Ride Wild(2)

He shrugged with one shoulder. "I was hoping . . . you'd let me interview you."

"That's, um, really flattering, Sam. But . . ." Geez, how embarrassing was this to admit? "I'm not all that admirable."

In the positive column, she was a high school graduate, had turned out  to be pretty good with kids, loved animals, and could concoct a good  runaway plan when necessary. Cora rated herself as a better-than-average  friend, and seemed to be able to make people laugh. In the negative,  she'd recently been kidnapped by a gang and rescued by a biker club, and  now resided with that club while she figured out what the heck to do  with her life. And that wasn't even considering what'd happened with her  father, back before she'd run . . .                       
       
           



       

Which she refused to let herself think about just then.

"To me you are," Sam mumbled, suddenly fascinated with the surface of the table.

What the heck was she supposed to say to that? When it was possibly one  of the nicest things any human being had ever said to her . . . She  eased into a seat. "Really?"

He nodded and finally met her eye. "You're kinda funny," he said.

"Just kinda?" She winked.

Sam's grin was reluctant in that preteen way of his. "I mean, you have your moments."

Cora smirked. "You're really selling my admirable qualities here, Sam Evans."

He shrugged again. "Okay, fine. You're funny. You take good care of us.  And you make Ben happy. And I heard you're the one who helped Haven  escape from her dad. That was pretty hard core."

"We did it together," Cora said, nearly glowing from the praise. Kids'  willingness to just lay their truth out there was one of the things she  absolutely loved about being with them. Even if Cora couldn't really  agree with Sam's view of her. "That's what friends do for each other."  Especially best friends, which Cora and Haven Randall had been since  grade school, back before Haven's father had become so possessive that  he'd withdrawn her from school to control everyone she saw and  everything she did. Cora's father was exactly the opposite-he hadn't  cared less what Cora did, where she went, or who she saw-as long as she  didn't need his time, attention, or money, which he drank or gambled as  fast as he made. She and Haven had sometimes debated which more deserved  the Worst Dad of the Year trophy. It varied from day to day.

"And you make our house feel . . . alive again," Sam said more quietly. "Like Mom used to."

It was such a stunningly beautiful comment that emotion knotted in  Cora's throat. Sam's mom-Slider's wife, Kim-had died young from breast  cancer over two years before. The boys rarely mentioned her, and never  in Slider's presence. At least, not that Cora had ever witnessed. "Sam,"  she said around that knot. "That's the sweetest thing anyone has ever  said to me."

He blinked up at her, like he wondered if she was teasing him. And she  so wasn't. Instead, she was wondering what she could possibly do to  actually deserve that kind of compliment. "So, is that a yes?"

Man, she hoped Slider realized how awesome his kids were, because she  would give a lot to have children this amazing. Maybe someday that would  happen for her. Though, given that people generally preferred to use  her rather than keep her, not to mention how much of a mess her life was  right now, she was certain that someday was at least a million days  off.

"Yeah, that's a yes," she said. "What exactly do you want to know?"



Returning from his only call of the night, Slider parked the tow truck  in the lot at Frederick Auto Body and Repair just as the sun turned the  morning sky gray. Once, he'd been a master mechanic contemplating owning  this place, and now . . . now his life was just like his night had  been. A whole lotta nothing punctuated by the occasional unexpected  emergency.

He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than the slow, plodding slog  of the fourteen months he'd spent knowing catastrophe was coming right  at him and his boys, yet unable to do a goddamn thing about it.

But that was cancer for you. Fuck you very much.

Sad truth was, though, that catastrophe had been coming for the Evans men one way or the other, hadn't it?

Damn it all to hell.

Slider punched out. Drove home. Heaved a big breath before he went inside.

God, he hated this house.

Its ghosts, its memories, Kim's touch in every room and on every surface. He couldn't breathe inside this house.

He went in anyway.

Noise. Voices. Laughter.

He found the source of it all in the kitchen.

Sam and Ben sat at the kitchen table with the babysitter, who was demonstrating how to hang a spoon from her nose.

The babysitter.

That was how he thought of her. How he had to think of her sometimes.  Because if he thought of her as Cora, then he might think of her as a  woman. And if he thought of her as a woman, he might take note of the  soft waves of her sunny blond hair, or the flare of her hips, or the way  the playful glint in her bright green eyes matched the mischievousness  of her smile or the sarcasm in her voice.

And Slider couldn't do any of that.

Not when the last time had gone so very wrong-and in ways no one else in his life even knew.

"Dad!" Ben called, shoving up from his seat and sending milk and Cheerios sloshing from his bowl. He rounded the table.                       
       
           



       

"Little man," Slider said, giving him a squeeze when the boy's body hit him at full speed. "Sleep okay?"

"Yeah," Ben said. "We saved you ice cream."

"Hey, Dad," Sam said, taking his bowl to the sink and cleaning up his  brother's mess-without having to be asked. Sometimes Slider had to  wonder which of them was the adult around here anymore, and didn't that  make him feel like fucking Dad of the Year.

"Ice cream?" he asked, eyeing the babysitter where she stood at the sink rinsing the breakfast dishes.

She threw a tentative smile over her shoulder. "I promised them a party,  so I texted Phoenix and asked him to bring over a couple half gallons  and all the fixings for a sundae-building party."

"Phoenix taught me how to make a banana split," Ben said, talking a mile  a minute. "Except marshmallow goop is gross. And cherries stain the ice  cream and make everything red which is even grosser."

Cora chuckled. "I didn't see any ice cream left in your bowl, Bean."

The boy turned a smile on her that was gonna break hearts one day. "Well, no . . ."

"Go brush your teeth and put on your shoes," she said, shaking her head  with an indulgent smile. "Bus will be here in ten minutes."

Slider watched the series of exchanges like he was merely an observer.  Like he was on the outside looking in. And it was an apt description,  wasn't it? The babysitter was the one giving his kids a reason to smile  and be happy. And his club brother, Phoenix Creed, had apparently had a  hand in that, too.

It should've all struck him as completely normal. A happy, functional  family. But normal . . . Jesus, normal killed him these days. It really  did. He was glad for it, for Ben's and Sam's sakes. But otherwise,  normal felt a whole lot like trying to swallow crushed glass. It'd been  like that ever since Kim had told him what had been going on with her . .  .

Cora's voice forced away the thoughts. "Can I make you something to eat?"

He slanted a glance at her, studiously ignoring the little intimacies of  her appearance-like that her makeup-free face and cute pigtails  revealed that she'd woken up in his house, like that the oversized  sweatshirt she wore over a pair of boxers likely covered the clothes in  which she'd slept, like that she'd painted the second toenail on each  foot a different color from the rest.

None of which he had any business noticing. "I'm good," he said, the lie  obvious to both of them, but what the hell did that really matter?  "Thanks," he forced himself to add.

Sam returned first to the kitchen, and Slider was grateful for the interference.

"Finish your homework?" he asked his boy.

"Yeah," Sam said, throwing a shy smile at Cora-who was suddenly blushing  a beautiful, brilliant cherry red that made Slider pull a double take.  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but then the whirlwind that was  his six-year-old came into the kitchen, and, after a couple of quick  good-byes, Cora was bustling them both out the front door for the bus.

The house resoundingly quiet now, he glanced out the front door. And  found Cora walking up the driveway while holding the boys' hands-both of  them, even Sam, who hadn't offered or sought a hug in . . . well, just  over two years. The kids' laughter reached him even from this distance,  their body language relaxed, happy, and open despite the fact that the  gray morning had turned drizzly.