Page 34 of Coming Home

Chapter 12

My foot wouldn’t stop bouncing as we drove to Peyton’s. I was a nervous. I never got nervous. Being a sniper meant I was incapable of feeling nerves and if I did, I risked death. It was that simple.

I hadn’t told Shelby what I did in the military. I had killed people. How would she feel about that when she found out?

“Why are you so jumpy?” Will asked.

“Because he knows my sister will not be happy to see him,” Shelby informed him.

I groaned.

“Why?” Troy asked. I knew if he could shoot laser beams from his eyes, I’d already be dead. I could feel him staring holes into the back of my head since he climbed into the back seat of Shelby’s car.

“Because I was an ass about how I left things here. You already know this, Troy. You’ve been giving me shit for it since the moment I got back,” I reminded him.

I imagined his eyes were about to bug out his head that I’d had the audacity to say that in front of Shelby. I hadn’t told them she was my true mate. I didn’t want to share that with even my family until I knew it was okay with her.

“Peyton can be a little overprotective of those she cares about,” Shelby said.

“Good. I hope she rips his throat out,” Troy said under his breath.

Shelby pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it into park, then turned to look at Troy. “You don’t mean that, Troy.”

“Yes, I do. I remember. I remember how he just left without any warning. I remember how much Mom cried for days and how worried she is all the time, wondering if we’ll ever hear from him again. And I remember you crying too, Ms. Shelby. He hurt you too, not just us. You and Ben were inseparable just like Will and Caroline are now, and then he was just gone. Everyone thinks we were too young to remember, but I remember everything.”

I hated hearing him talk like that. It was ripping a hole in my heart that I’d kept bandaged for years. Logically I knew I would hurt them all by my actions, but in order to survive, I’d had to push all that down and forget it. If I’d lived life with that much guilt hanging over me, I’d never have survived Basic, let alone nine years as a Ghost.

“Troy,” I started, but Shelby raised her hand and cut me off.

“Listen, both of you,” she said. “Yes, I was hurt and upset when Ben left the way he did, but he did what he needed to do to get through a rough time in his life. It wasn’t personal. It may have felt like it was, but it wasn’t. Ben loves you guys, and he loves your parents, too. He would never knowingly hurt any of you like that. My issues were just that, mine. And I’m okay. It’s all made me so much stronger. Troy, you can’t live life with all this pent-up anger towards him though. Trust me, it’s not healthy.”

“But. . .” Troy tried to interject, but Shelby cut him off, too.

“No buts, Troy.” She took a deep breath and stared at me for a moment before reaching for my hand. “There’s also something you both need to know and try to understand. When Ben left here he was barely eighteen. His wolf hadn’t come in yet, but mine had and she was very much set on him. There were some other factors, but that’s basically why it was so much harder on me then it should have been.”

I hated hearing her talk like that. I squeezed her hand.

“My wolf hadn’t come in and I thought she had mated with someone else. It was a big misunderstanding that I’ll likely regret every day of the rest of my life. I didn’t know when I left that Shelby was my one true mate.”

Troy gasped and Will laughed.

“You’re serious?”

Shelby turned to look at me and smiled, really smiled for probably the first time since I got home.

“Yeah, he’s serious,” she confirmed. “We’ve got a lot of crap to deal with now, and it would be a lot easier if you backed off him a bit, Troy. I really appreciate you looking out for me, but this isn’t something we can just ignore.”

“I didn’t know,” he whispered.

“I know you didn’t, and aside from the two of you, only my sister Maddie knows about this. Can you two keep it between us for now? Just until we figure out what the hell we’re doing,” she said, making them both laugh.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Will said, elbowing his twin who finally nodded. “Thanks for trusting us with this.”

The tension in the car was lifted as Shelby turned back in her seat and continued the drive. Peyton lived in a big old house just outside Collier territory. As I rode along, Shelby told me how her sister had mated a Larken wolf and they’d bought the original Collier house and fixed it up. Since it had been sold off decades ago, it wasn’t considered Collier territory any longer. Peyton had put the house in both her and her mate, Oliver’s, names to ensure neither pack could claim it, giving her family a safe neutral zone to live in.

She also told me how Oliver had come with a ready-made family of three brothers that he had raised practically on his own and an infant daughter named Eve. She went on to say that Ruby also had taken a mate named Bran, and they had a baby girl named Opal. Maddie had mated Liam Westin and they had two kids, Oscar and Sara. Lizzy and Clara were both happily mated, but no kids, and Thomas had taken Lily Collier as a mate.

“Lily is dying to have a baby, but Thomas isn’t ready,” Shelby said as she concluded her family’s history over the last few years. “Oh, and Oscar is about your age, guys. I think you’ll have fun with him today.”

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