Somewhere on St. Thomas: A Somewhere Series Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Toby Neal
myself into the bedroom of our suite with the studying sign on the door so Shellie wouldn’t poke her head in to see what I was doing.
I tore open the fat missive.
Dear Ruby. I’m picturing you in your purple beret as Juliette the girl from the French Antilles, and may I say it’s brilliant? I know how hard you’ve tried to be your parents’ daughter, but there’s something dramatic in you, something wild…I glimpsed it that day we took a hike, and I think you glimpsed it, too, and it scared you. I stayed away the rest of the time you were still on the island because I could see I would be nothing but trouble for you, with the goals you had and departure on your mind. But it was hard, and I suffered more than I expected to, and I’m selfish enough to hope you lost a little sleep, too.
I’m glad you’ve found a safe way to let that wild side out to play, one that doesn’t get you into too much trouble. But I do regret I didn’t have longer to know that girl. You did something to me, and I’ve not been the same since.
I pressed my hand over my open mouth. It shocked me that Rafe understood me so completely, that he knew exactly what he’d been doing when he ate that mango off my hand, and that he’d been so bold as to tell me I’d affected him.
I love your letters! They are so full of all the adventure and experience you’re having, all you are learning and seeing and doing. As for me, things are much the same in Saint Thomas. I work all day, keeping in shape climbing the coconut trees on all your parents’ rental properties and cutting off the coconuts, working on the boat I’m crewing next spring back to California, and surfing every day now that it’s the surf season. At night I have trouble sleeping, because I think of you and wonder what we might be to each other. Love, Rafe.
My hands were trembling as I folded the rest of the pages and stuffed them back in the envelope, afraid to read any more. Afraid for his hold on me to get any stronger, when his honest words affected me this way.
I needed to go out with someone else, I decided. Someone suitable, Northeastern University-ish, an intellectual. Someone more in line with the self I was inventing over here. Someone who could knock Rafe right out of my mind.
He came into my life that very afternoon, a tall young man who’d shyly struck up extra conversation each day as I served him behind the cafeteria line, my red tresses restrained by a hairnet and my curves packed into a long, tight white apron with the strings wrapped twice around my waist.
“Can we get together sometime?” he stopped the food line to ask me. He was nice-looking, with soft pink lips and a lot of black curly hair. The old-fashioned tweed jacket he wore had leather patches on the elbows like a professor. I knew he’d be a gentleman by the whiteness of his long-fingered hands as they brushed mine when he took the cardboard lunch plate.
Couldn’t be more different than Rafe. Perfect.
“ Mais oui . Call me.” I took the ballpoint pen out of my apron pocket and scratched my number on his napkin. He retreated to a table with his friends. Much ribbing and backslapping went on over there while I went on serving, cool as only Juliette could be.
He called the landline in our suite that evening, and my roommate answered it since most calls were for her. She dragged the phone into my room. “It’s for Juliette.” She grinned.
I picked up my unlit clove cigarette and waggled it at her, taking the receiver. “Oui?”
“Juliette? This is Henry. The guy from the lunch line.”
“Ah, Henri.” I pronounced his name in the French way, and I heard how much he liked that in the smile in his voice as he said, “Can I take you for coffee tomorrow?”
“I’m studying, Henri, but I could meet you to do something at night,” I said, making my roommate raise her eyebrows because she knew that I was an untouched virgin with wavering morals and a terrible fire in the belly. But not
I tore open the fat missive.
Dear Ruby. I’m picturing you in your purple beret as Juliette the girl from the French Antilles, and may I say it’s brilliant? I know how hard you’ve tried to be your parents’ daughter, but there’s something dramatic in you, something wild…I glimpsed it that day we took a hike, and I think you glimpsed it, too, and it scared you. I stayed away the rest of the time you were still on the island because I could see I would be nothing but trouble for you, with the goals you had and departure on your mind. But it was hard, and I suffered more than I expected to, and I’m selfish enough to hope you lost a little sleep, too.
I’m glad you’ve found a safe way to let that wild side out to play, one that doesn’t get you into too much trouble. But I do regret I didn’t have longer to know that girl. You did something to me, and I’ve not been the same since.
I pressed my hand over my open mouth. It shocked me that Rafe understood me so completely, that he knew exactly what he’d been doing when he ate that mango off my hand, and that he’d been so bold as to tell me I’d affected him.
I love your letters! They are so full of all the adventure and experience you’re having, all you are learning and seeing and doing. As for me, things are much the same in Saint Thomas. I work all day, keeping in shape climbing the coconut trees on all your parents’ rental properties and cutting off the coconuts, working on the boat I’m crewing next spring back to California, and surfing every day now that it’s the surf season. At night I have trouble sleeping, because I think of you and wonder what we might be to each other. Love, Rafe.
My hands were trembling as I folded the rest of the pages and stuffed them back in the envelope, afraid to read any more. Afraid for his hold on me to get any stronger, when his honest words affected me this way.
I needed to go out with someone else, I decided. Someone suitable, Northeastern University-ish, an intellectual. Someone more in line with the self I was inventing over here. Someone who could knock Rafe right out of my mind.
He came into my life that very afternoon, a tall young man who’d shyly struck up extra conversation each day as I served him behind the cafeteria line, my red tresses restrained by a hairnet and my curves packed into a long, tight white apron with the strings wrapped twice around my waist.
“Can we get together sometime?” he stopped the food line to ask me. He was nice-looking, with soft pink lips and a lot of black curly hair. The old-fashioned tweed jacket he wore had leather patches on the elbows like a professor. I knew he’d be a gentleman by the whiteness of his long-fingered hands as they brushed mine when he took the cardboard lunch plate.
Couldn’t be more different than Rafe. Perfect.
“ Mais oui . Call me.” I took the ballpoint pen out of my apron pocket and scratched my number on his napkin. He retreated to a table with his friends. Much ribbing and backslapping went on over there while I went on serving, cool as only Juliette could be.
He called the landline in our suite that evening, and my roommate answered it since most calls were for her. She dragged the phone into my room. “It’s for Juliette.” She grinned.
I picked up my unlit clove cigarette and waggled it at her, taking the receiver. “Oui?”
“Juliette? This is Henry. The guy from the lunch line.”
“Ah, Henri.” I pronounced his name in the French way, and I heard how much he liked that in the smile in his voice as he said, “Can I take you for coffee tomorrow?”
“I’m studying, Henri, but I could meet you to do something at night,” I said, making my roommate raise her eyebrows because she knew that I was an untouched virgin with wavering morals and a terrible fire in the belly. But not