by Jill Shalvis
Ernest stared down at the keys, his usually placid face a mask of pain. “I thought she was the most beautiful, wonderful, compassionate woman on earth. I thought she was amazing. I thought…”
“You were in love with her,” Mel breathed.
Ernest fumbled with the keys and said nothing.
“You were as fooled as we were, weren’t you?”
“She changed,” he said tightly. “It’s my own shame that I didn’t see that before. Soon as I did…” He met Mel’s gaze helplessly. “I stopped helping her. I was still trying to scare you off, though, but by then it was so that you wouldn’t get hurt.”
“Where is she now?” Bo asked.
Ernest shook his head.
“You don’t know, or you won’t tell?”
“I’ve been covering for her all these years without knowing it,” Ernest said quietly, looking at Bo. “I’ve been fooled, the same way your father was, the same way the others were. But no more. Here.” He thrust out the key ring, with one key in the forefront. “This is yours. It should have been yours this whole time, and saying sorry doesn’t seem good enough, but I am. It’s been waiting here for you.”
Bo took the key, eyed the number on it. Number thirteen. “Ironic,” he murmured and turned and left the hangar. He knew the others were following him, with Mel immediately on his heels. He could feel her dismay, her anger, and when she set her hand on his back, her support. Damn if that didn’t mean far too much. They moved along the tarmac to the rental hangars, stopping at the second-to-last one.
Ernest’s.
Bo unlocked the side door and came face-to-face with the same stacks and stacks of old boxes he’d seen before. But Ernest reached out and pushed at them, and they fell over. “Empty,” he said.
“Nice cover.” But Bo didn’t feel amused as they flipped on the lights to find…more boxes. He shoved those out of the way as Ernest had. Like the others, they fell easily aside, revealing—
“Holy shit,” Bo breathed at the sight of the Beechcraft.
His father’s first plane.
Mel gasped at the sight of the antique aircraft. It’d clearly been neglected, but was probably still worth close to three quarters of a million dollars as is.
“Right under our noses,” Danny said, and let out a low whisper. “Christ, she’s a beauty.”
Bo didn’t say a word, couldn’t say a word as he walked up to the plane and stroked the steel.
Mel covered her mouth at the stunned, almost overwhelmed look on Bo’s face as he reverently touched the Beechcraft. She still couldn’t quite believe it. All these years, it’d been right here. How was that even possible…?
But it made sense. Perfect sense. Sally had been keeping tabs on them. She knew Bo had never shown up.
God, it was all so amazing, how it’d worked out. Mel thought back to how Bo had been when he’d first arrived: ready to take on all of them to get back his father’s good name, not to mention what had been rightfully his. She knew Bo now, knew him better than she’d ever meant to. Yes, he was cocky and sarcastic and far too good looking for his own good. But he was also fiercely loyal, passionate, and utterly honest, bluntly so at times.
And he’d never lied to her.
He never would.
There was comfort in that, unbelievable comfort. It was a shame that she hadn’t given that comfort back to him. She hated regrets, but now she moved to Bo’s side and stared her biggest one right in the eye. “I didn’t know it was here,” she said softly.
“He loved this damn thing—” His voice was rough with emotion, his hand still on the plane as if he couldn’t bear to stop touching it.
“Bo.” She turned him to face her. “I swear it. I didn’t know.”
His gaze went suspiciously bright when he nodded. “I know.”
Not thinking, simply reacting, she pulled him into her arms.
He resisted for a half a second, then with a roughly muttered “fuck,” fisted his hands on her shirt at her spine and held on tight, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “I miss him, Mel. I still miss him.”
Words failed, so she just nodded and held on tighter.
After a minute, he lifted his head and looked at her from those gorgeous green eyes that always stopped her heart. “A piece of him is here.” He glanced at the plane. “Which means me coming here was the best thing that could have happened out of all this.”
“Because you can sell it?” Ernest asked. “And be rich?”
“Megarich,” Danny added.
Mel knew what the money would do for Bo. It’d give him the nest egg he needed to get the restoration business off the ground. It’d give him a down payment on land in Australia, where he could run an airport like North Beach if he wanted. It’d give him freedom to go anywhere, do anything. And she found herself holding her breath as he eyed them each in turn, finally his gaze landing on her for the longest beat of her life. She managed to smile at him, through a throat so thick she could scarcely breathe.
“Whatever you do,” Danny said, pulling out his cell phone, “we need to call the police.”
Ernest went green. “We do?”
Bo looked at the older man. “Yeah, we do. The paperwork is in Sally’s name, right?”
Ernest nodded.
“I want to get this all straightened out. It’s going to be a mess.”
“I didn’t really do anything illegal, you know,” Ernest said.
Mel narrowed her eyes, but before she could open her mouth, Bo said, “It’s not you I’m after.”
Ernest nodded but still didn’t look happy, knowing he could end up in jail.
It didn’t take the police long to arrive, and they all had a long chat, spilling everything they knew, from the beginning. By the time that was over and Mel got into her car to drive home, she was exhausted.
But not sleep exhausted.
Heart exhausted.
She parked outside her place and sat there for a long time. She looked down at her passenger seat, at the signed lease lying there. She’d never given it to Bo, but now seemed as good a time as any.
So she started her car again, heading to the condo Bo rented. It was dark outside. As she got out of the car, she could hear the waves crashing onshore in rhythm, a soothing sound. Still, her chest felt too tight, her heart squeezed into too small of a space as she knocked on Bo’s door.
He answered wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else. She could tell by his tousled hair and sleepy eyes he’d been lying in bed.
“Um…hi,” she said. “Is it too late?”
“Depends. Too late for what?”
Bo waited for Mel’s answer. His brain was still befuddled from lying on his bed, sleepless, tossing and turning, thinking of the woman now right in front of him, the woman with the biggest heart of any he’d known, with a smile who could melt him at one hundred knots.
It was if he’d conjured her up from his fantasies, except in his fantasies she didn’t have on a pair of jeans and a tank top, she had nothing on but a sexy smile as she dropped to her knees in front of him and—
Instead, she slapped the signed lease against his bare chest. She was trying not to look at him, but her gaze kept dropping to his chest in a way that made him extremely grateful to be a man.
He loved that she lusted after his body. He’d love for it to be more than lust as well, and was banking on talking her into that with some more time.
“I took your deal,” she said. “I know you’re probably halfway out the door, and I just wanted to say good-bye. Alone. Just you and me.”
“Mel—”
“No.” She stepped over the threshold and slid her arms around his neck. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t even want to think. Okay?”
Not thinking worked for him. He’d done so much thinking his brain hurt; about his father, about the past, about what the fuck to do with himself now that he’d come here with destruction on his mind but instead had ended up actually enjoying himself.
He
missed Australia, but if he left here, he’d miss this, too. He loved the ocean, he’d discovered. He loved the lush landscape.
He loved the woman wrapped around him like saran wrap.
She sank her fingers into his hair and pulled his head down to kiss him, dancing her tongue to his, and just like that, he was a goner. Send in a rescue plane, he was going down. “Oh, yeah,” he breathed, and tossed the lease over his shoulder, hauling her up against him, kicking the door closed. “A bed,” he murmured against her mouth. “I want you in my bed, beneath me, panting my name, coming…”
“Yes.”
But halfway there he had to press her back against the wall in his hallway, kissing her mouth, her neck, anything he could reach. She rocked against him with a sexy little whimper, and he could barely stand it, this need to inhale her whole.
“God, Bo—”
“I know.” He stripped off her tank top, then ripped open her jeans, unable to get to skin fast enough to suit him. Her jeans got caught on one leg, her tank on his arm, but she just laughed breathlessly and held on.
Held on as if she never intended to let go.
God, the amazing rush that gave him. For a moment he pressed his forehead to hers, just breathing her in, wanting to stop time right at this moment so he could soak her up. Lap her up. “Mel.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and arched up, her legs around his waist, pressing the wet heat of her where he wanted it the most.
I love you. The words wanted to burst from his throat, and it stunned him, the power of them, so that he could only stare down at her.
Her eyes were half-closed, with that sexy little smile curving her lips as she rocked against him again, that hot bod feeling so damn right against his. “I thought you wanted me in your bed,” she murmured.
Yeah, in his bed. And in his heart and soul, for the rest of his life, but he kept his mouth closed as he gazed down at her because he didn’t want the words to escape, not when she might attribute them to just lust.
Because this was so, so much more.
“Please, Bo,” she whispered.
Yeah. He’d please. He’d please if it took all damn night. Somehow he got them to his bed, then crawled up her body and slid inside her.
“Oh, my God.” Arching up, she closed her eyes.
“No, leave them open, Mel. Look at me.”
Her eyes fluttered open as if at great effort, then locked on his. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed.
She started to shake her head but he just nodded. “You are. So damned beautiful I can’t stop looking at you.”
She stared up at him, her arms locked around his neck. Sent him up a shaky smile that he managed to return, but it backed up in his throat as he began to move, as she gasped and pulled him even closer, struggling to keep her eyes open on his. She moved with him, and with their eyes locked, something extremely deep and real passed between them. I love you, he thought again, his last coherent thought for a good long time…
Mel woke up in Bo’s bed, burrowed beneath the covers, a pillow over her head. Seemed she’d gotten pretty comfortable, sleeping with ease next to his muscular, warm body…
The thought of him brought a smile to her lips and she pushed the pillow away and blankets off. The early-morning sun slanted across her face. Squinting, she turned her head and reached across the bed.
Still warm, but no Bo.
The shower was running, and she lay back and grinned up at the ceiling, wondering how long he’d been in there…if he still had enough hot water left so that they could make it a twosome.
Odd, this wanting-to-stay thing. A first.
And here was another: she loved him.
Goofy with it, she sat up in the bed just as a scream sounded from the bathroom.
A female scream, followed by a gunshot.
Chapter 28
The gunshot was accompanied by a crash and a thud, a second gunshot, and yet another scream.
Mel’s heart stopped as she leapt out of bed and went running for the bathroom in nothing but Bo’s T-shirt. She hauled the door open, then gasped in shock.
Bo stood in the shower, the door open, water raining out on the floor, holding a gun. There was glass everywhere, and above them, the light had been shot out.
On the floor, wet and looking extremely pissed, sat…Sally.
The years hadn’t been particularly kind to her. Oh, she was still carefully gorgeous, with her long hair and wild blue eyes, with tanned, toned skin and a body most men would drool over, but she looked as if she’d been rode hard and put away wet. She looked cold. Rough.
Mean. “Ah, shit!” she said at the sight of Mel. “What are you doing here?”
Dealing with stressful situations was like breathing for Mel, but this was beyond anything she’d ever experienced. She was looking at the woman she’d loved, deeply loved, after years of absence. This person was holding her arm and bleeding profusely all over the floor.
Mel’s gaze whipped toward Bo, who still stood there, naked, water streaming down over his back and shoulders, holding a gun on Sally. “She tried to kill you,” Mel guessed, horrified.
“Luckily, she’s a bad shot.” His eyes were still trained on Sally, gun steady.
“Bullshit, I’m a bad shot,” Sally spit out. “You grabbed my shooting arm.”
“And shot her?” Mel gasped.
Bo’s mouth tightened, but Sally laughed harshly. “I damn well shot myself, thank you for asking. The bastard was going to wrestle me to the floor, the gun went off twice.”
“Oh, my God.” Mel put her hand to her mouth. He could have been killed. Just like that. Before she’d told him—
“Don’t move,” Bo told Sally, who was creeping toward the door. “Don’t fucking move.”
Sirens went off in the distance. “Well, that’s just perfect.” Sally thunked her head back against the tile, pale and exhausted looking. “It’s over. You should have left it all alone, Mel. Why couldn’t you just have left it alone?”
“You gave Eddie the deed. You never even told us,” Mel said slowly, so many things going through her mind she could barely speak. “How did that happen? Why did that happen?”
“It was mine to give.”
“You should have told us.”
Sally laughed again, a cold sound. “It was just a means to an end.”
“The end being?”
“Cash.” Sally opened her eyes, and they were shockingly filled with honesty. Pain.
But no regret. Not even a little bit. “Men are scum of the earth, Mel. You know that by now. You’ve always known it. Look at your father. They all deserve what they get.”
“If that’s true, why did you marry two of them?”
“Eight.”
“Eight?”
“And each of them left me a fortune, stupid bastards. It was a great gig, too. Until you started digging your nose in. That’s when things began to unravel.”
“Yeah, you were in control right up until that point,” Bo said dryly, reaching behind him to turn off the water, gun still on Sally.
“I’m not going anywhere, stud,” Sally told him. “You win. You can lower that bad boy now.”
Bo kept the gun on her.
“Aw, jeez, at least wrap yourself in a towel.” Sally scooted a little closer to the door. “Not that you aren’t impressive or anything…”
He was. Standing there naked, dripping wet, all his muscles seemed to glow. Unfortunately for Bo, he couldn’t move without getting cut on the glass splintered at his feet, but he reached out and grabbed a towel, holding it in front of him.
The sirens grew louder.
“So let me get this straight,” Sally said to Bo, still bleeding profusely, and beginning to shiver in shock. “You sleeping with her to get back at me?”
Bo didn’t answer, just kept the gun on her. Mel’s heart took a little dive.
“Because I can see why you’d want to fuck her,” Sally said conversationally. “It’d be like fucking me
over, right?”
A muscle jumped in Bo’s jaw. “Stop trying to get to the door, damn it. You’re not going anywhere except to a nice, cold cell block.”
But Sally laughed harshly, then lunged for the door anyway, knocking Mel over as she went.
Surprised, Mel fell to the glass-covered floor.
Bo flew out of the shower and tackled Sally. They went rolling into the bedroom, out of Mel’s sight.
The gun went off again.
Mel heard a scream, realized it was her own, and crawled out of the bathroom to see Bo and Sally locked together, rolling…blood everywhere. Again her heart stopped because she couldn’t see who’d been hit. “Oh, God, oh, God!” she cried, terrified Bo was going to die, or maybe he was already dying. There was a planted pot on the nightstand, which she grabbed and ran over to the locked pair. Bo was on top and she raised the pot, thinking move, move, goddamn it, move, until finally, they rolled again.
Now Sally was on top, lifting her head, laughing coldly down into Bo’s. “You bastard—”
Mel cracked her in the back of the head with the pot.
Sally slumped and went still, and Bo crawled out from beneath her. Mel dove for him. “Where are you hit, Jesus, where?” Her hands ran all over him, everywhere she could touch.
“I’m okay, Mel, I’m okay.”
But she couldn’t stop touching him, skimming her fingers over his body, which was, in fact, utterly free of bullet holes.
“Mel, stop.” He gathered her hands in his. “I’m okay. It’s you.” He dragged her into his lap. “You’re the one who’s hurt,” he said hoarsely.
Yeah, she knew that, and the cuts were beginning to make themselves known, little bits of fire along her knees and feet, but she couldn’t stop touching him. “I thought you were shot. I thought—”
“I’m okay, I promise.”
But she still flung her arms around his neck and let herself cling, just for a minute. “You feel okay.”
“I am. Mel, look at me.” Cupping her face up, he looked into her eyes. “I’m fine.”