Finding Justus

by Bretz, Amanda

  Finding Justus

  Amanda Bretz

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2011 Amanda Bretz

  DEDICATION

  CHILDHOOD IS A TIME FOR CAREFREE DAYS AND VIVID IMAGINATIONS. AS A KID, I SPENT MY DAYS CREATING STORIES PERCHED IN A PEACH TREE IN MY GRANDPARENTS’ BACKYARD. I BELIEVE THIS IS WHEN I BECAME A WRITER. WITHOUT THE LOVING FOUNDATION OF MY GRANDPARENTS, TOM AND RUTH WATKINS, I WOULDN’T BE WHERE I AM TODAY.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my husband Brandon for his continued encouragement and support. Thanks for always believing in me.

  Finding Justus wouldn’t have been written at all if it wasn’t for a late night call to my sister, Tawnya. She helped me create the wonderfully sexy character Miguel Amores. We’ll make a writer out of you yet, sis.

  I also have to thank my cousins Jeremy and Shaina for reading rough first drafts. Thank you both for the suggestions and praise.

  I have been truly blessed with many supportive friends and family members. I could never list them all.

  A Special Message from the Author:

  Make sure you read the excerpt of my forthcoming release Love, Simplified at the end of this e-book.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Justus Kendall zipped up her suitcase with a sense of dread. Usually women didn’t feel a sense of dread when packing for their honeymoon. Justus knew she shouldn’t think of her vacation that way, but that was exactly what it was. Or what it should have been.

  If she hadn’t caught her ex-fiancé Alex cheating on her a few weeks ago, she would be preparing to take the Caribbean cruise with him, instead of her best friend Krystal. Although originally it had been her idea, lately Justus wondered if she wasn’t crazy, going on a cruise with her friend, rather than trying to get part of her money back for the vacation.

  Or better yet, why hadn’t she sold the cruise tickets on eBay, the way she had her engagement ring? It was too late for regrets now. They were set to fly out tomorrow morning. Deep down, part of Justus really was looking forward to relaxing and spending some much needed girl time with her friend.

  Even though she knew it might be tough being on the cruise as a single woman, instead of a newlywed, she knew she was better off without Alex. Amazingly, she had ceased crying about Alex almost as soon as she’d moved his things out of her apartment.

  “He can’t hurt me anymore. I will not be bitter. I won’t let Alex ruin my vacation,” she said to her empty apartment as she stacked her luggage by the front door.

  Normally, Justus didn’t talk to herself, but the self-help book Krystal loaned her said using positive self-talk was one of the best ways to change one’s outlook. Ordinarily Justus tended to look at things like self-help books as meaningless psychobabble, but after using some of the tools, she had to admit her mood had improved.

  Currently, her outlook was pretty sunny, and she wasn’t using much self-talk. However, a few weeks ago, she talked to herself almost every waking minute. Looking back over the past few weeks, Justus smiled to herself and wondered why her coworkers didn’t break out the strait-jackets and butterfly nets because of some of her insane behavior.

  Countless times after her break up, her boss or coworkers would pop their head into her office, only to hear her repeating ridiculous phrases over and over again, like an irate mantra. Justus worked at an interior designer firm and during her self-talk sessions, she would toss swatches of cloth around her office, causing scraps of fabric to fly through the air.

  Work seemed to be the one place where Alex’s transgressions ran through her mind the most. After all, she had caught the fool cheating on her in the hotel she was redesigning. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she reasoned, it had happened on the day she was meeting with the hotel owner and pitching her ideas for the redesign.

  More than anything, she now realized, her ego had suffered the most damage. Justus peered at herself in the vanity as she brushed her teeth. Justus was a dark beauty, and with her full lips, olive complexion, and high cheekbones, her Native-American heritage was very apparent. Yes, she knew she was attractive, but that didn’t stop her from feeling inferior sometimes, especially since she’d caught her fiancé with another woman.

  Alex had cheated on her with a gorgeous, not to mention petite, blonde. While Justus was an attractive woman, her plus-sized frame would never be described as petite. Justus closed her eyes as she remembered the way Alex had looked at her when she’d found him in the hotel room, with the breathtakingly beautiful buxom blonde clinging to his neck. The blonde had been naked, save for a sheet, which had been haphazardly wrapped around her tiny body. Justus sighed to herself and practically threw her toothbrush on the countertop.

  Thinking about her day of travel, combined with rehashing her feelings about Alex, made Justus ready for bed. Plus, the sooner she went to bed, the sooner she’d be on her vacation. That was motivation enough to make Justus crawl into her bed and turn the bedside lamp off with a flick of her wrist.

  ***

  As Justus pulled her bag out of the overhead compartment, she prepared herself for the embarrassment of squeezing her ample lower body through the narrow aisles of the airplane. Suddenly, flying first class was one splurge she now wished she’d made. To make matters worse, Justus made the uncomfortable walk while trying to balance her purse on one arm and her carry-on bag on the top of her other shoulder. Justus felt her hip nudge one of the seats and simultaneously lurch an innocent bystander’s head forward. She apologized and shot the middle aged man a look of guilt and mortification.

  From behind her, Justus could swear she heard her best friend suppressing a giggle. Justus would love to give Krystal a filthy look, but worried if she turned her head, more people would be harmed by her considerable backside. As if Krystal ever had to worry about being too wide for the aisles, Justus thought sardonically.

  She felt her shoulders relax and she let out a deep breath as she exited the plane and made her way down the breezeway. She never thought she’d be going on her honeymoon with her best friend, but now that she had landed in Miami, with Krystal by her side, butterflies of excitement fluttered in her stomach. In less than an hour, they would board the cruise ship and set sail across the Caribbean for a week.

  Once the pair was outside the Miami International Airport, with their luggage in tow, they boarded a shuttle, which dropped them off at the Port of Miami. After hours of travel and countless hours in line, Justus felt less like a human and more like a piece of livestock. Once they actually arrived on the cruise ship, Justus felt a bit like a cow that had somehow broke free of the herd. After a quick inspection of their room and the view their balcony provided, the two changed into their swimsuits and started toward the pool.

  “Ah, fresh air and sunshine,” Krystal said as they made their way across the crowded lido deck.

  “Looks like we weren’t the only people with this idea, huh?”

  “Well, where do you want to sit?” Krystal asked. “Does over there look okay to you?”

  “Sure, I don’t care.”

  A half an hour into their sunbathing, Justus discovered Krystal had dozed off in her lounge chair.

  “Sleeping like a baby,” Justus muttered. If she had known Krystal was going to be a sleepyhead, she would have brought something to read. She decided to people-watch instead. A cute little girl with blonde pig-tails ran by her. Justus watched the girl run a quarter of the way around the pool before she ran into someone. As Justus noticed the man the little girl had ran into bend down to check if the child was all right, she commented aloud, “Oh my, gorgeous!”

  Krystal will be upset she slept through a chance to drool over this guy, Justus thought. She was about to turn her gaze from him in order to wake her friend up, when th
e stranger’s eyes found her own. Her heart felt like it jumped into her throat. What was the matter with her?

  But she knew what the matter was and exactly what it looked like. Even from the across the pool deck, she could see his sexy features. He had a square jaw, high cheekbones and skin the color of warm honey. The way he was dressed accented his impressive build and wavy black hair.

  The hunk looked as though he had stepped off the pages of G.Q. He wore tight-fitting black pants, and a white button down shirt, with the top two buttons left open revealing his throat and some of his chest. His looks exuded a casual sexiness that Justus found impossible to ignore. He had worn a jacket earlier and apparently it had served its purpose, he had long since thrown it over his shoulder, while his left index finger held it into place.

  Justus was staring at him as though she was mesmerized, she really wanted to nudge Krystal awake, but part of her thought if she turned her head away, even for a split-second, like a mirage in the desert, the gorgeous hunk would disappear. He smiled at Justus and her heart began to pound. Even his teeth were perfect, she noticed. He started taking several steps toward her.

  “Oh my God,” she said to herself. She had started sweating and it wasn’t because of the sun. As she glanced down at her exposed thighs, Justus wished she hadn’t removed the shorts she’d worn over her bathing suit.

  When Justus looked back toward the gorgeous man, she was disappointed to see that a blonde in a scandalously small bikini had jumped in front of him. Justus noticed the blonde had her hand on his chest, and looked as though she were trying to pull him in the other direction. When he didn’t move right away, and appeared to ignore her, she began to speak to him in what Justus could only figure was a sulky tone, judging by the way her lower lip stuck out. The man smiled at the pouting blonde and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  The woman seemed to be manipulating him so well the two had to be an item, which meant one of two things. Either the moment that had passed between them was a figment of her imagination, or the sexy man was making eyes at random women while his girlfriend was only a few feet away. Thinking about her recent betrayal by Alex, she felt as though she were losing faith in the male species. Were all men cheating scum?

  “Slimy bastard!” she said loudly.

  Krystal chose that moment to wake up and said, “Huh? Did I doze off?”

  “Oh, yeah it’s no big deal though,” she said with a shrug. “Hey, I’m hungry, I think we’ve gotten enough sun for today, let’s eat something.”

  She glanced over in the general vicinity of the Slimy Bastard and although he was nodding his head in agreement to whatever the blonde was saying, his eyes were transfixed on Justus. Feeling his eyes on her, she stood to pull her shorts on and gather her and Krystal’s things. When she looked in his direction and saw that his penetrating gaze was still fixated on her, Justus lost whatever shred of faith in men that remained.

  The sooner they got away from there the better, as far as she was concerned. She gave him another quick glance and saw he was speaking to and looking directly at the blonde, which gave her and Krystal the perfect chance to leave without him seeing the two of them. Justus had to admit he was gorgeous. It was just too bad he was taken.

  As they walked away, Justus turned her glance back toward the man one more time, and was astonished to see he was still staring at her. She was equally surprised that the blonde had quickly left the scene. The attractive woman as probably enraged with the philandering fool of a man, she reasoned. Justus almost stopped in her tracks when the sexy man flashed her a brilliant smile. The sight was so alluring that she nearly responded, but then she remembered he was a cheater. She turned her head quickly before she could give him a smile in return. The nerve of some people, she thought.

  ***

  “I’m starving,” Justus declared the following morning as they were on their way to the breakfast buffet served on the lido deck.

  “What looks good?” Krystal asked as she surveyed the contents of the buffet tables.

  “Everything looks good to me.”

  “Even the grits?” Krystal asked skeptically.

  “Forget that statement, almost everything. Scrambled eggs, I’ll take some of those.”

  The pair selected a table that offered a stunning view of the turquoise Caribbean Sea. After they had both eaten a plate full of the hot food and a plate of fruit, they were pleasantly stuffed.

  “Of course you know, now that we’ve eaten this linebacker-sized breakfast, we have to get some form of exercise to counteract it. I don’t care what we do, swim, walk around the ship, something,” Justus told her.

  “Oh, please. We’re on vacation.”

  “Yes, but haven’t you ever heard stories of how people gain five to ten pounds on cruises? Now I see why, it’s all about the food.”

  “All right, you’ve got a point there. I guess I will do something,” Krystal said begrudgingly.

  “We might as well start today. Let’s go look for something to do while our food settles. Let’s check out the activities scheduled for today.” They were scanning the list together when Justus suddenly burst out, “Latin dance lessons!”

  “Yeah, sounds fun. I’ve always wanted to learn how to salsa.”

  “Oh, this is gonna be so great, we’ll learn how to meringue and flamenco with the best of them. Everyone back home will be so jealous! There’s a lesson at one and another at four today,” Justus paused a moment to consider the options, tilting her head to the side and tapping her index finger on her chin as she did.

  “How about the one o’clock? That will give us some time to wander around some more before we get in our workout.”

  “Sounds good to me, salsa, here I come,” Krystal said, doing hand and feet motions, in her own rendition of salsa dancing.

  “Easy there, J.Lo,” Justus said teasingly.

  “Oh yeah? You’re the one with her um, assets,” Krystal teased back.

  “Oh, thanks for the compliment.”

  “I was being sarcastic,” she said with a sweet smile. Laughing together they went toward the sundeck. “Look at this water, Jus! Isn’t it beautiful? I never knew the ocean was so large. It goes on forever; it’s all you can see.”

  Justus only half-listened. As she looked out into the horizon she felt herself grow pensive. When Krystal stopped chattering abruptly, Justus turned to see what had caused her exuberant friend to suddenly become quiet.

  “Oh, what’s wrong Justus? Are you okay? Are thinking about being here with Alex?”

  “Yes and no. I mean not really him as much as the idea of being here with a man. Cruises can be a romantic experience that should be shared with a significant other. I don’t really know why I feel this either.”

  “Well, cruises don’t have to be romantic, they can also be fun and relaxing,” Krystal interjected.

  “I know, it’s just, on the one hand, I’m pissed at the entire male population. I think anything with a penis should be hung by it, as disturbing as that sounds. On the other hand, I almost have this itch, for lack of a better word, to get out and try again,” she furrowed her brow in confusion and looked to Krystal for advice on the matter.

  “What do you think? Is it just the romantic atmosphere or is it rebound?”

  “It’s probably a little bit of both. I think cruises in general do have some mighty powers of romantic persuasion. Personally, I’d love to meet a guy here too, but we’re talking about you here, and I think of course you can’t help to feel an absence since you were supposed to be here with a man. Maybe an uncomplicated fling is what you need right now to prove to yourself that you’re still desirable. It’s perfectly natural.”

  Justus didn’t say anything at first; she let Krystal’s comments soak in, then she said, “You know Krystal, you really missed your true calling, you’d make a great shrink. Not to mention you’d make a lot more money. But joking aside, I trust your advice, and I think you may be right. It’s really weird but it seems like memori
es of Alex are becoming more distant as each day passes.

  “I still feel hurt, betrayal and a lot of other negative feelings, but it’s the idea of the betrayal, not actually missing him. Don’t get me wrong, the thought of being rejected still hurts, but that’s more about bruised pride than a broken heart.

  “Amazingly, the more I think about it, I think I don’t really care as much about losing Alex as I do about losing face. We had our good times, I mean I was in love with him, and certain parts of me still are, but it’s that way with any relationship.

  “I still cling to feelings for other boyfriends from my past. But isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? Don’t you miss a couple things about each guy?”

  “Of course there’s always been,” Krystal stopped to clear her throat comically and raised her left eyebrow, “parts I missed, if you know what I mean.” They both burst out in laughter and Krystal said, “Seriously though, you’re not alone. I think everybody feels that way.”

  “Yeah, isn’t that what those sappy love songs are about? Loving and letting go, but always keeping something with you. I guess it’s a universal experience that everyone goes through.”

  “Yep. Not to change the subject, but can we walk that way? I suddenly have to use the bathroom.”

  Justus was looking around outside of the restroom waiting for Krystal when she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, but somehow lost her balance and started to stumble backward a couple of steps. On her descent backward she stepped on someone’s foot and felt someone place a steadying hand on her shoulder. Embarrassed by her notorious clumsiness, she turned around.

  “I’m sorry, I…” She stopped when she saw who she had just stepped on. Right in front of her was the gorgeous man from the pool yesterday. Shirtless. As smoothly as she could, Justus took in his tanned skin and the muscled physique.

  She fought the urge to lick her lips. She started to open her mouth to say something, but was at a loss for words. What did one say to a hot guy after you’d just trampled his foot? Suddenly sorry didn’t seem like enough.