Page 45 of Deserving Cora
Intellectually, Cora realized that Pipe wasn’t declaring his love for her with the pet name, it was just something that British people called others, she’d heard it often enough on TV shows and read it in books. But still, something deep down preened and basked in the nickname. All her life, that was all she’d wanted. To be loved. And to hear that word from Pipe’s lips made her yearn for it to be true all the more.
They sat cuddled together for at least another thirty minutes before the chill in the air got to Cora. She shivered, despite being plastered against Pipe and under a blanket.
“Time to go in,” he announced.
Cora pouted. “But I’m comfortable.”
“Liar,” he said without heat. “You’re freezing.”
“I’m a little chilly.”
He snorted and sat up with her in his arms. Just as she’d thought earlier, he could totally stand while she was in his lap. But instead of standing right away, Pipe stared down at her with a look she couldn’t interpret.
Then he said, “Luckiest day of my life was when I pulled the short straw to be in that auction and met my stalker.”
Without giving her time to respond, Pipe stood and put Cora on her feet. He pulled the blanket away and turned her toward the stairs. “I’ll give the blanket back when you’re on the ground. I don’t want you to trip on your way down the stairs.”
Another shiver went through her, but it wasn’t from the cold. It was because he was being protective again. She carefully made her way down the spiral staircase as Pipe turned off the fairy lights and started down behind her. She looked up once more and gasped as a shooting star streaked across the sky.
“Holy crap, did you see that?” she asked as Pipe stepped up next to her.
“Yeah.”
“It was…I have no words. Amazing. Beautiful. Breathtaking.”
“Sounds like you have plenty of words to me,” he teased.
Cora smacked his chest as she turned to him. “Don’t make fun of me. I’ve never seen a shooting star before. Wait, itwasa star, right, not a meteor coming down to explode and decimate earth?”
He chuckled, and Cora decided she loved the sound of his laugh. She wanted to hear it a lot more. “It was a star,” he reassured her. “Come on, let’s get you inside and warm. It’s later than I thought, and we have to get up to talk to the guys in the morning.”
“Pipe?” Cora said, looking up at him.
“Yeah?”
“The way you make me feel when I’m around you has nothing to do with gratitude, but you’re going to have to let me thank you. Lara’s the only family I’ve ever known.”
“Until now.”
“What?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“The only family you’ve had…until now. You’ve got me, the rest of the guys, their women, and don’t think I missed how you’ve already got Robert wrapped around your finger. And Ryan too. I’m sure as soon as you meet Jess, Jason, Hudson, Luna, Carly, and Savannah, you’ll make them like you just as much.”
Cora pressed her lips together, trying not to cry again. “You don’t understand. This isn’t me. I don’t make friends this easily. I’m the weird chick, the one people don’t get and don’t click with.”
“Wrong. Thisisyou. You’ve just had the misfortune to not have found your people yet. Here, we accept everyone just as they are. We’re all weird, love. Embrace it, and be exactly who you were meant to be. Now, I can see you shivering. Inside, woman.”
Cora let him push her toward the back door to the cabin. She felt off-kilter, but more optimistic than she’d been in her entire life.
She was going to find Lara, get her away from Ridge—because she knew deep down he wasn’t a good guy—come back to The Refuge, have that wild monkey sex with Pipe, and figure out the rest of her life after that.
She had no illusions that things would be quite so easy, but she truly believed that maybe, just maybe, she could finally be happy.
CHAPTERTWELVE
Pipe wasn’t happy.
Nothing about the upcoming situation was making him feel all warm and fuzzy. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t believed Cora when she’d insisted Ridge Michaels had kidnapped her friend, though without proof, he couldn’t make any hard and fast decisions.
