We got down to business after that. He caught me up-to-date on the latest Pack news. Two new pups had been born that month, which was cause for celebration. For some reason a lot of packs had been struggling to procreate over the last few decades, and the wolf shifter population had started to dwindle because of it. A few species were even struggling in the wild and heading for the endangered animals list.
Most of the Collier Pack wolves were grey. No one understood why some packs were more prone to specific breeds and others more variety. My mother was pretty religious and believed God placed the species he needed most in each of us. Wyoming was a good breeding ground for grey wolves, and currently the wolf population was thriving.
New wolf shifter pups were a different story, though. While my parents had been beyond blessed with seven pups, the average family had only one, if they were able to conceive at all. I knew several packs were struggling to keep up their numbers.
When I was still just a boy, it was arranged for my sister Lizzy to mate a future Alpha of a South American pack that was struggling to keep numbers. They had been quite hopeful that whatever blessing or genes had allowed my parents to have so many pups would help increase their numbers, too. In the end she hadn’t been able to go through with it. A lot of rumors had floated around about her return to Collier, but I still didn’t know the circumstances, just that she had never been quite the same afterwards.
Lily came from a large family as well, and I smiled, wondering just how many pups we’d be blessed with. I could envision her swollen with my child as little ones climbed up her legs. If you had asked me a week earlier I’d have said Lily Westin was too self-absorbed to make a good mother, or handle being a Pack Mother. The more I saw her interact with others, the more my opinion of that changed. I had no doubt she was up to the task of both, and I was excited to see her in action and introduce her to the Pack.
Dad cleared his throat. I looked over at him. He didn’t seem irritated, just smiling. “Sir?” I asked.
“I know that look all too well, son. You’re thinking of your mate,” he said.
I grinned, unable to deny it. “It’s surprisingly hard being away from her, even knowing she’s just down the hall.”
“The way she tore out of here last week, I’d say your wolf will be quite uneasy anytime she’s out of sight, at least for a while. Go to her. I know you have rounds today. Take her with you; show her our territory and introduce her around. I know you asked not to make a formal announcement yet, but I’ll warn you, rumors are already surfacing.”
I sighed. “I figured as much.” Rising, we embraced and said goodbye.
I found Lily sitting in the living room, chatting it up with Maddie and Shelby. She looked relaxed and comfortable, and it made my heart lurch.
“Hey,” she said, noticing my presence, and I was happy to see a smile on her face and no animosity.
“Hey. I’ve got rounds today. You coming, or would you prefer to hang out with these two instead?” I held my breath, hoping she would choose me.
Lily jumped up, waved a quick bye to my sisters, and linked her arm with mine as we walked outside. “I told you I was sticking with you. Relax. When I set my mind on something, it takes an act of God to change it.”
“And you’ve set your mind on me?” I dared to ask.
She hesitated, and there came the punch in my gut feeling once again.
“Yes. I mean, I guess so. I’m still so confused by all this, but I said I’d give us a shot, so let’s do this. Where are we headed?”
I held the truck door open for her before walking around and climbing inside.
“Today we’re just going to make rounds. You’ll get to see a lot of our territory, meet some people, and get a feel for the Pack. We’ll start at the stables. I know Westin’s primary income comes through the Foundation, but Collier is a farming town. We have both gardens and livestock. Everyone pitches in and works hard, and it not only sustains our Pack for food, but we have several large contracts to sell off the excess. The profits from that maintain all our needs here and then some. Dad’s been working with Liam to invest and grow our funds even further.”
I chanced a look over at Lily, who was staring at me in amazement. “That sounds pretty awesome, actually. I love the idea of working the land and being fully sustainable, and to make a strong income off it is all the better. Impressive.”
“Maybe,” I said, still a little concerned about how she’d handle the sometimes hard life of a farming community. She wasn’t exactly used to getting her hands dirty, and while being future Alpha of the Pack afforded me more luxuries and choices than most, when times were tough, everyone pitched in. I could even remember my mother working endless hours under the harsh sun when times were hard. Coming home exhausted, dirt caked under her nails, to clean up just in time to make dinner for us kids, all with a smile on her face. Would Lily live up to that? I was struggling to reconcile the image as she sat next to me in her designer clothes and heels. I looked down to her feet, confused by the boots I saw there instead.
“Where did you get those?” I asked. “I thought you were wearing heels when we left the house. I was just about to suggest we stop and buy you a pair of boots.”
“I do need to pick up a pair, I suppose. I brought boots the first time I came here, but must have left them at home when I ran away. I couldn’t find them in my suitcase this morning, so I asked MC if I could borrow a pair while you were meeting with your dad.” She snorted. “I wasn’t sure what we were doing today, but I was pretty sure those shoes weren’t going to cut it.”
I smiled. Every time I thought I had a grasp on this woman, she threw me another curveball. Arriving at our first destination, I parked in front of the dairy barn and jumped out. Lily helped herself down from the truck before I could make it around to her.
“So,” I said. “This is the barn. We don’t have a large number of dairy cattle, but this is where we keep the few that we do have. The milk is used to supply the town dairy products. At this time, we aren’t equipped to sell in a wider territory. It would require too many upgrades to our current facilities, but is certainly something we’re considering in the future. Most of our cattle are classified as free range for beef. We’ll take a ride out to the fields to check on them another day. Do you ride?”
“Ride what?”
“Horses,” I said. What else? I wondered.
She sighed. “Yes, I do.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
“It’s hard not to feel sorry for the beasts. How would you like it if someone rode your wolf? I know it’s not exactly the same, but I still feel bad for them.”
I smiled. Under that perfect exterior, my mate had a very kind heart. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me so much, but it did.
“Don’t laugh. I’m serious,” she scolded.
“I’m not laughing. I swear. You just . . . surprise me.”
I led her into the barn. She cringed at seeing the cows hooked up to the milking machine. “Ugh, that makes my nipples hurt just looking at them,” she said, covering her breasts.
“I’m not sure any woman has ever come right out and said it so forthright and all, but you wouldn’t be the first to sympathize with them. I promise you it’s not hurting them any.”
Lily and I turned to face the man speaking from behind us. Dalton Draper was an old cowboy. A few years back, he had claimed he was getting too old to ride the range, and had taken over the dairy cattle. He oversaw the entire operation and had true love and respect for each of the animals.
“Lily, this is Dalton. He runs the dairy barn and looks after the animals here,” I told her. They shook hands.
“Sorry to be so forthright,” she said, using the old man’s words, but still not quite relaxing. I reached out and lightly rubbed her lower back. I felt the tension leave her almost immediately.
“Little Lily. Last time I saw you, girl, you were all pigtails and knobby knees running with Miss Maddie through my fields,” Dalton said.
Lily genuinely smiled, and it was mesmerizing. “Mr. Draper?” she asked. The old man smiled back affectionately and Lily threw her arms around his neck and kissed his weathered cheek. My wolf must have been just as shocked as I was, because neither of us seemed to know how to react. “I can’t even believe it. You are as handsome as ever,” she continued to gush over him.
“When we were younger, Mr. Draper used to make MC and me the most delicious s’mores ever. We’d sneak out to the fields and join him around the fire until he’d send us back home,” she told me, reminiscing about her childhood.
“It’s so wonderful to see you,” she told Dalton.
“It’s funny,” I said aloud, “but I don’t really remember you here in Collier.”
“Oh, that’s ’cause little Maddie would get bored when you were traveling with your daddy, or out deep in the range when you started riding with the cowboys. She’d get real sad, missing you something fierce, son, so your mama would always make arrangements for little Lily to come stay for a weekend, sometimes a week. Those two were something else. Like night and day. Miss Maddie with her dark hair and tanned skin, and then little Lily and her pale hair, and skin as ivory as snow even in the middle of summer. Yin and yang, I used to tell them. They complemented each other in every way. It was such a joy watching the two of them grow up together. And then . . .” His voice drifted off. We all knew he was thinking of my sister’s disappearance.
Lily snorted, seeming unaware of the shift in nostalgia. “It’s true. I still can’t tan to save my life. It’s white or red. There’s no in-between.”
Dalton laughed along with her, salvaging the mood back to a more pleasant one, but the memories of Madelyn’s disappearance were heavy on my heart and I had a hard time shaking them as Dalton gave Lily a tour of the barn and they chatted like old friends.
I excused myself after awhile and headed outside. I needed fresh air and open space to breathe again. I headed off toward the river and sat on a boulder, alone with my memories. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been there before I sensed Lily nearby. I looked up to see her watching me with confusion on her face.
“Where’d you go?” she asked.
I tried to brush it off. “I’ve been on that tour and heard his stories a million times. I’ve been right here.”
“No, I mean, I know you’re right here, physically, but what were you thinking about? Your emotions changed when we were talking about Maddie. Why?”
I didn’t want to get into it with her, so I looked back out over the water, trying to compose myself.
“It’s nothing,” I said with the fake smile I used for everyone who had ever asked me how I was concerning my sister, but I knew by the look in her eye she wasn’t buying it. I went to rise, ready to move on to our next site and forget all about it, but before I could get up, she sat beside me.
“Sydney said something the night we were out drinking that’s been weighing on me. Can we talk about it?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I guess that depends what on she said.”
“She said that Maddie’s disappearance had been really hard on you. I hadn’t really considered that before. I was just so upset, and it was easy to channel all my anger towards you.”
“I’ve heard that from several people now, but I don’t understand it. Why would you be mad at me because Madelyn left?”
She took a deep breath and looked out into the water. She was raw and vulnerable. “I’ll explain, if you answer my question first,” she finally said.
“Was Maddie’s disappearance hard on me?”
She nodded.
“Lily, Madelyn was my sister. We were really close, you know. Not just in age, but in everything. I knew she was sneaking out that night, she told me. I didn’t stop her. I should have. I should have gone after her, protected her, but I didn’t, and then she never came back. I never told anyone I knew about her plans that night, and I blamed myself for a long time. To make matters worse, Mom got really scared of everything. She went borderline psychotic for a long time. I was fifteen years old. She yanked me out of school to homeschool me. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without supervision. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
I didn’t mean to unleash everything on Lily, but I couldn’t seem to stop talking. I’d never talked to anyone about this stuff before, not even Syd. Lily was crying, but I kept talking.
“Dad intervened my senior year, but even still, while others were up partying late into the night, I had a strict ten o’clock curfew and even if I was one minute ahead of that curfew, I’d come home to Mom practically hyperventilating in fear, watching the clock for my return. It was hard. When I went off to college, I went a little wild at first from the freedom. I considered not returning to Collier at all. I was ready to be a lone wolf, but my place in the Pack had been so tightly engrained in me that it only lasted a short while before I came back home.”
“But you were never here. Never,” Lily said, raising her voice while tears streaked down her face. “I returned every year on the anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance. The entire Pack held a vigil, every single year. You missed them all. Rumors said you were in Cabo or up in Alaska living it up with a harem of women at your disposal. You were everywhere but where your family needed you most. Where I needed you most.”
The pain in her words cut me like a knife. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to me, kissing the top of her head.
“There was never a harem of women. Those were all rumors and nothing more. You’re right, though, I wasn’t here. I always made plans to be away during the vigil. It was too hard, too painful. I couldn’t face it all. The tighter my parents’ restrictions were in the early years, the more I resented Maddie for leaving me. I was angry at her. I’ve never said that aloud before, but there you have it. I was angry at my sister for not coming home. I was angry at myself for not listening to my gut instinct and letting her go out that night. I was young, and I was angry. Mom and Dad understood that, even if they didn’t really know the reasons for it. They sent me away to other packs that week, and when I was old enough and on my own, I chose to stay away. I’m not perfect, Lily. There are some demons that are just too great to face and that vigil each year was mine.”
Lily
Chapter 15
Never once had I considered things from Thomas’s side. His words and account of what he’d experienced and felt contradicted everything I’d imagined in my head. Years of anger and hatred melted away, and I didn’t know how to process it all.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he assured me.
“Yes, I do. I tend to be an emotion feeder. Everyone was always so sad at those vigils, and I never missed them. The only vigil I ever skipped was last year, the day I found out MC was alive and well. Madelyn was never the only one missing at those things. You were. I’d look at your family, so sad and supportive of each other. They were so strong in the face of such devastation, and in my mind, you’d just abandoned that. You gave up on her and you let down your family. Sure, they never said anything like that, and even Ruby and Lizzy tried to argue a case on your behalf a thousand times, but I would never once listen. My mind was made up and you had to be the most evil person alive to do that to them.”
“You mean the biggest douchebag?” he said, sadly at first, then smiling bigger and bigger as the pieces seemed to fall into place.
I blushed. “Yup, that’s about how it went.”
“And now?” he asked, brushing my hair behind my ear.
“Now? I don’t know what to think. It’s going to take some time to absorb all that,” I told him honestly.
He nodded, then stood, grabbing my hands and hoisting me to my feet. We quietly walked back to the truck. I was thankful we didn’t pass Mr. Draper on the way, certain my nose was red and my eyes puffy from crying during his story.
We stopped at another barn. This one was all wood and rustic looking, and I could
see the stalls of horses from the parking lot. I quickly checked myself in the mirror on the visor, happy to see I didn’t look like I had been crying.
Thomas opened the door and shook his head. “You look beautiful. Stop making a fuss,” he said.
His compliment caused wild flutters in my stomach, but when I looked back at him, I was still having a tough time reconciling the man I was getting to know with the boy I had thought he was. I slid from the truck, right into his arms. He leaned in and I knew he was about to kiss me.
“Thomas!” a loud voice yelled, interrupting us.
Thomas rested his forehead against mine and took in a deep, frustrated breath. I liked seeing him all worked up. He kissed my forehead and pulled back with a fake smile on his face and irritation flowing off him in waves.
“Hey man, be up in a sec,” he yelled back at a dark-haired, handsome cowboy perched on the fence.
We headed in that direction, and four more gorgeous men in tight jeans and cowboy hats seemed to appear out of thin air. Thomas greeted each of them with some weird handshake.
“We’re breaking in the new filly,” the one who had yelled at him said.
Ruby came out of the stables and headed our way. I was grateful for a familiar face. It was a little overwhelming being surrounded by all those hot, tanned muscles. My wolf was agitated and didn’t like me even near them, but I could still take a second to appreciate the scenery, despite her growling protests in the back of my mind.
“I see you’ve met the Six Pack,” Ruby said, stopping and giving me a hug. “Don’t let these boys flatter you. The whole lot of them are nothing but heartbreakers.”
“Oh sweet Ruby, I’d never look at another woman if you’d have me,” the red-headed cowboy said.
“Austin, that’s enough out of you. You know you aren’t man enough to handle all this,” Ruby teased back. With her own striking, curly red hair they would have made quite the couple. She turned back to me. “Thomas introduce you to the gang already?”
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