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  “I’ll do it myself, thanks.” She’d been trying for days.

  “I’m standing right here, and I’ve got better leverage than you.” He cocked his head and gave her that smile, which she was sure had charmed the panties off too many women to count. “You’re afraid to let me help you.”

  “I’m afraid of what you’ll want in return.”

  “Just a tiny little thing, really.”

  She crossed her arms. “I told you, I don’t know where Sally is.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Old news. I figure one of these days you’ll either cave or she’ll show.”

  Her gut tightened. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  He sounded…confident. As if he knew something, which of course, he didn’t.

  Did he? “Why would you hang around?” she pressed. “Why don’t you just go home and I’ll call you—”

  “Ah, but will you?” He smiled, a challenging light in his eyes. “Nah, I think I’m better off sticking around, thanks. Plus there’s the added bonus, of course.”

  More than her gut tightened now. “What’s that?”

  “Bothering you.”

  “You don’t get to me.”

  “Is that right?” He took a step toward her, bringing them entirely too close, so close that she could see those mesmerizing flecks of gold dancing in the green of his eyes. So close that she could smell him, that complicated, glorious scent of a far-too-sexy man. So close she could do nothing but soak him up. “Yeah, I get to you plenty,” he said.

  She waited until she could be sure her voice would be even. “You really think you can get that bolt off?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is it going to cost me?”

  He just looked at her, eyes hot.

  Her belly quivered. Her everything quivered. To hide it, she laughed. “Men.” She whirled back to the plane. “I’ll fix it myself.”

  “Suit yourself.” With another shrug, he went back to holding up the hull with his butt and back, all casual and laid-back as he watched her from eyes at half-mast.

  Sort of the way a sleeping lion might watch its prey.

  Mel decided to put him out of her mind as she dove into her toolbox. She got a bigger wrench and went back for the bolt, wielding the tool as hard as she could—until her fingers slipped, scraping yet another knuckle. “Damn it.”

  “Need me to kiss that one, too?”

  Yes, begged her body. “No!” She wiped the blood off on her coveralls. “It’s just a little nick.”

  He agreed with a low laugh. “Yeah, and you’ve had more than your fair share of knocks.”

  “It’s called shit happens.”

  “Yeah.” His smile faded. “Neither of us have lived a walk in the park, have we?”

  Her eyes met his, saw the understanding there, and sighed. “Ah, hell, Bo. Do we really want to do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know. Talk.”

  He smiled. “Afraid of a little chitchat? No worries. Charlene and Al already told me all about you.”

  “They did not.”

  “Oh, yes they did. I sang along to a Twisted Sister song on the radio and Char melted on the spot. She was worried you broke my heart. I told her I’d recovered.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” She put her head back in the engine compartment. Recovered, her ass. They both know only one of them would get hurt here. Damn, if only she really could get that bolt off by herself…

  “Oh, and I might have mentioned…” He arched a brow. “That I intended to get you back.”

  At this, she dropped the wrench. It landed right on her toe. Hopping up and down, she glared at him. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  She gritted past the throbbing radiating up her leg. “Get me back. Ha! And why aren’t you taken, anyway?”

  He choked out a laugh. “A personal question, Mel?”

  She actually felt herself blush. “Forget it.”

  “No, you’re curious.” He smiled. “It’s cute.”

  “Maybe I just wanted to see how hard up you are.”

  “Pretty damn hard up.”

  Her gaze flew to his, wondering if he meant the words as hot and erotic as he’d said them.

  His eyes were burning up.

  Oh, God.

  “You going to offer to help me get un-hard-up?” he asked.

  “No! And this isn’t funny,” she said when he laughed.

  “Well, actually, it is a little.”

  She wouldn’t look at him as she looked down at her feet, because her toe hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

  Again he pushed away from the plane and came close, too close. “Char thinks I’m still carrying a torch for you.”

  “She has a heart of gold and you took advantage of her to get information.”

  “She does have a heart of gold,” he agreed, not denying the charge. “But I have a feeling you’re the real heart bleeder here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ve seen you; working late, working your ass off and your knuckles to the bone. Literally.” He smiled when she rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen you mother Kellan and Ritchie, and listen to Ernest give you yet another reason why he can’t clean that damn closet you want him to clean. You help Charlene when she gets busy, you get Al photography work with a customer…face it. You love these guys, all of them, and you treat them like family because your own failed you so badly.”

  “Leave my past out of this.” At least he hadn’t figured out that her bleeding-heart syndrome didn’t extend to her social life, and that she hadn’t had sex in—

  “I would, but then Char told me how you don’t date much.” He tipped her chin. “You hard up, too, Mel?”

  She pointed her wrench at him, put it to his chest to make sure he kept his distance. “Not that hard up.”

  “I don’t know, you nearly went off like a rocket when I kissed you—”

  “Hey, there were two of us going off like rockets, thank you very much!”

  He grinned. “Me thinks the lady protest too much.”

  “You are impossible!”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.” As she spun to limp away, he caught her, pulling her back around. “What do you suppose it says about me that your snarling attitude turns me on?” He put his other hand on her arm, holding her. “Stand still, darlin’, I want to look at you.”

  “You are one sick man.”

  “I meant your toe.” Crouching down, he lifted up the pants leg on her coveralls.

  Oh, God, had she shaved in the past week? “I’m fine,” she said, trying to pull away.

  He looked up, his hair falling across his forehead, his eyes now level with her belly. An undeniably erotic position. “Yeah, you are,” he said softly.

  She stepped back, putting some space between them, turning away while he straightened.

  “This place,” he said to her back. “It really means a lot to you.”

  She closed her eyes, struggled to keep her voice even. “You shouldn’t believe everything Charlene says. She’s working with cooking sherry.”

  “Are you denying you care deeply about North Beach, that you put everything of yourself into it?”

  To this, she said nothing. She couldn’t, or she’d give herself away.

  “Odd that you’d do so much for just a job,” he continued, and she could feel him watching her. “Why, when Sally knew this place wasn’t hers.”

  “I don’t know that.” Not yet.

  “Why would I lie?”

  She turned back to him. “After what your father did to Sally…?

  In a blink, all hints of heat and amusement vanished, leaving in their place a cold, tough, impenetrable hostility.

  “I just don’t see how Sally could be the bad guy,” she murmured, willing him to try to understand. “You’re holding the deed. If Sally swindled your father, as you say, then where’s the money? The plane?”

  “Where’s Sally?” he