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

She took it, and he couldn’t stop the swell of pride that came up in his chest. Sure, he knew this wasn’t a real date. But the people in the restaurant wouldn’t know that. They’d get a load of Mia and think Silas was the luckiest man alive.

It was a three-minute winding walk along the trees and above the shoreline to the main lodge. There, they had to navigate the staircase, and Mia kept her hand on his arm as Piper showed them into the dining room.

Silas liked the way people looked at them—well, looked at Mia to be more precise, with admiration and longing.

Piper sat them at a table along the back wall. Their window looked out over the bay, the rocky shore and the forest in the background.

“This is nice,” Mia said as she sat gracefully down on the padded, wraparound chair.

The white tablecloth, flickering candle, bone china and blown crystal were Wildflower’s standard. The atmosphere was hushed beneath the beamed ceilings.

“They know how to do it right,” Silas said with a smile. It wasn’t his usual speed, but he could go high-end for a dinner occasionally, especially one with Mia.

“You come here often?” she asked, then smiled self-consciously at the phrasing.

“I don’t often sit in the dining room or stay overnight, for that matter. There’s lounge down the hall that’s more casual, and the deck is nice when there’s a breeze. It’s too still out there tonight. The mosquitoes would be terrible.”

“I’m all for staying out of the bugs,” she said.

A waiter arrived offering drinks, but they decided on a bottle of wine instead. Silas asked Mia if she wanted to choose, and she stepped right up.

“Alastair was big into wine,” Mia said as the waiter departed with their order. “We have a very large wine cellar back home.”

“So, you’re an expert?”

She gave a shake of her head and a pretty smile. “He was the expert. I mostly went along for the ride. But I recognize the label of the one I ordered. It’s good.”

“I wasn’t worried.”

“You drink much wine?”

“Beer in the fridge at the hangar. After flights only, of course. The guys like to hang out, compare notes, tell stories.”

“Exciting stories?”

“Sometimes exciting, more often funny. Clients can be wacky, passengers amusing.”

“Like the women who don’t know enough to use the restroom before they get on the plane.”

“I kept that to myself.” Although he suspected the drillers would have shared their amusement at the mine.

“I didn’t,” Mia said.

Silas raised his brow, surprised she would tell a story where she looked foolish.

“I told Raven.”

“Ah.” That made sense.

“I also told her—” Mia pressed her lips together as if she was trying to keep herself from speaking up.

“What?” he prompted.

“Nothing.”

“Oh no. That’s not going to happen.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“I just spilled almonds all over the floor because—”

She pressed her lips tight together in a squelched grin. And he eyes lit up in a way that said she had him. “Because . . . ?”

“You first.”

“No, you.”

He leaned forward. “You.”

“Okay, fine. I thought you were a serial killer.”

He was baffled by the answer. “Because I sent you back to the restroom?”

She shook her head, her cheeks turning pink as she squelched another smile. “When you took me to Raven’s cabin. That’s why I tried to drive away.”

Silas’s chest hitched in regret. “You were frightened?”

“Not for long.”

He reached out to cover her hand, wondering what he could have done to make her feel that way. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Don’t be. It’s funny now. It was funny right after too. At least to Raven.”

“Got a minute, Silas?” Cornelia’s adult son, Danny, appeared at their table.

Silas sent him a back-off look. The very last thing he wanted to do was leave Mia.

“We’ve got some cargo for your return trip,” Danny said.

“Go ahead,” Mia said to Silas, retrieving her hand. She didn’t look at all annoyed by the interruption.

He was annoyed. Any moment away from Mia was a moment wasted.

It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse, but then he reminded himself that he was here on WSA business, and he’d given a pledge to Brodie to stay professional. It also occurred to him that Mia was probably used to business dinners. Given Alastair’s position, interruptions must have happened to her all the time in LA.

“I’ll just be a minute,” he said as he rose, determined to make that true.

As he crossed with Danny to the end of the bar, he caught the many surreptitious looks being sent Mia’s way, from women as well as men.

She was a knockout; there was no getting around that. He figured it was a classic case of all men wanting to date her and all women wanting to be her. Silas knew her life as an extraordinarily beautiful woman wasn’t a living fantasy, but he could see it might look that way from the outside.

He took a barstool next to Danny. “What’s up?”

“One of the XM6700 generators just quit on us. We can likely get warranty, but we have to ship it out. Can you fit it?”

Silas whistled under his breath, picturing the industrial generators that powered the lodge. “That’ll be a squeeze into the beaver.”

Danny nodded to that. “The rep said we can pull off the air intake and muffler ourselves without compromising the warranty coverage, if that’ll help.”

Silas cast his gaze over to Mia and saw she was in conversation with Piper, and the two were laughing. “Did you take some measurements?”

“We can.”

“I’ll need the weight too.” Silas was most worried about the size. The beaver could handle a significant amount of weight, even considering the short Wildflower airstrip. But fitting the core of the industrial generator through the cargo door was going to be a challenge.

A woman’s voice came up shrill behind them. “—and is not the level of responsiveness I expect from an establishment of this caliber.”

Silas turned his head to see the older woman was talking to Cornelia—well, at Cornelia, while Cornelia looked to be sympathizing with the difficult customer. He wondered if maybe