Match Made In Paradise

by Barbara Dunlop

  She looked up, met his bright blue eyes and felt her chest tighten and her toes tingle in recognition of his sex appeal.

  Yeah, she was a woman and she was alive, and he was a perfect specimen of a man.

  Then it hit her. He knew her name.

  “You’re here for me?” she asked. She’d thought he was here for those men.

  “I’m from Paradise.”

  “But?” She looked through the glass to where the five men trooped to a small airplane parked on the tarmac.

  He waited.

  “What about them?” she asked.

  “We’re dropping them off.” He moved toward her, nodding at her luggage. “Raven didn’t tell you to pack light?”

  Mia looked at her things. “This is light.”

  “Lady, we’re getting into a Navajo PA-31 with five other passengers who, as you can see, are heavier than the average weight.” He picked her bags up one at a time, seeming to test them for weight. “They’re my paying cargo. You’re a ride-along.”

  “I’m going with them?” Mia was still getting past that information.

  Silas pulled her biggest roller-bag to one side. “You have to leave this behind.”

  “What?” Was he insane?

  “Becky?” he called over his shoulder. “Can you store this bag?”

  “Sure,” the woman named Becky said.

  “No!” Mia cried out.

  Silas gave her a glare of impatience. “Okay, then these two.” He pointed to her garment bag and her carry-on.

  “No way.” She shook her head. She could not leave her carry-on behind. “I’ll put this one on my lap.”

  “It’s a weight issue, not space.”

  “But . . .”

  “Those two?” He pointed to her smaller roller-bag and the garment bag.

  That was a bit better but still not doable.

  Becky joined them, obviously waiting to see which bags she’d be storing in the FBO.

  “There must be some other way?” Mia tried her ice-princess look, the one that usually got her what she expected. When that didn’t seem to move Silas, she changed her expression, hoping to appeal to his compassion. “Maybe one of those guys could . . .”

  “Those guys are heading to a drilling camp for three weeks. They took exactly what they needed.”

  Mia didn’t have an answer for that.

  Silas folded his arms over his chest, his expression implacable. “I am not crashing the airplane so you can bring your makeup and evening gowns.”

  “My . . .” She started to be affronted but then dialed it back. Okay, she had brought one dress that could be considered an evening gown. It was a gown, and she could wear it in the evening, not to a super-formal event, but surely to anything that happened in Alaska.

  “You coming or not?” He looked fully prepared to leave her behind.

  “Fine. But I have to rearrange a few things.”

  Silas muttered something under her breath.

  Before he could tell her no, Mia quickly crouched and unzipped her smaller roller-bag. She pulled out the essentials: panties, bras and nighties. It figured he’d have to get a look at her underwear. But that was the kind of day she was having.

  She stuffed them into an outer pocket of her large roller-bag. To hell with wrinkles. She’d steam them later.

  She zipped up the bag, stood and righted it. “Those two can stay.” She pointed to the small roller-bag and the garment bag. “Thanks,” she said to Becky.

  “No problem.” Becky looked a whole lot more cheerful than Silas.

  Silas grabbed the handle of her big roller-bag, lifted her carry-on and headed for the door.

  Stuffing her purse under her arm and glancing frantically back at the chair to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind, Mia followed.

  There was a tiny door into the Navajo.

  Silas stowed her bags on top of the others, then secured a net to hold them in. He pointed her up the narrow aisle, and she turned sideways, knocking into the men’s shoulders along the way to get to the single vacant seat.

  As she sat down, a thought occurred to her. “Uhhh . . . Silas?”

  He paused where he was backing out the little aft door. “What?” The exasperation was clear in both his tone and expression.

  “Where’s the restroom?”

  Five sets of eyes from the other passengers swung her way. One of the men grinned. Another shook his head in apparent despair.

  Silas muttered under his breath again and then spoke louder. “Do you see a restroom?”

  She looked around. “No.” Hence her question.

  “Did you visit the restroom in the FBO?”

  She gave a grim little smile and a tiny shake of her head.

  He closed his eyes for a second. “Give me strength.” Then he stared at her as if she was the bane of his existence. “You have three minutes, or the drillers, your luggage and I leave without you.”

  Mia sprang from the seat and rushed back up the short aisle.

  * * *

  * * *

  Silas taxied the Navajo along the access road at the Paradise airstrip, bringing it to a stop outside of the WSA hangar and shutting down the engines.

  He’d dropped the drillers off at the exploration camp, so Ms. Mia Westberg was the only person left in the back. It was nearly impossible to believe this uptight princess was related to Raven. A bastion of reliability, Raven knew her way around, well, pretty much everything: the bush, the weather, heavy equipment. She couldn’t fly a plane, but she could operate a loader, a snowmobile or a forklift with the best of them.

  Silas closed off his flight plan, walked through the shut-down and unbuckled his belt, twisting back to see how Mia was doing.

  She’d unbuckled and was stretching in her seat. With her oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses, it was hard to know where she was looking. The best he got was a wink from the crystals on a top corner of the frame.

  He left Xavier in the cockpit to finish up and climbed out the pilot door to pull open the rear passenger exit. Stepping up, he leaned inside, unfastened the safety net and retrieved her bags, setting them down on the gravel.

  She didn’t speak or take his offered hand as she took the three steps down.

  He hovered anyway, worried she’d stumble on the unsteady stairs. She wasn’t wearing stilettos or anything, but her heeled boots were made for fashion, not practicality.

  She didn’t stumble. Safe on the ground, she straightened her sweater and gazed around.

  The bush was freshly cut back around the access road for safety, bright stumps sticking up, sawdust still scattered. The orange windsock flapped in the breeze back on the strip. There was some heavy equipment away to the east side and a couple more planes parked in the lot, with most of them out for the day. The only other feature was the big rectangular hangar with a red and white west slope aviation sign hanging against its dusty blue metal siding.

  She lifted her chin, pressed her lips together and started for the hangar office, a low offshoot of the main building.

  Concluding this was the silent treatment, Silas considered leaving her bags sitting on the gravel. But he decided it would be a jerk move with no point except to annoy her. And she was Raven’s cousin, after all. So, he picked them up and followed along, curious to see what she’d do next.

  She marched toward the office door, more gracefully than he would have imagined given the rocky terrain. She was tall, maybe five inches shorter than him, with legs that went on forever. Her jeans molded snugly to her hips, and the crisp white-and-blue-striped sweater clung to the indent of her tiny waist. Her ponytail settled into a sexy little swing while she walked.

  He stood back to enjoy the view, thinking it was no surprise the woman seemed used to getting everything her own way.

  She stopped on the worn
concrete patch that served as a porch, and he wondered if she’d turn and ask a question.

  Nope. She tried the door handle, finding it open, she pushed it in. The hinges creaked as Silas caught up to her.

  She had to have heard him behind her. He wasn’t exactly stealthy on the loose gravel. But she didn’t turn, just marched into the office.

  It was dim, dusty and empty, as he’d guessed it would be. Operator Shannon Menzies was working in back in the radio room, and Cobra would be somewhere in the bowels of the hangar next door. While Mia set her sunglasses on top of her pretty blond hair and gazed around in a sweeping arc, Silas leaned against the jamb to watch.

  She turned back then, hitting him with a deep blue gaze—irises such a stunning cobalt that they looked fake and probably were. “I thought Raven would be here to meet me.”

  “She speaks.”

  Mia frowned in a way that told him she was highly disappointed by both his attitude and his tone. It was an impressive feat to put that much into a single glare.

  She didn’t speak again but pulled out her phone instead.

  “I’ll give you a ride into town,” he said. It was clear he couldn’t out-silent treatment her.

  “No need,” she said, putting her phone to her ear.

  “Hang it up,” he said.

  She drew back in obvious shock at his order.

  “Raven’s busy working. She doesn’t have to drop everything and come all the way out here.”

  “I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  “She might pretend she doesn’t.”

  Mia glared again and went silent. “Raven, hey, hi.” A bright white smile spread on Mia’s face, and her tone turned happy, unnaturally so. “I’m here. I’ve landed. I’m at the airport.”

  Then her gaze shifted to Silas. “Yes, it was.” She half turned away. “I don’t—”

  “This is ridiculous,” Silas said, earning himself a sharp look over Mia’s shoulder.

  Raven was going to wonder what the heck was wrong with him.

  He moved closer, talking loud enough that Raven was sure to overhear. “I can give you a lift.”

  His reward was another frigid glare.

  “I will,” Mia then said to Raven. “You bet.” She ended the call.

  He widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest, growing tired of this silly game. “Tell me she’s not coming all the way out here.”

  “She said to ask you for a ride.”

  “Was that so hard?”

  “I don’t normally accept rides from strangers.”

  “Strangers? Seriously? There are no strangers in Paradise. Everybody knows everybody else.”

  She tossed her hair—or would have tossed her hair if it hadn’t been fastened in a ponytail. “I don’t know anyone here.”

  “I’m not going to make a pass at you.”

  “I never—”

  “I’m not even going to flirt with you.” He realized how egotistical that sounded, like she’d be angling to have a guy like him flirt with a woman like her. Not in his dreams.

  “Can we stop this?” she asked.

  “Sure.” It sure wasn’t his finest moment. “I’ll put your stuff in my truck, and we can get going.”

  “Hey, Silas?” Xavier called from outside.

  Silas moved to the open door so Xavier could see him. “Yeah?”

  “Navajo’s tied down. I’m going to see if Cobra needs any help.”

  “Sounds good. You on deck for the Viking Mines fuel haul at six?”

  “I’m taking Zeke along as a swamper.”

  “That’ll work. Thanks.”

  “Catch you later.” Xavier gave a wave as he headed for the hangar.

  Silas gestured to the door, waiting for Mia to go first.

  She squared her shoulders and brushed past him.

  “Take a left,” he told her as he came outside and lifted the suitcases. “The blue extended cab beside the picnic table. You’ll want to give the fuel barrels a wide berth.”

  She gazed suspiciously at the parking lot. “Why?”

  “The ground’s soft on that side. Your boots will get muddy.”

  She blinked at him for a moment. “Oh. Thanks.” She started walking.

  He fell into step. “Surprised that I’d warn you?”

  “No.”

  “You sounded surprised.”

  “It seems out of character.”

  Well, that was a bold statement. “You already think you know my character?”

  She cast a pointed look his way. “You already think you know mine.”

  He’d give her that one. But the difference between them was, he was pretty sure he did.

  * * *

  * * *

  Mia wasn’t about to cower under Silas’s mocking and misjudgment. She’d been through worse. In fact, she’d been through worse in the past week. She’d been mocked and misjudged by the entire Lafayette Fashion company, most of the fashion industry and what felt like every social media user in Southern California. Silas might be a badass Alaskan bush pilot, but where it came to disdain, he had nothing on the internet trolls.

  They zipped along a well-worn gravel road, dodging most potholes, hitting others so that her chest jerked against her seatbelt. The thick forest encroached on both sides, a bent branch occasionally brushing the side of the truck. They were the only traffic. They didn’t pass a single vehicle coming the other way.

  If not for Raven telling her to get in the truck with Silas, this situation would have had Mia on high alert. She was alone—it felt like alone in the world—with a scowling, silent man who clearly didn’t like her much and looked like he could break a tree trunk with his bare hands.

  He took a sudden and unexpected right turn onto a rutted dirt road. Their speed slowed, but that didn’t stop them from bouncing over a crisscrossed mesh of tree roots from the tall cedars on either side with overhead branches that gave a horror flick–like gloom to the air.

  Then they rounded a bend and came to a house—a shack, really, dilapidated and deserted-looking with a sagging porch and a moss-covered roof. Mia’s danger meter spiked even higher. For a crazy second, she thought about jumping from the truck.

  She glanced Silas’s way, gauging her chances of success at escaping on foot. But he looked strong and incredibly fit. Her chances of outrunning him were obviously slim.

  He rocked the truck to a stop and shifted it into park.

  She stilled, her hands curling into fists against the worn fabric on the bench seat as she waited to see what he was going to do.

  She’d have given anything for the can of mace she normally carried in her purse, but it was prohibited on the plane to Anchorage. So, she’d left it at home, thinking she was unlikely to get mugged in a small Alaska town. That might have been a mistake.

  Her brain began clicking through scenarios as her mounting unease edged its way toward panic. Forget being mugged; what about being assaulted and murdered, her body dumped deep in the Alaskan bush where nobody would ever find it? She supposed Theresa and the twins would be relieved to be rid of her, not to mention most of greater LA.

  “I’ll put your stuff away,” he said, exiting the truck and leaving the door standing open.

  He hoisted her suitcases from the box of the truck and started for the shack. As he walked away with her belongings, the isolation closed in tighter than ever.

  The keys still dangled in the ignition.

  This was it, her chance to escape—maybe her only chance to escape. Her pulse sounded in her ears, all of her instincts telling her to flee. In a situation like this, a woman had to trust her instincts. All the psychologists said so.

  She quietly unbuckled her seatbelt and slid across the bench seat. As Silas stepped onto the porch, she quietly shut the driver’s door and eased the truck i
n reverse. She had to give up the element of stealth then, so with her heart beating against her chest and entire body tense, she cranked the wheel and stepped on the gas.

  He turned at the sound, gaping at her in complete astonishment.

  His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear what he said. It was probably just as well.

  She hit the brake, but she wasn’t fast enough. The rear bumper crunched against a tree.

  He dropped the suitcases and sprinted for the truck.

  She fumbled with the shifter, putting it back into drive and stepping on the gas. The tires spun, and Silas wrenched open the driver’s door.

  “What in the hell!” He hopped up on the running boards and grabbed the steering wheel.

  Kicking herself for being stupid enough to leave the door unlocked, she battered his hand.

  “What is wrong with you?” he demanded, unceremoniously shoving her across the seat.

  The engine speed died and the truck rocked to still on the uneven ground.

  She backed herself up against the passenger door, frantically looking for something to use as a weapon.

  He stared at her, breathing hard.

  “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said.

  “What?” he roared, a flush of anger coloring his face.

  She wrapped her hand around her purse. It wasn’t much, but she could at least throw it at him, maybe distract him for a second, then jump out and make a run for it.

  “Why did you do that?” He looked more baffled than angry now. He didn’t move, didn’t reach for her, just waited for an answer.

  “I’m not going in there,” she said, voice shaking as she stared at the spooky-looking house.

  “Raven’s place? Why not?”

  Raven’s place? Mia swallowed against a paper-dry throat. Had he just said this was Raven’s house?

  “Are you afraid of mice?” Silas asked. “I think she got rid of them all last year.”

  Mice? Mia fought back a bubble of hysterical laughter.

  “Raven didn’t tell me you were nuts,” Silas said.

  She straightened up to a proper sitting position. “I’m not.”

  He stared at her as if he was trying to figure her out. Then he seemed to give up. He turned off the engine, pulled the key. “Then quit acting like you are.” He left the truck.