Reunited on Wedding Island - Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Haven didn’t stop to think. Her sequinned mermaid tail wrapping around her legs, she lunged forward and grabbed Bentley’s hands, hauling him towards her with all her strength.
It wasn’t enough.
“Help!” Bentley squealed, as his smart wedding shoes lost purchase on the rocks. It wasn’t a sheer drop down to the sea, Haven knew, but there were enough sharp edges and spiky plants to make the tumble very unpleasant.
“My baby!” Bentley’s mother cried from behind Haven, making absolutely no effort at all to help.
“Try and pull yourself up to me,” Haven said, focusing solely on the boy in front of her. “Come on, I know you can do it.”
Bentley swallowed visibly, then nodded. His little hands felt slippery in her own, but Haven clung on tight, as Bentley took small steps up the unstable rocks.
She didn’t even realise she was holding her breath until he slipped, tugging her down with him.
There was another shriek from behind her, but Haven ignored it, too busy trying to wiggle her legs enough to get her mermaid tail to ride further up her thighs so she could take a stronger stance. But this was a high-quality costume—best in the business, her employee Eddie promised—and it wasn’t going anywhere.
Haven was, though. Downwards, it seemed, as Bentley’s shoes slid over more rocks, and Haven’s mermaid-themed sneakers edged over the side of the road.
They were going to fall. All she could do was try to cushion Bentley when they landed.
But even as she twisted to try to pull Bentley on top of her, she felt a pair of strong arms clamp around her waist, yanking her back onto solid ground—and Bentley with her.
Haven was pretty sure those arms didn’t belong to Bentley’s mum.
But whoever they did belong to, they needed to work on their sense of balance. As Haven’s mermaid skirt fluttered back down around her calves, she pulled Bentley up so she could hold him safe against her body.
“There now, see? We’re all safe,” she murmured in Bentley’s ear—as their saviour lost his stupid balance, and they all tumbled backwards onto the path in a heap.
“Well, better than the rocks, I suppose,” Haven said, with a groan.
Bentley’s mother was full of action now, when the danger had passed. She grabbed Bentley from Haven and hugged him tightly, muttering something about being outraged, and finding out whom she could sue.
Excellent. Just what Haven needed. A lawsuit to destroy her company. When the woman found out who Haven’s family were, she’d probably try to take them for everything they had. As if they hadn’t already lost the most important thing.
Haven reached out to push against the ground so she could struggle to her feet—or fins, she supposed. But where she’d imagined the ground to be, she found only the hard muscles of a very manly six-pack.
Brushing aside the tousle of her own blond hair, obscuring her eyes, and looked down at the man beneath her. Her saviour. Her muscled, brave, gorgeous saviour.
Then she blinked, and lurched back.
“You!”