“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.”
“Good.” She gulped in air. “Because I’m not.”
“I know. You’re cut from the glass.” His voice was hoarse with fear, for her, she realized, as he carefully lifted her and set her on his bed.
“No, it’s not the cuts. Bo-”
“I didn’t sleep with you to get back at her,” he said.
She looked into his eyes. “I know.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“Yeah. I do. But Bo? I, um, did something a little out of the norm for me. Like on Mars out of the norm, something…” She swallowed hard, managed a shaky smile. “Well, I sort of fell in love with you.”
Sally rolled to her back and groaned. “Are you kidding me? I’m lying here dying and you two are going to have a moment? Seriously?”
Bo lifted the gun on Sally again, all without taking his eyes off Mel. “Qualify ‘sort of.’”
“Sort of,” Mel said. “As in did.”
“Hey, my life is flashing before my eyes, people!” Sally yelled.
“You fell in love with me,” Bo repeated to Mel, looking dazed.
“Yes.”
“Unbelievable,” Sally muttered.
“Shut up!” both Mel and Bo said to her at the same time.
“I know we’re still working on the trust thing,” Mel said to Bo. “And I also know you’re leaving, but it was just too much for me to keep inside, I’m sorry. It just popped out, without permission.”
He had a funny look on his face so she rushed to finish. “I don’t mean to burden you, or make you feel-”
“You don’t want to burden me with your feelings,” he repeated slowly.
“Right.” Why was he sounding like a parrot? “Or make you feel like you have to see me when you come back into town, I just-”
“Make me feel like I have to see you.” He shook his head. “Mel, have you ever known me to do anything I don’t want to?”
“Well, no.”
“Or let someone make me do something?”
“No. But-”
“Yeah. Look, you’re a little crooked on all this. Especially since I love you back.”
“You…” Her breath caught. “You do?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Oh, my God. I didn’t imagine you’d-”
“Why not?”
“It’s just that you have it so together, and I never seem to, and-”
“It’s you.”
