Ride Wild

  Dedication

  To anyone struggling to break the habit. Don’t give up.

  I want to find something I’ve wanted all along

  Somewhere I belong

  —“Somewhere I Belong,” Linkin Park

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  By Laura Kaye

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  It was their normal routine, and it was awkward as crap.

  Cora Campbell bit back a smile as she sat in the passenger seat of the beat-up pickup truck. She didn’t think Sam Evans, her boss-of-sorts, would appreciate her humor. Or, like, any humor. He filled the driver’s seat beside her, his big hands on the wheel and black tattoos snaking all down his lean, muscled arms. From the corner of her eye, she sneaked a glance at his face, and one word came to mind.

  Wild.

  Longish wild brown hair, like he couldn’t keep from raking at it in frustration. Wild brown beard that Cora sometimes imagined chopping off just so she could better see the face it seemed like he purposefully hid beneath it. Pale green eyes, mesmerizing in their uniqueness, but also wild with emotions at which she could only guess . . .

  “So, um, Slider,” she said, her use of the nickname his motorcycle club had given him slicing through the uneasy silence, “anything special I need to know about Sam and Ben for tonight?”

  That pale gaze slashed her way, and she felt the chill of it into her bones. Slider didn’t scare her—he was too good to his boys for that. But it was entirely possible that his glances appeared in the dictionary next to Intimidating as Fuck. And maybe even If Looks Could Kill. And definitely Like, Whoa. It was a good thing he paid her so well to babysit his sons. In truth, he was doing her a pretty big favor giving her a part-time job while she figured out her life, so she put up with his . . . moodiness.

  He huffed out a breath, as if mustering the energy to reply sucked vital life force from his soul or something. “Sam has homework he wants your help with,” he said, his tone almost apologetic. “And Ben . . . is Ben.”

  Cora nodded. Having babysat the kids four or five days a week for the past three months, she had a decent idea what Slider meant. At six, Ben was a sweetheart of a boy, but nightmares and monsters under the bed gave him more than a little difficulty sleeping. “Okay.”

  They came upon the two-story white farmhouse where Slider lived and Cora sometimes worked. Empty, overgrown flower beds. A misshapen wreath on the door, so bleached from the sun Cora could no longer tell what color it’d originally been. Shutters hanging at odd angles from years of neglect. The house had an abandoned, decaying feel about it, and Cora didn’t really have to wonder why that was.

  Slider hadn’t even parked when the front door exploded open, the creaky screen door wobbling like it might just give up and fall off its hinges. A little boy darted out next to the gravel driveway, hopping excitedly as if the grass hid a trampoline. Except for the lighter brown hair and happiness shaping his face, there was no denying Ben was Slider’s kid.

  Cora stepped out of the truck into the warm early September evening wearing a smile. “Hey, jumping bean.”

  “Name’s Ben, not Bean,” he said, his grin all the cuter for the big gap where his front teeth should’ve been.

  “You sure? I could’ve sworn it was Bean.” She hugged him as he threw his arms around her waist. Where Slider was a walking, talking wall that kept all his emotions barricaded, his younger son wore every single emotion on his sleeve.

  “No.” He laughed. “It’s Ben!”

  “Okay, Bean.” Hiking up the backpack that served as an overnight bag, she glanced at Slider and found him watching her through narrowed eyes, like maybe she was a foreign language he couldn’t decipher. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a ranginess about him that, like the house, spoke of neglect. She’d seen him sit with the kids at meals, sometimes even with a plate of food in front of him. But it was possible she’d eaten more watching movies in bed with her friends Haven and Alexa last weekend than she’d seen Slider eat in the past three months combined.

  The youngest Evans let loose a long-suffering groan. “No, Cora, it’s Ben,” he said, pronouncing her name more like Coowa. It was so cute it almost killed her.

  “Finally, you’re here,” Sam called from the front door. At ten going on eleven going on thirty-five, the kid was the definition of an old soul. It was in his eyes, the seriousness of his personality, the way he took care of his little brother, as if, without being asked, he was trying to relieve some of the burden of being a single parent from his father’s shoulders.

  “I am, in fact, here. Now the party can begin,” Cora said, ruffling the older boy’s hair as she stepped into the neat but shabby living room. Sam tried to hold back his smile as he dodged her hand, but didn’t quite manage.

  “Wait. We’re having a party?” Ben asked as she dropped her bag on the couch.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “No, doofus, it’s an expression.”

  Ben’s shoulders fell, and now Cora was the one holding back a smile. “If two certain someones I know take their showers without any complaints, maybe, just maybe, we can have a party.” The littler boy’s grin was immediate, but what really caught her attention was the way that Sam’s attention perked up, even though he tried to hide it. “Deal?” she asked.

  Just as both boys agreed, Slider cleared his throat.

  Cora turned to find him shrugging into his button-up uniform shirt with its Frederick Auto Body and Repair logo, the movement causing his T-shirt to ride up his side. Just a momentary glance. Just of one small part of his body. But it revealed two things that stole her breath—more ink, and a frame that was all raw muscle and sinew.

  Like a wild animal.

  The comparison should’ve been alarming, but for some reason, that wasn’t how her body interpreted it if the flutter in her belly was any indication. Never in a million years would she have described Slider as attractive, but there was something unquestionably attracting about him, even if she couldn’t quite articulate what that was.

  “Leaving?” she managed.

  He nodded. “On seven to seven,” he said. “You have my cell.”

  “We’ll be fine,” she said, bracing her hands on Ben’s shoulders. “Won’t we?” she asked, hugging him against her as she peered down into his little face.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry, Dad.”

  Slider gave a single nod as his gaze skated between Cora and his sons. “See ya later, alligators.”

  Sam rolled his eyes, but Ben grinned and said, “After while, crocodile.”

  Slider winked at his youngest. Just a single little wink. But, together with the way he said good-bye to the kids every time he left, it proved to Cora that there was a sweet, playful man in there somewhere. Or at least there used to be.

  Either way, it was clear that what Slider had left of himself to give, he gave to his boys. And given what a misera
ble piece of crap both her dad and her best friend’s father had been, Cora knew how much having a good father mattered. It mattered a lot. She had to respect that much about Slider, whatever else his faults might be.

  The door had barely closed behind her boss when Ben whirled on her. “Is it time for the party yet?”

  “No,” Sam said, looking a little nervous. “I, uh, I have homework first.”

  “Later, kiddo. I promise. Why don’t you watch some TV while I get dinner on?” When Ben made for the family room at the back of the house, Cora eyeballed Sam. “Your dad said you wanted help. That right?”

  “Yeah.” He shifted feet, like something about wanting her help made him uncomfortable.

  “Okay, well, why don’t you work at the table while I make us some food?” she suggested, leading them into the kitchen, where the neat but shabby theme continued. “How’s pasta sound?”

  Sam shrugged as he slid into a seat and slapped a worn-out backpack onto the table, appearing every inch like a prisoner being led to the gallows.

  “What’s up with you?” Cora asked as she crumbled ground beef into a frying pan to brown. Next, she filled a big pot of water to boil.

  He sighed. “I have to do an interview.”

  Frowning, she pulled a jar of sauce and a box of noodles from the pantry. She was going to need to ask Slider to grab some groceries soon, a chore that would be so much easier if she had a car of her own. As would getting back and forth to watch the boys. Cora sighed. Just one more thing to add to her list of stuff she really needed to make happen in her life. “Of?”

  “Someone I admire.” He stared at the page in his hand.

  Wiping her hands on a towel, she turned to him. “Okay, and did you have someone in mind?”

  He looked up at her. And even though he didn’t say a word, his eyes held the answer.

  Suddenly, Cora was the uncomfortable one, which had her rambling. “Um, maybe, like Doc? Or Bunny? Or even Dare?” The Raven Riders Motorcycle Club’s founder; the founder’s sister, who’d escaped an abusive marriage and recently survived an attack on the club; and the club’s current president all seemed like good choices to Cora. Much better than . . . the person Sam was currently staring at.

  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 fuck
ing 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.