Dave looked up from the till, frowning.
The three customers stopped mid-bite.
I moved to the window, pressing my hand against the cold glass, and watched as a massive black helicopter descended onto the field behind the caravan park.
It landed in the clearing where Mr. Jacob did his morning exercises (if you could call standing in the same place with your hands in the air, and mostly, glaring at anyone who walked past). A cloud of dirt and old leaves swirled outward, pelting the nearest caravans.
Including mine.
"What in the ever-loving—"Dave started.
The helicopter looked like something from a spy film. Sleek and dark and impossibly wrong in this setting. It was as odd as a Lamborghini parked outside a pound shop.
The side door opened.
A figure emerged, tall and broad-shouldered, dark blond hair whipping in the rotor wind. Even from this distance, and despite the dirty café window, I recognized him.
Fritz.
Behind him came Etienne, built like a rugby player because hewasa rugby player. I'd found out after some internet sleuthing. His dark hair and his stubble still made my inner thighs do inconvenient things.
And then Hastings.
Henry Hastings, thirty-five, CEO of Hastings Corporation, gray eyes and granite jaw and that sexy silver threading through his dark hair at the temples. He stepped onto the muddy field in what looked like a thousand-pound suit and didn't even flinch.
"Is that—" Dave moved to stand beside me.
Slick running down my leg?
Yes!
Fuck!
I managed to keep that thought inside my head as Dave finished, "ahelicopter?"
"Could be a spaceship."
He turned and glared at me. "In my field?"
"Have you paid your taxes? Or perhaps one of the residents is hiding from the Mafia."
"Presley." Dave turned to face me, his eyebrows climbing toward his receding hairline. "Why is there a helicopter in the field?"
I watched the three alphas orient themselves, scanning the park. Etienne walked to my caravan first. Which was easy enough to find. It was the sad one with a door that looked like it was hanging on with sheer willpower. Oh and the newspaper I always stuffed in the door jamb to keep it shut when I left the caravan. He started toward it.
"I may have applied for a job."
"A job."
"As a... consultant."
Dave's expression suggested he didn't believe me for a single second but he also knew better than to press. He'd known me since I was eighteen, serving customers while my mum was in hospital. He'd seen me bury both parents within a year of each other. He'd hired me back when I told him I had no choice but to live in the caravan full-time because the bank had repossessed my home.
"Right," he said slowly. "A consultant. And you’re that in demand that your… whatever they are, came to talk to you about the consultancy work?"
“Yes.”
“Presley–”
