Page 25

Even though the last few minutes had been strange and surreal, it warmed my heart that Cole had remembered our son was starving and ensured he would get the burger he so desperately wanted.

Outside in the fresh air, though, my mind instantly returned to what had just happened in the restaurant.

“Are you going to tell me what’s happening?” I asked.

“In the car,” he said. “I promise.”

Once he helped me into the truck, he got into the driver’s seat and pulled away.

For a few seconds, he was silent, almost brooding.

Not wanting to push, I sat with my hands folded in my lap, trying not to fidget.

I wanted answers, but I knew Cole well enough to know that he was working out what he wanted to say before he opened his mouth.

It was one of the things that made him who he was.

He never spoke without having his thoughts in order.

Not when it was something important. Still, it was maddening to sit there in silence while I waited.

Finally, he spoke.

“I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you fifteen years ago, but I was too childish back then.”

A tremor ran through me, so strong that I almost shivered from it. Answers. Was that what I was about to receive? A reason for why he’d left me in the dark and alone?

“I’m all ears,” I said, and though I was eager to hear, I still caught the bitterness in my voice. There was nothing I could do about that.

“You remember what it was like those last couple years with my father?” he asked.

I huffed a laugh. “You and he were at each other’s throats.”

“Yeah. He kept badgering me about taking over the pack,” Cole said, his eyes pinned on the road as if trying to peer back in time rather than at the yellow lines and pavement.

“I was still mourning my mother, even though it had been years since she died, and I was still angry about what he’d done.

In my mind, it was his affair that killed her. Dead of a broken heart, you know.”

“I do,” I murmured.

After all I’d gone through after Cole left me, I’d become intensely aware of how fragile a heart was. It was easy to see how a betrayal like that could kill some. I’d felt like dying myself in the months after Cole vanished.

“We fought like cats and dogs. I kept pushing back, telling him I didn’t want to take over for a few years.

Told him, uh…” He gave me a sidelong glance.

“I told him I wanted to live life with you for a bit before settling down to take over the pack. He didn’t like that.

He kept telling me it was my duty to the pack.

You know I never wanted to lead. Don’t you, Avery? Do you remember what we talked about?”

I did. Cole had confided in me that he wanted to renounce his claim to the Harbor Mills pack.

He’d thought of it as a tainted position due to his father’s infidelity.

The way Lance had dishonored the position had made Cole sour on the prospect of taking over.

He also didn’t want to be in charge of a whole town full of people. He’d agonized over it.

I thought back on the photos I’d found the other night. The way Cole’s face had slowly lost its shining smile, the haunted look that had slowly crept into his eyes with each subsequent photo. It had weighed on him heavily.

“I remember,” I said.

Cole nodded. When he glanced at me, there was pain in his eyes. Pain unlike anything I’d ever seen there before.

“I finally told my father the truth. That I never wanted to be the alpha, that I had no desire to set down roots here and take over what he’d built.

Things got pretty tense between us after that.

It got worse when I brought up the idea that he go ahead and acknowledge Dallas, make him an official member of the Garrett family.

My hope was that maybe Dad could mentor him, and he could be the new alpha when Dad retired. ”

I frowned, confused again. “But I thought Dallas was born a beta. He’s not an alpha by blood. How could he be the alpha of a whole pack?”

Cole shrugged. “I know. I figured he could be an interim alpha. Maintain order and structure until a new alpha from a different family could be chosen. Then, Dallas could be the right hand of that new regime, if you will. The Garrett family would still hold some power and prestige, but we could slowly begin to fade into the background. In my mind, my father had soiled our name with what he’d done, and it made sense to give up control.

“Dad outright rejected the idea. Avery, it was the first time in my life I thought he might physically attack me. He cursed me and threw shit. Farrah was the only one who managed to calm us both down before we went to blows. After that night, Dad started drinking more. Heavily. The hardest shit he could find, so it could actually make him drunk. It takes a lot to get a shifter hammered, but he did his best. Mostly vodka with a super-high alcohol content. Fuck, I think he was probably drinking a couple bottles a day. Drowning his sorrows, I guess.”

“You told me all this, Cole,” I said. “None of this is news to me. We talked about this back then. You were afraid you’d end up attacking him.”

“Yeah. He got verbally abusive. Calling me every name under the sun. Farrah, too, since she was taking my side on most of it. It was bad. It was worse than I even told you,” Cole said, his voice growing thin with emotion. “I didn’t want you worrying about it, so I kept a lot of it to myself.”

On impulse, I reached out, taking his free hand in mine and lacing my fingers through it.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. It was the most intimacy either of us had had with one another in fifteen years, and the simple feel of his skin on mine sent me tumbling through time.

In an instant, we were eighteen again, driving to a movie, holding hands, thinking we’d be together forever.

As much hurt as I’d gone through, I was starting to forgive.

As crazy as that would have sounded a month ago, I truly was.

And I didn’t really know what to do with that feeling.

Cole cleared his throat, and I saw the strain in his eyes. The pain in his face was almost indescribable. I wanted to speak, to say something comforting, but I stayed quiet.

“One afternoon, he called me to come to the house. He was drunk again. You were at college, and I’d spent the day doing God knows what. He was in his office, and his pistol was on his desk.”

My hand squeezed his in shock. A gun?

“He asked me what I’d been doing, and if I’d been out with… what were his words? ‘ That damned human. ’” He glanced over at me apologetically.

“It’s okay. Go on.”

It hadn’t been a secret that Lance didn’t approve of his son being in a relationship with a human, but we’d been in love and hadn’t cared. This was not new information.

“He picked up the gun and waved it around like a fucking baton or something. He said I shouldn’t tie myself to anyone.

Told me it would be better if I never took a mate.

Loving someone would make me weak and turn me into someone I wouldn’t want to be.

He told me I was destined to be like him. That it was in our blood.

“I got pissed, told him that was bullshit. That I’d never be like him. He just smiled back at me. That lopsided, drunk grin. He asked me what I’d do if you died. What would happen if I took you as a mate, claimed you, and you died? How much would that hollow me out? Would it rip out my soul?

“Something about the way he said it scared me. Then he said if I made one single mistake, it could kill you. I think he was talking about cheating on Mom. Even then, I think he regretted it.” He shook his head.

“He loved my mother. I know that. I saw how they were together before the affair, and then after. It ruined her and ultimately killed her. That mistake also ruined my father. One bad mistake, one choice, and multiple lives were ruined. And I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right.

If the Garrett men were cursed. I worried that I’d ruin your life somehow.

I’d say something or do something, and it would be bad enough that you’d waste away like Mom.

I’d be left as a shell of myself, half my soul gone. ”

The backs of my eyes burned, equal parts anger and sadness warring within me. I held his hand tighter.

“He kept talking, and the more he spoke to me, the more terrified I became. I started picturing it. All the ways I’d ruin your life, the way he’d ruined Mom’s.

I could almost see myself breaking your heart in some way.

The thought of losing you became an overpowering fear, and if I claimed you, that fear would only grow stronger.

” Cole pounded his fist on the steering wheel.

“I didn’t even realize it, but over the years, he’d brainwashed me.

Made me terrified that I’d end up exactly like him.

That conversation had nailed those thoughts deep into my mind.

The fear became a certainty. Even as we fought and yelled at each other in that office, I kept imagining you broken-hearted or dying, hurt in some way because of me.

I couldn’t let that happen.” His breath hitched with emotion.

“So, I grabbed my shit and left. I’d hoped that by putting distance between us, I’d give you the chance at a better life.

I didn’t call or text, because I knew how weak I was.

If I heard your voice, or read a word you’d written, I wouldn’t have been able to stay away.

I’d come running right back to you, and then the fear would start again.

The knowledge that I’d somehow be the one to ruin your life the way Dad ruined Mom’s. ”

He looked at me, unshed tears shimmering in his eyes. My heart pounded as I gritted my teeth together. How could he have made a decision that big without even talking to me?

“Even then, I couldn’t sever our bond. I never rejected you in my soul, never ended our connection. Even after all these years, you’re still my fated mate. Regardless of what you or I felt, that connection remained strong and alive, binding you to me. I never let go of you in my heart.”