Making Waves Read Online Free Page A

not knowing any such thing.
    Yes, this trip to St. John would give her the time and space she needed to think things through. To decide what her next career move should be. Maybe stick with one job for more than a year. Maybe she could be a mechanic. Or a librarian. Or a shepherd.
    And maybe if she was really lucky, she could find a way to feel normal for a change. To meet normal people, to do normal things, to maybe feel like she belonged . Was that so much to want?
    The waiter came back with her drink and she thanked him, twirling the little umbrella between her thumb and forefinger before tucking it behind her ear. She took a sip of her drink, enjoying the way the rum and coconut did a happy little dance on the back of her tongue. She felt tropical and warm, sipping her drink, wiggling her toes in the sand, tapping her fingers to a calypso tune. Then she hit the bottom of the glass, bringing her party to a halt.
    Juli signaled the waiter for another, trying not to think about the cost. So what if she was unemployed? She was on vacation. A vacation that involved a dead relative traveling in her knapsack, but still. Juli looked out at the ocean. Not so bad, really. It was kind of pretty in a menacing sort of way.
    The waiter brought her second drink and Juli plunged the straw to the bottom, giving it an enthusiastic slurp. She closed her eyes, feeling the rum sliding down the back of her throat as she listened to the sound of the waves. Maybe she wouldn’t die. Maybe she could even get used to the ocean. And Uncle Frank deserved to have his dying wish fulfilled.
    “Is someone sitting here?”
    Juli opened her eyes and looked up to see a broad-shouldered man who had apparently stepped right off the pages of the sailing brochure in her knapsack. Dark, wind-tousled hair with a little gray sprinkled at the temples. A web of tiny lines at the corner of eyes that seemed almost incandescent green in contrast to his tan. Biceps that a girl could really sink her teeth into if a girl had a mind to do such a thing.
    Juli blinked up at him, forgetting whatever it was he’d just asked her.
    He smiled, seemingly unperturbed by her complete lack of social grace. “I was just wondering if I could join you. Is someone sitting here?”
    “Just my Uncle Frank,” Juli said, grabbing her knapsack. “I’ll move him out of the way.”
    She set the knapsack in the sand and looked back to see sailor boy with his hands on the back of the chair, clearly hesitating.
    “It’s okay, I’m not crazy,” Juli offered. “I just have my uncle’s cremated remains in my backpack.”
    “Of course. Why wouldn’t you?” He sat down. “I’m Alex.”
    She extended her hand and felt a surge of pleasant heat as he grasped and shook it. Warm hands . When was the last time she’d had warm hands—or any hands, for that matter—on her body?
    She shook off the thought and smiled at him. “Juli,” she said. “Pleasure to meet you.”
    He looked around the bar and Juli tried not to fixate on how very green his eyes were. “This place is totally packed,” he said. “Figured it was smarter to sit down next to someone with reasonably good hygiene than to take a chance on sharing a table with a greasy sailor who hasn’t showered for a week.”
    “Are you always such a flatterer?”
    “I try,” Alex said with a slow smile.
    Juli felt her stomach flip, and she looked down at her drink, trying to get her bearings. “So what brings you to St. John?”
    Alex took a swig from a beer he’d brought to the table with him. Something dark that looked more like maple syrup than beer. “Just here with some business associates to take care of a little, uh—”
    “Business?”
    “Right.”
    “I’m scattering my dead uncle’s ashes at sea.”
    “I hear that’s what all the travel brochures suggest this year.”
    She smiled and started to ask him another question when a man with greased-back hair and a red silk shirt trotted out on stage. His microphone