Match Made In Paradise by Barbara Dunlop (black female authors TXT) 📕

Still worried, she whispered. “I can just—”

“We’re good,” Raven said with a nod of reassurance that looked sincere. Into the phone she said, “Thanks, Kenneth. I appreciate that.”

She pocketed her phone and gave Mia a bright smile. “Let’s go.”

On the way out, Raven was stopped several times for questions and instructions. People seemed like they were in a rush to get her input before she left.

“Are your bags in Silas’s truck?” Raven asked as they finally passed through the exit door into the much quieter in the parking lot.

“Silas dropped my bags off at your place.”

“Oh good. That was nice of him. Careful of the puddles.” Like Silas back at the airstrip, Raven didn’t seem to trust Mia’s boots.

Mia wasn’t sure why. Then again, it had never occurred to her to wonder if they were waterproof.

She caught sight of Silas striding their way.

“Heading home?” he asked Raven, falling into step with them.

“We’re going to get Mia settled in. You? Flight tonight?”

He nodded. “As many as we can while the weather holds. I’m heading for the Bear and Bar first, grabbing a burger to take along.”

“Sounds good, just let me know if—” Raven stopped short, staring at the damaged bumper on Silas’s truck.

Mia’s heart sank at the extent of it—a rather large U-shaped dent that still trailed a pine branch.

“What happened here?” Raven sounded and looked amused.

Silas gaze met Mia’s, obviously expecting her to speak up.

She didn’t mind taking responsibility for the dent, but she was embarrassed by why it had happened.

“What?” Raven asked, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

Silas waited, while Mia struggled to compose a reasonable answer.

Then he spoke up. “Not a huge problem. Mia misjudged a turnaround.”

“Mia misjudged—” Raven looked baffled.

“I’ve never driven a truck,” Mia added, appreciating that Silas had glossed over her behavior. “Alastair liked having a driver most of the time,” she explained. “I sometimes drove the BMW to the club or up the coast to meet the girls. But nothing as big as a pickup truck.”

“You drove Silas’s truck?” Raven looked baffled.

“No big deal,” Silas said, pulling the tree branch from the dent and tossing it over the fence. “Cobra will pound it out for me.”

“Maybe I should learn more about trucks,” Mia said. “You know, when in Rome.”

Raven stared at her in perplexed silence.

“Well, Milan mostly,” Mia kept talking, not knowing what else to do. “We only went down to Rome once. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, unless you like really old, crumbling buildings.”

Catching sight of Raven’s and Silas’s bewildered expressions, she stopped talking and silence took over.

“I guess I’ll go get that burger,” Silas said.

Mia didn’t wait for Raven’s response before heading for the passenger seat of the truck, face warm with embarrassment.

After a pause, Raven headed for the other door. “What was that all about?” she asked as she climbed into the driver’s seat.

“It was just a tiny misunderstanding,” Mia said.

Raven waited a moment. “And?”

Mia struggled to pull out the seatbelt, but it wouldn’t budge.

“You don’t really need one around here,” Raven told her.

Mia gave up on it, sitting up straight, crossing her legs and looking out the windshield, hoping Raven would simply move on.

Thankfully, she started the engine. “Are you that embarrassed about hitting a tree?”

Mia heaved a sigh, giving up on the pretense, not liking that she was holding information back from Raven. “I tried to steal his truck, okay.”

“You what?” Raven sounded thoroughly shocked. “Why would you do that?”

Mia curled her hands in her lap.

“Why?” Raven repeated.

“You can’t tell him. You have to swear here and now on . . . on something important . . . that you’ll never tell him why.”

“I swear on my . . . job.”

“Your job?”

“It’s important to me.”

“Fine. I thought he was a serial killer.”

“Silas?”

“It sounds silly now.” Mia knew that.

“Now?” Raven asked. “Was there a point where it didn’t sound silly?”

Mia tried to explain. “He drove me to your house. He didn’t even tell me it was your house, and—” She hated to be blunt, but she wanted her cousin to understand. “No offense, Raven, but it looked more like a creepy killer’s lair than my cousin’s home.”

Raven rubbed her hands on the steering wheel for a moment. “Okay, fair enough; the place does need a little maintenance, I’ll admit.” She looked embarrassed and Mia felt bad about being judgmental.

She quickly moved on. “Silas left the keys in the ignition. So, when he took the suitcases inside, I tried to escape.”

“But, you didn’t.”

“He caught me.”

“On foot?”

Mia wasn’t wild about the note of respect in Raven’s voice and felt the need to defend herself. “Hitting the tree slowed me down.”

A laugh erupted from Raven. “What did you tell him?”

“He assumed I was afraid of mice.”

“I don’t have mice.”

“I know. That’s what Silas said.”

“That’s hilarious.”

“You can’t tell anyone, ever.”

“All right.” Raven put the truck into reverse and backed out of the spot. “Silas is harmless, you know. He doesn’t even like to fish.”

“He doesn’t look harmless.”

“You think?”

“He looks hard and dangerous. Especially when you’re on a deserted lonely road, and he’s a stranger, and he pulls up to a dilapidated shack without an explanation.” Mia hesitated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your house again.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t be laughing at you. You came here to heal.”

“Not to heal.” That wasn’t what this was all about.

Raven turned to look questioningly at Mia.

“I came here to hide.”

*   *   *

The West Slope Aviation office often went from frantic in the morning, when most loads were readied and planes got off the ground, to a quiet lull during the day, when everyone was flying. Then it got busier in the evening, when most pilots and crew came back again and were looking to debrief on the day and shoot the breeze.

As a freight operation, it was a casual place built for function, not beauty. The few passengers who boarded or offloaded in Paradise were the workers and scientists who knew the drill, or fishing enthusiasts headed for a river camp during the salmon run. The