Mel sang over Char’s laugh, and went out onto the tarmac.
Three men stood next to a Piper Mirage in the early-morning sun: Danny, the customer who owned the Piper, and Bo. Danny wore his coveralls and was consulting a clipboard, his long blond hair still damp from his early surf. Their customer was in a pricey-looking suit. Bo wore cargo shorts, a sweatshirt, and clean work boots, his legs looking long and tanned. All three men, different as night and day, were laughing about something, carefree and easygoing.
Mel hadn’t felt carefree and easygoing in so long; money issues, stress…And she resented that Bo could show up here, turn her world upside down, and laugh. Damn it, he was integrating himself, making himself right at home. In her home.
LeaveItAlone…
Had he? Would he?
No, she reminded herself, even if the man made her teeth gnash together, he wouldn’t. Not his style.
He lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and met her gaze. In his she saw the ready humor and the unasked question. What now, Mel?
She’d like to show him “what now” right now. But it’d sure be easier if he didn’t look like a million bucks standing there, if he wasn’t street smart and sharp as a tack, capable of running her world without problem, maybe even better than she…
Extra grateful for the bag of donuts in her hand, she stalked to her plane and began her own preflight check. She was in a crouch, writing on her clipboard when two work boots appeared in her peripheral, topped by a set of tanned, toned legs. Bracing herself, she straightened.
Bo eyed Char’s goodie bag. “Smells good.”
“The donuts are mine.”
“Maybe I meant you.”
Unbelievably, her nipples hardened. “I smell like oil and gasoline.”
Leaning in, he sniffed exaggeratedly, his nose wriggling just beneath her ear, causing a sort of chain reaction from her nipples to ground zero between her thighs. “Mmmm,” he said. “Two of my favorite scents.”
That they were also her favorite scents would not budge her.
“Want to know another favorite scent?” he murmured.
“No.”
“An aroused woman.”
She crossed her arms and stepped back, making him laugh softly. “Yeah, sexy as hell, that scent.” He smiled, something that threw her off, then hooked his finger into the bag she clutched to her chest, peering in. “Look at that. You have extra.”
“One. You can have one.”
He nabbed a large, old-fashioned chocolate glaze, sinking strong white teeth into it and letting out a rough sound of pure pleasure that might have curled her toes, though she’d have to be under the threat of a slow, tortuous death to admit it.
“Have a safe flight,” he said around a mouthful.
Damn, just when she thought he was a complete loss to the human race, he had to go and say something nice. “I have no idea how to take you,” she said, baffled. “No idea at all.”
He shrugged a broad shoulder. “Then just take me.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop herself. “Do those lines ever really work for you?”
He just grinned, and her toes curled some more. Yeah, they worked for him, and it left Mel shaking her head at the entire female population, including herself.
Mel’s charter to Arizona went smoothly. Once she’d landed in Tucson, she called Dimi. “Everything okay?”
“As okay as it gets.”
There was a lot in Dimi’s voice, and Mel felt gray hairs kicking in. Dimi handled her stress badly. That was fact. She downward spiraled in tough times, and it wasn’t pretty. Mel wanted to prevent Dimi from falling into that pit again, but how?
Get Bo the hell out of there, that was how. “Hang in there,” Mel demanded, and hung up. While waiting for a refuel, standing in the blazing sun, she tried Sally’s cell again, and this time got an extremely unwelcome surprise instead of Sally’s voice mail: the number was no longer in service.
Mel blinked. Stared at her cell phone. Redialed.
Same thing.
She slowly shut the phone, shock crashing over her, wave after wave.
What the hell was happening to her universe?
Late that afternoon, Dimi walked through the lobby of North Beach on autopilot as she closed shop for the day, for once not enjoying the gorgeous view of the lush green hills of the Santa Ynez Mountains or the scalloped coastline, or the fact that the tarmac had three planes on it, which meant paying customers.
She was too wigged out about Bo’s return, about Sally’s vanishing act, about the deed…She could hardly even breathe.
All this worry was bad for her. It made her hair lank, made her stomach hurt. Made her feel like she was playing catch with steak knives.
She blew out her candles, shut down her computer. The café was still hopping but that was Char’s deal, so she went into the employee break room for her things and found the lights still on.
Danny stood there, playing darts by himself. He wore board shorts, a loose tank, and no shoes. He threw his last dart, his lower lip between his teeth as he concentrated, and when the dart hit double thirteen, he turned to her and smiled, teeth flashing white, his eyes looking startlingly blue in his tanned face. “Play me.”
“Can’t.” God, couldn’t he see she felt so on edge, so tense she thought she might shatter at the slightest provocation?
“Come on, I’m on a roll,” he coaxed. “And you look like you could use a little fun.”
Fun. Yeah, she needed fun. Mindless fun, and not the platonic kind she always had with Danny, but the kind of fun she could get only with a man who didn’t know her, who couldn’t look into her eyes and see the pain, or if they did, wouldn’t comment on it.
Danny wasn’t that guy. He knew her too well, knew all her dark secrets. In fact, even now his smile faded, and he looked at her in that way he had of seeing right into her. If she turned away, he’d just pull her back around.
So she lifted her chin, stalked to the board in her pink miniskirt and polka-dotted halter top, and grabbed a set of darts. Tossing him a long, level look, she managed a smile. “What are we playing for?”
For a beat, his eyes darkened. Then he shrugged it off and smiled that easy smile, making her wonder if she was seeing things. “Name it.”
“Such power,” she teased.
“Name it,” he said again, softly now.
She would—except he couldn’t give it to her. She wanted oblivion,
