Guadeloupe Goddess
"Volcano guide Amélie leads tourists to La Soufrière's summit, but when solo hiker Liam gets altitude sickness, she takes him home to recuperate—and shows him heat that rivals the volcano."
The sulfur clouds parted, revealing the crater. Liam would have appreciated it more if his head wasn't spinning.
"Sit." Amélie pressed him down on volcanic rock. "Yuh push too hard."
"I wanted to see—"
"And yuh see. Now rest." Her thick body blocked the wind. "Mi take yuh down when yuh ready."
She half-carried him to her cottage at the mountain's base. Made him drink water, eat soup, rest.
"Yuh alone? No one to miss yuh?"
"No one."
"Then yuh stay until recovered." She smiled, dark and warm. "Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor."
"I'm better. I'm a woman who knows what men need."
What he needed, apparently, was her.
Night fell. She checked his temperature—normal. His pulse—elevated, but not from altitude.
"Yuh looking at mi strange," she said.
"You saved me. And you're beautiful. And I'm—"
"Grateful?" She moved closer. "Show mi."
He showed her with the volcano rumbling in the distance. That thick body volcanic in its own right—hot, powerful, devastating.
"Yes! Liam! Like dat!"
She erupted beneath him, then over him, then beside him. The mountain had nothing on her.
"More! Mi not finished!"
A week of recuperation. A week of learning her body's geography.
"I'm healed," he said eventually.
"Are yuh?"
He thought about leaving. Thought about home. Found nothing there he wanted.
"Maybe I'm not."
Liam guides now too. Learned from the best.
But La Soufrière isn't the peak he dreams about.
Amélie is.
Guadeloupe's goddess.
His summit conquered, his heart claimed.