Aussie Rules (15 page)

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.

A ghost of a smile curved his lips as she appeared at his side. “Hey.”

“I have a question.”

“About…?”

He expected her to ask about Sally, about Eddie. About the future. Anything other than what she did ask.

“About your mother,” she said softly.

He felt himself tense. “What about her?”

“You're…not close.”

He choked out a laugh and turned back to the computer screen, speaking the understatement of the century. “No. Not close.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. Kicked at the floor. Shoved her hands farther into her pockets.

And didn't go away.

Finally, he sighed and leaned back. “What?”

“I'm not close to my mother, either.”

“Maybe that's why we're both so screwed up.”

“She left you.”

It wasn't worded as a question, but it was definitely a fishing expedition. “No. Eddie took me.”

“Why?”

He didn't answer. Didn't want to. But she was staring at him, he could feel it. He played on the computer for a moment, but then she put her hands on his chair and turned him to face her, so he saw the exact second she got it. “She hurt you,” she breathed. “But not by leaving. She physically hurt you. Oh, Bo.”

At the tone, at the fucking pity, he surged out of the chair, and stalked to the window.

“Bo—”

“Don't,” he said, staring hard at a Douglas in maintenance.
God, don't
. “It was a long time ago.” Then, because he was an idiot, he looked at her.

Her heart sat in her eyes, a big welling of sorrow and empathy, making him sorry he'd said a word. “Why didn't Eddie take you sooner—”

“They separated before I was even born.” He lifted his shoulder again. “She moved around, making it difficult for him to find us unless she needed money. Finally, she showed her hand, and by that I mean put bruises on me where they could be seen, and he got me. End of story.”

“And you were eight?”

“Yeah.”

“Bo.”

She seemed shaken and again he turned away.

“Look, I'm really busy here—”

As if to prove it, Char radioed that he had a call. It was a customer and, his back to Mel, he stretched the phone conversation out, until finally, he heard her boots move away.

Leaving him alone, extremely alone.

Just as he'd wanted.

He waited to make sure everyone had left before going to the storage hangar. As he had before, he helped himself to the boxes there, all old records. The next time he looked up, it was dark outside. There was only one more row of boxes to check, and he shifted those aside so tomorrow night he could remember where he left off, and then stared down at a door in the floor he'd just revealed.

A basement storage area. The trap door was locked. It took him five long moments to run to maintenance and find a crowbar, then five more to pry open the door.

Inside it was pitch black.

Yet another five minutes was lost finding a flashlight, but then he was back. He climbed down the ladder and shined his light over…more boxes.

Shit. He reached for the first one, dated the year he'd first come here, and memories rose up and gripped him by the throat.

His father telling him how much he was going to love the States. How he'd fallen for Sally, and that Bo would, too. How they were all going to be so happy. Together.

Bo had believed it, too. He hadn't suspected a damn thing. Sally had gotten past his eighteen-year-old radar, and that still burned.

God, he missed Eddie, so damned much. With a sigh, he opened the box—and hit jackpot: old accounting journals undoubtedly dating from the days when records had been kept by hand. Pages of bank statements, receipts, bills…and an unmarked general ledger, which Bo would be willing to bet his last dollar didn't belong with the “official” books of North Beach, because those books were upstairs. He'd seen them.

Two sets of books had been kept.

And possibly still were. Not uncommon, certainly, but what intrigued him most was the list of large deposits.

Deposits unaccounted for, no explanation, not matched to any customer, adding up to close to a million dollars.

A million dollars
. Staggering, really. Where had the money come from? Where had it gone? And the biggie—
did Mel know
?

Given that the dates of the deposits ran from before Sally had met Bo's father until right up until the time of Eddie's death, the money could have come from anywhere, but Bo would bet his suddenly highly coveted deed to North Beach that Sally had conned it from someone else's pocket.

Some of it
Eddie's
.

What would Mel say? Would she look at the records, and
still
stand up for Sally? Or would she begin to see that maybe things weren't always as they seemed?

That people weren't always who they seemed?

He gathered some of his find and stepped outside the hangar, onto the tarmac. He eyed Mel's Cessna, the Cessna she worked so hard to buy on her own, and wondered why he cared what she thought. Wondered, even as he was afraid he knew the answer.

But he hadn't come here to the States for
her.
He'd come to claim back what was rightfully his father's.
His
now. And as Mel's plans were in the way of that, he'd be smart to steer clear of her.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, he wasn't always smart…

 

Mel had a simple plan for the evening—relaxation. After a two-mile run on the beach, she called for Chinese to be delivered in an hour, then stripped, stepped into her bathtub, and let out a long sigh. Ah, the power of hot, hot water and bubble bath. She shampooed her hair, added a desperately needed ten-minute deep conditioner, then stuffed her hair beneath a shower cap. She lathered up a leg to shave, and the doorbell rang.

Naturally.

The Chinese food was early. Grumbling, she got out of the tub with one leg still lathered, wrapped her torso in a towel and went to the door. “Thanks,” she said as she pulled the door open a crack, then froze.

Not Chinese.

Bo stood there in loose black jeans and a snug black T-shirt, looking darker than sin and just as tempting, a fat file tucked beneath one arm, a look on his face that…Well, she couldn't miss the temper, but she could have resisted it. But she couldn't miss or resist the sadness.

She reminded herself that she didn't care. She even tried to shut the door on him but as she already knew, he had the reflexes of a cat, and he simply reached out and slapped a hand on the wood. With heart-stopping trouble in his gaze, he looked her over. “Is it Halloween?”

“What?”

He touched the cap on her head and she remembered. Naked except for her towel and the lovely plastic shower cap on her head.

“Sexy,” he said.

She shifted her gaze to the ceiling.
Dear God, are you listening? I know it's been awhile, but if you could open up a huge hole and swallow me up, I'd appreciate it
.

But no big hole gobbled her up. “I'm conditioning my hair.”

“Ah,” he said with a little smile.

Shaving gel plopped from her unshaved leg to the ground.

Bo raised a brow.

“And I'm shaving,” she said through her teeth. “Actually, I'm bathing, so if you'll—”

He continued to hold the door open, looking her over slowly, making her squirm. Why was it that this man always managed to see her at her most absolute worst?

“You should see your face,” he said, amused.

Yep, this was how she looked while planning murder.
His
.

“Let me in, darlin'.”

“I don't think so.”

“What if I said I have something you're going to want to see?”

“There is nothing of yours I want to see.”

That had his grin spreading, the rat fink bastard. “You are such a liar.”

Unfortunately true. She wanted to tell him to go to hell, but his smile had faded, and there was something about his expression now, an utter solemnity, a knowledge…

And misery.

And though he was extremely careful to try to hide it, he was also mad.

Oh, God. What now? Could there be more? And what would he say to all she hadn't told him, that though she couldn't hand him Sally's location, or even her phone number, she—or maybe it had been him, or some combination of both—had stirred things up enough that someone was now sending her threatening e-mails and letters…