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

She looked around. “No.” Hence her question.

“Did you visit the restroom in the FBO?”

She gave a grim little smile and a tiny shake of her head.

He closed his eyes for a second. “Give me strength.” Then he stared at her as if she was the bane of his existence. “You have three minutes, or the drillers, your luggage and I leave without you.”

Mia sprang from the seat and rushed back up the short aisle.

*   *   *

Silas taxied the Navajo along the access road at the Paradise airstrip, bringing it to a stop outside of the WSA hangar and shutting down the engines.

He’d dropped the drillers off at the exploration camp, so Ms. Mia Westberg was the only person left in the back. It was nearly impossible to believe this uptight princess was related to Raven. A bastion of reliability, Raven knew her way around, well, pretty much everything: the bush, the weather, heavy equipment. She couldn’t fly a plane, but she could operate a loader, a snowmobile or a forklift with the best of them.

Silas closed off his flight plan, walked through the shut-down and unbuckled his belt, twisting back to see how Mia was doing.

She’d unbuckled and was stretching in her seat. With her oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses, it was hard to know where she was looking. The best he got was a wink from the crystals on a top corner of the frame.

He left Xavier in the cockpit to finish up and climbed out the pilot door to pull open the rear passenger exit. Stepping up, he leaned inside, unfastened the safety net and retrieved her bags, setting them down on the gravel.

She didn’t speak or take his offered hand as she took the three steps down.

He hovered anyway, worried she’d stumble on the unsteady stairs. She wasn’t wearing stilettos or anything, but her heeled boots were made for fashion, not practicality.

She didn’t stumble. Safe on the ground, she straightened her sweater and gazed around.

The bush was freshly cut back around the access road for safety, bright stumps sticking up, sawdust still scattered. The orange windsock flapped in the breeze back on the strip. There was some heavy equipment away to the east side and a couple more planes parked in the lot, with most of them out for the day. The only other feature was the big rectangular hangar with a red and white west slope aviation sign hanging against its dusty blue metal siding.

She lifted her chin, pressed her lips together and started for the hangar office, a low offshoot of the main building.

Concluding this was the silent treatment, Silas considered leaving her bags sitting on the gravel. But he decided it would be a jerk move with no point except to annoy her. And she was Raven’s cousin, after all. So, he picked them up and followed along, curious to see what she’d do next.

She marched toward the office door, more gracefully than he would have imagined given the rocky terrain. She was tall, maybe five inches shorter than him, with legs that went on forever. Her jeans molded snugly to her hips, and the crisp white-and-blue-striped sweater clung to the indent of her tiny waist. Her ponytail settled into a sexy little swing while she walked.

He stood back to enjoy the view, thinking it was no surprise the woman seemed used to getting everything her own way.

She stopped on the worn concrete patch that served as a porch, and he wondered if she’d turn and ask a question.

Nope. She tried the door handle, finding it open, she pushed it in. The hinges creaked as Silas caught up to her.

She had to have heard him behind her. He wasn’t exactly stealthy on the loose gravel. But she didn’t turn, just marched into the office.

It was dim, dusty and empty, as he’d guessed it would be. Operator Shannon Menzies was working in back in the radio room, and Cobra would be somewhere in the bowels of the hangar next door. While Mia set her sunglasses on top of her pretty blond hair and gazed around in a sweeping arc, Silas leaned against the jamb to watch.

She turned back then, hitting him with a deep blue gaze—irises such a stunning cobalt that they looked fake and probably were. “I thought Raven would be here to meet me.”

“She speaks.”

Mia frowned in a way that told him she was highly disappointed by both his attitude and his tone. It was an impressive feat to put that much into a single glare.

She didn’t speak again but pulled out her phone instead.

“I’ll give you a ride into town,” he said. It was clear he couldn’t out-silent treatment her.

“No need,” she said, putting her phone to her ear.

“Hang it up,” he said.

She drew back in obvious shock at his order.

“Raven’s busy working. She doesn’t have to drop everything and come all the way out here.”

“I’m sure she won’t mind.”

“She might pretend she doesn’t.”

Mia glared again and went silent. “Raven, hey, hi.” A bright white smile spread on Mia’s face, and her tone turned happy, unnaturally so. “I’m here. I’ve landed. I’m at the airport.”

Then her gaze shifted to Silas. “Yes, it was.” She half turned away. “I don’t—”

“This is ridiculous,” Silas said, earning himself a sharp look over Mia’s shoulder.

Raven was going to wonder what the heck was wrong with him.

He moved closer, talking loud enough that Raven was sure to overhear. “I can give you a lift.”

His reward was another frigid glare.

“I will,” Mia then said to Raven. “You bet.” She ended the call.

He widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest, growing tired of this silly game. “Tell me she’s not coming all the way out here.”

“She said to ask you for a ride.”

“Was that so hard?”

“I don’t normally accept rides from strangers.”

“Strangers? Seriously? There are no strangers in Paradise. Everybody knows everybody else.”

She tossed her hair—or would have tossed her hair if it hadn’t been fastened in a ponytail. “I don’t know anyone