Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

Char looked at Al.

Al looked at Ritchie and Kellan.

Both of whom looked at Danny.

Danny looked at Dimi.

Dimi quietly sipped her herbal tea. “Hmmm? Oh, Mel. She’s running a bit late this morning, that’s all.”

Bo would be willing to bet that Mel had never been late to anything in her entire life. Just as he’d be willing to bet she’d stayed up late going through that file he’d brought her, and was now either still formulating her response to what she’d found, or plotting his murder.

The airport began hopping with its usual morning business. Bo himself had an appointment to look at a Douglas A-24 in Los Angeles, which he reluctantly left for, but not before pulling Dimi aside. “I want to see Mel later,” he said. “Tell her I’ll only be a few hours.”

Dimi smiled at him noncommittally. Bo grated his teeth and piloted his flight to LA and back.

When he returned, Mel had come in, but was now on her own charter flight to San Francisco, forcing him to cool his heels for the rest of the day, which he spent tracking down a Piper for a customer.

Dimi kept interrupting him with phone calls-creditors, salespeople, even one person asking if they sold model airplanes.

Finally he called Dimi’s desk. “What are you doing?”

“My job,” she replied sweetly.

“Do you forward all these kinds of calls to Mel?”

“Not anymore. You’re in charge now.”

He drew a deep breath, but patience didn’t come. “I hope you’re finding it therapeutic to take your anger out on me.”

“Actually, not as much as I’d hoped.”

He sighed. “Do you really give Mel this many phone calls a day?”

“Oh, no. For her, I screen them.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you think you could screen them for me?”

“Nope,” she said with that same cheer.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you.”

At closing time, when Mel still hadn’t come in, Bo went to Dimi yet again.

“Oh, dear,” she said with a little smile, bracelets jangling, as she set aside a book-a book? “Didn’t I tell you? She’s going straight from San Francisco to Seattle.”

“No,” he said through his teeth. “You didn’t mention that.”

“Sorry.” But she didn’t look it. “You did ask me to screen your calls, remember?”

Bo slapped his clipboard against his leg while he considered strangling her. But though Dimi had been obnoxious today, she didn’t look smug so much as…worried. Hell. Had Mel fallen apart at that file he’d left her? “Look, did she say anything about-”

Dimi shook her head. “Not a word about anything.”

He was not going to gain an inch here, but that didn’t prevent him from trying. “Sally hasn’t called yet, has she?”

“Nope.”

Really, he might as well just bang his head against the wall. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

Now her smug smile made a flashing appearance. “I try.”

The next morning when Mel woke up she did just what she had done the one before: stared at the file Bo had brought. At the thought of what was in it, she groaned and rolled to her back, and had a new thought.

Two days ago, she’d let Bo get her naked, finger her to an orgasm, and he hadn’t so much as lost his pants. As it had ever since, the memory made her by turns hot and achy, and hot and humiliated.

She had to get a grip.

Maybe the trick was simply not to look directly at him. Yeah, she’d try that. It shouldn’t be so hard now that she had something new to obsess about.

She stared at the fat file again. God, Sally, what did you do?

With a sigh, she got out of bed, showered, dressed, and drove to the airport and, as was the norm-except for yesterday, when she’d needed to be alone-she was the first to arrive. Unlocking the front door, she flipped on the lobby lights. As they flickered to life, she noticed the jar on the front desk. Curious, she moved close, then stopped short.

In it sat a big, fat, hairy, spindly spider. Skin crawling, she grabbed the note next to the jar and took a big step back, reading while the spider stared at her.

Mel,

Here is proof why I can’t clean out the maintenance closet. This spider is a brown recluse, and they do have a bad rep, but they’re endangered. We need to preserve their environment for all of mankind.

– Ernest

P.S. Any more wonky e-mails you want to tell me about?

Mel gritted her teeth. No more “wonky” e-mails but the spider was seriously wigging her out. She picked up a pen and gingerly used it to push the jar away so she could check the flight schedule beneath. When she’d looked yesterday morning, there’d been only two flights there, now four were listed as incoming, and it looked like Bo had scheduled two of those himself.

For North Beach, that was booming business.

“It might take awhile to make this place worth what I actually lost,” said a male voice. “But apparently I have little choice.”

Mel whipped around to face Bo, who’d come in so quietly she hadn’t heard him. “What if you don’t ever make back what you lost?”

“I can always sell.”

The words stopped her heart. “I thought you didn’t have plans to do that.”

“I don’t. Yet.” He wore a pair of black Levi’s today and a white button-down shirt, with Black Aviation’s logo on the pocket, once again half-tucked in, half not, sleeves shoved to his elbows. His hair had been finger-combed at most, falling in untamed waves. His mouth, the one that had kissed her the day before yesterday until she hadn’t known her own name, was unsmiling. He watched her with those inscrutable eyes, the ones that gave nothing away, nothing at all.

“Is selling really a possibility?” she asked.

He just looked at her.

Yeah. It was. He could recoop at least a part of his losses and get revenge on Sally in one fell swoop, and they both knew it. Too bad the revenge would be on her, not Sally at all.

“Are we going to talk about it?” he asked. “About what you thought about the records I brought you?”

She thought her heart was breaking, how was that?

“Or maybe we should talk about those-what did Ernest call them?-wonky e-mails.”

Oh, God.

“What did he mean, Mel? Because it sounds like maybe you’ve been keeping more secrets, in which case, I’m just shocked.”

In the charged silence came the drone of an incoming engine.

Their gazes locked.

“Saved by the plane?” he murmured.

She ran to the door leading to the tarmac.

“You can run,” he called out after her. “But you can’t hide.”

The day was busy. Mel couldn’t believe it but planes came in and out, they fueled up, and Danny had all the work he could want.

At the end of her shift, she and Dimi together looked at the schedule on the computer, and smiled tiredly.

“Like old times,” Dimi said. “The advertising you’ve done has helped.”

Some of Mel’s smile faded at that, and she slowly shook her head. “It’s not the advertising, Dimi.”

Dimi’s smile faded, too. “Yes, it is.”

“No. It’s Bo. He’s brought in customers. He’s got contacts we don’t, and connections. He’s doing for the airport what Sally used to do with such ease.”

Give it life.

She’d tried like hell, but the truth was, all she wanted to do was fly. This day-to-day managing, the handling of the employees, being the end all to everyone, the peacemaker, the mom, the shrink…She’d never really even admitted it to herself, but it was getting old. “He’s done all this. We should acknowledge that.”

“Bite your tongue.”

“It’s true. And…It’s a good thing. No matter what we think of him, he’s better at this than I am.”

“No, he’s not! No one’s better than you-”

“No. And I just hope he’s enjoying it so he keeps at it rather than selling.”

Dimi stared at her, eyes bright. “Listen, I’ve got to get out of here.”

Of course she did. She didn’t want to talk about this. “Hot date?” Mel asked.

“Nah. I’m tired of hot dates.”

Mel laughed.

“I’m serious,” she said, and because she actually did sound serious, Mel studied her more closely.

Dimi was dressed today in snug Bermuda shorts and a lace tank top, with a denim jacket open over the ensemble. She looked pretty, but not her usual over-the-top sexy, something Mel should have picked up on earlier. “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t a woman just be bored with men?”

“Well, you’d think.”

Dimi sighed. “I’ve dated four guys this week and every single one of them had a major flaw.”

“Such as they’re penis-carrying humans?”

“You’re too young to be so cynical.”

“It’s not cynicism, it’s realism,” Mel insisted. “Men are fun but they’re not everything.”

“And planes are?”

Mel winced.

“Sorry,” Dimi said quietly. “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay.” Mel shut down the computer. “Listen, why don’t we do something tonight-”

“You on babysitting duty?”

“Come on, you know you have a tendency to self-destruct when you get stressed-”

“I’m not stressed.”

“We’re both stressed.”

“Okay, I’m stressed,” Dimi admitted. “But not self-destructing.”

Mel met Dimi’s gaze and found nothing assuring. “Dimi-”

“Look, you want me less stressed? Get Bo Black the hell out of here. Make things go back to the way they were.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“Easy.”

“Honey, nothing about this life has ever been easy.”

“Then tell me why the hell we’re doing it.”

Mel shook her head. “Because we’ve always loved it.”

“You mean because you’ve always loved it.”

Mel absorbed that unexpected punch. “Wow,” she said, sitting back.

“Damn.” Dimi shook her head. “Clearly I need to go to a corner and have a time out.” She grabbed her purse. “On second thought, I think my bed, alone, will work wonders.”