“He wants to see you,” Dimi said. “I told him you were on a flight.”
“And he believed you?”
“Yeah, until he saw the Cessna on the tarmac. He’s currently in your office. God, he’s such a first-class prick.”
Mel took another large bite of chocolate but it didn’t give her as much joy this time. Just like a man to ruin even that small pleasure. “I’ll have the money.” She was just waiting for yesterday’s deposit to clear. “But he can damn well wait the two days.”
“Then I’d stay here and hide if I was you. Just to avoid having to see him twice. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.”
Dimi got up, brushed off her still-spotless butt. “Just doing my job. For once.”
“Dimi?” She hesitated. “Regarding Bill. Don’t go solving this one yourself, okay? I can handle him.”
“You handle everything.”
“It’s the analness in me.” Mel knew that despite Dimi’s come-what-may attitude, she’d fight to the death for this place, and the people in it, and would do anything to keep the status quo.
Anything.
Mel intended to make sure she didn’t have to. “It’s going to be all right.”
Dimi’s eyes went shiny, but she nodded. “I know.” Then she was gone.
Mel dropped her forehead to her plane, closing her eyes for a moment to draw a deep breath. She’d just made yet another promise that she intended to keep with her whole heart, but a small part of her wasn’t sure she could.
With no time for a pity party, not right now, she dove back into the Hawker, even though, truth be told, she was a little out of her league at the moment. She couldn’t get the strap free to save her life. She could call Danny, but she wanted to do this on her own. In any case, she climbed back into the engine compartment, having to really lean her body inside to reach-“Ouch.” She eyed her knuckle as blood welled to the surface of her new scrape. Oh, yeah, that was going to burn in a minute-
She heard a footstep and went still. Damn it. Ducking down behind the plane, she froze on the ladder, hopefully just out of sight.
The footsteps came close, heading directly for her, which couldn’t be, no one had seen her. She held her breath and wiped her bloody knuckle on the thigh of her coveralls, then grimaced at the burn.
The footsteps stopped.
Utter silence reigned, the kind that was too quiet. Awkward.
Unable to stand the suspense, she lifted her head.
And locked gazes with a set of sea green, amused eyes. “Problem?” Bo asked.
Argh! “You. You’re my problem!” She stopped trying to make herself invisible, though there was something to be said for invisible. She knew what she looked like-hair wild, grease and blood smeared across her coveralls, no makeup-and she wished he’d stop looking at her. Wished she didn’t care that he was looking at her. “I’m pretty busy,” she said, in open invitation for him to leave.
“Working?”
That was better than admitting to hiding. “Yep. Lots of work, so-”
“Cuz it looked like maybe you were hiding.”
“Why would I do that?”
“No reason-”
“Good. Because I’m not.”
“…Except the man in the office wanting his payment for the plane he sold you.”
Damn it. “Fine. I’m hiding, all right? But I’m not late on that payment, he’s just an-”
“Asshole.”
She stared at him. “What?”
Bo shrugged. “I don’t like it when blokes with too much money harass people doing the best they can.”
“You-you think I’m doing the best I can?”
“Let’s just say I know you’re trying, although you need to get on North Beach’s receivables. You have too much outstanding.”
“And you know that why?”
“Because I’m holding the deed.”
“How do you know what’s going on in the books, Bo?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Dimi spent some time in the stock closet with the parts delivery guy the other day, and I sat at her desk and answered phones. And maybe perused a bit.”
“You are a shifty bastard.”
“Yeah, I probably resemble that remark. Anyway, it’s not looking good. Not bad, but not good.”
Mel didn’t need him to say so, she’d felt the noose tightening around her neck all on her own, and it was getting tighter every single day. “Some months we do just fine,” she said, chin up. It was the other months, the slow ones, that killed them.
Her.
But even those months they survived. They loved it here, she loved it here, and that love had kept Sally’s memory alive. Sally, who’d begun North Beach with nothing more than her own wits and a big grin-who’d kept it going on those wits.
And now, Bo wanted her to believe that for ten years, it’d all been an illusion.
As if reading her thoughts, he sighed, seeming to wrestle with himself over something. Probably the urge to strangle her. Putting his hands on her arms, he hauled her down off the ladder in one swift, economical movement, setting her on the floor right in front of him as if she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes.
The touch felt predatory, and just aggressive enough to have her pushing him away from her, but once again her hands hit the solid wall of his chest. She didn’t, couldn’t, budge him. “I really hate that,” she said.
“What, that there’s someone stronger than you? You can’t always be the queen bee, Mel.”
“You want to be the queen?”
He smirked, then lifted her bloody knuckle. “You need to clean this.”
“Yeah, I know-” Her breath clogged her throat when he pressed his mouth to her fingers. Her pulse leapt into high gear, pounding like a steady drumbeat at each pulse point, making her head swim, her body feel like her clothes were too tight, like she needed to strip down to skin and have him do the same.
All because of his lips on her fingers. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing it all better.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Did it work?”
If he only knew.
Chapter 10
Mel yanked her hand free, sending a glare in Bo’s general direction without looking right into his eyes. Looking into his eyes was bad, very bad, as she tended to see things there that couldn’t really be there, things like desire, heat…affection.
An illusion, of course. He was here to get back what he thought Sally had stolen.
“Touchy,” he said as she pulled away.
“Just keep your grimy paws off me.”
He arched a brow at that, clearly noting that only one of them was grimy, and it was certainly not him. Watching her, he leaned against the hull of the plane, crossing his arms over his chest as he got comfortable. “Bill’s gone, by the way. You can relax.”
Yeah. Except she couldn’t, not with him this close. “How do you know he’s gone?”
“Because I told him to come back when the payment was due.”
Well, if that didn’t throw her off balance. But hell, she’d been off balance for five days now, ever since Bo had landed here and flashed that deed.
A deed that had her world upside down.
God, it all made no sense, no sense at all, and her brain hurt sorting through it all.
“Are you trying to come up with a thank you?” he asked, looking amused again.
“Thank you,” she said, just a little bit grudgingly.
He ran a finger over her chin. “You know, I think you just might be the most stubborn woman on the planet.”
“Don’t touch me,” she said, and slapped his hand away. “I can’t seem to think when you do.”
His gaze ran over her features. “Giving information to the enemy, Mel?”
“You’re holding a deed that puts the most important thing in my life at risk. Like it or not, you’re not my enemy, you’re in my camp.”
He said nothing to that for a long beat, but relaxed, letting out a slow smile that made her knees wobble.