Aussie Rules

Chapter 19

Bo stalked through the airport the next morning, cultivating what some might call a bad attitude. Yeah, he’d gotten off last night, and yeah, that should have mellowed him, but she’d been holding back on him, his Mel. Why that was surprising, he had no idea, but the opposite of mellow had happened. He was looking for trouble now and he knew it, but he’d wasted nearly two weeks doing what he’d said he wouldn’t.

Trusting.

His gut-and more computer research-told him Sally wasn’t coming back, that the money and plane were long gone, and if that was the case, then there was really nothing to be done except for taking over North Beach, fixing it up so that he could sell, and getting the hell out of Dodge.

He thought of how Mel would react to that, how hurt and destroyed she’d be, and he ruthlessly shoved it aside because he didn’t care. She had the lease he’d foolishly given her, she’d be fine. Everyone else, if they were good at their jobs, would be fine, too.

But from the far end of the lobby came Mel’s voice, and just like that, heat flooded through his body, pooling between his thighs, pissing him off because she’d gotten under his skin.

“I can assure the both of you,” she was saying, “that two pilots are not needed for this flight.”

Bo came around the corner to see her facing a man and a woman, both dressed like a million bucks, looking out at a Lear Jet on the tarmac. “I’ve flown from here to San Francisco hundreds of times,” Mel said to them. “It’s a simple, pleasurable trip.”

The couple was already shaking their heads. They were in their fifties, and judging from the sheer brilliance of the woman’s bling alone, they were big money. New money.

“Our usual jet has two pilots,” the woman said. “Plus a flight attendant to see to our needs.”

Mel stood there in her leather bomber jacket and black pilot pants that showed off her long, lean, tough length, pride warring with tact. “I understand your usual charter service is down, which is what brought you here. But Anderson Air doesn’t provide the same sort of service as Diamond Skies, and as a result, we’re far more affordable. Now if I could just board you-”

“We don’t care about the cost,” the man said. “I’m going to have to insist on another pilot on board.”

Mel’s pleasant expression didn’t change but she was insulted. Bo could tell by the little pucker between her eyebrows, and the way her smile went just a little tight. Oh, and the smoke coming out her ears was a sign, too. God, she was so uptight she probably squeaked when she walked, and so unbelievably sexy while she was at it. It was a first for him, wanting a woman that he also wanted to strangle.

“Honestly,” she said. “Another pilot would just add unnecessary expense-”

“Expense is not a problem. We’re just flying into the city for a business meeting and turning right around. We’d make it worth your while.”

This did not cheer Mel up one bit. She was in a bind, and there was only one way out.

Another pilot. She looked over at Bo, her face inscrutable, her body, the one he’d had just the night before, tense enough to shatter.

He knew how to banish that tenseness now, he knew just how to touch her. Knew a helluva lot more about her than she was comfortable with, he was quite certain.

She needed him. Differently than last night, when she’d needed him buried deep inside her so that there was no way to tell where he ended and she’d begun, when she’d needed him so badly she’d left fingerprints on his ass and a bite mark on his shoulder, but need was need.

And suddenly, it felt good to be him. “Need help?” he asked, a little more cheerful.

The look on her face was priceless. He’d just put her in a position of having to ask. She’d hate that, of course, which made him even more cheerful than strictly called for.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hutton,” she said, shoulders rigid. “This is Bo Black.” She looked at Bo. “Can you fly with us today?” she asked, barely opening the mouth that just last night had brought him to such heights of pleasure he’d nearly blacked out.

“Hmmm…Can I fly with you today?” He pulled his PDA out of his pocket and made a show of checking it. “Just so happens I’m free.”

Mel’s eyes were sheer glaciers by now. Oh, she hated this. She didn’t want him here, didn’t want his help.

But he was here, and available. And, as it happened, he owned the place. That made him the boss. He liked that, too, he decided. He liked that a lot.

“Are you a pilot?” Mr. Hutton asked Bo.

Bo purposely looked away from Mel. “That I am,” he said happily. “Been flying since before I could drive.”

Mr. Hutton nodded. “You’ll do.”

“Thanks, mate.”

“You’re Australian.” Mrs. Hutton smiled warmly. “Your accent is lovely.”

Bo smiled.

Mel’s teeth gnashed together.

Mr. Hutton took Mrs. Hutton’s arm. “We’ll be onboard, waiting.”

Mel waited until they’d walked onto the tarmac. “I didn’t need you or your ‘lovely accent’ to interfere.”

“Sure? Because I think the bloke was about to cancel on you.”

She crossed her arms. “That would have been fine.”

“You need the income.”

“Nice of you to concern yourself, but you needn’t.”

“Actually, I do.”

Her eyes were flashing, her body practically vibrating with temper. “And how’s that?”

“See, Anderson Air is a client of North Beach. I am now North Beach. Your success is my success. Get it?”

“I thought all you wanted was your money back.”

“Right. But that isn’t happening, is it?” He clucked her beneath her tilted chin. “I’ve moved on to plan B.”

Her eyes narrowed, her mouth opened-to blast him, he was quite certain-but he set a finger against her lips. “Fight me on this,” he said softly, “and trust me, you won’t like plan B very much.”

Then, content with the unexpected change in both the day and his luck, he began to whistle as he walked onto the tarmac.

Mel watched him swagger out and took a deep breath, then glanced over at Dimi, who’d been sitting behind her desk but had come to a shocked stand.

“You’re not going to let him do this,” Dimi said, clearly shaken.

Mel watched through the window as Bo shook hands with the Huttons, clearly having a lovely chat. Tall, rugged and rangy even from a distance, she could understand his appeal to their clients. It was hard to tear her eyes off him. With his hair just on the wrong side of his last haircut, and that dangerous smile, he pretty much screamed “let me break your heart.”

As she watched, he lowered his sunglasses over his eyes and turned toward the window, his face drawn with exhaustion but still sexy as hell, damn him, somehow seeming as if he purposely wanted to remind her of last night.

As if she could forget what it’d felt like to be with him, his hands stripping her clothes off while his mouth glided over her flesh. God. Even now, even in the light of day, she wanted him to start all over again at the beginning.

What was wrong with her?

And then the bastard smiled.

In spite of everything, her stomach tightened, her heart took a little trip. “Face it, Dimi,” she grated out, eyes still locked on Bo. “It’s beyond our control.” He was beyond her control, and really, when it came right down to it, that’s what bothered her the most. “Sally saw to that when she signed the deed over.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” Dimi maintained. “Somehow I know it.”

Mel sighed. “There’s always a choice.”

Dimi slowly shook her head. “Mel, Sally loved-loves-us. She wouldn’t just do this without a word.”

“But she did.”

Dimi stared at her, hurt and frustrated, but before either could say a word, Ernest came in and slapped a jar down on the desk.

Yet another spider wriggled its legs at them.

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.”