Aussie Rules Read online

  Ernest left after Mel and Bo’s arrival, without so much as a grumpy word, dirty look, or spider in a jar. Char and Al were in a “discussion,” which meant Al had done something stupid and Char had told him so in no uncertain terms, and they weren’t speaking to each other. Danny was also unusually quiet. Well, if one could call the air compressor and gadgets he used for plane maintenance quiet, not to mention the head-banging music he played so loud the entire hangar shook with each thumping beat.

  Dimi had incense going everywhere, but if it was supposed to have a calming effect, it’d failed. Bracelets jangling on her wrists, stress in her gaze, she followed Mel into her office. “Tell me how it went. Oh, God, I can see by your face. It’s bad, right?”

  “Define bad,” Mel said, sinking to her chair.

  “Aw, hell.”

  “We found an ex of Sally’s. And Sally had been with him under a different name, Rosario Lopez.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, hold on to yourself, it gets worse. While she was married to him, she had her name put on the deeds of his properties, then divorced him and sold those properties out from beneath him. Then vanished.”

  Dimi covered her mouth, shook her head, and also sank to a chair.

  “And what’s bothering me is, I’m getting this sinking feeling that there are more men out there who’ve been equally screwed. I’m going to call Matt and ask him to find out what other aliases she’s used.”

  “Ohmigod.”

  Mel leaned forward and squeezed her fingers. “You know what comes next, right?”

  “We bury our heads in the sand and pretend none of this ever happened?”

  Mel shook her head.

  “We put on red glittery shoes and click the heels three times and chant, ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home’?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mel whispered. “Please don’t freak out.”

  “I don’t freak out.” Dimi opened Mel’s bottom drawer and pulled out three candles that Mel had never used.

  “Dimi.”

  She was going through another drawer, probably looking for yet more incense. Mel put her hand over hers. “Hey, let’s get out of here, okay? Get some dinner—”

  “You mean let’s babysit Dimi so she doesn’t go somewhere and get drunk, right?”

  Well, hell. Yes. But Mel couldn’t say that, not when Dimi’s hand beneath hers was shaking, not when her bestest, oldest friend on the planet, her only family, was biting back tears and looked an inch from a meltdown.

  “I haven’t had a drink in six days,” Dimi said in a low voice, then looked Mel in the eyes. “Did you know that?”

  Mel shook her head, ashamed of herself for not noticing. “No,” she said quietly. “I didn’t.”

  “I wanted you to notice. I mean, I realize for normal people six days is no big deal but—”

  “I should have noticed. I’m so sorry.”

  “No.” Dimi closed her eyes and sighed. “None of this is your doing.”

  “Nor yours.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all in a person’s reactions, I’ve noticed.” She opened her eyes. “I’ve come to some realizations lately, one of which is that I’m my own person, with my own life. I can’t take the path of others, you know?”

  Mel nodded. “I know.”

  “Yeah, you’ve always been good at taking your own road. I’m not going to fall apart, Mel.”

  “I know you’re not.” Mel reached in and hugged her tight. “We’re going to be okay.”

  Dimi held on and let out a shuddery breath. “It’s funny, but I never really believed that before, that we were going to be okay. I think that was the problem. Even when everything was status quo, before we knew about the deed, before Bo even showed up, I never really believed we were okay. I worried, I stressed. I never slept at night.”

  “You never said,” Mel marveled. “You just lit your candles and found your calm.”

  “Yeah, shocking how much alcohol can help with pretenses. At least on the outside.” Dimi sighed. “The weird thing is, now everything’s as messed up as it can possibly be, and yet I feel okay for the first time in forever. How is that even possible?”

  “Because you’re amazing. We’re both amazing.”

  Dimi laughed and hugged her again, hard, no longer shaking. “I always thought it was because of Sally.”

  Mel pulled back. “Maybe it started out that way, but we deserve credit, too. It’s about time, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.” Dimi looked down at her perfectly manicured fingers. “I wanted to talk to you about your lease.”

  “Yeah, me, too. I want Bo to add you—”

  Dimi was shaking her head. “I don’t want to be added.”

  “I’ll put you on Anderson Air’s payroll instead of North Beach’s, and that way—”

  “Mel.”

  “—Because then he wouldn’t be responsible for—”

  “Mel.”

  She stopped talking and now Mel felt a little shaky because she knew. Damn it, she knew.

  “I’m thinking of doing something new,” Dimi said softly.

  Oh, God. “Dimi.”

  “I’m applying to UCSB.”

  The university at Santa Barbara. “College?”

  Dimi smiled. “Maybe eventually I’ll become that nurse I always dreamed of, working in-flight care.”

  Mel gaped. “But…You hate flying.”

  “No, I don’t hate it. It scares me. But if you can overcome your fears, then so can I.”

  “I haven’t overcome any fears—”

  “You’re letting a man in.”

  “Bite your tongue! And since when was that a fear of mine?”

  “Since your mother left you. Since your father left you. Since Sally left us. Now you have a leaving thing, which means you walk before anyone else gets the idea to do the same. Just ask any guy you’ve ever dated and then dumped.”

  It made Mel’s chest ache to think about it. It actually hurt so much she had to lift a hand to rub at the spot, but it couldn’t be assuaged. “I’m not afraid of letting people in. I let everyone here in; Char, Al, the guys…I let you in, didn’t I?” She forced a smile that faded at Dimi’s next words.

  “You let us in because we need you; each of us in our own way. Mother-hen-to-chick type of relationships. Face it, honey, you don’t know how to be the little chick. You don’t know how to lean on someone, or need them.”

  “This conversation is about Sally,” Mel said, shaken. “About her illegal tendencies. About how she didn’t just screw us, she apparently screwed a whole line of people. How the hell did we end up talking about me and all my faults?”

  “Because your faults are so cute.”

  Mel snorted.

  Dimi opened her mouth to say more but she was staring at something over Mel’s shoulder, lost in thought; eyes a little dreamy, mouth soft.

  Mel craned her neck to see what—or who. Danny had come into the lobby, looking lean and lanky and tough.

  Dimi stared at him, gone, just completely gone, including mouth sagging open and drool pooling.

  Mel craned her neck to get a better view of Danny to see what she was missing. He had his blond hair pulled back from his face with a plastic tie wrap, his baseball cap on backward, knees ripped out of his coveralls, looking like…well, Danny.

  And Dimi was now drooling, practically soaking him up as he headed toward the café. He smiled at Char, who handed him a soda, then leaned his head back and drank.

  And from thirty-five feet away, Dimi sighed, audible only to Mel.

  When Danny put the drink down, he glanced over. From across the long expanse of the lobby he caught Dimi’s gaze, then held it for a long beat before walking back outside, his long, rangy body moving with his usual laid-back ease.

  Dimi let out a breath. “Yeah. Still mad at me.”

  “What? Why’s he mad at you?”

  “Forget it. He’s just a man. A jerky man.”

  “A jerk?