Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

Ritchie and Kellan hadn’t been around long enough to know Sally, but she’d been spoken about in such detail they thought of her as a legend. Eddie was definitely the bad guy in their eyes, and their mouths fell open as they stared at Bo.

“Why are you here?” Al asked him.

“I’m getting to that.” Mel looked at each of them, the people she’d come to care about and love, as if they were her own blood. “He’s here because Sally deeded Eddie the airport before he died. Bo is holding that deed.”

Everyone let out a collective gasp.

“If that’s true,” Al said, “what took ya so long to come here and claim your spoils?”

“The deed has been in my father’s things all this time,” Bo answered. “But because I was in the military, I just recently found it.”

“You’re Eddie’s beneficiary, then?” Ernest asked.

“Yes.”

“What about your mother?”

Bo’s mouth was grim, his eyes shadowed as they had been that one other time Mel had heard him discussing his mother.

“She’s out of the picture,” Bo said.

Silence followed this as everyone digested the meaning of what they’d been told. Mel watched Bo, aware of something in his voice, a carefully banked emotion. He didn’t give anything away, though, nor did he say what a disappointment all this had been, or what he’d expected to find: the Blacks’s life savings, not to mention an extremely valuable-both monetarily and emotionally-1944 Beechcraft.

Dimi was watching him, too, and Mel knew she was shocked that he hadn’t revealed Sally as a possible thief and con.

“How do you know the deed’s legit?” Ernest asked.

“I checked,” Mel said.

“So you’re, like, our boss now?” Ritchie asked.

“Look, I don’t know exactly what will happen,” Bo told them. “But for now, yes, I hold the deed, and everyone’s job stays the same. No one’s getting sacked.”

“For now,” Dimi said faintly, and covered her mouth.

Danny wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Is Mel still manager?”

Bo looked at Mel. “If she wants to be.”

Mel looked at him right back. No, she couldn’t just pretend everything was the same. “For now,” she said, eyes locked on his, “that might be more of a coposition.”

Everyone fell quiet again, a very strained quiet that spoke volumes of everyone’s worry about Mel’s job.

“Hey, costatus is good enough for me,” she told them, trying to lighten the mood. “I can fly more.”

Bo’s eyes widened slightly, clearly surprised at her unexpected support.

“Maybe we could all get raises,” Ernest said slyly.

Bo smiled just as slyly. “Help me increase business, and you got it.”

“Increased business sounds good,” Al said, obviously trying to help smooth the transition. He squeezed Char’s shoulders. “Hon?”

“I’m up for that, too.” She lifted the tray of cookies. “Why are there still cookies?”

Everyone dove in and began talking, but the tension remained, and Mel’s cookie stuck in her throat.

After the meeting, everyone went their separate ways. Dimi tucked away her latest novel, removing it from beneath her keyboard to her bottom desk drawer. Then she turned off the computer. They’d had more customers today than in a long time, and it had been a good receivables day.

Thanks to Bo.

She gritted her teeth as she headed into the airport bathroom, but fact was fact: Bo might now be ruler of her world, and he was also good for business.

Not that it mattered, her safe, cozy, happy little world was done for.

How long would he keep her?

Her stomach dropped as she stared at herself in the mirror. God. She needed a drink, she was shaking for a damn drink.

Ernest stepped out of one of the bathroom stalls, scaring her into a gasp. “All yours,” he said, pulling along his cleaning cart.

Dimi glanced in the stall. “You left the seat up.”

Ernest craned his scrawny neck and looked back over his shoulder. “So?”

“You’re a boy. You’re supposed to put it down when you’re done.”

Ernest switched his chew tobacco from one side of his cheek to the other. “Why? I need it up.”

“Yes, but it belongs down.”

“Listen, missy, you don’t hear us guys complaining about you women leaving it down all the time, do ya?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Humph.” With that, he left the bathroom, dragging his cart behind him.

Dimi locked the door behind the impossible man, then stripped and changed for clubbing because she needed out, and needed out now. She put on a glittery, gold stretchy dress that showed off everything and made her feel sexy, and then added five-inch heels because height gave her a feeling of power. She exited the bathroom and strutted across the lobby and back to her desk for her purse. When she straightened, Danny was watching her.

“Oh,” she said, startled. The look in his eyes blistered her skin, and encouraged by that, she practiced the smile she was going to use tonight-mysterious, spicy.

The heat in his gaze vanished in a blink. “Nice,” he said coolly. “But I like your real one better.”

For some reason, that pissed her off. “Maybe this is my real one.”

He’d come in the side door from the maintenance hangar, and shut the door now, coming closer. She watched him take in her snug, shimmery cocktail dress, the way it plunged nearly to her belly button, and wondered if he thought she looked good.

Then wondered why she wondered. He rested a hip against her desk, long legs sprawled out, arms at his sides, one large hand accidentally brushing hers. “That’s not your real smile,” he said.

She hated his presumptuousness, that he was judging her. “It’s just a smile,” she said.

“And will it be just another guy?”

Goddamnit. “What do you want from me?”

“Absolutely nothing.” He’d changed to go home, and wore faded Levi’s, so white in the stress points she imagined one more washing and they’d disintegrate. The knees were nonexistent, and he had another hole over a thigh. She could see tough muscle and tanned skin peeking through, and it was a shocking reminder that he wasn’t just a mechanic.

But a man.

Not her type, though, not at all. And not because of what he did for a living, but because he didn’t play the games that she did. No, he was…real.

And she didn’t know how to be.

Plus, and this was the kicker, although she sensed glimpses of hunger for her, and though she knew he cared about her, he’d never come on to her, not once.

When it came right down to it, he didn’t want her.

“Look,” he finally said. “Why don’t you hang out here tonight?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“It’s poker night. Char’s cooking Mexican. Al’s got a jar of dimes just waiting to be won.”

She went very still. Was he asking her out? Oh, God. She couldn’t do this, not with him, not with someone she cared so much about, someone she’d have to see every day after she managed to screw it all up. Terror warred with excitement.

“You’d be safer,” he said.

Nope, not asking her out. Just looking out for her. And just like that, she deflated. “I’ll be fine.” And with more attitude than she felt, she walked out the door.

That night Bo sat at Danny’s desk, sifting through aircraft parts on ebay, waiting for everyone to leave so he could resume his nightly snooping through the old records. He’d spent his first few nights here going through the leased hangars. As he’d already discovered, two had been empty. The others had aircraft in them, one was filled with parts, and one was Ernest’s, loaded with boxes and boxes of crap. Not surprising. Footsteps clicked across the floor. Mel’s battered boots.