He looked really busy. She and Dimi waited until he’d made his selection, shoved the candy bar into his pocket next to his spider book, and left.
“I hate the secrets,” Dimi whispered.
Yeah, and Mel just loved them. Not. She looked at the time. “I gotta go meet that flight. Then I have a flight myself, to LA.”
“You’re changing your clothes first, right?”
“Yes,” Mel said with irritation. “Of course.”
“You say that like you don’t regularly forget to change from mechanic to pilot. Daily.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back by two.”
Dimi nodded, looked wistfully out the window. “You’re so lucky.”
“Lucky?” Mel laughed in disbelief. “How exactly?”
“You get to get out of here.”
“But you hate to fly,” Mel reminded her. “You throw up every time.”
“I know, I didn’t mean…” Dimi searched for words. “Look, don’t you ever…just want to get in the plane and, I don’t know, fly off into the sunset?”
Mel just stared at her incredulously. “Never to return?”
“Well…yeah.”
North Beach was Mel’s home, her life, and no, she’d never ever thought about going away and never coming back, and she’d always figured Dimi felt just the same. “Okay, what’s wrong?”
Dimi lifted a stack of mail. “Just the usual. Here’s your in-coming pile. Bills and more bills, if you’re wondering, though what’s the point of opening them, we still can’t pay last month’s.”
“Officially no one can even bug us until…” She glanced at the desk calendar. July ninth. “Tomorrow, the tenth.” Oh, God.
“Also we need fuel for the pump, and they won’t deliver it without their bill being paid.” Dimi leaned over and lit the three candles lining the front of her reception desk. The crystals on her wrists jangled, as did the ones dangling from her ears. The scent of vanilla began to fill the air, joining the incense she’d already lit on the credenza behind her.
“You’re going to make people hungry,” Mel said. “And the oven’s down.”
“I’m going to make people feel warm and cozy and at home,” Dimi corrected, and smoothed her skirt. “Helps our karma.”
Mel wanted to say that she didn’t believe in karma or fate, that they each made their own, but the sound of a plane coming in ended the conversation. “They’re early.” She understood early, she herself was always compulsively early, but it meant she had to run through the lobby, grabbing an extra orange vest off a hook as she went, slipping into the lineman’s gear as she moved quickly across the tarmac to greet the plane.
The Gulfstream was a beauty, and her pilot’s heart gave one vivacious kick of envy as the plane swept in for a honey of a landing, perfectly controlled by a pilot who was clearly a master of his craft.
When the engine shut off, Mel moved in, squinting against the early chill and wind, using the tie-down blocks to hold the plane steady, her mind wandering as she worked. The oven had gone out twice this month. She needed to look into the cost of a new one. The linemen clearly needed another ass chewing regarding responsibilities, specifically theirs. And then there was the little matter of fuel. She’d have to find a way to pay that bill pronto.
God, her brain hurt.
Finished with the tie-down, she straightened, patted the sleek side of the airplane just for the pleasure of touching it, and blew a stray strand of hair out of her face, wishing she had put on an extra layer of insulation beneath her coveralls because despite its being summer, the early-morning wind off the Pacific cut right through her.
From the other side of the aircraft, the door opened. A set of stairs released. A moment later, two long legs emerged, clad in dark blue trousers, clean work boots, and topped by a most excellent ass. Not averse to enjoying a good view, Mel stayed in place, watching as the rest of the man was revealed. White button-down shirt, sleeves shoved up above his elbows, tawny hair past his collar, blowing in the wind.
Yep, there were a few perks to this job, one of them catering right to Mel’s soft spot.
Pilots. This one looked more like a movie star pretending to be a pilot, but you wouldn’t hear her complaining. And just like that, from the inside out, she began to warm up nicely.
The man held a clipboard, which he was looking at as he turned, ducking beneath the nose of the plane to come toe to toe with her, a lock of tawny hair falling carelessly over his forehead, his eyes shaded behind aviator sunglasses.
And right then and there, every single lust-filled thought drained out of Mel’s head to make room for one hollow, horror-filled one.
No.
It couldn’t be. After all this time, he wouldn’t dare show his face.
His only concession to the surprise was a raised brow as he lifted his sunglasses, his sea-green gaze taking its sweet time, touching over her own battered work boots, the dirty coveralls, the fiery, uncontrollable red hair she’d piled on top of her head without thought to her appearance. “Look at you,” he murmured. “All grown up. G’day, Mel.”
Yeah, he’d grown up, too. He was bigger, broader, and taller than the last time she’d seen him, but she couldn’t mistake the smile—of pure, devilish, wicked trouble.
Australian accent, check.
Heart-stopping green eyes and long lashes to match the long, thick tumble of light brown hair falling in said eyes, check and check.
Curved mouth that could invoke huge waves of passion or fury…CHECK. “Bo Black,” she whispered, getting cold all over again.
Cocking his head, he let out a slow smile. “In the flesh, darlin’. Miss me?”
Miss him? Yeah, she’d missed him. Like one might miss a close call with a hand grenade. “Get off my property.”
As if he had all the time in the damn world, he leaned back against his plane, slapping the clipboard lightly against his thigh. “No can do, mate.”
“Oh, yes you can.” Staggering at a strong gust of wind, she planted her feet more firmly as she pointed to his plane. “You just get your Aussie ass back inside that heap of junk and fly it the hell out of here.”
“Heap of junk?” Instead of being insulted, he laughed good over that, the sound scraping at her belly because it’d been a long time since she’d heard it.
Of course, she hadn’t seen him in ten years, and the last time she had, he’d been eighteen to her sixteen, all long and lanky, not yet grown into his body.
He was grown into it now, damn him, and how. Reaching back, he lovingly stroked the steel of the plane, making the entirely inappropriate thought take root in her brain: did he stroke
