Kona Winds by Janet Dailey Read Free Book Online Page B

smile at her.
    "Great ride," Julie added words to her applause.
    He trotted up the sand to where she sat and dropped on his knees beside her. "That wave gyrated around me like a dream."
    "I saw it," she nodded.
    He was still trying to catch his breath, panting from the exertion of the ride. A shining pair of brown eyes ran their gaze over her, admiration glinting openly.
    "Do you surf?" he asked.
    "I have," Julie admitted. "But that was a long time ago. These waves here are out of my league."
    He set his board upright in the sand and sat down beside her. "Where are you from?" He wiped the water from his face and pushed his darkly wet hair back with a raking comb of his fingers.
    "California."
    "I'm Frank Smith from Virginia." He offered her his hand.
    "Julie Lancaster." The grip of his hand was firm, but he didn't attempt to hold hers too long.
    "What are you doing here?"
    "Like everybody else, I'm here to watch," she answered, glancing toward the other sightseers on the dune.
    "No," he smiled. "I meant what are you doing here in Hawaii? Are you on vacation?"
    "I'm working. How about you?" she returned his question.
    "I'm working, too, at night as a waiter at a restaurant up the road. I came over here two years ago on vacation to see if the surf was as great as everybody said it was. I'm still here."
    "I've only been here a week myself, but I already like it," Julie said to explain the paleness of her skin compared to the deep tan of his.
    "Your back is beginning to look a bit red. Would you like me to put some lotion on it?" Frank Smith offered.
    Julie hesitated, then agreed, "Yes, I would, thank you." As he worked the lotion over her shoulders and spine, there was a caressing quality to his touch. Julie knew he was waiting for a reaction from her, but she waited until she felt that the bare part of her back had been coated with lotion.
    "That's good enough."
    He didn't argue. "A bunch of us are getting together for a party tonight. Would you like to come?"
    "No, I have to work tomorrow," she refused. "Maybe another time."
    "Remember you said that," he smiled. For a quarter of an hour longer, he sat and talked to her. His gaze kept wavering between her and the waves swelling in the sea. Rising, he lifted his surfboard. "I guess I'll go back out. Sure you don't want to come along?"
    "No, thanks." She wished him, "Catch a good one!"
    With a last wave to her he waded into the water and lay on his board to paddle out where the other surfers were bobbing. Julie stayed for another hour, enjoying the sheer beauty of the surf. Sometimes she saw Frank trying a wave, but most of the time she had his red surfboard mixed up with one belonging to another surfer. After spending another hour in the hot sun, she decided to leave.
    This time she took the bus to Waimea Bay. The water was glass smooth. There weren't any of the breakers that Ruel had warned her about. After a cooling swim in the crystal clear turquoise waters, Julie wisely chose to avoid the sun and relaxed in the shade of the trees in the park.
    It was almost five before she caught the bus to take her back. She enjoyed the ride, even if the bus driver acted as if he owned the road where other traffic was concerned. She was free to look at the countryside.
    Horses grazed in small pastures and an odd cow or two was staked out in a vacant lot. There were stands of ironwood trees with their shaggy needles crowding the beaches and green hills rising away from the road. There were sugar cane fields and, oddly enough, cornfields. A flowering shrub of some sort seemed to be blooming in almost every house-yard the bus passed.
    Julie was so intent on the scenery that she almost missed her stop. Luckily she didn't. This time, though, Ruel didn't drive up behind her shortly after she got off the bus. She had to walk all the way to the house, including up the switchback road, and the calves of her legs were aching when she finally entered the house.
    The pace of the first week set the