Aussie Rules

by Jill Shalvis

  “Hey,” Mel said. “You said you couldn’t speak English.”

  “Ixnay on the arguingkay,” Bo murmured as the woman and the man had turned on each other now, furious, yelling at each other in Spanish.

  “She doesn’t want him to kill us,” Bo said quietly, translating. “I think she’s my new best friend.”

  The woman actually reached in and snagged the gun, turning it around, pointing it at the man, jabbing him with the loaded thing still cocked, trying to get him to go back to the kitchen.

  The man balked and she jabbed him again, right in the ass.

  He started moving, but not before glaring at Bo and Mel. If looks could kill, they’d be six feet under, but finally, he vanished into the kitchen.

  Or the rock under which he’d come from.

  Mel let out a sigh of relief, until the woman once again leveled the gun at them. “What do you want?” she demanded in her accented English. “Why do you come here looking for that woman?”

  “She gave you trouble?” Bo asked.

  “Trouble? Trouble? She destroyed my brother!” She lifted her chin and the gun. “And if you are her people, I will destroy you back.”

  “How did she hurt your brother?” Mel asked, but Bo lowered the arm closest to Mel, setting it across her middle, trying to push her behind him.

  “We’re not Rosario’s people,” he assured the woman.

  “Bo—”

  “You,” the woman said to Mel with a fierce scowl and a jab of the pistol. “Be quiet. Keep talking,” she said to Bo.

  “She stole from my father. Then vanished. Now some threats are being made, and we want to find her.”

  “She’s not here, I ran her out.”

  “How long ago?”

  “A few days.”

  “Do you know where she went?” Mel asked from behind Bo, frustrated when he wouldn’t let her out from there.

  “If I knew,” the woman said chillingly, “she would no longer be breathing.”

  Mel swallowed hard.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” Bo asked.

  “She came here crying poor American woman, lost in Mexico. She told us she’d been taken by a man who’d fooled her into giving him her property, everything. She was so devastated, so sad. And willing to work hard. So we let her stay, we even gave her work at our airstrip running the radio.”

  Mel gaped, then stared at Bo, who looked at her, eyes and mouth grim.

  “My brother fell for her,” the woman continued. “She claimed to fall for him, too. Lies, all lies. But we did not know that then. She got him to marry her, then broke his heart.”

  “How?” Mel whispered.

  “By stealing his money, and the deeds to his properties.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Last year. After she left, she sold the properties, and now we’re little more than laborers in our own place.”

  Mel had been sweating but now she went cold. “A year ago?”

  “Sí. We hadn’t seen her in all that time but she came back just last week, where she tried to buy my silence. With my brother’s own money!”

  From the kitchen came the sound of breaking glass, as if someone had just tossed down a dish in anger.

  The woman’s eyes hardened. “I should have killed her. Instead, I hit her with my broom, batted her right out of here. I won’t be so kind next time.”

  “Are you sure she stole—”

  The woman aimed the gun between Mel’s eyes, then squeezed the trigger, at the last minute lifting her hand so that the bullet bounced off the ceiling and toward the floor, lodging into one of the tables.

  Mel began to sweat.

  “I am sure,” she said.

  Bo shoved Mel behind him again, keeping his eyes right on the woman. “I’m sorry,” he said evenly. “Terribly sorry that you got hurt, too. But we want to find her. We want to stop her from doing this again to anyone else.”

  The woman nodded. Mel simply reeled. Sally had been here. She’d done these terrible things, eerily close to what Bo said she’d done to Eddie. It was all true, and suddenly so overwhelming she could hardly stand it. She didn’t realize she’d staggered a step backward until Bo’s hand came up to grip her arm, giving her his strength.

  Sally had stolen from this woman, from her brother.

  From Eddie.

  Deep down Mel had already begun to know this, to understand, but it didn’t make it any easier to take.

  “She is evil,” the woman hissed.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Bo said quietly. “But we want to help.”

  Mel stared into Bo’s eyes, and knew he meant it. There would be no mercy for Sally if they caught her. And if she was guilty, she deserved none.

  God, Sally, what have you done?

  Bo pulled out a business card from his pocket, handed it to the woman. “If you see her again, call me. Collect.”

  The woman looked down at the card. “I want my brother’s money back.”

  “If I find her, and there’s still money, you’ll get it back,” he promised.

  The woman studied him for a long moment, then, much to Mel’s relief, lowered the gun and nodded. “Go, then.”

  They didn’t have to be told twice. Outside, the harsh sun had Mel blinking but Bo grabbed her hand and pulled her quickly to the car. He shoved her into the passenger side and she decided not to argue that he got to drive because truthfully, she didn’t think she could keep them on the road while shaking like a little poodle.

  “Delayed shock,” he murmured, and pulled her seatbelt across her shoulder for her. “You’ll be okay.”

  “I know.” The sun streamed in the windows, baking them. Mel swiped the sweat on her forehead with her arm, not breathing until they were out of sight of the bar.

  “Mel.”

  Feeling a bit numb, she stared out the window, realizing several minutes had gone by, and that Bo had pulled off the road a bit, and they sat on some deserted stretch of highway.

  A million miles from absolutely nowhere.

  “She’s probably using a different alias now,” she said in a voice that seemed to come from far away. “If we can get that name, maybe we can catch up with her.”

  “Mel—”

  “I’m sure the police would be interested—” Shit. Her voice broke just a little, and she forced herself to draw a deep breath, which caught on the emotion balled in her throat.

  “Mel, goddamnit, look at me.”

  When she didn’t, he reached across the gearshift and console to grab her shoulders and physically turn her toward him. “Do you think I can’t see what this is doing to you?” he asked grimly.

  “And do you think I don’t know that it doesn’t matter to you what it’s doing to me?”

  “Fuck!” He gave her a little shake. “I’m that unfeeling, am I? Really? I’m that much of a bastard?”

  “That’s rat fink bastard,” she whispered, and felt her eyes fill.

  “Mel.” He sat back, looking horrified. “Don’t you even think about crying.”

  “I’m not.” She waved a hand in front of her face, trying to cool it. “I’m really not.” But she was. She sniffed. “I’m really not.”

  “God. Christ. I don’t want you to cry.”

  “Then you’re not going to like what’s coming next.” And she burst into tears.

  “Shit.” But he pulled her into his lap, no small feat in the car that hadn’t just seen better years but better decades. “Shit.”

  “I know!” she sobbed.

  “Ah, Mel.” He held her close, stroked his hand up and down her back. “I’m so sorry, darlin’. So damned sorry. I know you wanted to find her.”

  All she could do was cry harder at that, and he simply held her. “You feel like you lost her, I get that.” He pressed his face against her hair. “If it helps, I know what it’s like to lose someone, someone you think you can’t live without. Someone you think you need more than air.”

  She clung to h
im. “Your dad?”

  “Yeah. It’s going to hurt like hell for a long time, Mel, and that’s okay. It means you’re alive. It means you’re okay. It means you can learn to live with it, and go on.”

  She kept her face to his throat, thinking he was truly a miracle in her life. And God, he smelled good. He smelled like soap, like warm man, like…like every secret hope and dream she’d ever had. To make herself feel better about those scary thoughts, she wiped her nose on his shirt.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Did you just wipe your nose on me?”

  She let out one last sniffle. “No.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Okay, a little. I’m okay now.”

  “Mel.”

  “I am.” She started to climb out of his lap but he held her, his gaze meeting hers.

  “Truth,” he said.

  “Maybe not so okay. We were nearly shot. Nearly killed!”

  “Nearly doesn’t count except in horseshoes and hand grenades,” he said, and stroked a big hand up her back.

  “It’s a new experience for me.”

  “I just feel…” So much. “Jarringly, exceedingly…disconnected to my body, like I have a surplus of…adrenaline, or something,” she tried to explain.

  “I know.”

  She felt like she was going to jump out of her skin if she didn’t do something. “I have to get rid of some of this energy, Bo.”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. Heated. “Keep talking.”

  “Really? Because I’d really rather do this.” And she kissed him.

  One rough sound escaped him, then he was in. In her mouth, in her clothes, and with some swearing and desperate rustling, inside her body.

  “Good Christ,” he breathed, the both of them going still after that first hard, quick plunge.

  The feel of him, hard and throbbing inside her, simply couldn’t be put into words. Her shirt was opened, bra shoved down, one boot in the backseat, jeans around one ankle. She had her head back, eyes closed, absorbing the barrage of sensations. His flesh was stretching her, his fingers gripping her hips, his mouth pressed to the side of one breast.

  And she thought, I could stay like this forever. “Bo.”

  Opening his mouth on her nipple, he breathed her name, loosening his grip on her hips so that she could move, so that she could take them both where she needed to go, where the only thing she could do was feel this, him, and nothing else.

  Chapter 23

  The ride back to the airport was silent. Well, not completely silent. Bo and Mel were sweating like crazy in the insane heat, and with no air conditioner, their breathing sounded ragged and rough.

  He could still hear the slightest catch in Mel’s, the kind of catch that came from great sex and an explosive orgasm. The way they devoured each other every single time, without a lessening of the painful want, confused and baffled him. And made him afraid.

  Maybe he was going to always want her like this.

  Jesus.

  Or maybe he was an idiot, and she was simply breathing like that from her crying jag.

  She’d cried. If there was anything more soul destroying than watching a woman as strong and tough as Mel completely lose it, he didn’t know what.

  And had he ever, in his entire life, felt so helpless? Like he could punch his fist through a wall of concrete, or curl into a ball of misery himself?

  Maybe, he could admit. Maybe in that dark time right after his father’s death. The senselessness of it all, the loss. Yeah, he’d felt helpless then.

  And he hated that Mel felt it now.

  He wasn’t sure when he’d even started taking her feelings into account. Maybe that was a side affect of another realization: she was on his side. She didn’t like it but she was.

  The truth was, he was falling for her. Talk about terrifying. He parked the car in the brutal sun at the airport and watched her get out, hair tumbling around her shoulders, mouth unsmiling, eyes tired.

  Not falling, he corrected. But fallen. He’d fallen for her, done deal.

  She did a double take in his direction. “You just went pale as a ghost. What’s the matter?”

  Pale? Yeah, that sounded about right.

  “Bo?”

  He opened his mouth and said the first stupid thing to hit his tongue. “I came inside you without a condom.”

  She whipped her head back toward him, stared for one blink, then looked away. “Oh.”

  “Oh. Is that all you have to say—oh? ”

  “Okay. Oops. Is that better?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  She sounded so quiet, so weary, he dropped his hands from his face. “Are you on the pill?”

  “No, I meant I would never hold you back from doing what you’ve got to do about the airport, and then going home.”

  “Home.”

  “Back to Australia.”

  “You wouldn’t hold me back from leaving here, even if you’re pregnant,” he said quietly, then watched temper spark in those gorgeous whiskey eyes of hers, the ones that had been so soft and heated only a few minutes ago.

  “Of course not!” she snapped. Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned her head away.

  Putting his hands on her arms, he tried to pull her back around, not an easy task because she was strong and pissed and didn’t want to look at him. “Mel. Look at me. Please?”

  She did so with clear reluctance.

  “If I got you pregnant, I’m sure as hell not going to walk away.”

  “There were two of us forgetting a condom, and I take responsibility for my own mistakes, thank you very much.”

  “I am just saying that I’m not going to desert you.”

  “If I’m pregnant.”

  They stared at each other for a long…well, pregnant beat. Then Mel walked into the airport. Bo followed, kicking his own ass all the way to his plane. They flew for a full hour in silence, during which time he thought far too much.

  Could he really walk away? Go back to Australia as if nothing had happened? As if he hadn’t begun to think of North Beach as his home, too? As if the place hadn’t captured a good part of his heart, and Mel the rest of it?

  “Here.” Mel reached over and flipped open the ice chest they’d stocked way back in North Beach before they’d come. She pulled out a soda. “You look like you need a hit of sugar.”

  “I’m okay.” But he took the can, noticing that she even opened it for him. He must look like death warmed over for her to be babying him like this.

  Customary cool long gone, he downed the soda, the icy drink wetting his parched throat but not making him feel any better.

  He didn’t know if he could feel better. Could he go back to Australia?

  And if he couldn’t, how would Mel take that, when she couldn’t wait for him to get the hell out of her life, he wondered.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

  “You’re hovering, Mel.”

  She pulled back as if slapped. “Excuse me.”

  He swore to himself. “I’m sorry. I just need some quiet.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.” Yeah, he was an ass. An ass with the words you’ve fallen and you can’t get up running through his mind over and over.

  He went back to sweating.

  “Why did you tell that woman at the bar you’d try to get her money back? What about your money? Wouldn’t you take whatever you found for yourself?” Mel asked him.

  “I have the airport.”

  She stared at him until he squirmed. “What?” he finally demanded.

  She shook her head. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said such a thing, admitted that maybe North Beach has equal value to what you’ve lost.”

  He cut his eyes to hers, then looked straight ahead to the horizon, the two of them silent again.

  “Why did she go back there to try to buy their silence?”

  This from Mel some ti
me later. Clearly she’d thought of little else.

  Bo shrugged. “She knows you’re looking for her.”

  “But she doesn’t know why.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  She shook her head. “I just keep thinking that there has to be a good reason for what she did, both to Eddie and those people we just met. She wasn’t a bad person, Bo.”

  He grimaced, and she read his thoughts. “Look, I know people can be bad, damn it. I’m not naive. But Sally…God.” She blew out a breath. “She was everything to us. I just can’t…” She shook her head. “I just can’t put it all together and make sense of it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I could have done this any other way—”

  That actually tore a laugh out of her. “Oh, no. You prided yourself on being honest, so don’t start lying now just to save my feelings.”

  “I mean it. Look, I know I was hell-bent on coming here and wrapping my fingers around Sally’s neck—”

  “And then mine.”

  “Well, yes,” he agreed with a small smile. “But for different reasons entirely.”

  She played with the condensation on her can of soda. “I keep wondering…”

  “What?”

  She looked at him, her whiskey eyes guarded. “What is it that you want from me?”

  “Honesty.”

  “You’ve got that now.”

  “Affection,” he said before his self-editor could stop the revealing words from escaping.

  She paused. Looked out the window. “You have that, too,” she said to the glass.

  Then your heart, he wanted to add, but she’d probably put on a parachute and jump. So he let out an easy smile. “Then I have it all, don’t I?”

  She stared down at the landscape below, pensive, silent for a long time. “Those things?” she murmured softly just before they landed. “Honesty and affection?” She was speaking to the glass. “I want them, too.”

  He waited until she looked at him, and smiled with what he hoped was his heart and soul. “They’re there for the taking, Mel.”

  And, apparently, much more than that as well. Certainly more than he’d ever bargained for. And given the look on her face, she felt the same.

  They got back just before closing time. Outside a new storm brewed and flights for the morning were already questionable, while inside North Beach something else brewed…