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One of the reasons I’d picked this house to rent was because of the attached garage. Keeping my SUV out of sight was important. The fewer people who knew about me, the better. “I have a full tank.”
“Okay.” He got to his feet and headed toward the door. Glancing over his shoulder, he added, “My beta is watching the hotel. The guy is in his room, so you don’t have to worry about him following you.”
“That’s good to know, thanks.”
As soon as he left, I raced over to the closet to grab my stuff. Knowing the man looking for me was on the other side of town had me comfortable enough to pack the rest of my things into my suitcase. After tossing everything into my SUV, I did one last walk through the house, leaving the keys on the counter. My lease was month-to-month, so I sent a quick email to my landlord to let her know I wouldn’t be staying.
Driving out of Lake Park, I didn’t feel the same fear that I had when my parents and I split up. The situations were similar, but I’d learned to believe in myself during my time alone. I knew I could handle whatever came my way…and there was a small part of me that was looking at this as an adventure. Hopefully somewhere I could let my inner animal run free more often since the frequency of patrols in the surrounding forest meant that I’d had to hold her back in Lake Park.
2
AARON
At the knock on my door, my head jerked up from my breakfast, and my brows drew together. During the months I spent at The Wilderness Pack, I’d had visitors from time to time. Mostly when my family decided to come up and see me. But I wasn’t expecting anyone today. If I was, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been this early.
As I pushed my plate to the middle of the small round table in the eat-in kitchen, my wolf grumbled over the fact that I’d only been able to eat half of the stack of pancakes I made this morning.
“Sorry to drop in on you like this,” Peppa muttered, flashing an exasperated look at her mate, their son darting past me to race inside my cabin. “But you know how your brother is once he gets an idea in his head.”
Cason shrugged as he set his daughter Clio on her feet. “Can you blame me for missing my brother?”
When I left my pack to become a loner after the human who was supposed to be my fated mate rejected me, I hadn’t thought about the pain my family would go through. The only thing on my mind was survival—mine and my wolf’s.
I hadn’t been sure how to face the rest of my very long life knowing that I would never experience the happiness of being mated. There would be no children for me. No passion. No love.
It wasn’t until I saw my family a couple of weeks after I landed on Keane Vetle’s doorstep years later that I realized they’d suffered right along with me, even though we’d been hundreds of miles apart all this time.
Peppa crossed her arms over her chest. “No, but I can be grumpy about you insisting that we needed to get on the road when the sun was barely in the sky when all I wanted to do was sleep in this morning.”
“It’s good to see you.” I patted my brother on the back before pulling his mate in for a hug. It only lasted a second before Cason yanked Peppa away from me and wrapped his arm around her waist, making me chuckle. “Although it’s better to see your mate and my niece and nephew, even if Peppa is grumpy.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and huffed out a breath. “You better have coffee in there.”
“I do.”
“G’mornin, Unka Aaron,” Clio prattled, flashing me a quick grin that melted my heart before she went to see what her brother was doing.
Cason’s nostrils flared, his eyes going wide. “Am I smelling Mom’s famous blueberry pancakes?”
“Yup,” I confirmed with a smirk, knowing damn well they were his favorite.
“What in the hell?” he muttered, elbowing past me.
Peppa shook her head with a sigh. “Now you’ve done it.”
One of my first memories of Cason was sneaking him bites of blueberry pancakes when we were little. My mom had freaked out because they hadn’t started him on solids yet, but my dad had just laughed it off and said something about how he must’ve been ready earlier than they thought since he was wolfing down the pieces that I was giving him.
I followed her into the kitchen, not even a tiny bit surprised to find my brother sitting at the table.
“How did you get the recipe?” he mumbled around a mouthful of my breakfast.
Leaning my hip against the kitchen counter, I answered, “I asked for it.”
“No fair.” Jabbing the fork into another bite, he pointed it at Peppa. “I thought she told you that she wasn’t willing to give it up for anything? Not even extra time with her grandchildren?”
“That’s exactly what your mom said.” Peppa stole part of a pancake from the plate and tore the piece in half to give some to each of their children. “Those darn pancakes are the bane to my existence, I swear. I’ve tried to figure out the recipe on my own, but I can never get them quite right.”
“I can’t even yell at her because I get why she’d give it up since you were the one asking,” Cason grumbled after finishing off the last bite. “We’d all do just about anything to make you happy.”
