Jill Shalvis - Aussie Rules

“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’.”