build furniture and custom pieces for homes like this. That was my job. I used to wear the flannel, dirty jeans, dirty boots, and I worked. My wife ran a Fortune 500 company, worked long hours, and came home to a meal that I cooked, and a little girl that loved us both and laughed like nobody’s business.”
Archer’s eyes watered, and he reached forward, but I took a step back. If he touched me, I’d break, and I was already on the precipice. “You do not have to continue this, Killian.”
“Let me,” I ground out, my voice breaking.
“Okay. Anything you need. Anything.”
“Cora was a puppy. We left her at home that night since we couldn’t take her to the dinner at the ranch. Dinner ran late with Danielle’s family, and we were trying to drive home in the ice and snow, even though we shouldn’t have. We were up in Wyoming, trying to get back down here. We were trying to get home, trying to get to the damn dog.”
Cora whined, and I cursed again and rubbed my hand down her flank. It wasn’t her fault. I knew that. I knew exactly whose fault this was.
“We hit black ice. Like everyone fucking does, only we were on a curve, with a car coming thatalsohit the damn black ice. We were next to an embankment, next to a lake.”