Aussie Rules

Chapter 23

The ride back to the airport was silent. Well, not completely silent. Bo and Mel were sweating like crazy in the insane heat, and with no air conditioner, their breathing sounded ragged and rough.

He could still hear the slightest catch in Mel’s, the kind of catch that came from great sex and an explosive orgasm. The way they devoured each other every single time, without a lessening of the painful want, confused and baffled him. And made him afraid.

Maybe he was going to always want her like this.

Jesus.

Or maybe he was an idiot, and she was simply breathing like that from her crying jag.

She’d cried. If there was anything more soul destroying than watching a woman as strong and tough as Mel completely lose it, he didn’t know what.

And had he ever, in his entire life, felt so helpless? Like he could punch his fist through a wall of concrete, or curl into a ball of misery himself?

Maybe, he could admit. Maybe in that dark time right after his father’s death. The senselessness of it all, the loss. Yeah, he’d felt helpless then.

And he hated that Mel felt it now.

He wasn’t sure when he’d even started taking her feelings into account. Maybe that was a side affect of another realization: she was on his side. She didn’t like it but she was.

The truth was, he was falling for her. Talk about terrifying. He parked the car in the brutal sun at the airport and watched her get out, hair tumbling around her shoulders, mouth unsmiling, eyes tired.

Not falling, he corrected. But fallen. He’d fallen for her, done deal.

She did a double take in his direction. “You just went pale as a ghost. What’s the matter?”

Pale? Yeah, that sounded about right.

“Bo?”

He opened his mouth and said the first stupid thing to hit his tongue. “I came inside you without a condom.”

She whipped her head back toward him, stared for one blink, then looked away. “Oh.”

“Oh. Is that all you have to say-oh? ”

“Okay. Oops. Is that better?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Don’t worry.”

She sounded so quiet, so weary, he dropped his hands from his face. “Are you on the pill?”

“No, I meant I would never hold you back from doing what you’ve got to do about the airport, and then going home.”

“Home.”

“Back to Australia.”

“You wouldn’t hold me back from leaving here, even if you’re pregnant,” he said quietly, then watched temper spark in those gorgeous whiskey eyes of hers, the ones that had been so soft and heated only a few minutes ago.

“Of course not!” she snapped. Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned her head away.

Putting his hands on her arms, he tried to pull her back around, not an easy task because she was strong and pissed and didn’t want to look at him. “Mel. Look at me. Please?”

She did so with clear reluctance.

“If I got you pregnant, I’m sure as hell not going to walk away.”

“There were two of us forgetting a condom, and I take responsibility for my own mistakes, thank you very much.”

“I am just saying that I’m not going to desert you.”

“If I’m pregnant.”

They stared at each other for a long…well, pregnant beat. Then Mel walked into the airport. Bo followed, kicking his own ass all the way to his plane. They flew for a full hour in silence, during which time he thought far too much.

Could he really walk away? Go back to Australia as if nothing had happened? As if he hadn’t begun to think of North Beach as his home, too? As if the place hadn’t captured a good part of his heart, and Mel the rest of it?

“Here.” Mel reached over and flipped open the ice chest they’d stocked way back in North Beach before they’d come. She pulled out a soda. “You look like you need a hit of sugar.”

“I’m okay.” But he took the can, noticing that she even opened it for him. He must look like death warmed over for her to be babying him like this.

Customary cool long gone, he downed the soda, the icy drink wetting his parched throat but not making him feel any better.

He didn’t know if he could feel better. Could he go back to Australia?

And if he couldn’t, how would Mel take that, when she couldn’t wait for him to get the hell out of her life, he wondered.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

“You’re hovering, Mel.”

She pulled back as if slapped. “Excuse me.”

He swore to himself. “I’m sorry. I just need some quiet.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Yeah, he was an ass. An ass with the words you’ve fallen and you can’t get up running through his mind over and over.

He went back to sweating.

“Why did you tell that woman at the bar you’d try to get her money back? What about your money? Wouldn’t you take whatever you found for yourself?” Mel asked him.

“I have the airport.”

She stared at him until he squirmed. “What?” he finally demanded.

She shook her head. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said such a thing, admitted that maybe North Beach has equal value to what you’ve lost.”

He cut his eyes to hers, then looked straight ahead to the horizon, the two of them silent again.

“Why did she go back there to try to buy their silence?”

This from Mel some time later. Clearly she’d thought of little else.

Bo shrugged. “She knows you’re looking for her.”

“But she doesn’t know why.”

“You don’t know that.”

She shook her head. “I just keep thinking that there has to be a good reason for what she did, both to Eddie and those people we just met. She wasn’t a bad person, Bo.”

He grimaced, and she read his thoughts. “Look, I know people can be bad, damn it. I’m not naive. But Sally…God.” She blew out a breath. “She was everything to us. I just can’t…” She shook her head. “I just can’t put it all together and make sense of it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If I could have done this any other way-”

That actually tore a laugh out of her. “Oh, no. You prided yourself on being honest, so don’t start lying now just to save my feelings.”

“I mean it. Look, I know I was hell-bent on coming here and wrapping my fingers around Sally’s neck-”

“And then mine.”

“Well, yes,” he agreed with a small smile. “But for different reasons entirely.”

She played with the condensation on her can of soda. “I keep wondering…”

“What?”

She looked at him, her whiskey eyes guarded. “What is it that you want from me?”

“Honesty.”

“You’ve got that now.”

“Affection,” he said before his self-editor could stop the revealing words from escaping.

She paused. Looked out the window. “You have that, too,” she said to the glass.

Then your heart, he wanted to add, but she’d probably put on a parachute and jump. So he let out an easy smile. “Then I have it all, don’t I?”

She stared down at the landscape below, pensive, silent for a long time. “Those things?” she murmured softly just before they landed. “Honesty and affection?” She was speaking to the glass. “I want them, too.”

He waited until she looked at him, and smiled with what he hoped was his heart and soul. “They’re there for the taking, Mel.”

And, apparently, much more than that as well. Certainly more than he’d ever bargained for. And given the look on her face, she felt the same.

They got back just before closing time. Outside a new storm brewed and flights for the morning were already questionable, while inside North Beach something else brewed…

Ernest left after Mel and Bo’s arrival, without so much as a grumpy word, dirty look, or spider in a jar. Char and Al were in a “discussion,” which meant Al had done something stupid and Char had told him so in no uncertain terms, and they weren’t speaking to each other. Danny was also unusually quiet. Well, if one could call the air compressor and gadgets he used for plane maintenance quiet, not to mention the head-banging music he played so loud the entire hangar shook with each thumping beat.

Dimi had incense going everywhere, but if it was supposed to have a calming effect, it’d failed. Bracelets jangling on her wrists, stress in her gaze, she followed Mel into her office. “Tell me how it went. Oh, God, I can see by your face. It’s bad, right?”

“Define bad,” Mel said, sinking to her chair.

“Aw, hell.”

“We found an ex of Sally’s. And Sally had been with him under a different name, Rosario Lopez.”

“What?”

“Yeah, hold on to yourself, it gets worse. While she was married to him, she had her name put on the deeds of his properties, then divorced him and sold those properties out from beneath him. Then vanished.”

Dimi covered her mouth, shook her head, and also sank to a chair.

“And what’s bothering me is, I’m getting this sinking feeling that there are more men out there who’ve been equally screwed. I’m going to call Matt and ask him to find out what other aliases she’s used.”

“Ohmigod.”

Mel leaned forward and squeezed her fingers. “You know what comes next, right?”

“We bury our heads in the sand and pretend none of this ever happened?”

Mel shook her head.

“We put on red glittery shoes and click the heels three times and chant, ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home’?”

“I’m sorry,” Mel whispered. “Please don’t freak out.”

“I don’t freak out.” Dimi opened Mel’s bottom drawer and pulled out three candles that Mel had never used.

“Dimi.”

She was going through another drawer, probably looking for yet more incense. Mel put her hand over hers. “Hey, let’s get out of here, okay? Get some dinner-”

“You mean let’s babysit Dimi so she doesn’t go somewhere and get drunk, right?”

Well, hell. Yes. But Mel couldn’t say that, not when Dimi’s hand beneath hers was shaking, not when her bestest, oldest friend on the planet, her only family, was biting back tears and looked an inch from a meltdown.

“I haven’t had a drink in six days,” Dimi said in a low voice, then looked Mel in the eyes. “Did you know that?”

Mel shook her head, ashamed of herself for not noticing. “No,” she said quietly. “I didn’t.”

“I wanted you to notice. I mean, I realize for normal people six days is no big deal but-”

“I should have noticed. I’m so sorry.”

“No.” Dimi closed her eyes and sighed. “None of this is your doing.”

“Nor yours.”

“Yeah, but it’s all in a person’s reactions, I’ve noticed.” She opened her eyes. “I’ve come to some realizations lately, one of which is that I’m my own person, with my own life. I can’t take the path of others, you know?”

Mel nodded. “I know.”

“Yeah, you’ve always been good at taking your own road. I’m not going to fall apart, Mel.”

“I know you’re not.” Mel reached in and hugged her tight. “We’re going to be okay.”

Dimi held on and let out a shuddery breath. “It’s funny, but I never really believed that before, that we were going to be okay. I think that was the problem. Even when everything was status quo, before we knew about the deed, before Bo even showed up, I never really believed we were okay. I worried, I stressed. I never slept at night.”

“You never said,” Mel marveled. “You just lit your candles and found your calm.”

“Yeah, shocking how much alcohol can help with pretenses. At least on the outside.” Dimi sighed. “The weird thing is, now everything’s as messed up as it can possibly be, and yet I feel okay for the first time in forever. How is that even possible?”

“Because you’re amazing. We’re both amazing.”

Dimi laughed and hugged her again, hard, no longer shaking. “I always thought it was because of Sally.”

Mel pulled back. “Maybe it started out that way, but we deserve credit, too. It’s about time, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” Dimi looked down at her perfectly manicured fingers. “I wanted to talk to you about your lease.”

“Yeah, me, too. I want Bo to add you-”

Dimi was shaking her head. “I don’t want to be added.”

“I’ll put you on Anderson Air’s payroll instead of North Beach’s, and that way-”

“Mel.”

“-Because then he wouldn’t be responsible for-”

“Mel.”

She stopped talking and now Mel felt a little shaky because she knew. Damn it, she knew.

“I’m thinking of doing something new,” Dimi said softly.

Oh, God. “Dimi.”

“I’m applying to UCSB.”

The university at Santa Barbara. “College?”

Dimi smiled. “Maybe eventually I’ll become that nurse I always dreamed of, working in-flight care.”

Mel gaped. “But…You hate flying.”

“No, I don’t hate it. It scares me. But if you can overcome your fears, then so can I.”

“I haven’t overcome any fears-”

“You’re letting a man in.”

“Bite your tongue! And since when was that a fear of mine?”

“Since your mother left you. Since your father left you. Since Sally left us. Now you have a leaving thing, which means you walk before anyone else gets the idea to do the same. Just ask any guy you’ve ever dated and then dumped.”

It made Mel’s chest ache to think about it. It actually hurt so much she had to lift a hand to rub at the spot, but it couldn’t be assuaged. “I’m not afraid of letting people in. I let everyone here in; Char, Al, the guys…I let you in, didn’t I?” She forced a smile that faded at Dimi’s next words.

“You let us in because we need you; each of us in our own way. Mother-hen-to-chick type of relationships. Face it, honey, you don’t know how to be the little chick. You don’t know how to lean on someone, or need them.”

“This conversation is about Sally,” Mel said, shaken. “About her illegal tendencies. About how she didn’t just screw us, she apparently screwed a whole line of people. How the hell did we end up talking about me and all my faults?”

“Because your faults are so cute.”

Mel snorted.

Dimi opened her mouth to say more but she was staring at something over Mel’s shoulder, lost in thought; eyes a little dreamy, mouth soft.

Mel craned her neck to see what-or who. Danny had come into the lobby, looking lean and lanky and tough.

Dimi stared at him, gone, just completely gone, including mouth sagging open and drool pooling.

Mel craned her neck to get a better view of Danny to see what she was missing. He had his blond hair pulled back from his face with a plastic tie wrap, his baseball cap on backward, knees ripped out of his coveralls, looking like…well, Danny.

And Dimi was now drooling, practically soaking him up as he headed toward the café. He smiled at Char, who handed him a soda, then leaned his head back and drank.

And from thirty-five feet away, Dimi sighed, audible only to Mel.

When Danny put the drink down, he glanced over. From across the long expanse of the lobby he caught Dimi’s gaze, then held it for a long beat before walking back outside, his long, rangy body moving with his usual laid-back ease.

Dimi let out a breath. “Yeah. Still mad at me.”

“What? Why’s he mad at you?”

“Forget it. He’s just a man. A jerky man.”

“A jerk?”

“He’s got a penis, doesn’t he?”

“Dimi. The two of you are close friends.”

“Were,” she said toughly, then sagged. “Oh, who the hell am I kidding? It’s me. I screwed up, bad. And now I feel funny around him, like I can’t breathe normally. I even sweat. It’s awful.”

Mel sat back, let out a low laugh. She recognized those symptoms! “You’re falling for him.”

“No. I’m just getting a bug or something.” She picked up her purse. “I’m out of here.”

“Dimi-”

“I’m going to be fine, Mel. We both are.”

“What about Sally?” Mel asked quietly.

“Oh, no doubt, that one hurts like a son-of-a-bitch, we both know it.”

“She was everything to you. And I’ve just dropped a bomb in your lap.” Mel wanted to hold on to her and keep her safe. And busy. Very busy. “I think we should go-”

“I told you, I’m fine.” Dimi kissed her cheek, then walked out as well, leaving Mel staring at the door, wanting to believe it.

Needing to believe it.