Page 29 of Tail, Dark and Handsome: Celestial Mates
Then Rebel vanished. There had been an accident, and it took six months to recover her body. Speculation swirled, as it did. Gossip claimed that Winter faked the accident before dumping her body, or that the body hadn’t been Rebel at all. The occasional sighting made the news once in a while, but quickly died down.
Mari had a hard time believing that the protective man she met was the same man as the one in the media. Winter hadn’t been nice, per se, but a murderer? He was an overprotective dad and kind enough to help a lost tourist in a storm.
And yet…
She kept going back to a photo of Rebel and Winter at some charity event. Rebel turned away from the camera, speaking to the man behind her, and Winter glared daggers at the back of her head. His hand clenched her elbow, but he angled his body away from her. Everything about his posture and their mutual body language screamed at unhappiness.
Mari wanted to know more. Not in a celebrity gossipy way that feasted on trash and bad behavior. She wanted to know more about him, about how he found himself propping up a falling down drunk woman and what made him stay.
Her curiosity didn’t matter as she assumed her path would never cross with Winter Cayne again.
Valerian, meanwhile, had declared him to be the nastiest man she ever had the pleasure to have met and moved on. Her current passion included swimming with the native sea mammals, claiming it to be the most intense spiritual experience she ever had, and went swimming daily. Her spiritual experience had nothing to do with the handsome gray-haired instructor and his swim trunks.
Sure.
Mari let her mother keep up her harmless little pretense if it bought her quiet mornings in the sun with a good book and staff that brought her cold drinks. Speaking of, she fiddled with the straw on her slushy, fruity drink.
Heaven.
Zero shifted from foot to foot, impatient. The sea breeze ruffled his already messy hair.
“What kind of help?” she asked cautiously.
“You’re a pilot. I want to hire you.”
Mari waited two heartbeats to respond. Yes, she decided she needed a change and opened herself to whatever the universe sent her way, but she still held the power to veto the universe’s bad idea. Working for Winter Cayne? Such a bad idea.
“Sorry, kid. I already have a job,” she said.
“But this is a better job,” he said.
She highly doubted that. “Flying you and your—” She stopped herself from interjecting a whole slew of unflattering adjectives. “You and your father around? No, thank you.”
“Back home, to Corra, but we’re staying to see a meteor shower.”
“Sounds like a one-way trip. I don’t do short-term.” She might not be able to get a commitment out of a romantic partner, but she sure as heck would get job stability.
“Oh, no. It’s more than that. Dad doesn’t drive or fly. Ever. He’ll still need you when we get home.”
“As a chauffeur?” She was a star pilot, not a rich man’s private driver.
“But you said you liked me and we need a pilot.” His ears pulled down in an expression of pure droopiness and tragedy. In the sun, his icy blue eyes went wide and practically gleamed. He clutched the end of his tail.
Wow. Manipulative much?
“This,” Mari said, wiggling a finger at Zero, “is good and it might have worked, but I have a little brother. I’m immune to the sad eye thing you’ve got going on.”
He sighed, the air of tragedy vanishing in an instant. “I want you to be our pilot because my father drives everyone away. You’re the only one who stands up to him. You’re perfect.”
Those words tickled something in the back of her mind. The kid had said those words before. “Look, I’m not sure what you think is going to happen. Your father said some harsh things to me. I don’t want to work in an environment with a boss like that.” Even if she let Zero drag her back to his ship like a stray animal, Winter would never hire her.
“But—”
“Zero, enough. Don’t be like this. Accept rejection.”
His tail twitched as he shifted from foot to foot again. In that instant, Mari believed that he felt out of his element and nervous. He paused, ears moving forward and back. “I need to learn how to make friends. My father is not the easiest male to get along with, and there’s only so much I can learn from books. We’ve moved around a lot, so I’ve never really had an opportunity to practice. But we’re going back home to Corra, and I need to know how to talk to people without being weird. This is the third time I’ve tried this. Please say yes. Please say you’ll help me be not weird.”
The raw emotion in his voice moved something in her. She knew what it was to always be the new kid, never able to make a connection. Her desperate need for roots never left. She felt it still. This is what the universe was giving her.
