Match Made In Paradise

by Barbara Dunlop

  He grinned and waved at everyone, accepting a handshake from Xavier then disappearing as people crowded around him.

  A loud bong sounded above the din, and the room suddenly went quiet around a Blake Shelton tune that was still playing through the speakers.

  Brodie stood next to the big copper gong that hung at the end of the bar. Everyone cheered even more loudly. A few people close to Brodie gave him a high-five.

  “Why’d he do that?” Mia was surprised Brodie would draw the attention away from Silas. That didn’t seem like what she knew of him.

  “It’s like a bar bell. Brodie just bought a round of drinks.”

  “For the house?” Mia glanced around. There had to be more than fifty people crowded inside.

  “He’s committed now,” Raven said with a delighted grin.

  Breena, who had been serving tables, moved behind the bar to help her grandmother and Badger the bartender fill the rush of orders as the crowd surged their way.

  Brodie made his way toward Raven and Mia’s table, his attention clearly focused on Raven. “What are you all drinking?”

  “While I have everyone’s attention!” Mrs. France’s voice boomed out from behind the bar.

  Mia turned to see Mrs. France standing taller than everyone else, Badger steadying her on something—a stool or a chair.

  There was more cheering, and she gave a mock bow. Then she held up her hand for quiet. “While I have everyone’s attention. You should know Badger saw a grizzly sow and two cubs in the meadow berry patch earlier today. If anyone needs bear spray or company for the walk home, come and see me.” She waved a red can of bear spray while Badger reached a hand up to help her down.

  “Is that close by?” Mia asked Raven. “The meadow berry patch?”

  “Drinks?” Brodie repeated, putting his hand on Raven’s shoulder.

  Raven pointed to her glass. “Old-fashioned.”

  Brodie looked to Mia next, and she was sure it was only because she was with Raven. He was perfectly polite to her; overly polite, really. She sure didn’t get a warm feeling. Maybe that was why Silas had backed off on their kiss. Maybe he cared too much about what Brodie thought.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She was only halfway through her glass of Chardonnay anyway.

  Raven gave her a look of disgust. “Chardonnay,” she said to Brodie. “Make it bear-sized.”

  “Coming right up,” Brodie said.

  “Bear-sized?” Mia asked, realizing that protesting further would be silly.

  “Bigger,” Raven said. “Don’t let him off the hook like that. He offers to pay, you let him pay.”

  “Okay.”

  “How come you two get preferential table service?” Dixie asked in a mock huff at Mia’s left-hand side.

  “Brodie’s only got so many hands,” Raven sang back.

  Brodie paused halfway across the room to talk to Silas. They stood close, and Brodie spoke into Silas’s ear above the music and the ambient conversation. Silas answered back, and they both laughed. Brodie brought a hand down to Silas’s shoulder and said one more thing before continuing toward the bar.

  Then Silas gaze caught Mia’s gaze. Their kiss bloomed in her mind, followed by humiliation from the way he’d backed off.

  He moved her way, and with every step he seemed to grow more powerful and attractive. It was hard not to think of him as a superhero while people kept stopping him to offer congratulations. He was friendly but brief in each of the chats. He kept steadily coming her way, looking determined, like a man on a mission.

  “Nicely done, you!” Raven jumped up from her chair when Silas was only a few paces away. She wiggled between the crowded chairs to give him a quick hug. “Brodie was impressed.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal. I had a good ten feet to spare on the takeoff.”

  “Ten feet,” she mocked with an eye-roll. “You know you saved him a fortune. You should be the one we’re thanking for the free drinks.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so.”

  “Want to sit down?” She gestured to the chair next to Mia, and Mia’s stomach clenched.

  “I’m not taking your seat. Look, your drinks are here.” Silas shifted to one side so Brodie could squeeze past.

  Mia remembered she still had half a glass of wine left and took a swallow. Then she took another one, deciding a hit of alcohol might blunt her unwelcome attraction to Silas. Whatever he’d thought of their kiss, she couldn’t get it out of her mind.

  “Mia?” Another voice came from behind her.

  She turned to see Zeke had wound his way close to their table. His glance flicked to Silas and Raven before settling back on her.

  She gave him a bright smile. In the short time she’d been in town, she’d seen there was a hierarchy at WSA. It wasn’t overt, but the pilots were top dogs, while Zeke was lower down the ladder because he was on the ground crew. Raven was also up there because she was in charge at Galina, plus she was tight with Brodie and Silas.

  “Take a seat,” Mia said to Zeke, not wanting to buy into all that. But she could tell by his expression there was no way in the world he was taking Raven’s chair.

  “Do you want to dance?” he asked, looking hopeful.

  Mia looked around the rollicking room. There wasn’t a square inch of spare space. “Where?”

  He cocked his head. “Out back on the deck. That’s where the music’s loudest.”

  “Okay. Sure.” She couldn’t stop herself from looking Silas’s way, but he was occupied with Raven and a couple of other people who seemed to be congratulating Silas on his feat.

  Mia came to her feet, and Silas looked at her then. Giving him a carefree little wave to show she was unaffected by his presence, she fell into step behind Zeke, following him through the crowd to an open set of double doors and a wooden patio surrounded by a low rail.

  Several couples were already outside, cheerfully gyrating to the fast beat of the country tune. Mia and Zeke joined in. The music was definitely louder outside than in, and as the song ended, AJ asked her to dance.

  It was a bit of a silly formality since people weren’t really dancing in couples. It was more of a free-for-all, but she was game, and AJ seemed to be having a great time. After AJ, another guy asked her, calling out that his name was Hank.

  Soon she was lost in a whirl of dances and a whirl of partners, until she was exhausted.

  She turned Zeke down when he asked her again, giving him a pat on the shoulder as she apologized. Then she turned and all but ran into Silas who was standing in the double doorway.

  “Oh, hey,” she said, bringing herself to a screeching halt, telling herself to be cool and keep it together, and not, not think about the kiss.

  He held up a glass of white wine. “Are you looking for this?”

  “Is that mine?”

  “It is.”

  She drew a bracing breath and accepted the glass. “Thanks.”

  He held a highball glass of something amber in his other hand. “Want to get out of the noise?”

  “Sure.” She was still playing it cool, plus her eardrums could use a rest.

  He led her to the edge of the deck and opened a little gate at one side.

  She followed him three steps down to the wooden sidewalk and down a ways where the wall of the restaurant blocked the noise. The Bear and Bar was painted white with green trim, two stories high. The sidewalk was worn beneath her feet, built up from the gravel street.

  The sidewalk was dry, so she sat down and planted her low-heeled boots on the gravel. They were the boots she’d worn the day she met Silas in Fairbanks, and she couldn’t help thinking so much had changed in such a short time.

  He sat down beside her and took a sip of his drink. “I hear you started working at Galina.”

  Mia nodded at the safe topic. “I think it’s going we
ll.”

  “Oh?”

  “Except for the mini loader.” She took a drink. “That didn’t go so well. But I found a manual, and I’m going to study up and have another go.”

  “There must be plenty of other things to do there besides drive a loader.”

  “Sure, there are. But I don’t want to be defeated. I’m learning new things, taking new chances.”

  “So long as you’re safe.”

  She coughed out a laugh at that. “I’ve never seen a place more obsessed with safety.”

  He fell silent and twisted his glass in his hands, staring down at it. “I hope you didn’t misunderstand me the other day.”

  “Misunderstand what?” she asked, turning to take in his profile, tucking her hair behind one ear and pretending she didn’t have any idea what he meant.

  He gave a self-conscious smile. “When I backed off.”

  She gave a shrug. “It’s fine.”

  “I was trying to be respectful.”

  “Of Brodie.” She could understand that. Brodie was Silas’s boss after all.

  “No.” Silas seemed surprised by her answer. “Of you. You’re only in town for five minutes, and you’ve just lost someone.”

  “You mean Alastair.”

  “Yes, Alastair, your husband.”

  Mia thought about letting the subject drop, letting Silas feel noble and forgetting about the attraction she’d felt for him and the mind-blowing hormone rush she’d gotten from his kiss. It was the smart thing to do, the right thing to do.

  Instead, she took a sip of her chardonnay. “I was eighteen when my parents died.” Nobody but Marnie knew the real story, but Mia wanted to tell it now.

  She focused on the detail of the gravel road in front of her. “I’d been under contract to Lafayette for a couple of years by then and my career was flourishing. Alastair worried about me being left alone and took me under his wing. It might have been part self-interest, but he helped me through the grief. He was already divorced by then. He was steady, stable, smart and funny, with extravagant plans and brilliant ideas. The younger guys all paled in comparison.”

  “You know you don’t have to explain to me.”

  “I want you to have an accurate picture. I was more a protégé than a lover, more a companion than a wife, then more a caregiver in the end. It got even more complicated when—” A flash of movement in the intersection caught her eye.

  It was a black shape moving. No, two black shapes. No, three black shapes lumbering across the street toward Blue Crescent. The biggest one put its nose in the air.

  She grasped Silas’s arm. Her voice came out hoarse. “Bears.”

  “Where?”

  She pointed.

  He turned his head to look, but his tone stayed astonishingly calm. “Good spotting.”

  Adrenaline rushed through her, and her grip tightened. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Like what?”

  “Go back inside?”

  “Sure, if they come this way,” he said. “But the music will likely keep them at a distance. And they look like they’re heading out of town anyway.”

  “Shouldn’t we warn people?”

  “Mrs. France already did. Word’s spreading. Everyone will be on alert.”

  “So, we’re just going to sit here and watch?” Mia tried to take another swallow of her wine and realized she’d finished the glass. That might be why she wasn’t flat-out panicking.

  “They’re an impressive animal,” he said as the bears stopped under the sole streetlight. The sow turned her head toward them, sniffing the air again.

  One of the cubs plopped down, and the other nuzzled its sibling’s head.

  “Impressive,” she agreed. She inched a little closer to Silas, pressing her shoulder to his.

  “Scared?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “We can go inside if you want.”

  “It’s okay.” The bears were a good hundred yards away. Mia calculated she could make it back into the Bear and Bar in about five seconds. It seemed unlikely the bears could run a hundred yards in under five seconds.

  “Silas Burke, ace pilot,” a voice boomed behind them.

  The mama bear looked over her shoulder at the sound.

  Silas hopped to his feet. “Hey, guys.”

  He offered his hand to Mia to help her up.

  She took it, and he drew her to standing as the bears decided to lope away down Blue Crescent.

  The two men were obviously brothers, tall and broad-shouldered, Nordic-looking, one with tight-clipped blond hair and the other with a shaggier cut.

  “Mia, this is Tristen and Tobias. We call them T and T-Two.”

  “Excuse me?” Mia asked.

  “Tristen came to town first,” Silas said, indicating the man with short hair. “Joined up with WSA a couple of years ago. T-Two followed.”

  Tobias flashed a bright smile and offered his hand to Mia. “I like to point out I was only a month behind Tristen in moving to town.”

  “Were you second-born?” Mia asked curiously.

  Tobias shook his head.

  “So, the nickname is a demotion.”

  “That’s why Tristen made sure it stuck.”

  Tristen grinned. “Busted.”

  “They’re both excellent pilots,” Silas said, and Mia realized he was still holding her hand. She could have let go, but she didn’t.

  “We’ve got nothing on this guy,” Tobias said to Mia.

  “It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds,” Silas said, and Mia realized she hadn’t even asked him about the rescue and his daredevil takeoff.

  “You took off over a cliff,” Tristen said, awe in his tone. “That’s badass.”

  Mia’s hand contracted around Silas’s. People hadn’t talked like it was dangerous, but it must have been for Tristen to make such a big deal out of it.

  “I was all but airborne before I flew over,” Silas said. “Other guys have done it, and it works perfectly well.”

  “One for the record books,” Tobias said.

  “We just wanted to say congratulations,” Tristen said. “Nice to meet you, Mia.”

  “Welcome to Paradise,” Tobias said to her.

  “Thanks.” She smiled as both men turned to go. She liked them.

  Brodie seemed to have put together a great team of pilots. It made her think he was a good judge of character.

  She slipped her hand from Silas’s, wondering what it was Brodie saw in her that he didn’t admire.

  * * *

  * * *

  The situation Silas spotted on the Galina warehouse to the loading dock was pretty self-explanatory. A regretful-looking Mia was standing with Kenneth, AJ, Leon and Billy Leland, and they were all staring at a slashed and flattened left rear trailer tire. The mini loader was parked a few feet away.

  “—and a repair might get me back to Fairbanks,” Billy was saying to Kenneth. “But I’m going to have to replace it when I get there.”

  Raven and Brodie arrived then, surveying the damage.

  Silas felt annoyed on Mia’s behalf. Why would they have put her back on the mini loader? What were they thinking?

  “It’s my fault,” Leon was quick to acknowledge to Raven, earning Silas’s ire.

  “I think I hit a button,” Mia added. “Accidentally. Maybe with my thumb. I was turning, and—”

  “We thought she had it,” AJ said.

  “I’ll pay for the tire,” Mia said.

  “Galina will pay for the tire,” Raven jumped in.

  “As long as somebody pays,” Billy said.

  “Was anybody hurt?” Silas asked. They were missing the important question, as far as he was concerned. He looked Mia over from head to toe.

  “She’s not hurt,” Leon said, and
Silas shot him a stern frown. The man had no business putting her in that situation.

  He tried to catch Mia’s eye to give a little moral support, but she wasn’t looking his way. She had to feel terrible. Nobody wanted to be the person who caused damage. He’d done it a time or two on an airplane, and it sucked.

  Kenneth ended a phone call. “Caldwell can patch it,” he said to everyone. “He’s on his way over.”

  “Good,” Raven said, moving closer to Mia and rubbing her arm in sympathy. But there was tension around her eyes.

  Silas knew it wouldn’t be the cost of the tire. That was negligible. Raven was probably worried about Mia’s safety. Or maybe she was worried about disruptions in the busiest season of the year. She couldn’t be happy that half the crew was standing out here doing nothing.

  “Can we all get back to work now?” she asked, looking around the circle.

  Everyone muttered agreement, and the group began to disperse.

  “It was that little button,” Mia said to Raven. “My turn was a bit jerky, but I was going really slow, and—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Raven said, but Silas could see Raven’s strain even more clearly now.

  He didn’t like the way things were going. There was genuine danger to a rookie in a busy warehouse, and Raven didn’t need any extra headaches. Since he’d prompted Mia to step up in the first place, it was partly his fault. He sifted things in his brain until he landed on a solution—temporary, but at least it was something.

  “Hey, Brodie,” he called out. “Got a minute?”

  Brodie gave him a nod and Silas walked over. “She’s making Raven nuts,” Brodie confided in a lowered tone.

  “I think I can get her out of the way for a while,” Silas offered.

  Brodie raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m going on a run to Wildflower Lake in Papa-X-ray. I can take her along, give her a tour, keep her out of town for the rest of the day.”

  Brodie clapped Silas firmly on the shoulder. “Yes. Yes. Do it. You’re the one guy I can trust to keep his mind on business and off the supermodel.”

  Nothing in the world would keep Silas’s mind off Mia. But she wouldn’t impact his performance as a pilot, and there was no way in hell he was going to tell Brodie about their kiss. So he simply nodded in agreement and strode back to Mia to close the deal.