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

trunks. They’re big, Silas. I can’t move them.”

There was silence for a moment. “How far across?”

“All the way. All the way across.”

“Mia.”

“Yes.”

“The loader.”

She shook her head.

His voice was perfectly steady. “Start up the loader, use the bucket, and push whatever you can out of the middle of the strip.”

She keyed the mic. “Silas, you know I can’t . . .”

“You can do it. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Just give me some space.”

Her breathing turned shallow. She couldn’t do this. She’d mess it up, like she’d messed everything else up.

“Mia?”

“What?” she asked on a gasp.

His tone turned gentle. “I do have faith in you.”

She closed her eyes as her chest contracted with emotion. Then she willed the shaking from her hands to stop and swallowed, telling herself Silas needed her. She pressed the microphone button, keeping her voice strong. “Roger that, Echo-Sierra.”

“Echo-Sierra forty-three minutes from WSA strip, coming in west, will do one fly-over and go-around. Echo-Sierra, out.”

“Echo-Sierra, one fly over coming in west, WSA base, out.”

Mia gave herself twenty seconds to breathe and get a grip. Then she marched into the break room, grabbed a pair of leather gloves and jogged to the loader in the corner of the parking lot.

She climbed the ladder and hoisted herself into the cab, wrestling the glass door shut behind her.

She took another breath, telling herself at least she was safe from the bears up here. She struggled to calm her mind and remember the lesson Silas had given her.

First, she buckled her seatbelt. Then she reached for the ignition key. She turned it one click and stopped herself. “Diesel. Glow plugs. Wait fifteen seconds.” She waited.

Then she gritted her teeth and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life beneath her, vibrating the entire loader. She almost cheered in relief.

She used the lever to lift the bucket. Then she put the machine in forward and pressed on the accelerator. The giant beast inched its way ahead. She turned the steering wheel toward the access road, and it rumbled in the right direction.

“Just a big car,” she muttered to herself. “Just a big ol’ giant-ass car. There isn’t even any other traffic.”

She dared to press a little harder on the accelerator, and the loader sped up. The wheels bounced her up and down against the seatbelt and she hung on as she made her way to the strip.

The light was getting lower as the evening wore on, and the clouds were closing in darker above her. She glanced at the windsock to see that it hadn’t changed. That was a good thing, since she had no way to contact Silas again.

She drove to the middle of the strip, then turned sharply right and aimed herself at the debris pile. She didn’t know if the loader would push an entire tree, or if she should try one end at a time. So, she went straight on, lowering her speed and lowering the bucket.

She pressed into the debris, gritting her teeth as the bucket met with an eighteen-inch log and a pile of branches. To her surprise, the loader didn’t even hesitate. It kept right on going as if there was nothing in the way.

She drove straight through the pile and pushed it off to the side.

Then she got bold, putting the loader into reverse to turn, she lined up for another pass.

Again, success. She pushed a significant amount of the debris out of the way and off to the side.

Six passes later, she was running out of time. She struggled to remember how wide the wingspan was on the PC-12, and how high the wings were off the ground. But she couldn’t differentiate from plane to plane.

She wasn’t positive, but she thought it looked like enough room for any of them.

The space she’d cleared was still scattered with bits of rubble, and she had ten minutes left. She pushed the bucket right down to the ground and made four more passes, doing her best to smooth out the muddy surface.

When she pulled out of the way, she could see Silas’s plane, a dot in the distance.

He grew closer and larger then rumbled low over the strip, obviously checking her work. He circled back to the west and lined up to land.

She pushed the loader door open and leaned out to watch.

He came down on the strip at the far end. He slowed and cut through the center of the debris pile, coming to a stop about fifty feet past.

The pitch of the prop changed, and he turned to taxi.

Feeling fantastic at her success, she shut the door, rebuckled her seat belt and drove the loader down the access road, stopping in the middle of the parking lot and deciding it could stay right where it was. She shut off the engine as Silas climbed out of the plane.

Before she could even think, she was running his way. She was elated that he was safe and so incredibly happy to see him.

He wrapped her tight in his arms and held her there. “You did fantastic.”

“You’re okay,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “You’re safe.”

“Thanks to you.”

A new motor sound appeared in the silence, and they both looked to the road.

It was an ATV, Brodie with Raven on behind him, ripping their way into the parking lot.

Brodie slid to a stop and killed the engine. He looked around. “Hailey and Tobias?”

“Diverted to Mulberry Trail,” Mia said. “They’ll try coming in at fifteen-hundred tomorrow.”

Brodie gave her a surprised look.

“Mia worked the radio,” Silas said, giving her a one-armed hug, then leaving the arm around her.

Brodie looked stupefied now, but Raven was grinning as she dismounted the ATV.

“And the loader?” Brodie asked, seeing that it was sitting in the middle of the access road.

“That would be Mia again,” Silas said with another squeeze. “Falls Creek washed out at the upper elbow, all the way across the strip. You should see what she did.”

“That thing is amazing,” Mia said. She was still feeling giddy from the power.

“You ran