SHIVER by Tiffinie Helmer Page B

be kind to her? She didn’t want him to be kind. She wanted him to leave.
    Raven had made choices that had left her a single parent. Those choices were based on good reasons. Reasons she still believed in. She picked up the sandwich and bit into it, even though she didn’t want it. She chewed and swallowed, went through the motions as her son continued to entertain them with his antics.
    She prayed the roads would be clear tomorrow and they could move Aidan out. She didn’t want any more interactions between Fox and Aidan. Didn’t want them to become close.
    Aidan would break her son’s heart too.

C HAPTER S EVEN
    “All right, time for bed, young man,” Raven said, standing from the table. It was past time to call this ‘family dinner’ over. She bent down and kissed Fox on the forehead.
    “M-o-m.” He gave her the look that said he wasn’t a little boy anymore, and please don’t kiss him in front of the man he was trying to impress.
    Raven knew all of this, even understood it, but she was his mother and if she wanted to kiss her son on the forehead when he was sixty, she’d do it. “Come on. You have school in the morning.”
    “Thirty minutes more?” he pleaded, his large dark eyes framed with long fluttering lashes appealing to her to give in. He must have picked that look up from Chickadee.
    “Nope. Besides, it’s time for Mr. Harte to go to bed too.” She stared at Aidan and he wisely nodded.
    “Okay.” Fox got to his feet and shuffled toward the back door, grabbing his parka off the hook where it hung among the others. “Am I spending the night with Uncle Lynx or at our place?” He slipped into the coat but failed to zip it up.
    Poor guy had been batted around from relative to relative while his mother had been saddled with taking care of Aidan. “Our place. I’ll be there as soon as I get Mr. Harte settled. Remember to brush your teeth,” she hollered as he opened the door and walked through it, biting back the words to zip up his coat as the cold air flooded into the room.
    “I’m almost twelve,” he hollered back. “I can remember to brush my own teeth.” He let the door slam behind him. She wondered, briefly, how long it took for kids to learn to shut a door instead of slamming one.
    She turned and regarded Aidan, who was much too handsome in the soft, intimate light around the kitchen table. “You ready?”
    “Where’s your place?” Aidan asked, getting awkwardly to his feet, and reaching for the crutches leaning against the wall next to him. The room seemed to get smaller as he stood.
    She’d always loved his height and broad shoulders. Even when he was a thin and wiry teenager. Now that he was more filled out, she liked it even more. He made her feel protected, and delicate standing next to him, even though she knew she could lose a few pounds. She needed to keep her mind on his body. Off his body. Jeez. She was in more trouble here than she thought if her subconscious couldn’t even keep up. “We built a cabin a few years ago, just behind the lodge, through the trees overlooking the river.”
    He stilled his movements, his eyes heating as he looked at her. “Fool’s Cove?”
    Why hadn’t she just said her place was behind the lodge and left it at that? “Uh…yeah. Come on. Let’s get you to bed so I can get some sleep myself.” She reached for his arm to help him, but he stopped her.
    “You built a cabin at Fool’s Cove? Where we first—”
    “It had nothing to do with that.” Like she was so heartsick she’d built her home on the spot where they’d first—and many times after—had snuck away to make love. Get real. “The spot has an amazing view and access to the river, close to the lodge without being too close, and I got it for a song when old man Tack died.” He’d willed it to her as he had a soft spot for the young lovers he’d interrupted that summer. She’d always suspected he knew Aidan was Fox’s father. But he’d never said anything, which