Read Online Aussie Rules by Jill Shalvis - Free Book Online

anything other than sleeping with men, and even there she hadn’t been all that successful or she’d have a diamond ring and a minivan by now.
    Nibbling on a nail, she made her way through Sunshine Café, which was still suitably filled. A handful of women sat at one table. They’d flown in on a private jet owned by the husband of one of the women. Dressed in designer gear, they looked like a million bucks, all with expensive bags at their feet, most likely filled with the afternoon’s shopping spoils. They probably had perfect lives, beautiful homes, complete with minivans.
    At another table sat a couple. The man was in his sixties and now retired, but he had been a Hollywood movie star for years, and had developed an expensive plane habit that North Beach was all too happy to satisfy. The woman dripped bling.
    It was the third table to catch her interest: five men, ranging from twentysomething into their forties, rowdy and noisy, all toasting themselves over one deal or another.
    Maybe they’d gone to the track and had won big. Maybe they were in town for a convention. Dimi didn’t know, but all that really mattered was that they stopped talking as she walked past them and up to Char’s counter.
    She could almost hear the collective male sigh and smiled inwardly as she waved at Al. “A beer,” she said, needing a drink bad and wishing they had the hard stuff. “Make it two,” she decided.
    â€œHey, Sexy. Is this seat taken?”
    Dimi looked up into a tall, dark, and gorgeous stranger’s face—one of the rowdy men behind her—and because he was the youngest and the best looking, she smiled. “Only by you,” she purred, thinking there, she’d just found herself exactly what she needed: her mindless oblivion.

Chapter 6
    T hat night Mel tried to call Dimi, but couldn’t reach her. Sitting in her small beach bungalow, Mel hung up the phone and stared out at the churning ocean, hating that she knew Dimi was out somewhere, trying to lose herself.
    Finally she turned to her laptop and checked her e-mail, gingerly, braced for another message from LeaveItAlone, but nothing.
    She didn’t know what she’d expected, but answers would have been nice. Was it Sally, asking her to leave it alone?
    And if that was true, why hadn’t Sally just come out and asked Mel herself? Surely she knew Mel would have done anything for her, if asked.
    Unable to think anymore, she climbed into bed and slept surprisingly hard, dreaming even harder. Again a pair of green eyes followed her into dreamland, laughing sea green eyes in a strong, tanned face, with an Aussie voice and a smile that could melt a woman’s panties right off at fifty paces.
    She woke up to the sun stabbing her in the face and decided she hated green eyes and sexy smiles, no matter who they belonged to. Still in bed, her gaze locked on the picture on her dresser: Sally in the cockpit of the Hawker, her head tossed back in laughter, as it so often had been.
    God, Mel missed her. Still .
    There was also a pic of Mel and Dimi at age sixteen, the day Mel had gotten her pilot’s license. They were high-fiving each other, with Mel proudly displaying the license in her free hand.
    The best day of her life because of Sally.
    Climbing out of bed, Mel moved to her bedroom window, devoid of window coverings because she loved the unencumbered view of the craggy sandstone outcroppings of the Santa Ynez Mountains rising so close to the water. The terrain was rugged. Lots of mornings she got up before dawn to climb. It was great exercise and she loved the dramatic view from the top of the sheer rock faces and massive boulders and overhangs.
    But this morning she just let herself stand there watching the day, soothed by the sounds of the sea before she hit the shower and drove into work.
    North Beach Airport’s day typically began at six A.M . The linemen came in, Char opened the café, the doors on