Aussie Rules

by Jill Shalvis

  Lifting his head, he met her gaze.

  “I’m cold,” she lied.

  “It’s ninety degrees in here, Mel.” His thumb continued to tease her nipple. His other hand glided down her back, cupped her butt, and then dipped between her legs.

  Her shocked gasp reverberated in the charged air of the silent hangar.

  Echoed.

  His fingers pressed on just the right spot and she actually whimpered for more.

  “Yeah, you’re just cold,” he rumbled softly in her ear. “Cold as ice. That’s why you’re melting into a little pool of longing at my touch.” Continuing to nibble along her collar bone, he murmured, “This is bound to happen, you know.”

  Because she was afraid that was true, she got mad. “Back off.”

  Still holding her with his hands…God, those hands…He smiled wickedly down at her. “I’m telling you, it’s a waste of time to fight it.” He stroked his fingers over the seam of her jeans, pressing in just…the…right…spot—

  “Oomph,” escaped him when she stomped on his foot. “Okay,” he muttered, “you can fight it.”

  She made a scramble for the door, then stopped short. Aw, hell.

  “Just remembered what brought you here in the first place, huh?” he asked, sounding amused. “Who is it, Bill again?”

  She put her hand to the door. “Damn it. Yeah.”

  Turning to face him, she slid down until she could sit on the floor. “Why are you here?”

  He sat next to her, companionably taking her hand in his as they prepared to wait. “I’ve told you. I want to know what happened to the Beechcraft and my father’s money.”

  “No, I mean here. In the hangar. Why are you here?”

  His gaze slid to the boxes of old paperwork, and suddenly, she knew. “You’ve been snooping.”

  He shrugged. “A bit.”

  “Find anything?”

  Another shrug of a broad shoulder.

  She closed her eyes. “What’s going to happen, Bo?”

  “I’m going to talk to Sally, and if she can pay me back, she can have her deed and I’ll be out of here ASAP. If by some miracle she has the plane, I’ll be ecstatic. Either way, little’ll change for you.”

  Her stomach tightened, though she wasn’t sure whether that was because she couldn’t produce Sally, or because he’d said he’d be out of here ASAP. “We’ve got to have that staff meeting. Tell them.”

  He looked at her with shocking gentleness. “If you’re ready.”

  It didn’t escape her that this wasn’t a power trip for him, he truly didn’t care when and if people knew he was holding the deed, and more than her stomach quivered now—her heart as well. “You ever wake up and think, How did I screw up so badly?” she whispered.

  A half-smile tugged at his mouth. “All the time, mate. All the time.”

  They had the staff meeting at the café, where they’d been having their meetings once a month for years. But in all that time, Mel had never felt as nervous as she did now. Palms damp, stomach jangling, she looked around at everyone sitting at the table with her, surrounded by the sunshine-yellow walls, by Al’s pics, the tempting scent of fresh cookies on the tray in front of her. “Thanks for staying a few minutes late.”

  Ritchie looked at his watch. “Is this going to take long? I’ve got a hot date.”

  “Yeah, with his own fist,” Kellan murmured beneath his breath, making Al crack up and Ritchie punch him in the arm. Danny separated them with a shove.

  Ernest wasn’t paying any attention, he was entering some notes in his spider book. Char was fussing with the cookies, adding more to the tray.

  Dimi met Mel’s gaze, drew a deep breath of her own, then put her hand over Char’s. “Please,” she said softly. “Mel needs your attention.”

  Mel drew a deep breath of her own and carefully didn’t glance at Bo, standing just at her right. He’d been quiet, solemn, surprisingly free of quick wit and sarcasm, even going so far as to ask her if she was okay.

  She wasn’t.

  But that wasn’t his responsibility. “I have some things to clear up,” she said. “And it might seem confusing and unnerving, but I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to make it all okay.” Another deep breath. “Bo…”—she hitched a shoulder in his direction—“isn’t my ex.”

  All eyes swiveled to Bo.

  “Huh,” Ernest said.

  Al scratched his head. “Makes sense.”

  Because, naturally, in the real world, Mel wouldn’t be able to get a guy like Bo. Great ego boost…

  Ritchie looked at Bo. “Does this mean you don’t hum when you…you know.”

  Bo shook his head.

  Char spoke a little breathlessly. “And you don’t have a teeny, tiny—”

  Again Bo shook his head.

  “He’s Eddie Black’s son,” Mel said. “The man Sally fell in love with and went to Australia for ten years ago.”

  Dimi clasped her fingers and stared down at them as her knuckles went white. Danny shifted closer to her and touched her arm, but she shook her head.

  Ritchie and Kellan hadn’t been around long enough to know Sally, but she’d been spoken about in such detail they thought of her as a legend. Eddie was definitely the bad guy in their eyes, and their mouths fell open as they stared at Bo.

  “Why are you here?” Al asked him.

  “I’m getting to that.” Mel looked at each of them, the people she’d come to care about and love, as if they were her own blood. “He’s here because Sally deeded Eddie the airport before he died. Bo is holding that deed.”

  Everyone let out a collective gasp.

  “If that’s true,” Al said, “what took ya so long to come here and claim your spoils?”

  “The deed has been in my father’s things all this time,” Bo answered. “But because I was in the military, I just recently found it.”

  “You’re Eddie’s beneficiary, then?” Ernest asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What about your mother?”

  Bo’s mouth was grim, his eyes shadowed as they had been that one other time Mel had heard him discussing his mother.

  “She’s out of the picture,” Bo said.

  Silence followed this as everyone digested the meaning of what they’d been told. Mel watched Bo, aware of something in his voice, a carefully banked emotion. He didn’t give anything away, though, nor did he say what a disappointment all this had been, or what he’d expected to find: the Blacks’s life savings, not to mention an extremely valuable—both monetarily and emotionally—1944 Beechcraft.

  Dimi was watching him, too, and Mel knew she was shocked that he hadn’t revealed Sally as a possible thief and con.

  “How do you know the deed’s legit?” Ernest asked.

  “I checked,” Mel said.

  “So you’re, like, our boss now?” Ritchie asked.

  “Look, I don’t know exactly what will happen,” Bo told them. “But for now, yes, I hold the deed, and everyone’s job stays the same. No one’s getting sacked.”

  “For now,” Dimi said faintly, and covered her mouth.

  Danny wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Is Mel still manager?”

  Bo looked at Mel. “If she wants to be.”

  Mel looked at him right back. No, she couldn’t just pretend everything was the same. “For now,” she said, eyes locked on his, “that might be more of a coposition.”

  Everyone fell quiet again, a very strained quiet that spoke volumes of everyone’s worry about Mel’s job.

  “Hey, costatus is good enough for me,” she told them, trying to lighten the mood. “I can fly more.”

  Bo’s eyes widened slightly, clearly surprised at her unexpected support.

  “Maybe we could all get raises,” Ernest said slyly.

  Bo smiled just as slyly. “Help me increase business, and you got it.”

  “Increased business sounds good,” Al said, obviously trying to help smooth the transition. He squeezed Char’s shoulde
rs. “Hon?”

  “I’m up for that, too.” She lifted the tray of cookies. “Why are there still cookies?”

  Everyone dove in and began talking, but the tension remained, and Mel’s cookie stuck in her throat.

  After the meeting, everyone went their separate ways. Dimi tucked away her latest novel, removing it from beneath her keyboard to her bottom desk drawer. Then she turned off the computer. They’d had more customers today than in a long time, and it had been a good receivables day.

  Thanks to Bo.

  She gritted her teeth as she headed into the airport bathroom, but fact was fact: Bo might now be ruler of her world, and he was also good for business.

  Not that it mattered, her safe, cozy, happy little world was done for.

  How long would he keep her?

  Her stomach dropped as she stared at herself in the mirror. God. She needed a drink, she was shaking for a damn drink.

  Ernest stepped out of one of the bathroom stalls, scaring her into a gasp. “All yours,” he said, pulling along his cleaning cart.

  Dimi glanced in the stall. “You left the seat up.”

  Ernest craned his scrawny neck and looked back over his shoulder. “So?”

  “You’re a boy. You’re supposed to put it down when you’re done.”

  Ernest switched his chew tobacco from one side of his cheek to the other. “Why? I need it up.”

  “Yes, but it belongs down.”

  “Listen, missy, you don’t hear us guys complaining about you women leaving it down all the time, do ya?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Humph.” With that, he left the bathroom, dragging his cart behind him.

  Dimi locked the door behind the impossible man, then stripped and changed for clubbing because she needed out, and needed out now. She put on a glittery, gold stretchy dress that showed off everything and made her feel sexy, and then added five-inch heels because height gave her a feeling of power. She exited the bathroom and strutted across the lobby and back to her desk for her purse. When she straightened, Danny was watching her.

  “Oh,” she said, startled. The look in his eyes blistered her skin, and encouraged by that, she practiced the smile she was going to use tonight—mysterious, spicy.

  The heat in his gaze vanished in a blink. “Nice,” he said coolly. “But I like your real one better.”

  For some reason, that pissed her off. “Maybe this is my real one.”

  He’d come in the side door from the maintenance hangar, and shut the door now, coming closer. She watched him take in her snug, shimmery cocktail dress, the way it plunged nearly to her belly button, and wondered if he thought she looked good.

  Then wondered why she wondered. He rested a hip against her desk, long legs sprawled out, arms at his sides, one large hand accidentally brushing hers. “That’s not your real smile,” he said.

  She hated his presumptuousness, that he was judging her. “It’s just a smile,” she said.

  “And will it be just another guy?”

  Goddamnit. “What do you want from me?”

  “Absolutely nothing.” He’d changed to go home, and wore faded Levi’s, so white in the stress points she imagined one more washing and they’d disintegrate. The knees were nonexistent, and he had another hole over a thigh. She could see tough muscle and tanned skin peeking through, and it was a shocking reminder that he wasn’t just a mechanic.

  But a man.

  Not her type, though, not at all. And not because of what he did for a living, but because he didn’t play the games that she did. No, he was…real.

  And she didn’t know how to be.

  Plus, and this was the kicker, although she sensed glimpses of hunger for her, and though she knew he cared about her, he’d never come on to her, not once.

  When it came right down to it, he didn’t want her.

  “Look,” he finally said. “Why don’t you hang out here tonight?”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”

  “It’s poker night. Char’s cooking Mexican. Al’s got a jar of dimes just waiting to be won.”

  She went very still. Was he asking her out? Oh, God. She couldn’t do this, not with him, not with someone she cared so much about, someone she’d have to see every day after she managed to screw it all up. Terror warred with excitement.

  “You’d be safer,” he said.

  Nope, not asking her out. Just looking out for her. And just like that, she deflated. “I’ll be fine.” And with more attitude than she felt, she walked out the door.

  That night Bo sat at Danny’s desk, sifting through aircraft parts on ebay, waiting for everyone to leave so he could resume his nightly snooping through the old records. He’d spent his first few nights here going through the leased hangars. As he’d already discovered, two had been empty. The others had aircraft in them, one was filled with parts, and one was Ernest’s, loaded with boxes and boxes of crap. Not surprising. Footsteps clicked across the floor. Mel’s battered boots.

  A ghost of a smile curved his lips as she appeared at his side. “Hey.”

  “I have a question.”

  “About…?”

  He expected her to ask about Sally, about Eddie. About the future. Anything other than what she did ask.

  “About your mother,” she said softly.

  He felt himself tense. “What about her?”

  “You’re…not close.”

  He choked out a laugh and turned back to the computer screen, speaking the understatement of the century. “No. Not close.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. Kicked at the floor. Shoved her hands farther into her pockets.

  And didn’t go away.

  Finally, he sighed and leaned back. “What?”

  “I’m not close to my mother, either.”

  “Maybe that’s why we’re both so screwed up.”

  “She left you.”

  It wasn’t worded as a question, but it was definitely a fishing expedition. “No. Eddie took me.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t want to. But she was staring at him, he could feel it. He played on the computer for a moment, but then she put her hands on his chair and turned him to face her, so he saw the exact second she got it. “She hurt you,” she breathed. “But not by leaving. She physically hurt you. Oh, Bo.”

  At the tone, at the fucking pity, he surged out of the chair, and stalked to the window.

  “Bo—”

  “Don’t,” he said, staring hard at a Douglas in maintenance. God, don’t. “It was a long time ago.” Then, because he was an idiot, he looked at her.

  Her heart sat in her eyes, a big welling of sorrow and empathy, making him sorry he’d said a word. “Why didn’t Eddie take you sooner—”

  “They separated before I was even born.” He lifted his shoulder again. “She moved around, making it difficult for him to find us unless she needed money. Finally, she showed her hand, and by that I mean put bruises on me where they could be seen, and he got me. End of story.”

  “And you were eight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bo.”

  She seemed shaken and again he turned away.

  “Look, I’m really busy here—”

  As if to prove it, Char radioed that he had a call. It was a customer and, his back to Mel, he stretched the phone conversation out, until finally, he heard her boots move away.

  Leaving him alone, extremely alone.

  Just as he’d wanted.

  He waited to make sure everyone had left before going to the storage hangar. As he had before, he helped himself to the boxes there, all old records. The next time he looked up, it was dark outside. There was only one more row of boxes to check, and he shifted those aside so tomorrow night he could remember where he left off, and then stared down at a door in the floor he’d just revealed.

  A basement storage area. The trap door was locked. It took him five long moments to run to maintenance and find a crowbar, then five more to pry
open the door.

  Inside it was pitch black.

  Yet another five minutes was lost finding a flashlight, but then he was back. He climbed down the ladder and shined his light over…more boxes.

  Shit. He reached for the first one, dated the year he’d first come here, and memories rose up and gripped him by the throat.

  His father telling him how much he was going to love the States. How he’d fallen for Sally, and that Bo would, too. How they were all going to be so happy. Together.

  Bo had believed it, too. He hadn’t suspected a damn thing. Sally had gotten past his eighteen-year-old radar, and that still burned.

  God, he missed Eddie, so damned much. With a sigh, he opened the box—and hit jackpot: old accounting journals undoubtedly dating from the days when records had been kept by hand. Pages of bank statements, receipts, bills…and an unmarked general ledger, which Bo would be willing to bet his last dollar didn’t belong with the “official” books of North Beach, because those books were upstairs. He’d seen them.

  Two sets of books had been kept.

  And possibly still were. Not uncommon, certainly, but what intrigued him most was the list of large deposits.

  Deposits unaccounted for, no explanation, not matched to any customer, adding up to close to a million dollars.

  A million dollars. Staggering, really. Where had the money come from? Where had it gone? And the biggie—did Mel know?

  Given that the dates of the deposits ran from before Sally had met Bo’s father until right up until the time of Eddie’s death, the money could have come from anywhere, but Bo would bet his suddenly highly coveted deed to North Beach that Sally had conned it from someone else’s pocket.

  Some of it Eddie’s.

  What would Mel say? Would she look at the records, and still stand up for Sally? Or would she begin to see that maybe things weren’t always as they seemed?

  That people weren’t always who they seemed?

  He gathered some of his find and stepped outside the hangar, onto the tarmac. He eyed Mel’s Cessna, the Cessna she worked so hard to buy on her own, and wondered why he cared what she thought. Wondered, even as he was afraid he knew the answer.

  But he hadn’t come here to the States for her. He’d come to claim back what was rightfully his father’s. His now. And as Mel’s plans were in the way of that, he’d be smart to steer clear of her.