by Sophia Gray
She paused in the middle of the living room with the tattered remnants of her clothes in her hand. For the first time in a very long time, she let her memories take her back to those months, so many years ago, when she had hit the very lowest point in her life.
The guy had been cute, but they usually were at that age, a little older than she was and a lot dangerous. The patch on his leather vest had been “Prospect” and the rocker on the back had read “Violent Spawn.” It wasn’t like Finn’s kutte. There was no Carson, Nevada, or the big white-and-black tiger ripping its way through flames. He hadn’t been nearly high enough in the ranks to be anything like that. He’d been low rung…but it had been enough for Cora and her teenage lust.
“Stupid Cora,” she repeated.
With a growl of frustration and the inability to fix her own past, Cora threw the clothes into her bedroom and slammed the door, as if by putting that piece of plywood in place it would keep all her past, and everything that came with it, at bay.
Oliver opened his door and she whirled, her heart surging into her ears. He was standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of loose black jeans and the same oversized hoodie that she was pretty sure had grafted itself to him. His book bag was already slung over one shoulder as if he were ready to walk out the door.
“Oliver?” She snapped the question with enough force to make him frown at her. She wondered if he could actually hear her heart hammering inside of her chest or if that was fallout from her cleaning fit. She took a slow breath and tried again. “Sorry, you startled me. Let’s try that again. Good morning, Oliver. Did you sleep all right?”
He looked blank-faced and weary. His eyes had a brightness to them that she didn’t particularly like. She wondered if he had even slept at all.
“Hey,” he answered.
“Everything okay?”
He glanced at her bedroom door. “I was just about to ask you that. You were stomping around and slamming things.”
She felt her cheeks go warm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just…bad dreams.”
It was a bold lie, and she hated herself for saying it. She hated Finn for being the reason she had to lie to her little brother. Cora didn’t like being dishonest. It never helped anyone in the long run.
“Hungry?” she asked. “If you hurry I can take you to the diner by the school. We can grab some breakfast.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Sure. Is Finn still here?”
She felt her heart hammer inside of her chest. “What? No. Why?”
His gaze darted from one spot behind her to another, but he didn’t directly at her. He shifted back and forth on his feet. “No reason. Listen, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
He cleared his throat and readjusted his backpack on his shoulder. His eyes danced around her again. “There’s this concert I want to go to. Britt got tickets.”
Britt. Britt the blonde. Britt the girl her brother didn’t want to talk about. Cora wasn’t sure what she ought to feel about any of that. Did she have any right? Probably not. “When is it?”
He hesitated before saying, “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow meant it was a Thursday. A concert on a school night?
“Where is it?”
“Henderson.”
She blinked at him, almost sure he had gotten it wrong. Henderson was across the state, on the other end of route 50, otherwise known as the loneliest road. Just over three hours away. It did not sound like a great combination to her.
“I don’t know, Oliver.”
“Come on. You low-jacked my phone. You’ll be able to know where I’m going and when I’ll be back. Please? I really want to do this.”
“Do you want to do this?” she asked. “Or does Britt want you to do this?”
“What, it can’t be both?”
It could, but she didn’t think so. Oliver hadn’t told her about the band. Or tried to tell her how awesome they were. All he’d said was Britt was involved and Cora gathered that meant the pretty blonde was the real reason he wanted to go. That was what mattered. “It can be,” she admitted, “but I don’t think it is.”
“Really?” He tugged his backpack closer. His eyes, so very much like her own, were bright and angry. “Well, I don’t really care what you think. I’m going. Track me all you want.”
He tried to move past her, but she stepped in his way. “Oliver, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” he demanded. “It’s just a stupid concert. Why are you trying to make this into a big deal?”
“Oliver, it is a big deal. You are supposed to be showing me you are ready and willing to make your life into something else. That you aren’t wandering around at night joyriding and tagging overpasses.”
His mouth twisted into an angry snarl. “I’m going and you can’t stop me.”
“I can, actually,” she said as flatly as she could manage. “You aren’t allowed to travel without me until the court date. It’s part of this whole setup. If you aren’t there when I am at the school to pick you up tomorrow, guess what? I will bring in the police.”
“That’s a bitch move.”
“Well,” she said, crossing her arms. “I am a bitch.”
“I know Finn was here all night. I know what you two were doing.”
She felt an angry flush rise to her cheeks. “That’s very rude, Oliver.”
“I even have pictures.”
Her anger took a sharp turn toward embarrassment with a brief stop in disgust. “You…what?”
“I came out to get some water, and there you two were, on the couch fawning all over one another.”
He jerked his phone out of his pocket and opened up the photos. He tilted the screen in her direction, and there she was, straddling Finn with her mouth plastered against his. She reached for the phone, but Oliver jerked it away from her.
“Oliver, this is absolutely not okay.”
“You trying to walk in and rule my life isn’t okay either. It’s just a concert. Don’t make a big deal out of this. Otherwise I’ll e-mail the pictures to everyone.”
“Oliver!” she snapped. “That’s illegal.”
He shrugged and gave her a cool look. “As you pointed out, I am a criminal. I break the law all the time.”
“I didn’t call you that.”
He shrugged again. “You say it every day by bringing up all the crap that I’ve done. You say it by not letting me have a little freedom.”
“This isn’t you going out for a couple of hours. This is you driving across the state with kids I don’t know and you won’t tell me about, and trying to use blackmail to make it happen.”
“I’ve got school,” he said, pushing past her. “I’ll be back sometime tonight.”
“What do you mean sometime?”
He jerked one shoulder into the air. “Whenever I feel like being back.”
Chapter 13
Cora
Cora and her Z4 Roadster were going eighty down the highway, blasting classic rock, when her phone lit up. Her first thought was that it would be Finn, whom she had tried to call at least four times before she had given up and contacted Wes, who had needed very little incentive to tell Cora where the local enforcer lived. It would, after all, have been polite of the jerk to call back when she had tried to get in touch with him. She might be pissed at him, but he had a right to know about Oliver’s little blackmailing trick.
But no, of course it couldn’t be Mr. I’m-Falling-For-You. Nope, Cora wasn’t that lucky. She resisted the urge to snarl as her mother’s name and number flashed across the digital screen. Her second thought was that Oliver, the budding blackmailer, had reneged on his promise to keep the photos he took and her mother was calling her to berate Cora about terrible life choices. It would fit in with the week she had been having.
There was also a chance that she was calling to apologize for all the crap she had ever said and done, and promise she was going to be a world-class mother. Yeah, right. An
d her car was about to become a winged unicorn and carry her off in the sky to live with Prince Perfect.
With a sigh, Cora pressed the Answer button on her steering wheel. Her music became little more than background noise, and her mother’s voice echoed out of the speakers.
“Hello?” she said before Cora had a chance to say anything. “Cora, are you there?”
The question sounded more like a demand, but that was Sam Anderson for you. Cora took a deep breath before answering. “Yes, Mom. I’m here.”
“Where are you?”
For a moment, Cora was fifteen again and wanting to lie to her mother about where she was and what she was doing. Cora was an adult; she didn’t have to tell anyone anything about where she had been or why. Wasn’t that the one and only perk of being grown-up? “I’m just outside of town, on interstate 50. Is there a problem?”
Rather than answer the question like a normal person would, Sam just barreled ahead with more questions. “What are you doing back there? Are you going home? Is Oliver coming home, then? Will you be back soon?”
Cora’s knuckles went white on her steering wheel. “Mom, I’m just driving. I needed to clear my head.”
It wasn’t really working. Usually the feeling of going eighty on a long stretch of road with the windows down helped, even more than exercising. There was something about the feel of leather against her back and the rumble of shifting gears that kept the fifty million things that she had to think about on any given day from seeming overwhelming. Food, fitness, and fuel: what more did a woman need?
“So you’ll be back?”
Cora rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom, I’ll be back. Why?”
“Your father wants to do a barbecue tonight.”
Cora would have been less shocked if her car actually had sprouted a horn and wings. A barbecue? They hadn’t done something so family-oriented since Cora was a kid. They were easily her favorite family memory. Her father liked to cook on the grill; her mother liked attention. Cora and Oliver had just liked the adventure of eating outside. It was a little jarring and ultimately confusing.
“We haven’t done that since I was in middle school.”
“Do you want to break his heart? He got this whole idea last night, and I haven’t been able to put him off it.”
Ah, that sounded more like the truth. It was easy to picture Cora’s dad coming up with the idea and her mother pointing out every reason why it was a bad idea. What surprised her more was that it hadn’t actually worked. Dad usually cowed to Mom pretty quickly. Maybe that show of backbone had been more than just a show. “Tried, did you?”
Her mother huffed loud enough to make the speakers vibrate. “Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady. I just want the house cleaned up for company, and it’s not so easy to do.”
“Company?” Cora asked. “Who else is coming?”
“Well, no one yet, Cora. Jeez. But your daddy had a whole list. He wants everything to be just right.”
Cora felt a pinch of guilt somewhere in her throat. A whole list? Well, that was something special. “All right, I’ll be there. I can pick up Oliver after school and we can come over. Do you want me to bring anything?”
“Some wine, or a dessert.”
Cora made a mental note to pick up both. “I can do that.”
“Good.”
There was a long awkward silence. Cora could hear the click of a lighter through the phone followed by the long inhalation as her mother took a drag of her cigarette. She switched gears and slowed down, feeling the hum of her car beneath her.
“Is there something else, Mom?”
“Amy Mullins says that a man was coming out of your place at an ungodly hour this morning.”
Cora just barely resisted the urge to curse. “Mrs. Mullins is nearly a hundred years old and hasn’t bothered to get new glasses since the ’80s.”
It was a deflection, not a lie. Not that Cora felt anything in particular about lying to her mother, but trying to keep fabrications about her personal life in order was more brainpower than she wanted to dedicate to any conversations with Sam Anderson.
“So, no bad-boy bikers were coming out of your place half-naked at four in the morning?”
Cora sighed and shook her head. She wasn’t going to have this conversation. As a woman and an adult, she didn’t have to answer to anyone about any part of her sex life. She was certainly long past the age of having to explain her actions to her own mother. “Mom, stop. What time do you want Oliver and me there?”
“Dad’s putting the burgers on at five. If you wanna be here a little earlier than that, I’d appreciate some help.”
Help invariably meant Cora was going to do whatever her mother had been too frantic or lazy (Sam Anderson had the singular ability to be both) to accomplish. Cora could already see herself setting up tables and sweeping up the emptied carport so people could mingle.
She downshifted again and took a slow turn down a road that barely stood out against the flat Nevada landscape. She was only twenty minutes outside of town but everything looked barren and unsettled. The ground was dusty in some places and cracked in others. A small ranch-style house the color of terra cotta and stucco was the lone exception to the otherwise flat landscape.
“All right. We’ll see you then. I’ve got to go.”
“Bring your boyfriend with you,” her mother responded, hanging up the phone before Cora could say she didn’t have a boyfriend.
“Oh, grow up,” she told the disconnected line, knowing she sounded completely petulant. That was just fan-friggin’-tastic. Her palm burned as she slapped it against the side of the steering wheel twice in quick succession. Her ire was bubbling beneath her skin, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
This whole week had been nothing but one frustrating event after another. Her mother calling in the middle of the business week, her brother being in jail, living away from her comfortable apartment in a tiny cheap box with a troubled little brother, the advances of a man who, if he would just be anything but a criminal, might actually be a decent partner. And now, thanks to a retired biddy with no hobbies save for spying on others, her mother knew about it.
“Goddammit!” she snarled and slapped the wheel again.
The front door to the one-story house slapped open, and Finn stood there. He either hadn’t changed since leaving her house, or he owned nothing but jeans. A doorway silhouetted his golden body so dark his obsidian hair got lost in all the shadows. He waited there for a moment, a scowl fixed on his handsome face, before he shoved his thumbs in his belt loops and leaned against the doorframe.
“Goddammit,” she said again, this time in a whisper.
With quaking knees and a stomach that vibrated with anger, she pulled to a stop, then slung herself out of her car.
“We have to talk.”
He raised his brow. “Seems like we did plenty of that this morning.”
She held up a hand and swallowed a hundred angry retorts that welled up in her throat. In the calmest voice she could manage, Cora said, “I am not ready to talk about last night, or…or this morning.”
Her voice broke, and she hated it. She hated that everything seemed to be happening too quickly for her to handle. Cora liked to manage; it was what made her a great boss. At work, she was a goddess of capability. She was perfectly capable of handling twenty crises at once and put out twelve fires while schmoozing a persnickety client. It was what made her a fantastic businesswoman. But solving work problems was vastly different from solving personal ones.
Personal problem number one came tromping down the front steps with a liquid grace reserved for panthers and quicksilver. His eyes were as dark as sapphires in water and filled with concern. Oh God, not that. Anything but that. She could have taken him being cold and distant, or ever bitter. She would have relished in him being angry. It would have made everything easier. But that gentle look, so openly worried about her, was her undoing.
The first tear rolled down her ch
eek, then a second. She blinked and he was there, standing in front of her. The sun was perched behind him in such a way that she couldn’t see anything but the rugged masculine outline of him, but she could feel him. He was a wave of heat that hummed against her skin.
“Cora…” he started.
“I…I can’t.”
When his arms wrapped around her, she crumpled. He completely undid her. The wide span of his fingers splayed on either side of her spine as he pulled her gently toward him, and the feel of his bare chest against her wet cheek was a deep and abiding comfort to her.
