Ride Wild(33)

Those places, however, she avoided like the plague.

Because the security control room was where she and Haven had been  forced to hide from their fathers when they came to kidnap Haven. And  the ticket office was where Cora had witnessed Haven's dad shoot Meat  point-blank in the gut to prove that he was willing to use violence to  regain his daughter. If that hadn't been horrific enough, that room was  also where Haven said her good-byes before she fled to sacrifice herself  so no one else got hurt.

Just the memory of that moment-Meat bleeding out on the floor as Haven  thanked Cora for giving her even the smallest chance at a happiness she  wouldn't let herself keep . . . Cora shuddered. She couldn't let herself  think about it. Because not knowing if she'd ever see her best friend  again had been one of the worst moments of her life.

So the racetrack was not her favorite place.

But it was important to the Ravens, and to these boys whom she loved-

The thought stopped her in her tracks, so much so that she didn't  immediately notice that the light she'd been sitting at turned green  until the car behind her honked its horn.

Glancing into the rearview mirror revealed Sam and Ben playing  rock-paper-scissors to determine who got the first turn to push the  grocery cart. Awed and amazed, Cora had to acknowledge the truth. She'd  spent most of the past nearly five months with these kids . . . and  she'd grown to love them. Not just care about them or enjoy them or like  them. She loved them as if they were family of her own. The boys had  made it so easy that she hadn't even realized it was happening. But now  that she saw it, now that she recognized the feeling for what it was,  she couldn't ignore it. She couldn't go back.

Cora didn't just love Slider. She loved his boys, too.

And she thought her belly had been jiggly before. It wasn't every day  you not only started dating a man, but admitted your feelings to him and  realized they were deeper than you even knew.

At the grocery store, Cora found the parking lot to be an absolute  madness, Friday afternoon not being the ideal time for any sane person  to go to the grocery store. She drove in circles looking for a space  without success, and finally had to drive down the sketchy side lot of  the store off which the loading-dock area backed to an empty-looking  industrial park.

The three of them climbed out, the boys chattering away-goofing around one minute, and bickering the next.

Barking. The sound crept through the mental checklist she'd been running through. But there it was again.

Cora peered at the nearby cars, worried that a dog had been left without  enough air on the unusually warm October afternoon. But the barking  sounded aggressive and agitated, and way too loud to be coming from  inside a car. Something about it made the hairs on the back of her neck  stand up.

Frowning, she debated. "Stay right here guys."

She walked to the back of the store building and peered around the  corner. Nothing. Just a tractor trailer backed to one of the docks. But  the barking was louder, and . . . was that a man shouting?

"Cora?" Sam whispered, worry plain in his voice.

She held up a hand. "Stay right there with Ben, please." Her gut  twisting with dread and suspicion, she followed the sound to a fence at  the back of the lot. A line of scrubby, overgrown bushes grew  haphazardly on the other side, but they weren't so thick that she  couldn't make out two men standing behind the open covered cab of an  older blue pickup truck facing off with a big black-and-tan dog. Her  heart was suddenly a bass drum in her chest.

"Shit, we shouldn't have stopped," one man said. "I told you we shouldn't have stopped."
                       
       
           



       
"You also told me he was out cold, asshole," the second man bit out.  Taller than the first, his tone seemed to indicate that he was in  charge. "We couldn't drive through town with all that barking. Your  grasp of the need to keep things on the down low is surprisingly lacking  . . ."

Holy shit! She wasn't sure what she'd stumbled upon, but her gut seemed to have an idea.

"Let's just go before someone hears all this racket."

Cora tried to get a closer look at the men, but they stood a good thirty  feet away with their backs to her. Both wore baseball hats. And,  damnit, it was too risky to chance moving to a part of the fence where  the bushes were thinner. She'd learned that dogfighting carried a felony  charge, which meant anyone involved in it-if these guys indeed  were-wouldn't want to be found out. And might do all kinds of things to  make sure no one did.

Glancing over her shoulder, she found that Sam had come halfway across  the wide lot behind the grocery store, a concerned scowl on his face  that looked so much like his father. Ben hung back at the corner. She  gave Sam a fierce shake of her head, silently pleading for him to stay  where he was.

"Fuck it," the taller man said. "And fuck these goddamn piece-of-shit dogs you've been finding me lately."

For a minute, the dog's growls and barking were all she heard, and then  the men reached some sort of agreement, one of them turning to close up  the truck's rear hatch.

Heart in her throat, Cora scrambled in her purse and found her phone.  Her hand was shaking so bad she wasn't sure how good her pictures were  going to be, but she tried to zoom in and take some anyway. Of the men,  the truck, its license plate.

And then they were gone, and there was just the terrified dog, barking  and whining and making the most pitiful, angry sounds. Cora couldn't get  a good look at him through the bushes, but there was something she  could do. She had the shelter's number in her contacts, so she placed a  call.

"I think I just saw two men drop off a dog in the industrial park behind  the Shopper's Way," Cora rushed out when one of the volunteer  receptionists answered. "Is Maria there?" When Maria picked up, Cora  detailed everything she saw.

"Whatever you do, don't try to approach it, Cora," Maria cautioned.

"I won't. We're behind a fence. But he's really whining now, Maria. I think he's hurt."

"I'm sending animal control to you. Can you wait?"

"Yes. Should I call the cops, too?" she asked.

"Animal control will call it in. Just hang tight."

Cora did, with the boys at her side, a little scared but a lot more  angry at those men. Fifteen minutes later, two men in a boxy van  arrived, first for the dog, and then to interview her.

Subduing the dog, a Rottweiler, it turned out, was not something she  could watch-and she didn't let the boys watch, either. Because it  involved shooting him with a tranquilizer, and even though that's what  it took to safely get the dog the help it needed, Cora didn't want to  see an animal get shot.

Unbidden images of Meat's blood rolled through her mind's eye . . .

By the time she'd recounted what they'd come upon, provided descriptions  of the men and truck, and forwarded her pictures, Cora was late. Really  late. She shot off a quick text to Haven and headed with the boys into  the store.

"We'll have to hurry," she said. "Bunny and Haven are waiting on us."  The boys were unusually helpful as they speed-shopped throughout the  aisles, Ben pushing the cart and Sam running off to find items here and  there. Twenty-five minutes later, Cora hoped she hadn't forgotten  anything as they loaded up her trunk.

It felt like a whole day had passed by the time they were fastening their seat belts again.

And then Sam leaned up from the backseat. "What you did was really badass, Cora."

"Sam!" she said, trying not to chuckle. Or melt at what looked like admiration in his eyes. "Language, dude."

He rolled his eyes, but she imagined it was hard not to pick up a few  bad habits when you grew up around a biker club. "Sorry. But it's true."

"Sam's right. Even his bad word is right."

Cora turned in her seat. "And what do you know about his bad word, Mr.  Bean?" That made both of them laugh, since they'd watched movies with  the British actor who'd once played that role and knew who he was.

"I'm just sayin', Coowa. It was bad butt."

That had them all laughing, and it felt good after the stress of having  witnessed men who might be involved somehow with all the dogs that'd  been appearing in the area. She could only hope that something she'd  seen could help even a little.                       
       
           



       

Being later than planned meant that Bunny and Haven were already  neck-deep in cooking and baking for that night's race party, a weekly  tradition for the club. About midway through the races, club members  started showing up to hang out for the rest of the night, until nearly  the whole club, friends and family of members, Hang-Arounds, and women  the brothers referred to as Biker Bunnies overran the place, turning it  into a loud and rowdy party that was often as crazy as it was fun.