by A. C. Wilson
Black Hills Series Companion Novellas Part 2:
Royal’s Wildfire
&
Lance’s Stars
A.C. Wilson
Thank you for purchasing this book.
Royal’s Wildfire & Lance’s Stars remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes without written permission of the author.
If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy. Thank you for your support.
Royal’s Wildfire & Lance’s Stars is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
©2016 A.C. Wilson
All Rights Reserved.
Cover Photo by Allison Wilson-Hazen
Cover Design by Amanda Cornell
Other Titles by A.C. Wilson
The Black Hills Series
Black Hills Angel (Matt and Andy)
Black Hills Blessing (Garrett and Rayne)
Black Hills Rebel (Nora and Randy)
Black Hills Secrets (Blake and Bailey)
Black Hills Forever (Travis and Lacey)
Black Hills Seasons (Companion Novellas)
Lena’s Fall & Colt’s Magic
Broken Country Novels
Discovering Taryn (Levi &Taryn, #1)
COMING SOON
Chasing Taryn (Levi & Taryn, #2)
Deserving Taryn (Levi & Taryn, #3)
Black Hills Series :
Royal’s Wildfire
A Companion Novella
to the
Black Hills Series
A.C. Wilson
CHAPTER ONE
Royal Bentley was never so happy to leave a hotel room in his entire life, but he was less than thrilled to have lost the one woman who actually understood him. He cursed under his breath again as he opened his truck’s rear door and tossed in his suitcase. He had been in Hot Springs, South Dakota for too long. The road that led to his escape was covered in snow and ice, but he was bound and determined to make it to his flight.
The airport madness, not to mention the Christmas season was enough to make him re-think driving down to Florida in his rented truck. Checking his bag and making sure his flight was not going to be delayed, Royal took a seat in the lobby to wait. Waiting had never been his strong suit—charm, yes, but patience was a totally different story. It was a virtue he hadn’t been born possessing and it hadn’t been one he had acquired in the time between.
“Oops, I’m so sorry.” A tall, thin woman with long dark hair apologized after her bag had thumped him in the back of the head. Royal’s anger was instantly relegated to the back of his mind as he perused the deep brown eyes watching him. “Are you hurt? Oh, this place is absolutely crazy!” She continued on, looking rather embarrassed and contrite. He couldn’t let her think he was angry with her. He rubbed the back of his head that didn’t hurt in the least.
“I think I will survive.” He put on his best lady-killer smile. Brown eyes widened in response. The woman was absolutely gorgeous with long legs that were covered in black slacks that fastened around her slender waist with a thin, silver belt. Her heels only added to her height and Royal couldn’t seem to stop looking her up and down.
“I should have known.” Her snippy reply singed his ears. Royal looked up into her face and noted the heat of irritation on her cheeks.
“I beg your pardon?” He asked, sitting up a bit straighter and watching her lift her chin. They stared at one another.
“A pretty face comes and the brains God gave you go right out the window.” She huffed, her hand planted on her hip and her elbow popped out. Her irritation was lethal and it seemed every man in the close proximity held his breath. This woman was feisty and fiery; everything that Royal praised and cursed in a female.
“If you were looking for a compliment, I would have been happy to oblige. You don’t need to put words in my mouth, unless you think that I am unable to see just how stunningly beautiful you are.” Royal poured on the charm, but as luck would have it, she looked stunned and then pissed.
“Lord, help any woman that encounters you.” She hissed, readjusting her bag on her shoulder and tossing her hair off her forehead. She really was a beauty, but anger made her even more so. Her dark eyes shot daggers at him. The buzz of the private conversations around the airport did nothing to discharge the static between them.
The flight is now boarding.
The attendant’s voice broke their visual challenge. Royal blinked and the woman was gone. He searched the lobby, looking all around and standing up just in time to see her slender form making her way down the hallway towards the plane. Royal hurried to gather up his things and tried to get through the line that had now formed in between himself and the plane.
Ticket, please.
Royal could barely focus on what the attendant was saying to him and he only registered the woman taking his ticket from his hand and then handing it back. He had no idea what was happening to him, but something told him to at least get the dark-haired beauty’s name. Slipping through the hallway towards the plane, Royal bypassed a couple of older patrons.
Always in a hurry.
Royal murmured his apologies to the older couple he had bumped with his bag. His eyes focused on the end of the walkway, searching for the woman in the seats of the plane and silently sifting through the faces.
“May I help you find your seat, sir?” The attendant’s voice broke through the fog and he looked at her, his mouth slack. She watched him with a raised brow when he didn’t answer her question. “Let me see your ticket.” Again he couldn’t move and she popped it out of his hand. “This way, please.”
Royal stumbled in the aisle behind the stewardess. His eyes searching for the woman who had confronted him in the airport. She wasn’t anywhere to be found. He wanted to chastise himself for letting his baser self dictate what he was feeling, but as he took his seat, Royal wasn’t sure it was just his animalistic instincts. Leaning his head back against the rest, he closed his eyes and fought the feeling of panic from the claustrophobia. Hyper awareness slipped into his nerves and Royal gripped the arm rests. He was really stupid, he told himself. It would have been easier to drive to Florida, albeit the snowstorm was causing a bit of a mess. Rayne’s wedding had sent him scurrying to find a place to hide. A place to go where he didn’t have to think about the woman that got away and inadvertently stole his heart as well.
“Are you feeling ill, sir?” The stewardess blinked at him as she leaned down to speak to him. Royal nearly groaned. He took his hand away from his face and shook his head.
“Just a nervous flyer. I’ll be fine.” The woman looked at him as if he were blowing smoke, but she finally slipped back down the aisle. Royal closed his eyes again and tried to relax. He focused on his breathing and the rise and fall of his chest. It was helping until he heard a feminine scoff.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
The hair on his neck rose with nearly painful precision as he banked the voice. Instantly he pictured the leggy brunette with a kissable mouth and a prissy attitude. He opened his eyes to see that very woman he had been searching to find.
“Fancy meeting you again.” Royal couldn’t help it. His brain wasn’t able to communicate with his mouth before words tumbled out.
“No, I cannot sit here.”
Royal wanted to laugh when the same stewardess came to see what was going on as other passengers were being queued up as a result of the woma
n’s meltdown.
“May I help you, ma’am?” The stewardess was not as helpful this time and Royal heard the irritation in her voice.
“I really cannot sit next to this…,” the brunette looked at him as if he might morph into something slimy. “man.”
“I’m afraid you will have to or book another flight. This plane is completely filled.” The stewardess looked pointedly at the exit of the cabin and waited for the woman to make her decision. It must have been a complicated one, because it took her a few minutes. The groans and complaints of the other passengers barely registered.
“Fine.” She didn’t wait for Royal to move from his aisle seat before plowing through his legs. “Don’t get up.” Her snarky sarcasm made him grit his teeth before he said something totally inappropriate for a plane. The rest of the grumbling passengers moved to their seats while the woman got situated. He would have said comfortable, but the way she sat with her back ramrod straight and her chin jutted out, there was no way she was comfortable.
“Do you ever just relax?” Royal couldn’t help the words that once again tumbled out of his mouth. He watched her narrow her eyes and look away from him. Shaking his head, Royal reached up and redirected his vent for air. The plane had indeed filled up and he was feeling even more confined than he had been before. His heart rate accelerated and sweat was starting to bead up on his forehead.
“Maybe you should take your own advice.” The woman’s voice had softened, but there was still an edge to the words. Royal closed his eyes and parted his lips. “In through your nose and out through your mouth.” Her voice had softened still further. She might not like him, but it didn’t keep her from being concerned for him.
“What’s your name?” He asked, keeping his eyes closed. Royal could almost hear her thinking of a way to put him off.
“Why would you need to know that? What does it have to do with you? On the verge of a panic attack?”
Royal leaned his head forward and opened his green eyes to meet those chocolate brown ones. He was trying to hold himself together. “So that if I pass out right now, I will know the woman who will keep me from being banged up by the beverage cart.”
She lifted a carefully sculpted brow as she held his gaze. A slight tick of a smile gave her away. She sighed.
“Ainsley.”
Royal held up his right hand and extended it slightly. She looked down at it and gingerly accepted it with her own. He loved that her hand was soft, but her grip tight and sure.
“Royal.”
Long, dark eye lashes surrounded those beautiful brown eyes. For the time that he stared into them, he didn’t notice the plane getting ready to take off. Ainsley had captivated him and although she had withdrawn her claws, she was still rather aloof. He didn’t care. Today it was about surviving and if Ainsley was his life raft, then he would grasp it with both hands.
“You had better fasten your seat belt. Lift off can get bumpy.” Ainsley buckled up her own. He watched her slender fingers nimbly working. She paused and looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I’m not doing it for you.”
Royal grinned. “Too bad.”
“You are terrible.” Ainsley shook her head in mock rebuff. He put his seat belt together.
“So you’ve said.”
CHAPTER TWO
The flight wasn’t all that long and Royal had tried his best to get Ainsley to speak to him. It wasn’t like he was asking for a long term commitment. Oh, he was not walking back down that aisle anytime soon, if ever!
“What do I have to do?” Royal asked himself out loud. “I’m sincerely sorry for the way I acted at the airport.”
Ainsley peeled off her headphones and looked at him as if he had sprouted three horns. Royal tried not to laugh at the thought of maybe seeing her expression sans clothing. He couldn’t control the humor though and a deep chuckle rolled out.
“You are a complete cad.” Ainsley blurted out.
“A cad?” Royal’s lips turned up in a grin at the slight accent that slipped past in her outburst.
“How do I always get a seat right next to idiotic men?” Ainsley grumbled under her breath, knowing full well that Royal would hear it. He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed at her with some insult.
“Idiotic?” Royal huffed out a breath as he continued to bait her. “I’ll have you know I ‘gradiated’ from college.” He enunciated the word just to drive her crazy. It worked.
“That’s a surprise. I didn’t think backwoods heathens lived so well.”
Royal leaned in a couple of inches, garnering her attention. “It’s amazing. We have running water and toilets indoors now.” Brown eyes were completely riveted on him and they lowered to his mouth as he spoke. That kind of attention did insane things to the way his jeans fit. Suddenly they were too restrictive, but he fought not to squirm.
“Really?” Ainsley’s voice sounded like molten caramel and it only added to his discomfort. This girl had cosmic seductive powers. “Your family should really stop sleeping with each other. It’s doing something awful to the children.”
Royal sat there for a moment, pulling his mind away from watching those wicked lips and finally registering what she had said to him. He watched as her dark eyes lightened a bit, no doubt wondering how he would react. His lips twitched at the biting insult. It was rather good.
“You seem to know your way around my kind. Was the sex not good enough? Not enough guys to go around?” Royal watched his words sink in and he should have felt badly about what he was saying to her. Should have. But he reminded himself that she had started this particular avenue of speech. Just before Ainsley could come back with some witty slam, the stewardess came by to ask if there was anything that they needed. Royal took that as his cue to flirt with the woman. He could almost hear his seat companion seething.
Once the smiling stewardess walked away, Royal settled back into his seat as if nothing had happened. He knew Ainsley was about to erupt. She fisted her hand around the strap of her purse and rose from her seat. Once again he got to admire the length of her legs.
“Excuse me.” She nearly stepped over him, but her trailing foot clipped the tray. Her knee sank down frighteningly close to his crotch.
“Easy now.” He chided, grinning at her. That female winning smile was about to get smacked off his face, he was almost certain. “Need some help?”
“In the rest room?” Ainsley squeaked as he carefully removed his hand from her knee.
“There’s a Mile High Club, I think. I’d love to join.” Royal wiggled a brow. Ainsley’s shocked face was priceless.
“Jackass.” She hissed and stalked down the aisle.
Nearly twenty minutes went by as Royal white knuckled his flight. He really did hate being however many miles up in the air in a vehicle that he had no control over. It was nerve wracking to say the very least!
“May I get to my seat?” Ainsley’s cool visage had him pressing his lips firmly together and shifting in his seat so that she barely had enough room to pass by him. “Much appreciated.” Her tone was clipped and her cute backend was right in his face. Uncomfortable was not quite the word he would have used as he shifted in his seat. So this was the way she wanted to play it, huh? He was good with it.
“I was about to send a search party. Thought maybe you had fallen in.”
“In? In, where?” Her surly voice made him secretly congratulate himself for being able to captivate her attention so fully. He also had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her expense.
“Where might you have fallen in, sweet cheeks?” Royal lifted a brow and made a show of rolling his eyes. Shocked outrage made Ainsley’s mouth fall open.
“That is typical for a man of your caliber. Crude, disgusting and totally hypocritical!” Her chest rose and fell deliciously in her tirade’s aftermath. She had fire and grit. He would give her that. She was also beautiful and seductive without trying to be. This woman was an odd mixture of sex and possessed saint, b
ut that didn’t bother him. In most ways, it drew him to her in a visceral sense.
“Oh, don’t be like that! You know you secretly love it.” Royal watched as she withdrew in that moment and looked out her cramped little window. Her back straightened as if it were threaded in steel and he felt his estimation of her grow.
Royal’s unexpected plane mate was far from the ditzy, sticky sweet creatures that he usually hooked up with in his life before today. Those women knew he only wanted one thing and they were fine with drinks, maybe dinner, and sex. That was it. No cuddling afterwards. No promise to call them later. No second chance to be with him. It was a simple life, but one that he could maintain without his heart getting in the way.
“So what are you flying away from?” Ainsley’s voice broke into his thoughts and it took him a second to sort out what she had asked of him. She didn’t look angry any more, but she could very well be looking for revenge. Royal quirked a corner of his mouth and shook his head.
“Why can’t I be flying toward something or someone?” He asked, avoiding her question just barely. Her brown eyes shifted, looking at his hands clenching his seat.
“You clearly hate to fly. It takes one heck of an emotion to do something you hate to do.” She paused, looking over his face as if watching for a tell. “Either for love or from a broken heart.” Ainsley was meticulous in her estimation. Royal managed to unpeel his fingers from the seat cushion and involuntarily he massaged the spot over his heart. Even his stunning wit couldn’t save him from the shot of a well-placed arrow.
“Damn.” He uttered under his breath, not sure he could look into her eyes until he had himself under control. Flashes of that morning littered his brain and the drastic change his life was taking. Rayne. He was afraid to say her name out loud. The one woman he wanted, but couldn’t have. She was married to Garrett Johnson. “Flay a man, why don’t you?” There was malice in his tone, but he couldn’t help it. Ainsley crossed one long leg over the other and leaned towards him.