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

comfortable chair. “Marnie, my lawyer—she’s also a good friend, and she’s beyond awesome—is appealing the injunction. But I had to get away. I was . . .” Mia hesitated, embarrassed to admit it, especially after the Silas incident today. “Scared.”

Raven shifted in her chair, sitting up straighter. “It was that bad?”

“Most of it was just trash talk . . . gold-digger, evil stepmother, blah, blah, blah. But some of the threats had the police worried.”

“The police were involved?”

“Just the local ones, not the FBI or anything.”

The sun’s slanted rays were warm against her, a wildflower-scented breeze wafted in and some birds chirped outside in the trees. Mia suddenly felt safe, and she realized she hadn’t felt this way in a very, very long time.

“I got scared,” she repeated, relieved to be able to be honest. “A couple of the trolls threatened to kill me; one wanted to strangle me with my own evening gown. Oddly specific, I thought. Another threatened to assault me before throwing me off the penthouse balcony. We don’t even live in a penthouse.”

“That’s horrible.” Raven’s face had gone pale.

Mia didn’t disagree. She took another sip of her wine. “It got so I had to drive through people holding signs and cameras and all screaming at me and banging on the car windows whenever I wanted to leave the property.”

“I’m glad you came,” Raven said.

“I’m glad you let me.”

“Of course I let you.” Raven gestured around them once again. “I know it’s not much, but I have twelve-gauge and a thirty-thirty in the closet, and you’re welcome to stay just as long as you like.”

Chapter Four

Raven had offered Mia a choice for the next morning: get up early to drop her off at work, or sleep in and stay at the cabin without a vehicle. When Mia learned just how early “early” was, she opted to stay stranded, at least for the first day. She and Alastair had never been early risers. There were too many evening engagements in their lives, too many lengthy business dinners and too many late-night discussions on the state of the industry.

Mia was a brunch rather than a breakfast person: a tropical fruit salad, some grainy bread, maybe a little yogurt or a smoothie. She usually hit the gym in the morning, either the Blue Star Club on Abby Drive or just down in the basement to work out on the elliptical and the rowing machines. Nothing fancy, just a bit of cardio and toning. Her shower, hair and makeup didn’t take too long, and then she was ready for whatever meetings Dara-Leigh, her personal assistant, had put on the schedule.

Today was much different. The options in Raven’s kitchen included white bread and strawberry jam, and no yogurt in sight, but Mia did find a little block of aged cheddar cheese. She wasn’t ready to brave Raven’s shower—an odd contraption that needed two kettles of hot water and the use of a battery-powered suction hose to draw the warm water out of a bucket and through the nozzle to rain down in the little tin shower stall. Mia decided to save that excitement until later in the day.

At least the bed had been comfortable if a bit small. Raven’s open loft above the living room had two twin beds placed at opposite ends. It reminded Mia of summer camp—not that she’d ever been to a summer camp. But she’d seen them in the movies, and they looked a lot like Raven’s loft.

After breakfast, Mia combed out her hair, did a quick makeup job then changed into a pair of mottled peach and turquoise workout pants topped with a peach tank top. Raven had said she could sometimes get a bar on her cell phone from the cache in the yard. Mia didn’t know where the cache would be, so she wandered around the wooded yard for half an hour trying to get a signal.

With no luck in the yard, she walked the long driveway to the road. But couldn’t get a signal there either.

By the middle of the afternoon, boredom set in. Since she hadn’t had any exercise in two days, she decided a run into town would kill two birds. She’d get in some cardio and find herself a cell signal. Maybe she’d stop at the Bear and Bar and see about a data package too. It would be good to check her email—her private email, not the corporate account the spammers had found and filled with hate mail. And she wasn’t going anywhere near her social media accounts until she got the all-clear. Marnie had arranged for a security firm to monitor those and forward anything that seemed personal.

Mind made up, Mia twisted her hair into a quick French braid and pulled out her running shoes. She’d already discovered Raven’s cabin door didn’t have a lock. She supposed there wasn’t anything here worth stealing, although Raven seemed to think the entire town was trustworthy anyway. Mia supposed if everybody knew everybody else, you couldn’t exactly fence your stolen goods.

She started at an easy pace down the driveway, avoiding the tire ruts, potholes and tree roots but appreciating the shade from the overhanging limbs. When she got to the road, she discovered the packed dirt at the edge made a nice spongy running surface. She still had to watch her footing, but her idea was turning out rather well.

Fifteen minutes in, after crossing the Paradise River bridge, she checked her phone and found a single bar. She was ridiculously thrilled by the first sign of civilization. By the time she got to town, she’d probably have two bars, maybe three. She could call Marnie and check in. It had only been a day, but Marnie was trying to nail down a court date. The date would tell Mia how long she’d be stuck in Alaska.

Not that she hated Alaska so far. Mostly, it seemed peculiarly idiosyncratic, and so slow-paced it was like beaming back in time. She’d been running for