by Jill Shalvis
Both Dimi and Mel gasped and shrank back against each other.
“A daddy longlegs, and he’s harmless,” Ernest said. “Harmless, you big babies. Plus he eats the bad guys.” He waggled a finger in Mel’s face. “He’s one of the good guys, and if I’d cleaned the closets out like you’d wanted, missy, I’d have ended up killing him.”
“Um, maybe you could take him outside. Where there are no closets at all.”
“I plan to.” He snatched up the jar. “Your e-mail problem?”
Mel turned a wary gaze on him. “Yeah?”
“Spam mail. Can’t trace it to one person.”
It’d taken him long enough. “Okay. Thanks.”
“That was the good news.”
She blinked. “And the bad?”
“This morning? I was the first in.” He slapped an envelope down on the counter. It had MEL typed across the front, and had been opened. “This was taped to the front door.”
Mel slid out the piece of paper. It read: I warned you.
She eyed Ernest. “Why was the envelope opened?”
“Because I opened it.”
She felt a muscle beneath her eye begin to twitch. “I realize that. But it’s addressed to me.”
“Maybe it was important,” he said. “Maybe it was from you.”
“It says Mel. Implying it’s to me.”
His gaze cut to the damning evidence, then he hitched a bony shoulder. “I’ve got work.”
When he’d walked away Mel stared in disbelief at Dimi.
“Forget him, call the police,” Dimi said, and shuddered at the spider. “I wish he’d have taken that thing—”
Ernest came back, and snatched the jar.
Dimi let out a breath. When he left again, Mel stared down at the note. “Yeah. Probably the police is a good idea.” She handed the note to Dimi. “See anything unusual about this?”
“It’s got our logo on it.” Dimi looked down at the paper. “I ordered this paper from Staples. These pads are everywhere inside this place—” She froze. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah.” Mel felt vaguely ill. “It was written from inside the airport.”
“Mel. A little freaked out here.”
“Join the club.” Mel had always been so sure she’d known what had happened with Sally, that Eddie had come along and swindled Sally out of her money, and also the deed to North Beach. That Sally had gone after him, and had destroyed her love for her life here in the process.
But now her disappearance signified something else, at least to Mel, and it hurt to think the things she was thinking. “Okay, I’ve got to go.”
“Let me just cancel your flight,” Dimi said. “And then we’ll—”
“I’m not going to cancel my flight.”
“You’re going to fly? With him?”
“The note didn’t come from him.” Mel strode toward the tarmac door. “As for the flight, it’s on the schedule. It’s mine, and I don’t cancel.”
“Mel—”
“Not canceling,” she called back, her gaze on the tall, gorgeous, enigmatic man on the tarmac waiting for her. “I need the money.”
“I think it’s more than that.”
Mel turned back and faced Dimi’s pale, horrified expression. “What more?”
“Face it, Mel. You’re falling for him.”
Mel’s heart tripped, giving her away, at least to herself. “I’ll be on the radio.”
And she strode out the door.
“I realize we’ve put a moratorium on trusting each other,” Mel said to Bo shortly after takeoff.
Bo took his gaze off the horizon and eyed the woman who until now had pretended he wasn’t on the same flight with her.
She looked away, down at the pristine wilderness of the Channel Islands beneath them, a rugged chain about twenty-five miles offshore to her left, shimmering on the horizon. “But there’s, um, something you should know,” she said.
Her aviator sunglasses blocked her eyes from him, leaving him little clue as to what she was thinking. “What is that?”
“About the two e-mails.”
“You found out who they’re from?”
“No.” She licked her lips. Checked her altitude even though they were perfect. “But it was three e-mails.”
“Three.”
“And I also got two letters. One in the mail, one taped to the front door of the airport this morning. It said, and I quote, ‘I warned you.’ ’’
Bo stared at her, a barrage of emotions hitting him like a one-two punch. Renewed fury that she’d been threatened at all, frustration that she hadn’t seen fit to tell him, and a fear for her safety that felt a little too huge for his own comfort. “Did you call the police?”
“Soon as I get back.”
He had to breathe for a minute. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Now.”
He shook his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, and wondered why, when he’d been a patient man all of his life, that this woman seemed to drive him to the very edge of sanity without even trying.
They fell silent again, Mel distracted by reports in her headset of unfriendly weather over the Bay Area, Bo by the passengers, who were asking him to find them an old biplane for Mr. Hutton’s father, who used to fly one. After that they needed him to pour them drinks and check the temperature, then to get the Mrs. a pillow for her stiff neck. Bo resisted the urge to tell them to do all this themselves, it was Mel’s business to make sure they were content. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to deal with them, but more that he wanted to shake the hell out of Mel.
“You make a pretty flight attendant,” Mel deadpanned when he finally came back to the cockpit.
He looked over at her and smiled. “Maybe I’m enjoying getting your butt, your very nice butt, I might add—out of a sling.”
“You did not save my butt.”
“Really.” He hitched a shoulder toward the back, where the upscale, elegant couple was engrossed—finally—in their respective laptops, complete with headphones. He imagined they were listening to something classical, while checking their stock portfolios. “Because I’m pretty sure I did.”
Her jaw tightened, but that might have been the storm on the horizon, which they’d been carefully eyeing for the past half hour. It was going to be a hell of an issue for the return flight.
Not that he’d mind an overnight stay in San Francisco. He could find fun and entertainment wherever he went. But truthfully, Mel was providing most of his entertainment at the moment. God, the way her eyes flashed at her every single thought. She eyed the horizon, and the churning gray and black clouds there, then swore beneath her breath.
“Did you know you wear your thoughts out on your sleeve for everyone to see?” he asked conversationally.
She glanced at him, her eyes pissy. “Really? What am I thinking now?”
He laughed softly at the fuck-you glare. “Ah, that’s too easy.”
Her mouth actually quirked in an almost smile before she turned away to once again eye the storm, then her instruments.
“We’re going to be okay.”
She nodded. “I know. But getting back—”
“Yeah, we’re not going to get back. Not tonight.”
“We are not staying overnight.”
“What’s the matter, you afraid of a little sleepover?”
At that, she tossed back her head and laughed. He already knew he enjoyed her temper. He enjoyed her thought processes, too, and he most definitely enjoyed her body. But her laugh. The woman had a laugh that reached out and grabbed him by the throat. And south of that as well—his heart.
And also south of that…Yeah, he thought, she slayed him through and through.
“Funny that you accuse me of being afraid of a sleepover,” she said. “When you’re the one who stood with a couch between us, because you were afraid I was going to rip your clothes off.”
And yet still his clothes had come off. “You think I was afraid?”
“I know it,” she said smugly.
He opened his mouth without quite knowing what he was going to say to that. Because, seriously? She was dead-spot right on.
He was afraid of her.
He’d come here to the States half-cocked, ready for bloodshed or whatever came his way, including destroying everything Sally had worked for, but something had happened.
Or someone.
Melanie Anderson, temperamental, stubborn hard-ass. But now he knew she was also strong, loyal, dedicated, passionate…
God, he had it bad.
“Damn,” Mel breathed, and then the plane jerked. Dipped. Her jaw went tight as she touched base via radio to air traffic control.
Bo didn’t need to hear the short, clipped conversation to know. The storm had worsened ahead of schedule.
Turbulence ahead; both outside the plane, and in.
Mel glanced at her instruments, at the horizon. They were fifteen minutes out of San Francisco, that was all, but it was going to be a rocky ride. Proving it, the plane hit an air pocket and shuddered and dipped again.
Behind them, their passengers took off their headsets, glancing up worriedly. Bo motioned for them to stay seated. “Just turbulence from the storm,” he said calmly. “Hang tight, we’ll have you on the ground in fifteen minutes.”
“I could have said that,” Mel said to him from beneath her breath.
“You’re flying.”
“Yeah.” Her muscles were tense as granite as she scanned the horizon, which by now was completely socked in by cloud coverage. The plane dipped again and she fought the controls, feeling a drop of sweat glide down between her shoulder blades.
Their passengers gasped again. And as before, Bo turned to them and smiled…“Don’t worry about a thing, you’re in great hands.”
Mel didn’t take her eyes off the vanishing skyline. Vanishing, because the cloud coverage was taking over. Deep breath.
And then another. “Handy having a flight attendant.”
“I guess it is,” he finally said, sounding amused at himself. “At your service, darlin’.”
She risked a quick glance at him. “As if you’d ever be at my service.”
“Try me.”
Something deep inside her leaped but the plane took another stomach-dropping dip. She bit her lip and gripped the controls.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Just stay on it.”
“I know how to fly.” She scanned the horizon, but all she could see was a solid, sickening gray.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said quietly. “You just concentrate on what you do best, and we can get back to the servicing later.”
“Been there, done that,” she said, referring to the other night.
“Yeah, but it’s worth a repeat.”
“I don’t know,” she quipped, eyes scanning the horizon, teeth clenched as she tried to make light. “I mean, sure, the first time was pretty great, but I doubt you could repeat the performance.”
He let out a low laugh of disbelief. “A dare, Mel? You know better than that.”
They dipped again. “Goddamnit,” she muttered, leaning forward as if that could help her see through the clouds that were thicker than cream soup.
“Stop wasting your time searching for a visual you’re not going to get. You’ve got the instruments, use ’em.”
Right. Damn it, he was so right, and that pissed her off enough to jolt her into the rock-solid concentration that had eluded her until now. She focused in on the controls and breathing, and once she did, her instincts kicked in.
The plane shuddered and dipped and shuddered again, but she was in firm control.
Behind them, Mrs. Hutton gasped. Her husband put an arm around her. Outside the plane, the wind and rain battered the plane while Mel began their descent. Another trickle of sweat ran down her back but she didn’t think about that now, thought about nothing but the work right in front of her. Flying was like breathing, and breathing was second nature.
Bo didn’t say another word, and for that, she felt grateful. She knew what to do, she didn’t need direction, and that he didn’t butt in was testament to how much he trusted her.
She’d think about that, and the implications of that trust, later, but not now. Not when her heart still raced, adrenaline flowing through her like a raging river.
When the wheels touched down, the Huttons let out a collective sigh. Shocking her, Bo became the consummate flight attendant, getting the passengers off with their luggage, through the driving wind and rain, and off the tarmac as quickly as possible.
Then he was back for Mel. “I swore I wasn’t going to do this,” he said, then yanked her into his arms, his voice low and rich in her ear when he spoke. “That was some class-A flying, Mel.”
She resisted for all of half a second, then hugged him back, her insides still quaking. “Thanks.”
He looked at her, his smile fading, desire and heat filling the spot. “Ah, hell. Hold on darlin’, here comes another storm.” And he kissed her, his mouth warm and knowing, his tongue sweeping in her mouth as if it belonged there.
She certainly enjoyed the invasion, and as amazing as it seemed, with his hands in her hair, on her back, pressing her as close as she could get, the rest of the world faded away. She was reduced to nothing but the sensation of being held against his body and how he made her feel—which was alive, vibrantly, wonderfully alive. When he finally pulled back, he smiled. “It’s time.”
She was still breathless. “Time?”
“I believe there was a question of servicing.”
Oh, God. Now that they’d actually been together, she knew exactly what he meant, and how good he was at it. Her thighs trembled. Between them she went damp, at just his voice, his words. She was worse than Pavlov’s dog! “I don’t think so. I have to prepare for the flight back.”
He laughed softly. “We’re not going back tonight. You know that. No one is flying in this.” As if to solidify this statement, lightning cracked. Thunder boomed. Rain and wind slashed at the plane.
“Hotel room,” he said. “Shower. Dinner. And then…”
Her voice was not steady, not even close and yet she couldn’t help but ask. “Then?”
His smile looked like sin personified, wicked and naughty to the nth degree. “Then…Let the servicing begin.”
Chapter 20
After Mel’s charter left Dimi found herself craving chocolate. It was all Bo’s fault, she decided, as she inhaled a Hershey’s bar from Mel’s hidden stash. Bo’s and…damn it, Mel’s.
Yeah, that’s right. She really wanted to blame Mel for not fixing this the way she’d fixed everything else over the years, even as Dimi hated herself for the thought. It drove her to go for yet another chocolate bar, after which she felt like crap and was filled with self-loathing, a sense of worthlessness, and a fear for the future she couldn’t eat away.
“Damn it.” She reached for the phone and called Brian, the tall, dark, and hunky guy she’d drooled over at the gym the other night while watching him go through his weight-lifting routine.
He’d worked out shirtless, wearing only shorts, looking amazing at every single station. When he was done, his body taut and quivering and damp with sweat, he’d swiped his face with a towel and locked gazes with her.
She’d felt that familiar thrill, that age-old “gotta have him” lurch deep inside, and she’d smiled.
His eyes had bloomed with heat and a good amount of trouble as he’d smiled back, and her engine had revved.
When she’d gotten to her car after her own workout, he’d left his card on her windshield. Brian Desota, attorney at law.
Yum.
Even better, he answered his phone, he was available, and thirty minutes later, he picked her up at North Beach, looking hot in all black as he drove her to a new restaurant in town.
It started out good, with lots of potential, so it shocked Dimi when he insulted the waiter. He’d also, she remembered, been rude to the valet. And no matt
er how many drinks Dimi ordered, he still got uglier and uglier.
She sure could pick ’em.
Finally the meal was over and they stood outside his car. She didn’t want to get into the passenger seat and let him take her home, despite the fact that it was fifteen miles from North Beach, it was raining cats and dogs, and she was more than a little tipsy. But in truth, she’d rather risk life and limb, and walk every single one of those miles barefoot than spend another moment with him.
“Get in,” he said, adding a little nudge to the small of her back.
Another problem: having met her drink for drink, he wasn’t feeling any pain, either. Always, that had seemed like a turn-on for Dimi, a man who could drink right alongside her.
But suddenly, it felt old. She wanted to get to know someone and remember what they had to say. She wanted to wake up without a headache, wanted to get through the afternoon without yearning for a glass of wine.
She wanted to look in the mirror and not see a woman who looked harder and colder every single day.
“Get in,” he said again, raising his voice over a boom of thunder.
No. The word was no, but as everyone in the entire universe knew, she had a little problem saying it. “Actually,” she began, and sent him a smile she hoped looked halfway genuine, “I—”
“You’re not changing your mind about coming to my house,” he said. “Not after that expensive dinner.”
Her brows knitted. “I never said I’d go to your house.”
“Sweetheart, it was implied.” His hand, low on her spine, became firm as he tried to get her inside his car.
“No.” She lifted her chin, and with rain coming down into her face, looked into his now cooling eyes. “No.” She backed out of his grip and stood beneath the restaurant awning next to the valet. “Thank you for dinner, but good night.”
His jaw went tight, and suddenly not a single bit of that earlier hunkiness she’d seen in him showed.
What was it with her? Did she have a “looking for an asshole” sign on her forehead?
“I won’t call you again,” he warned.
She nearly laughed, but it would have come out half-hysterical so she bit it back. “I know. I don’t want you to.”
