His eyes absolutely burned as they looked at her. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said, stunned by everything she’d learned, heartened that he wanted her to understand, and so damn angry on his behalf. Why did some people search their whole lives for love and never find it, while others found love and threw it away?
He cleared his throat. “The boys and I talked over pizza. They loved the way you rearranged the cabinet. They think you should do whatever you want to freshen up the house. Redecorate. Give it some new life. And I agree.”
“Slider, I couldn’t do that on my own. This is your hou—”
“It’s yours now, too,” he said, simply. “Strip it all away, Cora. All but those figures that the boys love. Get rid of as many of the reminders as you can. Make me forget.”
He might as well have reached into her chest and squeezed her heart with his bare hand. That’s what it felt like his words did. But forgetting was a charade. The past never went away. And it never could. “How about instead of trying to forget, we make new memories that are brighter and louder and bigger than the old ones?” She didn’t want to guess at what she saw in his eyes, but it sure as hell looked a lot like affection.
Finally, he said, “Does that work for you?”
For a long moment, his question hung in the space between them. A challenge. Maybe even a plea. For her to tell her secrets, too. She wasn’t oblivious—she knew she’d given more of herself away than she would’ve liked on a few occasions. But she just couldn’t. Cora feared that telling her secret would make it real in a way that hiding it didn’t. She feared that people would look at her and think rape victim. She feared that people would think she deserved it, or asked for it, or didn’t fight back.
Damnit, she just . . . feared.
So Cora hedged. “It’s a work in progress.”
“I guess that’s all any of us are,” Slider said, and she couldn’t tell if she imagined the disappointment in his voice or if it was truly there.
That night, they passed each other in the hallway before bed. She was coming out of Ben’s room after he’d had a nightmare, and Slider was going in. Wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. Well, nothing else except for that glorious tattoo and those beautiful sleeves of ink.
She wanted to take his hand or hug him or offer him some other way to begin making those new memories, but that wasn’t what they were. So instead she tried not to ogle him. “Good night, Slider.”
His gaze scanned over her bare shoulders and dragged down over the tank top and boxers she wore. Her body lit up in the wake of his perusal. “Night,” he said.
She watched him disappear into the dimness of his son’s room. And wished that when he was done, he’d join her in bed. Or, at the very least, that he wanted to.
Because he hadn’t lost a loving wife after all. Or even a faithful one. And that made Cora wonder exactly how long it’d been since somebody had truly, deeply, and unconditionally loved Slider Evans.
The way that she was suddenly, irrevocably, and completely sure that she did.
Chapter 14
Just got out of court. News isn’t good. Emergency meeting of Church tonight, 8PM.
Slider had received Dare’s text before lunchtime, and it’d been eating at his gut ever since. News isn’t good. That could only mean that Jagger hadn’t been set free.
Sonofabitch.
From what Slider understood, the guys on the Ravens’ board—Dare, Maverick, Phoenix, and Caine—had been all over investigating Jagger’s situation ever since he’d been arrested. Though the club had one close friend in the local sheriff’s department, it also had at least one staunch enemy, so the Ravens weren’t leaving it to the cops to be a force for justice when it came to the freedom of one of their brothers.
It just didn’t make sense that Jagger hadn’t been released. Their club’s friend, Sheriff Henry Martin, knew as well as they did that the Ravens hadn’t dumped the oil and tires that’d landed Jagger, as manager of the racetrack, in jail. Not only was Jagger legit brilliant and devoted to the Ravens’ main business venture, the guy had been preparing for the track’s annual licensing inspection, so no way would he have jeopardized that by illegally dumping where the inspector would see.
If that wasn’t proof enough, Alexa’s ex, Grant Slater had told her that he’d do whatever it took to force her to come back to him, even though he knew she was with Maverick. Before his death, Slater had been Frederick’s biggest real estate developer, and he’d had the mayor and at least one of the sheriffs so far up his ass it was almost laughable. Add to that Slater’s years-old grudge against the club, both because Alexa had dated Maverick years before and because Slater wanted the club’s land, and two plus two equaled fucking four.