Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

Mel grabbed Dimi’s hand. She loved Dimi, she loved her with all her heart, she loved all of them, but she couldn’t go on doing this, keeping secrets, walking on eggshells, wondering when it was all going to come crashing down on her. “I’m going to tell him, Deem. I’m going to tell Bo the truth.”

Dimi stared at Mel.

“I’m going to tell him we don’t know where Sally is. That we’ve never known.”

“Why?”

“I can’t hide it anymore.”

“You’ve been stronger than steel all these years, what’s changed?”

“He’s been honest. I want to do the same.”

“It’s too late for honesty, it was too late from the moment all those years ago when we decided to take over and run this place in Sally’s name. I mean, my God, Mel, you’re going to hand over our power, our very livelihood, and all for what? A hard cock?”

Mel slowly stood up. “That’s not exactly fair.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because first of all, I’m not sleeping with him.”

“But you want to be.”

Damn it, that was true enough. “And second of all,” she said, ignoring that because she wasn’t quite ready to face it. “And this is the biggie. He has the deed. He has a right to know everything.”

Dimi let out a rough sound that perfectly conveyed her opinion on that. “Eddie forced Sally to give it up.”

“Maybe. But Sally won’t call me back, so we don’t know that.”

“Oh, my God. He put his hands on you, and now you believe everything he says, you believe him over Sally.”

“Sally hasn’t said a word! Don’t you get it? We’re on our own! We’ve always been on our own!”

“You’re not on your own, you’re with Bo.”

“Dimi.”

“No.” Dimi moved to the door. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“He brought me some bank statements,” Mel called out to her. “Early statements from North Beach.”

Dimi turned back.

“They show how much money Sally had over a period of five years, starting the year before Bo and Eddie came to town.”

“So? Sally was broke.”

“See, that’s the thing.” Mel didn’t know how to do this gently. “She wasn’t broke. She had a million dollars in the bank when she vanished.”

Dimi’s mouth fell open. “What the hell? We’ve never had anywhere close to that much money. We never had any money at all.”

“I know,” Mel said grimly. “But it’s there in black and white.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I’m going to find out what’s going on, and to do that, I’m going to ask Bo to help me-”

“Mel-”

“He brought me the information, Dimi. He didn’t have to do that.”

Dimi was shaking her head. “I’m against this. His motive in coming here was to hurt us.”

“Sally, maybe. Not us.”

“Same thing.”

“Why did she have all that money, Deem? She let us think she didn’t have any-”

“Are you listening to yourself doubt her? You are truly on his side in this!”

“No, I-”

Dimi pointed at her. “When you get home tonight, look in the mirror. Because I swear to you, it’s all over your face.”

“Dimi-”

Dimi shook her head. “I can’t do this with you, not now.” And she walked out.

Mel let out a breath and checked her e-mail before closing down. She was still going over the conversation with Dimi in her mind so the unexpected e-mail hit her like a blow to the belly, from You’reNotLeavingItAlone.

Funny thing about wanting justice and revenge, about being so filled with grief that you couldn’t reason-it was hard to maintain that level of fury.

In Bo’s case, it turned out he was far more human than he’d thought, and because he was, it was also harder than he’d imagined to look directly into the eyes of the person you planned on hurting.

Especially now that he’d kissed Mel, touched her. Yeah, she was still keeping secrets-a white-hot poker stabbing into his chest-but he dreamed about her. Dreamed about more than just kissing, about what would have happened the other night if they’d both been naked, if they hadn’t been interrupted. He’d have had her on that soft couch, on the floor, in her bed.

A loud crashing noise woke him. It was the hangar doors sliding open, which sent sharp sunlight slanting across his face, completely eradicating the erotic dreams.

He blinked, realizing he’d fallen asleep the night before while snooping through more boxes in the hidden storage area. Sprawled on the cold floor, he looked up at the outline of a woman above him in the doorway, the obnoxious sun behind her throwing her body in bold relief.

A hot body that kick-started his for the morning.

Mel came down the stairs. He would have have known it was her just by the sheer attitude of her boots as they clicked, clicked, clicked toward him.

She came to a stop and stood, hands on her hips. “Still snooping?”

He closed his eyes against the glare and cleared his throat. “Yeah. It’s what happens when the people around you keep their thoughts and secrets to themselves.”

She muttered something, then vanished, and he lay there, still a little undone by his graphic dreams, and then his not-so-graphic reality.

He was hard.

Then the boots clicked again, and a hot mug of coffee was set before him. He turned his head and stared at it.

Was he dreaming again?

Mel crouched at his side. Her hair was lit like fire as she looked him over from head to toe and back again, her gaze slowing at his thighs, and in between-skidding to a halt there. Her pupils dilated slightly, and unconsciously, or maybe not so unconsciously, she licked her lips. “You find anything else?” she asked a little hoarsely.

It took him a moment to go from thinking about sex to why he was here in the first place. “Not yet. There’s a lot to look through.”

She nodded, her gaze again landing on the button fly on his jeans as if she couldn’t help herself. “Yeah, it’s hard-um, tough work.” Her face went beet red. “It’s tough work going through all this stuff.”

He couldn’t help it. He grinned. “You said hard.”

And she put her hands to her cheeks. “Did not.”

“Did.”

She whirled away. “I don’t know why I try with you.”

“Really? You’re trying?” With a groan, he rolled to his feet. “I must have missed that part.”

She began to walk to the door, but he pulled her back around.

“You’re so good at annoying me I nearly missed it,” he said, staring into her tight face. “What’s wrong?”

She was quiet for so long he figured she wasn’t going to speak. “I’ve received three e-mails,” she finally said. “One from LeaveItAlone, one from BackOffOrElse, and the last this morning, from You’reNotLeavingItAlone. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” he said grimly, and held firm when she would have shoved free. “Have you had them tracked?”

“Working on it.”

He traced a finger over the worry groove between her eyes. “Leave it alone?”

“Yeah.” She lifted a shoulder. “Thought maybe at first it was you.”

For a moment he couldn’t figure out how to speak without losing it. “Jesus,” he finally said. “You think so highly of me, I don’t know what to say.”

“Logic prevailed, all right? I figured leaving it alone is the last thing you want me to do.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Look, I don’t want to do this now.” She pushed away. “I have shit to do and…” She cast another quick glance over his body, but he wasn’t aroused now, he was tense with frustration, anger, and worry.

“Any more secrets you want to reveal?” he asked tightly.

She turned away. “I’ve got a flight.”

So there were still more secrets. Fuck. He listened to the sound of her boots as she walked away. For distraction, he inhaled the coffee she’d brought him, in desperate need of the caffeine. Then he closed up the hangar, entered the lobby, and accepted the usual fuck-you glare from Dimi. He didn’t care. He helped himself to Mel’s office and the shower in her bathroom there, which meant that he smelled just like her.

He could smell himself all damn day as he flew to LA to see a man with a fleet of antique Beechcraft. Not a 1944 in the bunch…Bugger it all to hell.

By the time he got back to North Beach, it was late afternoon. He was with Danny in maintenance, looking on the Internet for parts when Char called. “Danny, get your cute buns into the lobby, please.”

“What’s up?”

“Just hustle.”

Danny looked at Bo hopefully. “Maybe it involves food.”

On the chance it did, Bo tagged along.

They walked into the café and Char hurried them behind the counter. “Quick, duck!”

Bo ducked down without knowing why until one moment later when Mel walked in off the tarmac, hot and irritated and gorgeous, and everyone leapt up and yelled “Happy B-day!”

There was a huge cake, with decorations hanging over their heads and helium balloons. They pushed Mel onto a chair and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Ritchie offered to spank her, and then Kellan shoved him and said he’d do it, and then Al hit them both upside the back of the head while everyone gathered in like the tight unit they were and talked and laughed and talked some more.

Al took pictures. Char refilled soda glasses from a frothy pitcher in her hand. Danny kept reaching out to the boom box to change the music from Def Leppard to Green Day, but Char kept laughing and changing it back.

Kellan picked up each present on the table and shook it in turn, stopping at one in particular. “This one sounds like a vibrator,” he said hopefully.

“Yeah? Hope it comes with batteries,” Mel responded, which had Bo frozen to the spot, his mind caught on the image of Mel using a vibrator on herself. Good God, the image seared his brain, so much so that when Al asked him a question, he could only stare at the man…struck deaf, blind, and mute.

Ritchie helped himself to one helium balloon at a time, sucking in the gas, amusing himself and the others by singing along to the radio in a high-pitched squeal.