Ride Wild (Raven Riders 3)

Ever since they’d shared that hot but confusing moment in the little hospital bed—that moment when Slider had touched her face, her hair, her lips—he’d gone distant on her again. Not rude or mean or grumpy, but for a moment that night, she could’ve sworn that some sort of wall had come down between them. And it was back now. Higher than ever.

Or maybe it’d never really been down at all.

She peeked his way, happy at least to see him interacting with someone. He was nodding and talking to Doc, Bear, and Bunny, who used to watch the boys for him sometimes and asked Cora how they were doing all the time.

On a sigh, Cora slipped back into her chair between Phoenix and Haven. What did it matter how Slider looked at her or whether they’d made some kind of connection? It wasn’t like they were friends. He was her boss. Her boss in a part-time babysitting job. Hardly the stuff of which forever was made.

Not that she thought forever was on the table here.

Dare was chuckling at something Haven was saying and double-fisting his own private, secret stash of her peanut butter cookies—with which her bestie might’ve paved her way to his heart. Well. Forever wasn’t on the table for both of them, anyway. For Haven? Definitely.

And it was really freaking refreshing for good things to happen to such a good person.

Be a good girl and stop fighting.

The memory of the words nearly had Cora flying out of her chair, the adrenaline kick of the fight-or-flight response was suddenly so strong in her blood. She gripped the edge of her seat, trying to steady herself, trying to ground herself in the here and now.

Blinking away the sudden wetness in her eyes, she peered left and right under the curtain of her hair to see if anyone noticed her, because she was shaky and clammy and so damn exposed it felt like the whole world would know.

But no one was paying her any attention, and all she saw was Dare and Haven shamelessly flirting with each other next to her. “Next Friday night, then,” Dare said, looking at Haven with so much affection and masculine satisfaction. “We’re moving your stuff over to the house as soon as I wrap up here. Got it?”

Haven grinned. “Yeah. I can’t wait.”

“Hold up,” Maverick said from across the table. “Haven’s moving into the cabin?” Dare gave a nod, an arched eyebrow challenging anybody to say one teasing word about it. He had a protective streak a mile wide—which explained, in part, why the Ravens had a protective mission in the first place—but it was a hundred times stronger when it came to Haven. “That’s fantastic news. Congrats.”

Word spread around the room, and in the excited mayhem that followed, Cora finally felt like she could breathe again. Why did this keep happening to her, these out-of-the-blue memories that threatened to suck her back into that terrible moment? It had happened five months ago, and her father was now moldering in a grave. She should just get over it already.

She glanced up to find Slider staring at her again with that strange troubled expression from before still on his face. Except, as he looked at her, that expression changed to one of concern that seemed to ask if she was okay. Thankfully, a big mountain of a guy named Meat hit Slider on the arm and said something that made them both chuckle, and Cora turned away. She wasn’t sure what was up with him tonight, but she couldn’t take his weirdness when she was feeling so raw.

Taking a deep breath, she pasted on a smile and shook all of her own weirdness away, at least for now. Leaning closer to Haven, Cora said, “I’m so happy for you. But why are you waiting till next weekend?”

“Because Dare’s heading up a relocation trip for the woman and her daughter who’ve been living out in one of the guest cabins the past two weeks. There’s no sense in me moving to his place when he’s going to be gone for at least three nights.”

Cora had been so busy at the Evanses lately that she hadn’t had a chance to do more than see the Ravens’ new protective client from a distance, but it wasn’t unusual for them to sometimes offer a woman or a family in trouble a temporary place to live in the cabins near the clubhouse if the real-world authorities couldn’t satisfactorily handle an abusive situation. The Ravens certainly had the room to do it, because their property had once been a mountain inn and resort based around the racetrack they now operated, all of which Doc had inherited decades ago. “I guess that’s true,” Cora said, “and a week will pass in no time at all.”