That was more than she'd ever gotten from most people.
When the doctor left, a nurse ducked in. "Your other son is here, but only two visitors are allowed in the room at a time."
"Oh, okay. I'll go so he can come back." Cora pressed a light kiss to Ben's forehead. "You just concentrate on getting better."
"Don't leave," Ben said.
She smiled. "I'll just be in the waiting room. Don't worry." Cora made her way around the bed, surprised when Slider reached out and grasped her hand.
"Thanks," he said, pale green eyes peering up at her from underneath the long strands of brown.
Nodding, she left and found Sam waiting at the desk with Haven and Dare, along with Dare's cousin and the club's vice president, Maverick Rylan, and his girlfriend, Alexa. Phoenix and a few other Ravens were there, too. They weren't all related by blood, but this was still every bit Cora's idea of what a family was. People who cared. People who showed up. People who claimed you, no matter what.
In his agitation, Sam looked like he might vibrate right out of his skin. "How is he? They wouldn't let me ride with him, Cora. It was so unfair."
She grasped his face in her hands. "He's going to be fine. He was super brave. But he'd love to see you."
Swallowing down his fear, Sam nodded. "Are you gonna leave now?"
"No. I'll be right out here."
His shoulders relaxed. "Good. Okay." He went with the nurse through the double doors.
And that left Cora alone with a whole lot of bikers wearing their leather-and-denim club cuts covered in patches and the Ravens' colors.
"What happened?" Dare asked, expression fierce. Everyone else gathered around.
"He fell off the monkey bars at school and broke his elbow and hit his head. He's going to be fine, but between the tests they have to run and his concussion, they have to keep him overnight," she said. Their collective sighs of relief mirrored the way she was feeling herself.
"This is the last thing Slider needs," Dare said, raking his hand through his dark brown hair. Ruggedly handsome, her best friend's man looked older than his late thirties, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. And in a way, he did. The weight of the Raven Riders' whole community, and the responsibility for the people they helped in the club's mission to stand up for and defend those who couldn't do it for themselves. Given the way Cora and Haven had arrived on the club's compound, and knowing all the Ravens had done-and been willing to do-to protect them and try to give them new, safer lives, Cora knew firsthand exactly how great a responsibility that was.
And it made her feel fiercely loyal to the Ravens, even if she didn't belong to that community the same way her bestie now did. As the club president's girlfriend-not to mention as a fantastic baker who'd baked her way into most of the men's hearts-Haven unquestioningly belonged with the Raven Riders.
But Cora? She wasn't sure she belonged anywhere. One more thing to figure out about her life.
"What can we do to help?" Maverick asked, standing at Dare's side. With blond hair and deep blue eyes, Mav was almost pretty in an utterly masculine way.
"I don't know," Cora said. "I guess Slider will need to stay here overnight with Ben. So maybe nothing in the short term."
"Is he supposed to work tonight?" Mav asked.
"Yeah," Cora said, glancing at the wall clock. Hard to believe it was only two o'clock in the afternoon. Standing on that rural road in the rain with Slider seemed like a million years ago. "He's on at seven. We were going to go grocery shopping beforehand," she said, her brain slowly recalling what the day's plan was supposed to have been.
"Who knows exactly how long Ben will end up in here," Haven said, looking from Dare to Cora. Once a pale blond, her friend now wore her hair in a wavy light-brown-to-warm-blond ombré that looked so pretty with her blue eyes. Watching Haven come out of the shell built by her past these last couple months had been like witnessing a butterfly unfurl from its cocoon. And it made Cora so damn proud. "Make me a list and I'll do the shopping. That way everything they need is there when they get home."
"I can help you with that," Alexa said.
"You sure?" Mav asked, tucking a strand of Al's brown hair behind her ear. "I don't think you should be carrying heavy bags yet."
Alexa glanced down at her hands, mostly healed now from having been burned in a fire that had nearly killed her and Maverick and left her mother comatose in a long-term rehabilitation facility. "I can at least drive and help shop," she said.
Cora watched the couples interact with more than a little envy curling through her belly. She hated feeling jealous of women she considered her friends. Not just Haven, whom she'd known forever, but Alexa, too. All in their early twenties and having recently survived harmful relationships of one sort or another, the three of them had discovered a lot in common and become close over the past couple of months.
"Phoenix, would you be willing to help them?" Cora asked. "Slider kinda needs a lot of stuff from the store and Alexa really shouldn't be carrying anything."
"What am I, the manservant?" he asked with a smirk.
She gave him a once-over. With his short brown hair and always-mischievous brown eyes, there was no denying he was cute, even with the jagged scar that ran from his eye to his ear. They'd hit it off right from the start, their sarcasm and sense of humor good for sparring and banter. Once, Cora thought she could maybe even be into Phoenix. But the more time they'd spent together since she arrived, the more Phoenix had started feeling like the big brother she'd never had. Which meant she lived to give him a hard time, and he gave it right back. "Yes, Jeeves. Exactly."
He rolled his eyes and feigned annoyance. "Fine. Whatever. But I'm gonna make that manservant shit look good."
Mav slapped him on the back. "You keep telling yourself that, Creed."
Everyone laughed, then Cora typed out a long text message of groceries for Phoenix and the girls. Finally, they took off, but not before Haven made Cora promise to call and catch her up on everything that'd been going on. No doubt, had she returned to the clubhouse this morning, Cora would've been due for a full-on grilling for calling for a ride when Slider had never before failed to bring her back and forth.
But that would have to wait, because just then, Cora was focused on taking care of the Evanses. "Can one of you call the garage and let them know what's going on?" she asked Dare and Maverick.
"I'll do one better than that," Mav said. "I'll cover his shift for him. I know the owner well, and I've helped out over there before."
"Wow, okay. I'm sure Slider will really appreciate that," Cora said. Maverick was, as far as she could tell, a pretty well-known custom motorcycle builder, and she'd heard him talk about growing up in his father's auto body shop, so no doubt he knew his way around cars, too. But it was still impressive to watch everyone pitch in the way they were doing.
When all those arrangements were straight, Dare turned to her. "And how are you?" he asked.
"Me? Oh, totally fine," she said.
He tilted his head and stared at her. That dark gaze always felt just a little too observant, too perceptive for her liking. "Yeah? Then why were you calling from the side of the road this morning, Cora?"
She shifted feet and resisted cupping her hand to her ear and saying, Oh, I'm sorry, I think I hear Ben calling for me . . . Yeah. No. That wasn't going to fly. "How about this," she said instead. "It's all over."
His eyebrow arched, just a little. Enough for her to know he was calling bullshit even if he wasn't vocalizing it. "Haven worries about you, so that means I do, too. Actually, I would anyway, because you're part of the Ravens' family now." He kept going, as if that declaration wasn't absolutely huge for her to hear. "And I won't let anyone treat you bad, Cora. Not even one of our own. You hear what I'm saying?"
She gasped. "Slider doesn't treat me badly." Cora hated that Dare might think that. Sure, Slider was often withdrawn, distant, and quiet as a heart attack-and not just toward her. She'd overheard enough chatter around the clubhouse to know that Slider had, for the most part, dropped off the face of the earth where the club was concerned, despite once being an active member. The guys seemed to understand that Kim's death had shattered Slider, but there was a little resentment and disappointment there, too. Still, that didn't mean he was ever out of line with her. Even with what he'd said this morning, he'd tried to backpedal away from how harshly it'd initially come out of his mouth. "He doesn't, Dare. Not ever."