Ride Wild (Raven Riders 3)

“And I’m no dummy. At some point, you’re going to move in with Dare.”

Haven’s gorgeous face went immediately and cartoonishly red.

Cora flew into a sitting position and gaped. “No freaking way!”

Looking like she’d swallowed her tongue, Haven sat up more slowly, the pretty waves of her hair falling over her shoulders. “So, this was one of the reasons I’ve been dying to talk to you.”

Cora bounced up onto her knees, her grin nearly making her cheeks hurt. “No freaking way, Haven. Are you serious? Details, woman. I need all the details! When did he ask you? What did he say?” She picked up a pillow and smacked her friend’s shoulder with it. “Start spilling now!”

Haven laughed and yanked the pillow away. “It was Monday morning right after you called for a ride. We were at his place getting ready to come here and I was packing my bag from the weekend. And he said that he never minded me having things of my own to do, but that he absolutely hated that I didn’t come home to his house every day after doing them. And that he wanted his house to be my house, too. To be ours.” She reached into her jeans pocket and held up a set of keys on a little silver ring. “And then he asked me to move in.”

“Oh, my God, you have keys to a house, Haven. And a man who loves you so much. Wow,” Cora said, her heart overflowing for her friend. “I never doubted for one minute that Dare would be good at the sexin’, but who knew he’d be so good at the romancing, too?”

Haven hugged the pillow to her chest as a little blush turned her smiling cheeks pink. “I know. It’s really true.”

“Wow,” Cora said again, the reality that Haven was truly putting down roots here in Frederick—roots separate from Cora and the escape plan they’d hatched when they’d run from Georgia so many months before—really sinking in. “So when are you moving in? Why are you still sleeping here?” She sucked in a breath. “Please tell me it’s not because—”

“I didn’t want to leave you here alone,” Haven said, finishing Cora’s thought.

An uncomfortable whirl of emotion settled in Cora’s belly—jealousy, irritation at herself for being jealous, panic over what she was going to do with her own life, uncertainty about where she belonged, and even a little feeling of abandonment, too, as unfair and ridiculous as that was when truly she was happy for Haven, too. So she masked that whole mess with sarcasm and humor, as she always did. Cora pointed her thumbs at herself and arched an eyebrow. “Big girl over here. A big girl who will hate you forever if you let her hold you back.”

Haven grasped her hand. “You could never hold me back, Cora. Hell, if it wasn’t for you, none of this would even be real. I’d still be stuck in Georgia, either trapped in my criminal father’s house or married off to some equally criminal dirtbag in a marriage over which I had no say. You’re my best friend. I wasn’t making this decision without at least talking to you first.”

“But now you’re free from all that, Haven. And you deserve to be happy and have all the things you want. And that starts with Dare.”

“I always thought we’d get an apartment together,” she said, blue eyes so earnest.

Cora smiled and swallowed the selfish disappointment she felt, because she’d thought so, too. “Yeah, well, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. Right? Besides, Dare lives ten minutes away. We’ll still see each other here, and it’ll be easy enough to visit. And when I finally get my own place, the door will always be open to you.” Hesitation still colored Haven’s expression, and Cora wasn’t having that at all, so she pushed a little harder. “By this weekend, you’ll move to Dare’s, and then on Monday, you’ll start laying out the plans for your own bakery. I’ve got it all planned out. Consider me your taskmaster.”

Haven laughed. “Slow that down a little, won’t you?”

“No way. You have a man willing to do anything for you, a safe place to live, a God-given talent you can’t waste for one more day, and you’ve inherited enough money to get started with a business. Why go slow?” Cora asked, so badly wanting her friend to have all the things about which she’d dreamed. The only good thing Haven’s dad had ever done for her was die and leave her that money to start a new life. At first, Haven had hesitated to accept it, because it was clear that at least some of it was ill-gotten gains from her dad’s various illegal activities, but then she realized all the good she could do with it—and not just for herself. She’d donated some of it to the Ravens to assist in the protective duties the club undertook on behalf of people in bad situations with no other way out.