A Mile High

by Bethany-Kris

  Evernight Publishing

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2013 Bethany-Kris

  ISBN: 978-1-77130-579-2

  Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

  Editor: JC Chute

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To D, for eleven years of never once saying, "You can't."

  A MILE HIGH

  Bethany-Kris

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  “Olivia, you can’t be serious!” I turned at the angry voice behind me. My brother Josh, appearing livid as he took in the hurricane-worthy mess my bedroom had turned into, stared back. “You can’t just up and go for a week without some kind of notice.”

  Like hell I couldn’t. I owned my own business, made my own hours, and so long as the clients were satisfied and the end-product was pleasing to the eye, I couldn’t see why I didn’t deserve a vacation.

  “Yes, I damned well can,” I muttered. I tossed the stark white bikini small enough to be considered scraps of string held together by practically nothing at all, into my luggage and sighed. “Listen—”

  “No, you listen,” he interrupted sharply with fingers pointing at me. The infamous “bitch brow” I was known for made an appearance, but Josh didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the sight. “We have that contract due with The Haven, for their Web site, in a month. You still need to finish the codes on that new blog’s final page. And Sylvia called yesterday, about the issues with her customers being unable to see their finished orders before they confirm purchases. We have a lot of work to do right now. This is not the time for you to get in one of your moods, sis.”

  “One of my moods?” I sneered, scoffing. He didn’t have a fucking clue. I wished he would get one really fast, but instead, I felt compelled to give it to him myself. “This isn’t just some mood. I have been doing this for four years, Josh. I work hard, but I have no life and you know I don’t. I want a week, that’s all, nothing more. I’ll even take my laptop with me, and work on whatever I can while I’m there. Give me a break. I need one.”

  His stance softened momentarily. “Could you at least take twenty freaking minutes to work out whatever is wrong with Sylvia’s pages, and then maybe fix it if possible?” The familiar green eyes that matched mine rolled as he grumbled, “She keeps calling every time she loses an order on her Web site to remind me that once again, it’s still not fixed. I’ve had it up to here with her, honestly.”

  “She pays really well,” I reminded him, trying lamely to keep the haughty tone out of my voice. I’d warned him, after our first meeting with that woman, that she would give us nothing but issues. It was probably she who had done something to her own Web site that ended up screwing her checkout page beyond her own repair. Generally, clients who allowed me to manage their Web sites simply sent periodic e-mails on instructions and desired changes, but not this client. Sighing, I looked at my watch. “I have to be at the airport in an hour and a half. I’m not sure there’s time for me to fix it today.”

  My brother pulled out all his old tricks: big eyes, pouting lip, and the nickname. “Liv…please. One more late-night call with her waking us up, and Natalie’s threatened to move out of the apartment.”

  Boohoo to you, is what I wanted to say.

  His girlfriend could use a swift kick in the ass and to be sent on her merry way, as far as I was concerned. Useless to the extreme, lazy on a good day, and far too demanding and controlling of my brother, Natalie hadn’t exactly met my nicer side yet, not that she ever would. Unless of course she grew up and started acting like a woman who could take care of herself and didn’t mooch off the hard-earned money my brother made working for my Web design company.

  “Come on.” Josh’s quiet voice brought me out of my nasty thoughts. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “That,” he said, waving at me. “I say her name and you get this look on your face like you just smelled something really bad. She’s decent, Olivia, more than. I know you think because she’s twenty-four, still hasn’t picked her major, and doesn’t have a part-time job that she isn’t ever going to do a thing with her life, but give her a chance…for me, would you? I kind of love this girl.”

  I eyed him, speculative. Josh didn’t simply throw around the love word like it was nothing. When he used it, he meant it. “Just kind of, or are you already picking out a nursery color?”

  The scrunched-up look he made had me grinning. It was almost cute…almost, if he wasn’t making that face in response to the evil that lived in his home. “I might be making a trip to Illinois next week with her to visit her family, and while I am there, I possibly might speak to her father about the prospect of proposing.”

  My jaw dropped. “You’ve known her six months. And you’ve only lived together for two!”

  The indifferent shrug of his shoulders was careless, thoughtless, and tactless all rolled into one motion. Josh could be more impulsive than anyone else I ever knew. “When you know, you know.” I felt my body snap back at the statement. Those were the exact words our father had used when he left our mother for a woman he met on the road, after having known her only a few days. “And I’d like to think that I know now.”

  “Don’t,” I warned with narrowing eyes and a cold attitude. Josh looked away from me, but I couldn’t feel the least bit bad about my manner. “Damn, give it a few more months or something. Think about where you want to go in the future. Sit Natalie down and see if she’s figured out the rest of her life yet, or at the very least if she can possibly decide what she wants to be when she grows up, if she ever plans on doing just that. Do not make a choice that serious before you understand the consequences of doing so. Can you promise me you’ll wait another couple of months before you go ring shopping, Josh?”

  Raking fingers through his light brown hair, he shrugged. “I think I’m ready.”

  The bitch inside me fought to make herself known. Taking a brief moment to breathe deeply while counting back from ten, I finally felt calm enough to speak again. “If you have to think about it, you’re not.” He went to speak and I raised my hand to stop him. “I won’t keep standing here arguing with you about this. If you want me to deal with that site issue, then leave me be, but good God, the least you could do is think some more about this, okay? Just think, Josh. You are more than intelligent enough to do that and understand it’s reasonable,” I insisted, the cold tone to my voice chilling even me. “You’re only twenty-four, you have a great job, and you’re well on your way to having an even greater future. Do not let some cute piece of ass from nowhere, Illinois with her ridiculous lack of work ethic or give-a-damn, ruin that for you just because she can take it like an animal.”

  Remorse was the first thing I felt after my rant. Apparently I hadn’t given myself enough time to chill out before giving him advice. I couldn’t even apologize, shocked at my own lack of tact towards the man with whom I’d grown up. Being twenty-seven, we were close in age, so our childhood and most of our teenage years were spent together. But that girl—Natalie—there was something about her that made my blood boil.

  Disbelief and anger filled his features. “Oh… You’re a spiteful—” Snapping his mouth closed and seething to stop the name he clearly wanted to call me—one I would have deserved—Josh glared. “You ha
ve no right to assume or say anything like that.”

  “Josh… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.” It wasn’t a complete lie. I just hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Really, I—”

  The shake of his head was response enough. My bedroom door slammed before I fully realized he had left the room. His shout from my outside hallway as he stomped from my house made my heart ache. “Enjoy your vacation. Don’t get sunburned. Oh, and before you leave, that cute piece of ass who takes it like an animal wanted me to tell you that she thinks you deserve this time off, given how hard you work and everything. And fix that fucking site!”

  “Josh!” Stumbling over the luggage I’d set on the floor, I attempted to make it to the doorway before he left. “Listen to me, please.”

  The shuddering impact of my front door closing was all that answered me back.

  Chapter Two

  I was three seconds away from banging my head on the desk of flight check-ins. Once again, with clenched teeth and fists squeezed tight to my sides, I attempted to listen as the employee behind the desk, with a tag that said her name was Star, explained to me how there had been a mix-up with my ticket purchase. In my rush to leave the house to catch my plane in time, I’d managed to leave my printed itinerary sitting on the desk, so I couldn’t show her it wasn’t my mistake.

  “It was definitely on your end,” she said far too cheerily. Fingers typed away at her keyboard as she widened her eyes and nodded, glancing up at a seething, perturbed me again. “Yep, had to have been. Our systems do not have glitches like that, and if there were one, we would have found it by now and fixed the problem.”

  Exasperated, defeat coursed through me. Still, there was no way in hell I was about to let this idiot tell me I had been the one to screw up. “Listen,” I snarled, teeth still clenched and eyes narrowing. Star looked slightly taken aback, giving me little satisfaction. “I work with computers for a living. I understand a lot about Web sites, buying and selling online, and how to check the right goddamned box when purchasing more than you could ever understand, okay? So this…issue…was not my fault. I do not want a flight to Newfoundland, Canada. I bought a flight from here to Barbados with a two-hour layover in the Dominican. Figure it out, but I am not going to Newfoundland.” Like a child not getting their way, my foot hit the cement floor with a thud.

  “Isn’t it like, really rainy there all year round or something?”

  Star looked up at me from her glasses. “Sometimes the weather isn’t very welcoming, but this time of year it’s generally pretty nice.”

  With her gaze averted from my face again, I fought the urge to give her the finger or stick out my tongue childishly. Nothing was supposed to be this hard. A vacation was intended to be stress-free, enjoyable, and fun. I was already about to kill somebody––preferably the moron who messed up my flights and decided sending me to some Canadian island was better than me flying off to the heat of Barbados.

  Karma, I thought to myself. That’s what this was. Karma for being horrible to my brother, for saying terrible things about the girl he apparently loved, and for acting like an all-around bitch. Karma was biting me back, hard. That didn’t mean I had to like it.

  “I just want to go to Barbados,” I explained, turning my voice back to the pleasant tenor we had begun with. “That’s all.”

  The apologetic look I received in return told me that wouldn’t be happening. “I’m sorry, Miss Carson, but you what you bought were first-class, round-trip tickets to Newfoundland. The flight leaves in two hours, so unless you’re willing to pay a fee for changing flights, and you want to wait another eight hours for the next flight to Barbados, this is your only option.”

  First-class tickets? My eyebrow cocked at that. There was no way I had bought first-class tickets. I had called my credit card company to make sure the money had been taken off without any issue, so I knew how much I paid for those flights. They had been coach class, both going over and on the return. First-class was another two thousand dollars I couldn’t afford to pay, not that I wanted to. That was the clincher in my mind that told me it had in fact been a mess up on their end…somehow.

  Still, the tease of a first-class flight dangled in front of my eyes. How could I ever pass that up?

  “Two hours?” I asked quietly. Placing her glasses to the top of her head, Star nodded. Handing over my ID’s, I wondered where in the hell I was going to stay when I arrived in Newfoundland. “Fine, check me in.”

  After making my way through security, I managed to find a little coffee shop inside the gates to immerse myself with the joys of caffeine in the form of iced coffee. Setting my cell phone down on the table, I ignored the other patrons who milled about the eating area while I called my brother’s phone. Six rings later and his answering machine picked up.

  Guilt pounded at my heart. I redialed only to get the same reply. Frustrated, I typed out the best apology I could muster through a text and sent it. It wasn’t five minutes later that my brother finally replied with one word: Okay.

  Hoping he’d forgiven me at least a little bit, I called him again. Natalie picked up. “Josh is busy,” was all she said.

  I swallowed the retort that wanted out. “Yeah, I know, he’s pissed at me. I’m sorry, okay? Just…tell him the stupid airlines somehow managed to screw up my tickets and now I’m going to Newfoundland instead of Barbados. I really, really, really need him to put that magic of his to use and get me a room somewhere, or a small rental house at a decent cost. Please, Natalie, I really am sorry.”

  She sighed dramatically, drawing out her next words to make me sweat. “He told me what you said.”

  I cringed. “Really—”

  Her dismissive sound stopped me from apologizing again. “For one thing, I am not just a cute piece of ass from nowhere, Illinois, not that it would make a difference to you. Secondly, I love Josh, so cut it out. Thirdly, I am neither lazy nor do I lack any work ethic, seeing as how instead of partying my college years away, I’m on the dean’s list with a scholarship that pays for my schooling. If you have an opinion of me, you could first do your research before opening your mouth, and when you do open it, you should always come to me to share it. Is that clear, Olivia?”

  Familiar, muffled laughter told me my brother was right there listening to her rant. Regardless, I felt properly chastised, put right in my place, and I understood where she was coming from in a roundabout way. “Yeah, we’re clear.”

  “Good,” Natalie replied softly, surprising me. “I’ll call you back after he finds you something and let you know the details. And um…maybe when you get back, do you think we could get together and talk?”

  I coughed, taking a sip of my iced coffee to clear the sudden lump in my throat. That didn’t ring to me like it would be a terribly fun time, given everything. “Without yelling and name-calling and all that nonsense?”

  “Shouldn’t I ask you that?” she retorted. “You’re the one—”

  “Yeah,” I interjected, not wanting her to go on yet another spiel, not that I hadn’t deserved the first one. “My fault, I know. Fine, make it a lunch date or whatever. I suppose I owe you one, so I’ll pay.”

  “Cool.”

  The dial tone sang in my ear. She had hung up without saying goodbye.

  Chapter Three

  Sitting in first-class as I waited for the last passengers to finish boarding the plane, I snuck my phone out of my purse on the floor, hoping a flight attendant wouldn’t see me. I’d already been warned twice to shut the phone off, but my brother still hadn’t called me back with any details regarding where in the heck I would be staying when I arrived in Newfoundland.

  Flying made me nervous as hell, and given the way my day had already turned out, I fought with myself over popping a Xanax before the flight began. Taking one of those would likely knock me out though, and I really wanted to see the ocean when we were above it. I always liked how blue it looked from the sky. Clear, crystal, and clean.

  Instead of a hap
py pill, I’d been quick to order a glass of wine I hoped would knock some calm into me before takeoff. I couldn’t help but snicker when the attendant handed it over, knowing the cost was included in first-class, and I hadn’t paid for those tickets, regardless of the airline insisting I had. My credit card knew better, which I had in fact recalled before boarding to ensure the money would be taken off my card.

  Maybe Karma was my friend after all.

  Taking a sip of the white wine, I flipped open my phone’s screen to see an e-mail alert blinking on the home page. My brother had a talent for finding gems in the rough when it came to rentals, costs, and locations and this time had been no exception. With details as to how I would be getting where I was going, the address of the small waterfront home situated on high cliffs overlooking the ocean that my brother had found for me, and an attached file receipt with the words “You owe me one” as the subject line, I had to smile.

  In the message body he had left a quick explanation that it had been a last-minute reservation and they might still be cleaning the upper section of the small house when I arrived, but I was welcomed to make myself at home either way. Josh also let me know he appreciated how I handled Natalie, and that he missed me already.

  I felt a little better, but still guilty for how I had treated him and the things I said. Josh was right. I did owe him one. A big one.

  With the sounds of high heels clicking down the aisle, I was fast to write a short “thank you” in reply before closing my phone and shoving it under the material of my knee-high skirt, hoping the attendant wouldn’t see it when she passed.

  Her blonde hair poked around the corner, slicked back into a beehive style with a black bow precariously sitting off-kilter to the side, not a single strand out of place. With makeup that looked airbrushed on, wide eyes, breasts far too big for her frame, and a waist so small I was sure she didn’t have bottom ribs, the woman looked kind of wrong. It was almost disconcerting to look at her. There was nothing odder than a woman who looked like a real life Barbie doll, in my opinion. They didn’t seem real, like plastic you had to move and bend into position but if you pulled too hard, they might crack and break.