by Milly Taiden
“That’s a crazy experience to go through for three hours.”
She snorted. “Oh, that’s nothing. I was once on a long flight from Europe to the states and the lady next to me took a sleeping pill, because for almost twelve hours, she didn’t move. I kept checking her every hour to make sure she was breathing.”
“She didn't snore?”
“I wished,” she laughed. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have kept shaking her to see if she’d respond. I worried like I knew her.”
“That just goes to show you are a caring person.”
She grinned. “Or just too freaked out at the idea of traveling that many hours with a dead person leaning on me.”
He chuckled and filled both their glasses with water. “That, too.”
“That’s still not even one of the top ten.”
“There’s more?”
“I do web design from home,” she told him,” but one company hired me to come and teach their web person some new things. They paid really well, and flew me out to Seattle to train him. That had to be one of the worst flights of my life. The turbulence was unbelievable and it seemed like everyone in front, beside, and behind me was throwing up.” She cut into more chicken. “I don’t recommend flights in bad weather. Anyway, what do you do?”
He stared at her for a moment, his gaze roaming her face intently. “The short explanation is I’m an investor. I take the money of my pack members and put it in the areas I feel are making the most money.”
She gaped. “You must be really smart to do that. Do you ever have any complaints?”
The humor in his face told her she was asking a dumb question. “No. I can usually get them a great return on their investment. They’re happy and I’m happy.”
“That’s amazing. I’ve never met a financial anything.” She shook her head. “Not true. Christian has spent and poorly wasted more of my money than I have.” She sighed. “Anyway, let’s not talk about him. Want to hear another travel horror story?”
“I want to hear everything you have to say,” he told her.
12
Harper thought he was joking, but he didn’t crack a smile. That was a first. A man who was willing to listen. It was a miracle.
She ate more of her food. “I was traveling with my friend Meghan. Her parents gave us a vacation as a graduation gift. First time in first class. You can imagine how amazed I was. This older woman had a dog carrier. She sat in the row across from us. So, she asks the flight attendant if she could use the empty seat next to her for her dog.”
“Is that possible?”
“No. Someone was going to sit there. For the entire flight, the woman is complaining to her dog about him having to fly under the seat in front of her. Wouldn’t you believe it, the dog starts whining and doesn’t stop until we land. I think everyone on that plane came out with a headache.”
They both laughed and after lunch, she was brought a latte and cookies. “What about you?” She met his gaze. “Have you had any weird plane experiences?” She glanced around the jet. “Though, I don’t know what you’d consider to be weird in your own private haven.”
He shrugged. “Sarai and I were going down to Grand Turk when our pilot came down with food poisoning. He spent the entire flight in the bathroom.”
“That sucks, but you had a co-pilot, no?”
He glanced at her lips and she almost forgot what they were talking about. “He fainted. He had low blood sugar and even after we did what we could, he was out for the count. He’d forgotten his insulin at the airport.”
Her eyes went wide with shock and she gripped the glass of water. “What did you do?”
“I flew the plane.”
She gasped, leaning forward. “You can fly?”
“Yeah. My father was a great pilot and taught me. It went without saying that had I not had lessons, I wouldn’t be here today.”
God! She couldn’t imagine how horrible that must have been for him and Sarai. A world without Sebastian. Her stomach lurched. That felt wrong in so many ways. What was she doing? No matter how much she told herself not to, she was in over her head with him.
They arrived at Grand Turk midafternoon. A jeep awaited them at the airport. He got in the driver’s seat after they put their bags in the back and took off. The island was gorgeous. They drove down the highway that paralleled the beach and she got a chance to see the beautiful coastline as they traveled away from the airport.
After about half an hour, they went through what looked like a very small village. He stopped at a small market so she could look at the local art and crafts.
A woman rushed out of the market with a wide smile on her face. “Mr. Roarhart. Good to see you.” She hugged Sebastian and then turned and hugged Harper. “You have a wonderful man, miss.”
She smiled at the woman and blinked at Sebastian.
“Tania, this is Harper. Harper, Tania oversees my house. She keeps it clean and stocked in case Sarai or I show up.” He glanced toward the market entrance. “Where is Kristy?”
Suddenly there was a loud squeal and a little girl rushed out of the market and threw herself at Sebastian. He picked her up and flung her in the air. Harper’s heart stopped when she saw the little girl flying. But he caught her and instead of being scared, the tyke laughed and asked him to do it again. Kids.
“And this,” Sebastian said, holding the little girl in his arms, “is Kristy. Kristy, this is my friend, Harper. Can you say hi?”
The little girl pushed wild curls away from her face to show a beautiful tanned complexion and dark eyes that twinkled with happiness. “Hi.”
Harper smiled and waved. “Hi, Kristy. Nice to meet you.”
“We’re going to the house. If you need anything, give me a call,” Sebastian said to Tania.
Tania took Kristy from him and nodded. “It’s going to rain. Be careful.”
Harper glanced up and noticed the clouds gathering in the distance. There goes sitting at the beach getting some sun.
“Don’t worry,” Sebastian winked at her as if reading her mind. “I’ll think of something to keep us entertained if the storm comes this way.”
13
Oh, boy. She could think of a lot of somethings to keep them both entertained. They all involved being naked.
After the market, they drove straight to a house not more than five minutes from the small village. By the time they got their bags inside, it was pouring.
“Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
She wanted to ask why they weren’t sharing a room, then realized how that would sound. Desperate, anyone?
The room he said was hers was big and airy with a gorgeous balcony overlooking the ocean. She dropped her bag and went straight to the glass door. It was amazing. Peaceful and pretty. Even with the rain.
“My room is next door. I’ll give you some time to unpack. Then I’ll show you around the house.”
She watched him leave, her stomach twisting in knots. She really liked Sebastian. More than liked him. She hadn’t lusted after a man this hard in…ever. And maybe they started off on the wrong foot, but she was seeing a new side to him.
The more she got to know him, the more she wanted to spend time with him. Not only that, she was highly tempted to get him naked and see how well they worked out in that area.
The rain grew stronger and the winds were harder and faster to the point she had to close her balcony door. She didn’t get a chance to go searching for Sebastian. It was only fifteen minutes later when he knocked at her door.
“Hey, the weather seems to have gotten really bad,” she said when he walked in the room.
He nodded, a deep frown on his face. “It did. Apparently, it’s a low-level hurricane that took a turn and is now coming straight this way.”
Fuck. She’d traveled a lot, but she’d never found herself in the middle of any kind of storm.
The house was massive, but looked very sturdy and was on a hill. Her thoughts immediately went to the village
they’d just come from. Would they be okay? “What do we do?”
He pressed a button on her wall, and a metal gate came down, enclosing the room in total darkness. “I’ve shut down all the glass doors and we’re high enough that we don’t have to worry about the tide coming near the house.”
She followed him out of the room and noticed the house was only lit by the chandeliers and lamps around them. No natural light coming in. All the windows and doors had been covered with metal sheeting.
“If we lose power, there’s a generator in the garage. We keep bottled water and food stocked. And Tania just restocked everything this morning for us.” He continued to the kitchen and took a pitcher of iced tea out of the refrigerator. “This house is built sturdy enough that it could withstand the worst storm out there.”
“Why do you have the metal over the glass?”
“It acts as a barrier against the wind and debris that could hit the glass and break it. We built this house with hurricanes and storms in mind.”
“I guess we just wait it out, huh?” She took the glass of tea he handed her and took a sip.
“Yes.” He smiled. “Come, I do have something you might like to see and you won’t have to get soaked to enjoy.”
The house was decorated in bright Caribbean colors and traditional artwork depicting the island and the people. He took her down a hallway to the other side of the house. There, he opened a set of double doors to a big library that had a fish tank that took up an entire wall.
“Holy crap. This is unbelievable!” She rushed into the room, watching the different sized fish swim around the coral. Then she gasped. “Is that a shark?”
He chuckled. “Your face is adorable.”
She raised one brow. “Answer the question, wolf-man.”
Another bark of laughter and he nodded. “Yes. It’s a reef shark. We grow them and then hand them to the local oceanographic institute for tagging and releasing into the wild.”
She watched the lights dim in the tank. “What happened?”
“The energy saver went on. There must be power issues on the island. The backup generator comes on automatically if the lights go out, so don’t worry.”
His cellphone started ringing. “Tania? Everything okay?”
She listened as he spoke to the older woman she’d met earlier.
“I’m coming over now.” He started rushing toward the front of the house, ended the call, and shoved the phone in his pocket.
“What’s wrong?”
He stopped at the front door and turned to face her. “Stay here. You’re safe, I promise you. They had a mudslide and with the rain and wind, it’s hard to account for everyone.”
She shook her head. “Let me come with you. I want to help.”
14
Sebastian stared into Harper’s worried gaze and shook his head. “I won’t put you in danger.”
His wolf agreed and was ready to bolt the doors behind him so she wouldn’t get out into the storm. This was his mate. It was his responsibility to protect her. She was a human. She could be easily hurt and killed.
“You’re not,” she argued and gripped his arm. “I want to help. Please.”
“No!” He turned to the front door.
“Sebastian,” she said, stopping him with the tone she used. “I’m coming with you.” He turned to meet her gaze again. “I couldn’t sit here knowing I could have helped. It’s not who I am.”
“I won’t put you in harm’s way.”
She growled and narrowed her eyes. “Let me come along and I’ll give you what you want. But if you don’t, you can forget about convincing me to spend any more time with you.”
He clenched his jaw. “What exactly are you giving me?”
She met his gaze, her look unwavering. “Me.”
“You’d do that? Just to come and help in this mud slide?”
She licked her bottom lip. “I wouldn’t be able to sit here and know I could be lending a hand.”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
He passed her a poncho from the coat rack by the door. Once he was satisfied with her being somewhat covered from the rain, they rushed out the door to the jeep.
The change in weather was one he was used to. Having lived in South America for several years while his parents were still alive, he’d learned that a bad storm could happen with very little warning.
He let his animal’s vision guide him through the pelting rain. What had been a bumpy road on their way to the house, had turned into a dangerous route. The ground grew slick and incredibly slippery to navigate, making it almost impossible for the jeep wheels to get traction. He drove carefully, his eyes on the road but his mind on the woman beside him, gripping the overhead handle for dear life.
She didn’t complain about his driving, scream, or panic at any of his insane maneuvering in order not to get them stuck in the mud. She did something he hadn’t expected and placed her left hand on his leg as if to reassure him that it would be okay.
He’d known Harper was special. Not only because she was his mate, but he used her good heart to get her to stay at his castle. Now, he saw her goodness directed at him.
They got to the village and jumped out of the jeep, the rain coming down even harder than before. Wind pushed trees and broken branches all around them.
“Take your shoes off!” he yelled over the howling wind. Once they were both on bare feet, he grabbed her hand to help her trek through the mud. Less than five hundred feet away, he saw several of the small shacks locals live in. Shacks were easy to build and required cheap materials, but it meant rebuilding when a strong storm hit.
They saw groups of people moving the torn shacks so they could find others who were missing.
“Tania!” He yelled to his friend.
She glanced up, put a hand over her eyes and then waved at him, rushing over to them.
“Sebastian, my Kristy is missing,” she screamed, her face twisted in grief. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
15
Harper couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. The little girl she’d met not two hours ago was missing. Her throat closed and her stomach rolled. That poor baby.
“We’ll find her,” Sebastian told Tania. He turned to Harper. “Walk around, move anything and everything. If you see anything sticking out, dig and yell for me. I’ll hear you over the storm.”
She nodded, her heart in her throat and rushed to work. Her mind stayed away from thinking of what it would mean if they didn’t find her. She moved broken tree limbs, branches, and shack pieces.
Every few moments she’d glance up and search out Sebastian. He was higher up, searching with other men, moving bigger pieces of debris.
Rain pelted hard on her head like tiny pebbles. Her hair was plastered onto her head and face. She had to keep her face tilted down to see through the downpour. Walking farther down the hillside, she got several yards away from the others.
Groups of people were higher up, going through the biggest piles. She continued down, moving pieces of metal roofing and wooden walls.
Her gaze strayed to what looked like a mattress poking from under pieces of metal between several bushes. The howling wind dragged her in the opposite direction, but she fought her way to the debris.
She struggled with the aluminum. Her fingers kept slipping, so she had to grab a sharp edge and ended up cutting her hand when she gripped to get it off the mattress.
She ignored the burning from the cut on her hand and shoved the old lumpy bed. It was heavy and when she saw there wasn’t much remaining, she was ready to move on, until something stopped her.
A small movement from the corner of her eye made her squint and search further into the mud. She pushed the rest of the mattress away and gasped at what she saw.
It was a child. A girl. The long hair that clung to her head in dirty, brown clumps told her so. The little girl was buried in mud so completely, her face blended in with the ground. Harper threw herself down and dug around t
he child to yank her out of the mud pile. The girl was unconscious and nothing she did got her eyes to open.
“Sebastian!” She screamed his name twice before he was crouching beside her.
“Here, let me have her.” He picked the little girl up into his arms, the rain came down hard enough to wash the mud off her face. “Kristy, wake up, baby girl.”
Seconds later, Tania came rushing over with multiple people. “Is she alive?”
“Yes. We need to get her to a doctor urgently,” Sebastian told her, immediately taking charge. “Where’s Robert?” Then he turned to Harper and explained. “Robert is the best driver in the village. He’ll be able to take Kristy to the closest hospital.”
She nodded. A man, who she assumed was Robert, showed up and took the child from Sebastian. Tania and the group of people that had been searching for the girl rushed away.
“They’re taking her to the local medical facility. Tania will call me from there to let us know what they find out.” He took her hand and she yanked it out of his grasp with a hiss of pain. “What’s wrong?” He glanced at her hand and saw the cut on her hand. “Let’s get you back to the house. I want to clean that so it doesn’t get infected.”
She hadn’t ever had anyone since her mother be this concerned for her. Though it was still raining hard, they were back at the house in no time. He got a warm shower going for her. The lights had gone out but the backup generator had kicked on.
After her shower, she put on panties and a robe.
Knock
Knock
“Come in,” she said, deciding to finish dressing after he bandaged her hand.
He brought in a first aid kit. The air swooshed out of her lungs when she saw him in a pair of pajama bottoms and no shirt. He had scars down his left arm, but it did nothing to detract from how fit and sexy he was.
“Let me see your hand,” he said, sitting on the bed next to her. He opened the kit and pulled out a bottle of peroxide and gauze.
