Aussie Rules

Chapter 22

In the lobby of the hotel, the Huttons were waiting for Mel. Bo had already caught his own cab to the airport.

Good. That meant she didn’t have to see him quite yet.

But that ended all too soon on the tarmac. He boarded the passengers while she went through the preflight check. When she was finished, he stood there, those deep, unwavering jade eyes fixed on her.

“What?” she asked, a little defensively, unconsciously straightening her shoulders as she prepared for battle.

He only shook his head, moved toe to toe with her, cupped her face, fingers gliding into her hair, and then kissed her.

Not a hello peck, either, but a long, melting one that had her staggering back. “Man.” She couldn’t recover. “Man.”

He simply smiled and boarded, and for the entire flight-blissfully uneventful-she felt incredibly aware of him sitting next to her. Everything he did seemed to spark a reaction within her, whether it was sliding on the headphones over his come-as-it-is hair, or covering his eyes with those mirrored sunglasses, stretching out his long legs, talking to air control with that low, effortlessly sexy voice, dealing with her passengers with far more patience than she ever could have managed…

They were nearly back to Santa Barbara when the conversation turned to the hotel. The Huttons went on and on about the incredible service, then asked about Mel’s room.

Bo glanced at her. “Yes, did you sleep well?” he asked.

In fact, she’d hardly slept at all, as he very well knew. “Yes.”

“Did you enjoy the service?” he pressed.

It was all she could do to maintain her composure. “The service was…”

Bo raised a brow, lips quirking. He thought he was so funny. Well, she was funnier.

“It was okay,” she finally said with a shrug.

The Huttons expressed their surprise, then after a few minutes of small talk, busied themselves with their laptops, leaving Mel and Bo to their own.

“Only okay?” Bo murmured.

Mel stuck her tongue out at him. Immature, but there it was.

He only laughed softly. “I have a better job for that tongue,” he said.

“I bet.”

“Watch your altitude.”

“Altitude? Or attitude?”

He laughed. “Both.”

She glanced down at the instruments and sighed. “Are you always right?”

He met her gaze again, and suddenly he wasn’t playing. “Usually.”

Her smile faded. Yeah. He’d been right about a lot of things. Sally, for instance. After meeting his gaze for a long beat, she looked out at the horizon. No visible storm, but that didn’t mean the one brewing inside her heart wasn’t going to be a Category 5. “If the money in those accounts you found was your father’s, then where is it now?” she asked quietly.

“Maybe she bought an island and is drinking her lazy days away.”

Mel shook her head. “Then why ask Dimi and me to send her cash over the years, leaving us so strapped all the time?”

He didn’t answer. The implication being, of course, because Sally could.

Mel absorbed that for a time, flying in silence.

He let her, and if she hadn’t been in such a bad place inside her head, she might have admitted that she liked that about him. No rushing, no forcing of his opinions. “I’m going to get a private investigator.”

“How about we? We get a PI. We start with Mexico, and that last call you received.”

She paused. “I think I should do this alone,” she said carefully. “And talk to her first.”

His eyes went dark, inscrutable. “You want to warn her away from me.”

“I want to make sure she’s okay, and that she wasn’t a victim.”

“And…”

“And nothing,” she said. “That’s all.”

Jaw tight, he shook his head but didn’t say another word. The truce, if there’d ever really been one, was over. Tentative trust shaken if not gone completely.

The next day, in between charter flights, a broken tow, fuel deliveries, and filing a police report for the e-mails and notes, Mel pulled out the local phone book and picked a private investigator.

Matt Thomas promised to investigate Sally’s whereabouts, which should have made her feel good but instead left her feeling like she’d betrayed her own mother.

The next two days moved like a blur. Bo took a flight to test-fly an old Douglas he was looking at in Los Angeles. Mel stopped what she was doing to watch him take off, wondering when things would ever get back to normal.

Or if he’d ever want her again…

One afternoon, Char fed her, standing in her small kitchen fanning air with her shirt as she grumbled about the heat.

“It’s not that hot,” Mel said.

“Well, you’re not facing early menopause, are you?” Char lifted her top. “Look at me.”

“Um…” Mel couldn’t help but take in Char’s slightly curved belly and full breasts straining to escape a black cotton bra. Her skin was flushed beet red and dewy. “Maybe you could open the window-”

“It doesn’t matter. I could take the roof off, I’d still be too hot.”

“Charlene, Jesus.” Al came around the corner and blocked the view of his wife’s breasts and belly. “What are you doing?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m hot! Hot, hot, hot-”

“You’re flashing the customers!” He craned his neck to the tables, found them empty, and lost some of his bristle. “Okay, fine, there are no customers.”

“Hey,” Mel said. “I’m right here.”

“You don’t count.” Char smiled up at Al. “You don’t want to share my breasts.”

“Nope. All mine,” Al murmured, and pulled her against him.

Mel rolled her eyes and hightailed it out of the den of love. The hot den of love.

She stayed late that night, working on the Hawker. When she was done, she hopped into the shower in her office bathroom, closing her eyes in bliss, letting out a long breath as the tension finally began to drain from her body.

“That sounded like a loaded sigh.”

With a startled squeak, she blinked one Bo Black into focus.

One soon-to-be-dead Bo Black.

The walls of the shower were glass, clear glass. He could see everything of her. “What are you doing?”

“Same as you.” Eyes on hers, he kicked off his shoes.

“Oh, no.” Even though she still had shampoo in her hair, she slammed off the water. “Go away!”

He pulled off his shirt, and her gaze dropped to his shoulders and chest, gilded from the sun, the sleek flesh delineated with long, sinewy lines of muscle.

An undeniable surge of anticipation coursed through her.

He reached for the waistband of his jeans.

“Don’t you dare!” she said.

“Now what have I told you about daring me?”

“We just had sex a few days ago.” She eyed his unmistakable hard-on. “You’re still mad at me. You can’t want it again.”

“I’ve got a part of me that says otherwise.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to think with that part.”

“It’s how us men are made, darlin’. Ridiculously easy.” Pop, pop, pop went the buttons on his Levi’s.

Boom, boom, boom went Mel’s heart. “Stop.”

To his credit, he did. Thumbs hooked in his opened jeans, he lifted his head, a specimen so magnificent he took her breath. Her body quivered for more. Just looking, she told herself. That’s all, just looking. “Fine,” she relented, already breathless at the thought of his nude body. “Go ahead and get naked, then. That’ll make us even.”

“Even is good.”

“But we’re not doing anything.” She tore her gaze off his body and looked into his eyes, which were lit with humor and heat. Gulp. Lots of heat. “I mean it, Bo.”

“Remember the other night?” he asked.

Remember? She could do little else!

“Yeah, you remember,” he said. “You know it was off-the-charts amazing. You’re off-the-charts amazing.”

“Are you trying to butter me up?”

At that, his eyes positively smoldered. “Do you have butter?”

“Oh, my God, you are so male!”

“I’d think you’d be grateful for that.” His smile was slow and wicked and did things to her belly, not to mention her nipples and between her thighs.

“Oh, this is ridiculous.”

He merely turned away to make sure the door was shut.

Um, yikes. “Bo…We don’t even trust each other, so-”

“I want to trust you. Can you say the same?”

She absorbed those words as he slid the bolt home, the click echoed in the bathroom. “I’m naked here,” she said. “Which surely displays a certain level of trust.”

“I’m looking for more than that.”

More? What more?

“Finish your shower,” he said, leaning against the door. “You need the relaxing.”

“I’d loosen up if you’d get the hell out of my bathroom.”

“You asked so nicely, but no. Sorry. Careful, you’re going to get that shampoo in your eyes. And don’t use all that hot water.”

“You’re ever so romantic, you know that?”

He grinned. “I’m not trying to romance you, Mel. Trust me, if I was, you’d already be panting my name.”

“Ha ha.” The shampoo was beginning to burn her eyes. “Stay right there.”

He lifted his hands innocently. “Staying.”

Incredibly aware of his gaze on her, she ducked her head back beneath the spray to rinse off the shampoo. Everywhere the suds slid down her body felt like a caress; over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly, her thighs…

Then the shower door opened, and she squeaked, opening her eyes. “You cheated!”

That devastatingly slow, sure smile stretched across his mouth as the water sprayed him. “I’m an Aussie. We don’t cheat. We just take advantage of any given situation.” Gaze still holding hers, he shoved down his jeans.

Oh, my. Oh, my my. He was aroused. Extremely aroused. Hugely, extremely aroused. She tried not to look, honestly, she tried, but her eyeballs appeared to have a mind of their own, and took themselves on a happy tour.

As she already knew, Bo Black really had it going on.

He stepped into the shower with her, not cockily, but completely unselfconsciously, easily showing her everything he had as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do so.

He’d always done that, from the very beginning, shown her everything.

For a moment that truth hit her so hard she couldn’t even breathe.

His smile faded. “Mel?”

“I’m okay.”

“Yeah, you are. Let me in,” he urged softly, stepping close. “I’m getting cold. Certain things aren’t pretty when they get cold, Mel.”

“Bo-”

“Look, there might be trust issues between us. Truth issues, too. But one thing we don’t have is a chemistry issue.”

She stared at him, then scooted back, giving him room beneath the water with her.

He took it, and more, pulling her wet, naked body to his.

The next morning Mel was on hold with Matt when Bo stuck his head in her office.

“That number in Mexico,” Bo said. “It’s to a place called El Pelicano Blanco. The White Pelican.”

“The number is to El Pelicano Blanco,” Matt said, back on the line.

Mel stared at Bo.

“And,” Matt continued in her ear, “one interesting thing. That return address stamp on that letter you got via USPS!”

“Mexican?” she asked weakly. “From the same zone as the White Pelican?”

“Yep.”

Mel hung up and looked at Bo. It didn’t escape her that he was still sharing all his info, when she wasn’t quite sure if she’d have shared hers.

“Get your passport,” he said.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you I’m doing this by myself.”

“No point,” he agreed. “We’ll take the Gulfstream.”

They left immediately, going through Los Angeles for customs, and then landing in Hermosillo. Mel had grabbed a picture of Sally along with a small overnight duffel bag, which she really hoped she wouldn’t need because that would mean another night with Bo.

Probably a naked night. Sweaty, too, with what would undoubtedly be myriad orgasms, all in a delicious, delirious blur.

Her body tightened in anticipation at his knowledge of her body and all he could do to it, and how easily he could do it, but she knew another morning after would kill her.

She wasn’t so good at this casual-sex thing. It lingered in her mind, messed with her heart and soul, affecting her job, her everything.

How was it going to feel when he finally left?

Plus, they had a mission here. Find Sally once and for all. Figure out what the hell was going on so that Bo could get on with his life and Mel with hers.

The thought brought a pang to her heart but in the long run, it was for the best. She wasn’t a happily-ever-after sort of woman. She’d never dreamed of a white wedding dress and kids all around her. All she had dreamed of was flying, and she had that.

There was no need for more, she reminded herself as they deboarded and headed through the small airport and toward an old, beat-up rental car. The sun was bright and bloody hot above, but Bo stopped Mel next to the car. They had a map, they knew where they were headed, so she looked at him impatiently.

“You okay?” he asked.

She stared up into his face, his lean jaw, his unsmiling mouth, at those green eyes that had seen so much. There was genuine concern there, and for a moment she let herself think…Maybe they could make something of this…“If we find her here, what’s going to happen to her?”

“I want her to stop threatening you.”

“And…?”

“And I want answers on what happened all those years ago.”

“And…?”

“And…” He shrugged. “And then I’ll accept it and move on.”

To Australia. He didn’t say it, he didn’t have to. His home country was an innate part of the man.

“Australia isn’t that far away, you know,” he said quietly.

She laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s on the other side of the world.”

“We could-”

“No,” she said flatly.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“That you’ll e-mail? Call? Fly to come see me a couple times a year? Not going to work for me.”

He looked as if maybe he was going to press her about it, but she brushed past him and headed for the driver’s seat.

He grabbed her by the back of the shirt. “I’m driving.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because you have the dick?”

“And the balls, mate. Let’s not forget the balls.”

“You got to fly all the way here.”

She had him there, and she got behind the wheel. He was both a good sport and a good navigator so he got them to the El Pelicano Blanco in no time.

At night the building might have passed for a bar but by day it was nothing more than a dive. A few dead trees spotted the lot. The windows had no glass, just boards. The front door was open wide, and from within came the strong smell of alcohol and cigarettes.

To the left of the front door was a public telephone booth, no bench or phone book, just a beat-up-looking telephone.

Mel and Bo looked at each other. Had Sally called from right there?

A woman swept the dusty floors inside, a chicken at her heels following her like a dog. She looked up when Bo and Mel stepped inside and shook her head. “No servicio.”

“Do you speak English?” Bo asked.

“No.”

Mel began to flip through the English-to-Spanish book she’d bought at the airport, muttering, “How do you ask if she knows Sally?”

Bo rattled off something in Spanish, and Mel stared at him. “You speak Spanish?”

“Enough to get by.”

“Enough to get by,” she repeated to herself. “You might have mentioned.”

Bo said something else to the woman, sounding quite fluent.

“Ah, sí,” she said, and followed by more quick-paced dialogue.

“You catching any of this?” Mel asked Bo out of the corner of her mouth.

“Shh.”

Damn it, she hated when he shushed her, but he was listening intently, clearly having to concentrate, so she decided not to kill him. At least not right then.

Bo said something with Sally’s name in it, then turned to Mel. “Show her the picture.”

Mel pulled out a photo she’d brought of Sally standing in front of the sign of North Beach, smiling.

The woman’s eyes locked on Sally, and hardened. “Rosario,” she said. “Rosario Lopez.”

Bo’s gaze met Mel’s for one beat before turning back to the woman. “You know her?”

The woman’s eyes were flashing good now. “Rosario, sí.” She turned her head and spit on the ground.

“I take it they’re not old friends,” Mel murmured.

The woman pointed to both of them, then to her eye, then back at them, saying without words that she was watching them, then left the room.

“That’s probably not good,” Mel said. “I think she just put a curse on us.”

“Or something.” Bo took her arm and pulled her toward the front door, but before they got there, the woman was back with a man, a big man who was growling, fierce-looking, and…

Gulp.

Carrying a gun.

“Fuck,” Bo said softly, then tried to shove Mel out the front door ahead of him, stopping short at the very audible click of a gun cocking.

Together they slowly turned back.

The man jerked the gun toward them and spit out something in rapid-fire Spanish.

Bo raised his hands. “Raise ’em slowly,” he said softly to Mel while the man raved on and on in Spanish, eyes bulging, practically foaming at the mouth. “Let’s not piss him off any more than we already have.”

Mel’s heart was in her throat, pounding so hard she was shocked she could still hear anyone speak at all as the man railed on and on in loud, staccato Spanish.

The woman barely came up to his shoulder. She was trying to get his attention by tugging on his sleeve, but he was still yelling, gesturing with the gun pointed right at Bo and Mel, having gone berserk.

The woman stomped her foot but that didn’t get the man’s attention, either. Finally she poked him in the highest place she could reach good.

His belly.

With a roar, he turned to her.

“Let them speak,” she said in perfect but heavily accented English.

“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 him. “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.