“There’s more to the story,” Pete guessed after studying his grandson.
Running a hand through his hair, Tristan said, “Yeah…when I laughed at him, he left.”
“You laughed at him?” Kathy asked, puzzled. “Why?”
Laying his hand on his wife’s arm, Pete gazed at his grandson for a moment before asking, “You don’t know about mates, do you, son?”
Looking down at the crumbs on his plate, Tristan shook his head. “Mom…we…never talked about…”
“Oh, sweetie.” Kathy reached over and squeezed Tristan’s hand. “I’m sorry…”
Interrupting his wife, Pete said, “Tristan, let’s take a walk.”
Startled, Tristan glanced at his grandfather. “Now? But I…”
“Now.” Pete rose and led his grandson outside. “A walk will do us both good…especially after eating more of your grandmother’s blueberry muffins than either of us should have.” Without waiting for an answer, Pete headed for the forest surrounding their home.
Tristan followed his grandfather, paying scant attention to his surroundings. He thought about his grandmother’s reaction to his statement and from that, he gathered finding a mate was a good thing. But he’d already guessed that by the look on his mate’s face.Fuck, now I’m referring to him as my mate.Deep in thought, he never noticed that his grandfather had stopped until he bumped into him. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Glancing over his shoulder, Pete smiled at his grandson, then turned back and pointed. “This was your mother’s favorite spot whenever she had a problem that needed sorting out.”
Looking around, Tristan found nothing special about the spot until his eyes followed the trunk of a nearby tree into the sky above them. “Holy shit! Is that for real?”
Chuckling, Pete sat down near the base of it. “According to your mother, this tree always made her problems appear smaller.”
Still gazing at the leafy canopy over him, Tristan murmured, “I can see why.” Then, claiming the seatnext to his grandfather, he asked, “Did my mother come here often?”
“Probably more than I’d have liked,” Pete replied, thinking about his daughter for a moment before continuing. “When a man becomes a father, it’s the most satisfying and terrifying time he’ll ever have…especially the terrifying part. When my baby daughter was put into my arms, I stared down at her and, in a heartbeat, I promised her the world. Of course, little did I know it was beyond my capability to give her that, but then, I guess every new father believes they have the power to do anything when it involves their child.”
Lapsing into silence, Pete studied his hands, flexing them, noticing the wrinkled skin where it once had been smooth. He knew they weren’t as strong as they used to be, just like the rest of him, but in the end, it didn’t matter. No amount of strength could have prevented his daughter from suffering the pain Josiah inflicted on her.
“Your mother was stubborn,” Pete said. “When she made up her mind about something, no one could change it. Your grandmother claimed she got that from me.”
“Did she?” Tristan asked.
“Probably…maybe…but I always saw her as a miniature copy of your grandmother.”
“Grandma reminds me of my mother.”
“When your mother was born, she looked just like Kathy did when she was an infant. And as your mother grew up, the similarities were striking. I think that’s why I didn’t see myself in her.” Sighing, Pete glanced at his grandson. “When Josiah insisted your mother leave the pack, she begged me and Kathy to come with her,but I refused. I wanted her to go to the High Council and file a complaint against him.”
“My mother never would have done that,” Tristan murmured. “She loved him too much.”
Surprised, Pete asked, “She told you?”
Shaking his head, Tristan thought back to the day after his world had collapsed. Just after his mother died, in an effort to focus on something other than his loss, he began to sort through her clothes. He was curious when he found a bundle of letters, tied with a faded blue ribbon, in an old box at the back of his mother’s closet. Lifting them up to his nose, the faint scent of his mother prompted another round of tears.
When they finally stopped, Tristan poured himself a cup of coffee and, taking it and the letters, sat down in his mother’s favorite chair and began to read. Between sips of coffee and a time out for tears, he read all of them. When the last one had been slipped back into its envelope, Tristan knew he was the result of the love two people shared. And he finally understood why his mother was always sad whenever he asked about his father.
After reading the letters, Tristan came to the conclusion his father must have died before he was born because there wasn’t any other explanation as to why his parents weren’t still together—not with the kind of love they had. And when he discovered his birth record and found out his father was still alive, he was shocked. At first, he was sure there was a mistake, but after researching it further, anger replaced the sorrow he’d felt. Not only had his father deserted him, but he’d also forsaken the woman he’d sworn in his letters to love for the rest of his life.
None of it had made sense then, or even now; Tristan still couldn’t imagine that the man who wrote words of forever love to his mother could commit such horrific crimes.
“She’d never talked about her life here, grandpa. It was only after she died that I discovered the secret she’d hidden from me all my life,” he muttered, bitterly.
Pete looked off into the distance, reminded of the same tone in his daughter’s voice when she told him she was pregnant. She was so sure of Josiah’s love that she ignored all their warnings about him. And then, as she cried bitter tears of rejection, she vowed to leave the pack and never to step foot on its lands again.
Shocked at his daughter’s declaration that day, as they sat talking in the woods, Pete refused to accept it, but as the shadows grew long in the forest, he finally ran out of reasons why she should stay and fight. Silence fell between them, his heart broken at his daughter’s pain, but now determined to challenge Josiah. Later, though, when he announced his plan to Kathy, she talked him out of it, certain that the Alpha would prevail. “She’s going to need both of us,” he remembered her saying.
