Aussie Rules (6 page)

“How do you know?”

“It's in your walk.”

“And how is that?”

“Well, you move like you have a poker shoved up your—”

She turned back, her mouth tight. “I do not.”

He just smiled.

A frustrated growl escaped her. “I'm
not
stressed. I love it here and I walk just fine.”

How the woman managed to work all day and still smell good was beyond him, but she did, and that being a turn-on as well, he wiggled his nose trying to get another sniff.

“And to answer your earlier question,” she huffed. “Flying is what I do. It's who I am. It's everything to me. I'd have thought you'd understand that.”

“Yes, but I do it good enough that I'm not strapped for cash on a daily basis.”

“I'm not that hard up. Just in a slump, is all.”

“Darling, you're in more than a slump. This place needs an overhaul. And Anderson Air needs more passenger conveniences, more attention to the little details—”

“My bare-bones service is what makes me the cheapest choice.”

“People with Lear jets don't want cheap, mate.” He chucked her beneath the chin just for the excuse of touching her and decided not to worry about what that meant. “There's more to this business than flying.” He shifted closer, which had the predictable benefit of annoying her, then used the opportunity to inhale as deeply as he could without pressing his damn face into her neck. “You need help.”

“If you're offering, I already said no thanks.”

“Actually, you never said thanks at all.”

She choked out a laugh. The sound had a hint of desperation in it, and he got the feeling she was on the very edge. He tugged on a strand of her wayward, gorgeous hair. “Maybe you need some of Al's stress relief, Bo style.”

“Go away, Bo.”

“Yeah, I'll go, but I'll be back.”

And she'd have to deal with that.

Unfortunately, they both would.

T
he next day Mel woke up from a disturbingly erotic dream about Bo, of all people. She sat straight up, panting at the image that had implanted itself in her brain, that of him slowly pulling off her clothing one piece at a time, kissing each inch he revealed.

She had to laugh at herself in the light of day, because—wow, Bo?
So
not going to happen.

Her cell rang. “Did you hear from Sally yet?” Dimi asked.

Mel fell back onto the bed.

Long silence. “How 'bout the deed?” Dimi finally asked, slurring her words.

“Hey, have you been up all night?”

“Sleeping's overrated.”

No doubt she'd stayed out all night trying to party away the stress. It wasn't the first time, but for Mel, the worry never ceased. “Dimi—”

“Did you hear from Greg on the deed?”

“Too early for the attorney to call me,” Mel said slowly. “Look, take the morning off.” Sober up. “Or you'll be dead on your feet.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“And don't worry. We're going to be okay.”

“I know.” But Dimi didn't sound as if she believed it, and Mel had to admit, she didn't, either. She drove into the airport on pins and needles, still a little off balance from her dream.
Get it together,
she ordered herself.
Because if you don't, he'll be able to see it
.

But it was still on her mind all the way to North Beach until she sat at her desk and brought up her e-mail, where she received yet another unpleasant shock. She had an e-mail from LeaveItAlone at an Internet server she didn't recognize, and nothing in the subject or body of the e-mail.

LeaveItAlone?

Mel forwarded the thing to Ernest.
Who sent this?
she typed in her e-mail, and wasn't surprised to get an immediate response, which meant he was in the maintenance hangar on the computer scrolling through porn sites again instead of working.

Someone who thinks you're a pain in the ass,
he answered.

Mel sighed, rolled her eyes, and read the rest of his response.

But I'll see what I can find out. In the meantime, stop pissing people off
.

Yeah, yeah.
Leave it alone
.

What the hell did that mean? She'd received plenty of ambiguous mail over the years. Each and every time she raised their fuel prices, for instance. Or when she'd had to cut back North Beach's hours of operation from 24/7 to six
AM
until five
PM
. Or when she'd once refused a rich client service for his five jets because he'd wanted her to arrange for prostitutes for all his crew.

But none of those had been anonymous threats. So who? Bo?

No. He wouldn't go the anonymous route, he had no need to do so.

Still, the coincidence seemed too much to ignore…

Leave it alone. Leave
what
alone? The airport? The questionable deed in Bo's hands? She closed her e-mail program and put the e-mail out of her mind. She had a long charter to Tuscon and back, a flight that would keep her away from North Beach until late, and it was time to put her head there. On the way out for her preflight check, she stopped at the café, where Char was working on something that smelled like pure heaven.

“White Trash Casserole, straight from my momma's box of favorite recipes,” Char drawled over KISS screeching on the radio. Her purple hair was piled on top of her head, precariously held there by what looked like two pencils. She wore another pair of short shorts, and today's T-shirt said:
TAKE A BITE OF ME
.
PLEASE
.

“Lord, it's going to be a hot one today,” Char said. “Or maybe I'm just getting hot flashes.” She fanned herself with the hem of her shirt. “Anyway, got a late start this morning, sorry. This won't be ready in time for you but I've got donuts.”

If Mel was compulsively early, Charlene was compulsively late, but she loaded Mel up with a bag of the mouthwatering donuts, and all was forgiven. “You need an alarm clock,” Mel said.

“Oh, it's not that. Al and I—”

“Stop right there if this story ends with the two of you having sex.”

“Well…” Char giggled.

Mel grabbed her bag of donuts. “I've got my fingers in my ears, I can't hear you—”

“We just—”

“Lalalalalalala,” Mel sang over Char's laugh, and went out onto the tarmac.

Three men stood next to a Piper Mirage in the early-morning sun: Danny, the customer who owned the Piper, and Bo. Danny wore his coveralls and was consulting a clipboard, his long blond hair still damp from his early surf. Their customer was in a pricey-looking suit. Bo wore cargo shorts, a sweatshirt, and clean work boots, his legs looking long and tanned. All three men, different as night and day, were laughing about something, carefree and easygoing.

Mel hadn't felt carefree and easygoing in so long; money issues, stress…And she resented that Bo could show up here, turn her world upside down, and laugh. Damn it, he was integrating himself, making himself right at home. In
her
home.

LeaveItAlone…

Had he? Would he?

No, she reminded herself, even if the man made her teeth gnash together, he wouldn't. Not his style.

He lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and met her gaze. In his she saw the ready humor and the unasked question.
What now, Mel?

She'd like to show him “what now” right now. But it'd sure be easier if he didn't look like a million bucks standing there, if he wasn't street smart and sharp as a tack, capable of running her world without problem, maybe even better than she…

Extra grateful for the bag of donuts in her hand, she stalked to her plane and began her own preflight check. She was in a crouch, writing on her clipboard when two work boots appeared in her peripheral, topped by a set of tanned, toned legs. Bracing herself, she straightened.

Bo eyed Char's goodie bag. “Smells good.”

“The donuts are mine.”

“Maybe I meant you.”

Unbelievably, her nipples hardened. “I smell like oil and gasoline.”

Leaning in, he sniffed exaggeratedly, his nose wriggling just beneath her ear, causing a sort of chain reaction from her nipples to ground zero between her thighs. “Mmmm,” he said. “Two of my favorite scents.”

That they were also her favorite scents would
not
budge her.

“Want to know another favorite scent?” he murmured.

“
No
.”

“An aroused woman.”

She crossed her arms and stepped back, making him laugh softly. “Yeah, sexy as hell, that scent.” He smiled, something that threw her off, then hooked his finger into the bag she clutched to her chest, peering in. “Look at that. You have extra.”

“One. You can have one.”

He nabbed a large, old-fashioned chocolate glaze, sinking strong white teeth into it and letting out a rough sound of pure pleasure that might have curled her toes, though she'd have to be under the threat of a slow, tortuous death to admit it.

“Have a safe flight,” he said around a mouthful.

Damn, just when she thought he was a complete loss to the human race, he had to go and say something nice. “I have no idea how to take you,” she said, baffled. “No idea at all.”

He shrugged a broad shoulder. “Then just take me.”

A laugh escaped her before she could stop herself. “Do those lines ever really work for you?”

He just grinned, and her toes curled some more. Yeah, they worked for him, and it left Mel shaking her head at the entire female population, including herself.

 

Mel's charter to Arizona went smoothly. Once she'd landed in Tucson, she called Dimi. “Everything okay?”

“As okay as it gets.”

There was a lot in Dimi's voice, and Mel felt gray hairs kicking in. Dimi handled her stress badly. That was fact. She downward spiraled in tough times, and it wasn't pretty. Mel wanted to prevent Dimi from falling into that pit again, but how?

Get Bo the hell out of there, that was how. “Hang in there,” Mel demanded, and hung up. While waiting for a refuel, standing in the blazing sun, she tried Sally's cell again, and this time got an extremely unwelcome surprise instead of Sally's voice mail: the number was no longer in service.

Mel blinked. Stared at her cell phone. Redialed.

Same thing.

She slowly shut the phone, shock crashing over her, wave after wave.

What the hell was happening to her universe?

 

Late that afternoon, Dimi walked through the lobby of North Beach on autopilot as she closed shop for the day, for once not enjoying the gorgeous view of the lush green hills of the Santa Ynez Mountains or the scalloped coastline, or the fact that the tarmac had three planes on it, which meant paying customers.

She was too wigged out about Bo's return, about Sally's vanishing act, about the deed…She could hardly even breathe.

All this worry was bad for her. It made her hair lank, made her stomach hurt. Made her feel like she was playing catch with steak knives.

She blew out her candles, shut down her computer. The café was still hopping but that was Char's deal, so she went into the employee break room for her things and found the lights still on.

Danny stood there, playing darts by himself. He wore board shorts, a loose tank, and no shoes. He threw his last dart, his lower lip between his teeth as he concentrated, and when the dart hit double thirteen, he turned to her and smiled, teeth flashing white, his eyes looking startlingly blue in his tanned face. “Play me.”

“Can't.” God, couldn't he see she felt so on edge, so tense she thought she might shatter at the slightest provocation?

“Come on, I'm on a roll,” he coaxed. “And you look like you could use a little fun.”

Fun. Yeah, she needed fun. Mindless fun, and not the platonic kind she always had with Danny, but the kind of fun she could get only with a man who didn't know her, who couldn't look into her eyes and see the pain, or if they did, wouldn't comment on it.

Danny wasn't that guy. He knew her too well, knew all her dark secrets. In fact, even now his smile faded, and he looked at her in that way he had of seeing right into her. If she turned away, he'd just pull her back around.

So she lifted her chin, stalked to the board in her pink miniskirt and polka-dotted halter top, and grabbed a set of darts. Tossing him a long, level look, she managed a smile. “What are we playing for?”

For a beat, his eyes darkened. Then he shrugged it off and smiled that easy smile, making her wonder if she was seeing things. “Name it.”

“Such power,” she teased.

“Name it,” he said again, softly now.

She would—except he couldn't give it to her. She wanted oblivion, faceless oblivion. “Winner gets breakfast for the rest of the week,” she said. “Delivered right to their—”

“Bed?”

She laughed. “Desk.”

He turned to get his own darts, not showing his face for a long moment. “Deal,” he finally said, turning around. “You first.”

Suited her. She threw a dart, and unbelievably, missed the board entirely. This was so shocking, she just stood there staring at the dart still quivering in the wall.

Danny, knowing she was usually unbeatable, pulled her around to face him. “Okay, talk to me.”

She stared up into his familiar face and felt her throat tighten. God, she was so sick of herself. “I'm good.”

“Dimi—”

“No, really. I'm fantastic, actually.”

“You're so full of shit your eyes are brown.”

“Fine, things are out of control, all right?” She backed away. “
I'm
out of control!”

“Why?”

She couldn't explain, couldn't tell him Bo had the deed and the world she and Mel had created might have never even existed. “It's complicated.”

“Most things are, Deem.”

“Look, all I know is that tea isn't working, crystals aren't working, nothing's working.”

He touched her jaw. “How about breathing? Have you tried that?”

He wasn't teasing her, he was serious and she could have loved him for that alone. She gulped in air and shot him a wry glance. “I am now.”

“Good.” He kissed her cheek. “Keep doing that.” For a moment he stayed close, his tall, lean body supporting hers. “You can tell me, you know. You can tell me anything.”