Aussie Rules

Chapter 9

The next morning, Mel braced herself and checked her e-mail, but found nothing odd. When the early North Beach rush faded, she took the leave-it-alone letter and envelope to the post office to see if they could read the return stamp for her. She waited twenty minutes in line only to be told that the return stamp couldn’t be read, too blurred.

But the barcode…another thing entirely. They could trace that. If the right guy was in, that is, which he wasn’t. They told her to come back tomorrow. The joys of rural routing.

Mel got back to North Beach and had a charter to fly to Santa Cruz, which took her until midafternoon. Finally back at her desk, she called her attorney. He was sorry for the delay, he’d been out of town, he’d get back to her regarding the deed first thing tomorrow.

Warning: another sleepless night ahead.

But she still had the rest of the afternoon to face. She changed into her coveralls to put some time in on the Hawker. Char caught her heading to the main hangar and called to her over the sound of Motley Crue on the boom box, rattling the windows. “Come eat before I close up.”

Mel shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve still got to-”

“Eat,” Char said in that Southern voice of steel. “You probably skipped lunch, didn’t you?” She was fanning her shiny face with an oven mitt, looking flushed. “I’ve been talking to men all day and I need an estrogen fix. Please? I know you’re swamped but just leave it alone and keep me company for a few.”

Mel went still. Leave it alone. The three little innocuous words that had been ringing in her head for days. Coincidence? She took a good look at Char, who was clearly overheated and quite possibly the sweetest woman Mel had ever met. There didn’t seem to be any way that Char could have anything to do with the e-mail. For one thing, she and Al hadn’t come to North Beach until after Sally had left the country. They’d never even met her. “You look hot, Char.”

“Damn hot flashes! I just stripped down in the kitchen and hosed myself off with the handheld faucet in the sink and it didn’t help! Look here, I’ve got five-cheese lasagna. The best in the state.”

Al poked his head out of the kitchen. “In the whole country, babe.”

“Oh, you. You’re just trying to get lucky again. But I’m too DAMN hot, so back off.”

Al lifted his hands and backed off.

Char blew a strand of hair from her head as her gaze swiveled to Mel. “Now I mean it. Get over here and eat.”

“I’d do it,” Al called out. “She’s PMSing.”

“If by PMSing you mean sick of men,” Char yelled back, “then, yeah, I’m PMSing!”

Al ducked back into the kitchen, but not before Char snapped him in the ass with her towel.

“Jesus, woman!” He grabbed himself. “Watch the parts!”

“I was nowhere near the parts. And just because I didn’t want to have sex with you this morning doesn’t mean I’m PMSing.”

Mel covered her ears but sat obediently. She was no idiot, Char’s lasagna was the best in the country.

“What, if you hear sex talk, your ears fall off?” Al asked Mel.

“What’s with the sex talk? There’s no sex talk,” Char said.

“Sure there is,” Al said. “I’m not getting any, we’re going to talk.”

“One morning! I had a headache one morning!”

“I could have solved your headache.” Al accompanied this with a wild wag of a brow.

Char rolled her eyes.

Al winked at Mel.

Mel dug into the huge plate of lasagna Char set in front of her. “I can’t hear you over the roar of my brain matter as it spontaneously combusts.” She swallowed her first bite, then moaned. “God, this is heaven.”

Char beamed with pleasure.

“Ah, look at that.” Al pulled her in and kissed her neck. “You look so pretty when you smile.” He nibbled. “And you taste even better than your lasagna.”

Char shoved him away but, softened now, she smiled, and so sweetly Mel actually had to look away.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Char murmured. “I’m just tired. These hot flashes are a bitch.”

“I know, baby. I’ll give you a foot massage when we get home, no sex talk, I promise.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. Maybe we can incorporate something cold, that’s all. Ice cold. Like…ice cubes…”

Al laughed softly. “You’re on.”

Mel kept eating, but her heart sighed. The two of them might fight big, but they loved bigger, loved through thick and PMSy moods, and though she didn’t always understand it, there was no denying the power of such emotion, and sometimes looking at it reminded her of what she didn’t have.

When she finished overloading her arteries, she thanked Char and made her way to the maintenance hangar. Danny was in the air with a customer, diagnosing a problem with a plane. Mel flipped on the back lights, working her way through the huge, yawning open space, back to where she kept her thirty-year-old baby, the Hawker. “Hi, honey, I’m home.” She pulled over her tool cart, and also the large tub of cleaning fluid. Then she got out her three-step ladder and buried herself in the engine compartment.

Over the years, she’d slowly replaced this and that on the aircraft as she got the extra cash, hoping one day to fly the thing again. Now she was working on the spar strap, a task that required poking and prodding and wrenching and hammering, a good thing actually, because she began to feel some of the anxiety and tension that had been gripping her all week finally fade away.

She was tired. And it was no wonder. For nights now she’d done little more than toss and turn on tangled sheets, thinking about Bo; about the episode in her office, about what would have happened if she hadn’t come to her senses, about how sometimes she even wished she hadn’t come to her senses at all, that instead she’d let him strip her and then himself, and work his magic on more than just her mouth.

Or about when he’d beaten her at darts last night, how a small part of her, the secretly lonely and apparently horny part, had waited for him to claim her as the prize.

Lord, she had it bad.

He’d known it, too. He’d known what he did to her so effortlessly, and he liked it. He’d been liking it ever since, and telling her so with his gaze.

Rat fink bastard.

God, she wanted him. But she had enough to worry about without adding stupid, ridiculous irresponsible sex to the mix.

She needed a bigger wrench. Grabbing one off the tool cart behind her, she went back to work. She was close, closer than she’d ever been, to getting the Hawker in flying shape, which was good because she could fetch a pretty penny for it.

Not that she’d be able to sell, given its sentimental value. She’d acquired the Hawker from Sally, who’d actually meant to have the plane tossed into a metal heap and salvaged for scrap.

But Mel could never do it. This plane held a lot of firsts for her. Her first aircraft. Her first real possession that had been worth anything. Her first ‘I love you,’ which had been right in the cockpit, too, though that had come from an amused, touched Sally on the night she’d handed the keys over to Mel.

Mel knew it was silly not to sell, silly and sappy, but at least she’d managed to keep that sappiness from most of the world, all of whom believed her to be one tough cookie.

And she was that, too. Tough to the core, a real fighter. She cranked on the wrench and thought of the fight with Bo yet ahead of her. Yeah, that was going to be her toughest battle yet, and she needed to keep in sharp shape for it.

She heard the heels clicking long before she could actually see anyone, but Dimi was the only one who’d wear heels out here. Then she appeared in a white lacy sundress that played peek-a-boo with her toned, tanned, perfect body, as usual by some miracle completely spotless.

Dimi took a moment to glance at the mess around her-tools, cleaning fluid, parts, old plane…and wrinkled her nose. “Couple of problems. One, you have a few calls.”

“Anything I want to take?”

“Hell, no.” Dimi studied her pretty pink nails. “They’re all on hold.”

“How many?”

“Three.”

They had only three lines. Which meant that with all three lines tied up, no one else could call in. Mel opened her mouth to point that out, then shook her head at the amusement in Dimi’s gaze. “Looking to cut out of here, huh?”

“Actually, I was looking to get you out of here.” Dimi leaned over the tool bench and blew out a breath. Dust flew. “Disgusting.”

“You could have radioed me instead of risking yourself.”

Dimi pulled a new rag from a box, spread it over the bench, and carefully sat. Then she removed a chocolate bar from her pocket.

As junk food was usually banned from Dimi’s body, this was the same as a scream of frustration and/or stress. “What’s up?”

“Pretty much our entire future,” Dimi said. “No biggee.” Tearing open the wrapper, she offered half to Mel.

Mel took a bite and the chocolate burst in her mouth, making her moan.

“Not quite as good as an orgasm, but close enough, I’d say.” Dimi chewed for a moment. “They’re all bill collectors threatening your hide, by the way. On the phone. And as I’m rather fond of your grumpy-ass hide-” She cocked her head and studied Mel’s filthy coveralls. “I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Second problem.”

“Starting to feel like Job here.”

“Yeah, but at least this one doesn’t have anything to do with Bo trying to talk us into hating Sally.”

Mel opened her mouth to say that wasn’t what he was doing, but decided it’d sound like she was siding with the enemy so she said nothing.

“Someone’s here to see you. Bill Watkins.”

Bill Watkins held the note on Mel’s Cessna. He was a man’s man who believed women belonged at home; pregnant and barefoot. He hadn’t wanted to sell Mel the plane two years ago but she’d convinced him to take a chance on her. She’d made payments for fourteen months before being two days late on a payment because she’d gotten grounded in New Mexico due to storms, and he’d come unglued, threatening legal action. Dimi had gone and had drinks with him, talking him out of said action, gaining Mel an extra week.

She’d paid. She’d paid other months when she’d had to eat mac and cheese for two weeks, but she’d always paid.

Anderson Air had grown since then, and she was doing better. In fact, her payment wasn’t even due for two days but Bill had taken to showing up every month to get his check in person.

“He wants to see you,” Dimi said. “I told him you were on a flight.”

“And he believed you?”

“Yeah, until he saw the Cessna on the tarmac. He’s currently in your office. God, he’s such a first-class prick.”

Mel took another large bite of chocolate but it didn’t give her as much joy this time. Just like a man to ruin even that small pleasure. “I’ll have the money.” She was just waiting for yesterday’s deposit to clear. “But he can damn well wait the two days.”

“Then I’d stay here and hide if I was you. Just to avoid having to see him twice. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

Dimi got up, brushed off her still-spotless butt. “Just doing my job. For once.”

“Dimi?” She hesitated. “Regarding Bill. Don’t go solving this one yourself, okay? I can handle him.”

“You handle everything.”

“It’s the analness in me.” Mel knew that despite Dimi’s come-what-may attitude, she’d fight to the death for this place, and the people in it, and would do anything to keep the status quo.

Anything.

Mel intended to make sure she didn’t have to. “It’s going to be all right.”

Dimi’s eyes went shiny, but she nodded. “I know.” Then she was gone.

Mel dropped her forehead to her plane, closing her eyes for a moment to draw a deep breath. She’d just made yet another promise that she intended to keep with her whole heart, but a small part of her wasn’t sure she could.

With no time for a pity party, not right now, she dove back into the Hawker, even though, truth be told, she was a little out of her league at the moment. She couldn’t get the strap free to save her life. She could call Danny, but she wanted to do this on her own. In any case, she climbed back into the engine compartment, having to really lean her body inside to reach-“Ouch.” She eyed her knuckle as blood welled to the surface of her new scrape. Oh, yeah, that was going to burn in a minute-

She heard a footstep and went still. Damn it. Ducking down behind the plane, she froze on the ladder, hopefully just out of sight.

The footsteps came close, heading directly for her, which couldn’t be, no one had seen her. She held her breath and wiped her bloody knuckle on the thigh of her coveralls, then grimaced at the burn.

The footsteps stopped.

Utter silence reigned, the kind that was too quiet. Awkward.

Unable to stand the suspense, she lifted her head.

And locked gazes with a set of sea green, amused eyes. “Problem?” Bo asked.

Argh! “You. You’re my problem!” She stopped trying to make herself invisible, though there was something to be said for invisible. She knew what she looked like-hair wild, grease and blood smeared across her coveralls, no makeup-and she wished he’d stop looking at her. Wished she didn’t care that he was looking at her. “I’m pretty busy,” she said, in open invitation for him to leave.

“Working?”

That was better than admitting to hiding. “Yep. Lots of work, so-”

“Cuz it looked like maybe you were hiding.”

“Why would I do that?”

“No reason-”

“Good. Because I’m not.”

“…Except the man in the office wanting his payment for the plane he sold you.”

Damn it. “Fine. I’m hiding, all right? But I’m not late on that payment, he’s just an-”

“Asshole.”

She stared at him. “What?”

Bo shrugged. “I don’t like it when blokes with too much money harass people doing the best they can.”

“You-you think I’m doing the best I can?”

“Let’s just say I know you’re trying, although you need to get on North Beach’s receivables. You have too much outstanding.”

“And you know that why?”

“Because I’m holding the deed.”

“How do you know what’s going on in the books, Bo?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Dimi spent some time in the stock closet with the parts delivery guy the other day, and I sat at her desk and answered phones. And maybe perused a bit.”

“You are a shifty bastard.”

“Yeah, I probably resemble that remark. Anyway, it’s not looking good. Not bad, but not good.”

Mel didn’t need him to say so, she’d felt the noose tightening around her neck all on her own, and it was getting tighter every single day. “Some months we do just fine,” she said, chin up. It was the other months, the slow ones, that killed them.

Her.

But even those months they survived. They loved it here, she loved it here, and that love had kept Sally’s memory alive. Sally, who’d begun North Beach with nothing more than her own wits and a big grin-who’d kept it going on those wits.

And now, Bo wanted her to believe that for ten years, it’d all been an illusion.

As if reading her thoughts, he sighed, seeming to wrestle with himself over something. Probably the urge to strangle her. Putting his hands on her arms, he hauled her down off the ladder in one swift, economical movement, setting her on the floor right in front of him as if she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes.

The touch felt predatory, and just aggressive enough to have her pushing him away from her, but once again her hands hit the solid wall of his chest. She didn’t, couldn’t, budge him. “I really hate that,” she said.

“What, that there’s someone stronger than you? You can’t always be the queen bee, Mel.”

“You want to be the queen?”

He smirked, then lifted her bloody knuckle. “You need to clean this.”

“Yeah, I know-” Her breath clogged her throat when he pressed his mouth to her fingers. Her pulse leapt into high gear, pounding like a steady drumbeat at each pulse point, making her head swim, her body feel like her clothes were too tight, like she needed to strip down to skin and have him do the same.

All because of his lips on her fingers. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing it all better.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Did it work?”

If he only knew.