Shot Throught the Heart

four

Just as I thought my day couldn't get any worse, in walked Mal and her now husband Troy. The reason why he looked so familiar was because we all went to high school together.

            "Daniella Donovan, I would say it's nice to see you again after all these years but we are at my fathers funeral after all." I said and grabbed Troy's hand and gave it an extra hard squeeze to show him who is boss right now. Troy's face gave him away when I squeezed to hard, it looked like he was ready to rip his hand away from me.

            "Well, nothing brings a community together like a death." Troy said and tried to soothe his now aching hand.

            "Dude don't start." Morgan said from my right already stepping up to him.

            "We didn't come here for trouble Daniella, your dad was always really good to me when we were growing up, I just wanted to come and pay my respects." Mallory said trying to keep the peace between us.

            "Are your friends Rangers like you?" Logan's young voice pierced through the adult tension as he continued to look up at Rob and Morgan.

            "I am, I work really close with Dani here. I watch her back while she gets to do all the cool stuff. Morgan over there works in intelligence, she finds us the bad guys to go after." Rob explained to him going into dad mode.

            "Mallory Jenko, wow it's been a really long time." Mom said coming up behind us.

            "Shannon, I'm sorry to be crashing in like this, I think we got the time wrong. When I heard about Peter I wanted to come and offer my deepest sympathies." Mallory said to mom.

            "Thank you for coming." Mom said and pulled her into a hug.

            With the tension broken for the moment, mom pulled Mallory into conversation while Troy pulled Logan inside and the pair found a seat while I went back to pacing in entry way of the funeral home.

            "Was that Mal?" Dominic asked in a rush as he came over to me and pulled me more toward the front door.

            "Yes" I answered.

            "What the hell is she doing here? I have half the mind to tell her to fuck off for everything she's done to you." Dominic said getting worked up.

            "That was 10 years ago Dom." I said trying to calm him down from doing something stupid.

            "Hey, if he is telling her to fuck off, I want in. That husband of her is nothing but an intitled asshat." Morgan said.

            "I'm with the team Dani, if Logan didn't come in and ask us about the military, I probably would have bum rushed Troy out the door." Rob chimed in.

            "As much as dad would love to have this going on at his funeral, can we have some decorum. This his funeral after all, people are started to arrive anyway, it's too late to make a seen now." I said and sighed. The trio seemed to finally catch my drift and they dropped the subject for the moment.

            "Wait, the kid was who you wanted the patches for?" Morgan asked.

            "Yea, I met him in the park and he got so excited to talk to a soldier, I wanted him to have one of our patches except I came straight from country and didn't go home first." I answered Morgan.

            She didn't say anything else but did give me the 'I want details' eyes' as we started to make our way back into the main room. After the initial disturbance, things settled down with my friend and brother keeping there distance from Mallory. It wasn't hard to forget she was even here as soon as friends and some of our extended family started to arrive. Since I didn't want to be anywhere near dads casket, I took up the job of welcoming everyone inside. I just couldn't sit still like people were telling me to. I just needed to keep moving. Welcoming everyone that walked through the front door seemed like a good way to do that.