Page 87 of Keep Her from Them

Definitely when he hugged onto me, growing hard again but not doing anything about it.

Neither would I, no matter how much I yearned for him. Nothing beat how I felt around this man, and though I tried to stay awake and cling to how wonderful it felt to be curled up naked with him, sleep claimed me.

I woke to daylight peeking through the thick curtains in the still, calm room.

Raphael was gone.

Chapter 28

Raphael

Bright ocean spread out for miles behind us, the sound of the waves lost to the rotor blades that chopped the air overhead. I loved flying. I’d been obsessed with it since I was a child.

Yet I’d left my heart behind in Scotland.

All I wanted was Alex. Leaving her behind this morning had nearly killed me.

“One hour forty,” Jackson informed me from the other side of the cockpit.

Never once had he got behind the controls of anything other than a car, but I’d taught him enough about instruments and the panels around us for him to read them. As an unofficial copilot, his main job was to keep me sane on our mission of mercy.

The coast of France flew by underneath us, just north of Le Havre, and countryside with pretty little towns replaced the open water. We’d already made a stop at the very bottom of the UK, in an airfield I’d used many times in the past when flyingLeo in and out of the continent, but refuelling had taken forever, and we were behind schedule with over a hundred miles still to go.

“Check in with Ben,” I grouched.

Jackson sighed over the headphones but sent the text. He read out his reply. “She’s back in the house with Daisy and Mia, throwing herself into cleaning duty. Valentine’s with them, and Ben’s outside. He’s made the point he isn’t budging all day and they’ll have lunch there. She’s safe.”

“Any reply from her friend yet?”

“The thumbs-up was the last.”

Frustration flickered in my gut. The Parisien heliport we’d stop in had a time limit for how long I could wait. If Dori wasn’t there, we’d move to plan B, which was to touch down at an airfield outside of the city, re-strategizing from there. Either he’d come to us, we’d get a second touchdown slot at the helipad, or the last resort was to jump in a car and find him.

Jackson clicked his tongue, staring out of the window to our left. “Clouds are building.”

He wasn’t wrong. Those dark clouds towered, growing taller as I watched. The reason we hadn’t been able to fly overnight was because of the summer storm over the Channel. It had cleared this morning, but the weather forecast for the early evening showed a return. The view from the window and the readings on my instrument panels told me it could arrive sooner.

Cold slid through me.

There were too many risks of delays. Dori not being there. The weather pinning us down. If I didn’t get back to Alex today, I’d probably run mad.

An hour and a half on, we’d reduced altitude to come in over the sprawling city, getting the green light to touch down on the helipad, which was in a fenced-off small field next to a public park.

While I secured the craft, Jackson was readying for his role.

“Clear,” I told him.

He jumped out, ducking against the downdraft our vehicle created, and ran for the administration office. In the past hour, he’d made multiple attempts to contact Dori, getting no answer. All morning, we’d only had a single acknowledgement to the fact we were coming in. We were later than planned, too. If he’d struggled to get out of bed, or worse, was still drunk, our delay would have given him more time to reach the helipad.

With the helicopter secured, I was able to take a breather, which usually meant downing a canned coffee to keep me sharp. Instead, I read a text from my brother to say Effie had been sent home from the hospital, apparently not yet in true labour, then climbed out, checking the craft with frequent glances to the office door Jackson had disappeared into. My frustration spiked when he emerged again, his phone to his ear, and his flat expression telling me what I’d feared.

Dori wasn’t inside.

Jackson jogged back across the concrete. “He isn’t fucking here.”

I clamped my jaw then climbed back inside to speak into my radio, asking the controller for a time check of when we needed to vacate.

“Seven minutes, acknowledge,” the voice returned.

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