When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) (27 page)

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Authors: Gwynne Forster

BOOK: When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance)
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“Oh, I’m just human,” she said aloud. “Like Pavlov and his dog, I’ve learned to respond to Harper.” She skipped up the stairs. “It’s no big deal. I can unlearn it.” She consoled herself with that.
 
 
Richard folded a red and gray paisley ascot into his open-collared shirt, slipped on a navy blazer that complimented his light-gray slacks, and bounded down the stairs to the dining room. It was Thanksgiving Day, so he dressed for dinner. If no one else did, he didn’t care. Sitting alone at the table he always shared with Fannie, his fingers strummed the yellow tablecloth and he shifted in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his knees as he watched the door, waiting for Francine to walk through it.
After a few minutes, she entered the dining room along with Philip Coles, and something akin to an iron fist clutched at his heart. He had never been jealous of a woman, not even of Estelle, who he hadn’t realized he loved until she married someone else. What he felt then was not jealousy, but pain. A laugh that in no way represented his feelings eased out of him, and he raised a hand of greeting to Judd who watched him from a nearby table. Fannie rushed in precisely at five o’clock, joined him at their table and asked everyone to stand for Philip’s prayer of Thanksgiving.
“I want y’all to know that our Jolene did the Thanksgiving decorations,” Fannie said when Philip finished, “and Judd built the fire in the lounge. Percy brought the maple leaves and branches day before yesterday when he got back from his trip to New England, and Richard bought the horns of plenty that you see in the lounge. Y’all make this house a home, and I thank you. Marilyn is giving us a great meal, thank the Lord, so let’s eat.”
“How do you manage to keep Marilyn?” Richard asked Fannie, as he savored the best turkey he’d ever tasted.
“I pay her what head chefs in Ocean City get, and I cater to her as much as I can without letting her boss
me
. I tolerate her foolishness, because everybody here is grown up and can take care of themselves. If she gets too far out of hand, one of you puts her in her place.”
“What about Percy Lucas?”
“Oh, Marilyn flirts with Percy because he’s a man, but she doesn’t hit on him. I think she’s afraid he’ll take her up on it. Now you. She wants you more than she wants money.”
He hoped his problems with Marilyn were in the past. “Marilyn and I have reached an understanding. She makes passes and issues invitations, and I ignore them. She expects that.”
Fannie rang the bell for Rodger, who appeared at once. “Would you please pass some more dressing and gravy?” To Richard, she said, “How is Marilyn responding to your feelings for Francine?”
His eyes widened, he swallowed too quickly and had to cough several times before he could answer. “I don’t know. I also don’t know precisely what my feelings for Francine are.”
Fannie placed her fork on the side of her plate and pointed her right index finger at him. “Philip used to be a ladies’ man. I hope he hasn’t decided to go after Francine.”
He hadn’t considered that. “Why? Is he something of a rake?”
“Let’s just say he always seemed to have enough ego and charm to get whatever and whomever he wanted.”
A frown gathered on Richard’s face, and he moved his head slowly from side to side. “Then why is he a bachelor?”
Fannie stared at Richard. “I won’t bother to ask you the same question, but I’ll tell you like it is: You’re as crazy about Francine as she is about you, so get off your high horse and straighten things out with her. She’s a woman who isn’t going to accept second best no matter how much she loves you.”
Months earlier, he would have resented such an intrusion into his personal affairs, but she ate supper with him every night, and he supposed that gave her a special license.
“It’s a long story, Fannie. I’ve had bridges to cross, but I’m getting there.”
“Good. You don’t want to end up like Philip: sixty, single, and sorry.”
A few chuckles escaped him. “Philip has begun to visit you regularly. What’s happened? He hasn’t retired from his church, has he?”
Richard thought she seemed pensive for a moment before snapping out of it. “He’ll preach as long as he can breathe. Maybe he’s lonely, though I don’t see how with all those church sisters dying to comfort him. I don’t know, but whenever he comes, I’m happy to see him.”
No help there. A man had a reason for making such drastic changes in his behavior, and he’d like to know what motivated Philip Coles. It was not Francine. He’d bet anything that it centered on Jolene.
After supper, Richard sat with Judd in the lounge before the fire that crackled and popped out tiny sparks, giving the room the atmosphere of a real home. Presently, Francine walked over to them, and Richard stood, pulled over a chair and waited for her to sit down.
“Welcome back,” Judd said to her. “I missed you these past few days when you were sulking at m’friend here.
Francine’s bottom lip dropped. “What? I wasn’t . . . We had a misunderstanding is all. What a delightful Thanksgiving,” she said, changing the subject and looking straight into Richard’s eyes. “I’m so glad I found this place.”
His heart skipped a beat. Francine hadn’t previously flirted with him. Heat flushed the back of his neck and, without thinking, he pushed back from the table. Her gaze didn’t waver, and he realized that she was going for the jugular, that she’d played it his way, and now she would call the shots.
“Would you two like some privacy?” Judd asked with a note of merriment in his voice.
Richard’s laughter simultaneously with Francine’s relieved the tension. “You stay right here,” he said to Judd. “I wouldn’t like this situation to get out of hand. I think Francine has just declared war.”
Judd relaxed in the Shaker rocker and rocked back and forth, his eyes closed and his face angelic. “And a good thing, too. It’s high time, ’cause you’ll shilly-shally till you’re old as I am.”
Unmoved by Judd’s meddling, Richard went to the cooler for a drink of water, and Francine walked over to him. “How’s Judd doing?”
“Fine, as far as I know. Why? Is he ill?”
“No, but his only sister is ailing, and he seemed depressed about it yesterday. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and that’s a good distance from here.”
He drank the water and dropped the paper cup into the receptacle put there for that purpose. “Thanks for letting me know.”
When he returned to the table, he said to Judd, “What do you say I drive you to Raleigh tomorrow to see your sister?”
Judd stopped rocking. “You’d do that? I’d love to see Thelma. She’s m’closest living relative, and she’s not a bit well.”
“I’ll rent a car then, and we’ll start first thing in the morning. Can you call and say we’re coming?”
Judd nodded. “I sure will, and I want you to know that God’s gonna bless you, friend.”
The next morning, Francine drove them to a car rental agency in Ocean Pines. The gray, snow-capped clouds hung low, and Richard did what he hadn’t done since his boyhood days: He gazed up and silently prayed for dry weather.
“Thanks for the lift,” he said to Francine and unbuckled his seat belt. But as he reached for the door handle, one of Francine’s hands clasped his cheek and the other one touched the back of his head. Surprised, he turned fully to face her and felt the shock of her lips moving over his. “Judd is in the back seat,” he warned himself, but her lips parted, and he capitulated and thrust into the sweet warmth of her mouth. She took him, pulling him deeply into her in the rhythmic motions of a woman approaching orgasm, and as hard as he tried to stave it off, he nonetheless rose in a full erection. He broke the kiss.
“Francine! My Lord, Judd is in the back seat.”
“He is not,” she said as sweetly and as refined as if she hadn’t seconds earlier rocked him out of his senses. “He got out of the car as soon as I started to kiss you. Are you angry?”
His head fell back against the seat. “Hell, I don’t know what I am. You’re asking for trouble.”
“Not me. I’m asking for what I want, and what I’ll get.” Her hand stroked his chest.
“You little imp. I hope you have time to wait here till I get straightened out. Woman, you came up on my blind side, and you’re going to pay. Nobody corners me.”
Her face shone with the brilliance of her smile. “Pay? Me? Gladly. How much, where and when?” Her satisfied facial expression and its wordless promise sent tremors through him. Francine Spaldwood was beating him at his own game.
He opened the door, glancing back at her as he got out of the car. “Drive carefully; that’s what I’m going to do.”
He went inside the car rental agency, where Judd sat reading a copy of
The Maryland Journal
. “I was wondering if you two had gotten into a fight,” Judd said without shifting his gaze from the paper.
Richard stared down at him. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” Judd replied, still looking at the paper. “From the surprise you got, I figured you had either boxed her ears or made love to her, and if you’re half the man I think you are, you wouldn’t have done that in that car. Anyway, you didn’t have time.”
Richard leaned against the counter, musing over Judd’s words until laughter burst out of him, and he laughed until he had to support his belly with both hands.
“’Twasn’t that funny,” Judd said.
The drive to Raleigh took nearly four hours, and they reached the home of Judd’s sister around one o’clock in the afternoon. Judd bounded up the steps to the front door as if he had shed thirty years, his face aglow with smiles. The happiness Richard felt knowing that he was able to give his friend such a priceless gift filled him with the sense that, somehow, he was being redeemed. But Richard couldn’t know that before he left Raleigh, North Carolina, he would be a different man, a changed man.
Chapter Ten
 
Richard watched Judd rush up the stairs, sprightly as a far younger man and seemingly unmindful of his eighty-five years. He sensed that Judd loved his sister, but did love—any kind of love—do that for a person? Alone in the living room, Richard walked over to a window near the fireplace and looked out. Pecans covered the earth beneath two enormous pecan trees. He shook his head in wonder. If the family members didn’t want the nuts or didn’t need income from them, they could at least give them to a needy person. Musing over the idea, it occurred to him that, as recently as two months earlier, no such thought would have crossed his mind. He marveled at the changes in himself.
“Hi.”
At the sound of that soft, feminine purr, he whirled around and stared into the face of temptation. Five feet, eight inches tall; big, almond-shaped brown eyes; a honey complexion; youthful breasts nearly popping out of a tight sweater; and rounded hips in jeans slung so low that he could see the beginning of her pubic hair. He caught himself a second before he would have released a sharp whistle.
“Who’re you?” she asked him with all the cockiness of a female aware of her feminine assets and of their effect on a man.
“Richard Peterson. Are you as reckless as I suspect you are?” he asked her in a tone that was part arrogant and part scornful. He judged her to be about twenty-one or twenty-two.
She shortened the distance between them to about five feet and cocked her head to one side, openly appraising him as a man.
“Like what you see?” he asked, tersely, then turned and resumed his inspection of the world beyond the window.
“Sure beats anything I’ve ever seen in this town,” she replied. “How long are you staying?”
Annoyed as he was, he recognized himself in her. A player sure of her shots and unconcerned about what they hit. He commented on her remark. “Beats any
thing
you’ve seen, huh? Where, other than Raleigh, North Carolina, have you been?”
“Nowhere,” she said airily. “Can I . . . uh . . . give you something?”
He thought for a moment that he had swallowed his tongue, and when he recovered from the shock, he said, “You should have more respect for your elders,” aware that he was grabbing at any means of shielding himself from her sexual onslaught. However, instead of taking him seriously, she laughed.
“I can take care of myself. Can you?”
He swung around, then, gritting his teeth, and his gazed captured her hardened nipples, which strained against the tight sweater. “Oh, I can take care of myself,” he said, “and you, too. You like to challenge men, do you? Well, if I take you up on that, you’ll never forget it.”
She looked him in the eye. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“I see you’ve met Gretchen, m’ niece.”
Richard looked up to find Judd’s gaze locked on him and a quizzical expression on the old man’s face. “Yes,” he said, hating the sound of wariness in his voice, “we’ve met.”
“Can I tear you loose long enough to take you upstairs to meet m’ sister?”
“Sure. That won’t be difficult,” he replied and immediately regretted putting Gretchen down. Wasn’t he partly responsible for her fresh behavior? Hadn’t he made the mistake of registering his reaction to her on his face and in his demeanor? Hell, he’d behaved like a stallion on a stud farm for so long that it had become as native to him as the clothes he wore. He swore harshly beneath his breath.
“How’s your sister doing?” he asked Judd as he followed him up the stairs.
“Well, I haven’t seen her in a while, but she looks pretty good, and her voice is as strong as ever. Still, I know she’s sick.”
In the room, a chamber decorated with white furniture and curtains, and heather blue walls, bedding, and carpeting that impressed him as a cheerful place in which to be sick, Judd took his sister’s hand. “Josie, this here’s m’ friend, Ambassador Richard Peterson.” He decided that to correct Judd would deprecate him in some way, so he accepted the reference to his former status.
“I’m so glad to meet you, sir,” she said. “Judd’s letters are full of nice things about you. Thanks for bringing him to see me.”
“I’m glad we could come. How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good, all things considered. Yesterday, the doctor told me I’d soon be up and that he doesn’t expect me to . . . check out for a while yet.”
“That’s good news,” Richard said. “Perhaps the next time we come, you’ll be able to show us around your city.”
“Not much to see, but I sure will enjoy showing you what’s here. Judd, ask Gretchen to come here, please.”
“I’ll do it,” Richard said. He went to the top of the stairs and called her. “Your mother wants you.” She didn’t answer, and he stood there staring while she took her time, sashaying up the steps like an exotic dancer. At the top of the stairs, she managed to brush his body while looking him in the eye. He’d never seen such a brazen woman, and he had a mind to teach her a lesson.
“You want me, Mama?” she asked, the picture of innocence.
“Honey, would you give Ambassador Peterson and your uncle Judd some lunch? They must be starved after that long drive.”
Richard held up his right hand. “Oh, no. We don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“I baked a North Carolina ham yesterday, and I made some buttermilk biscuits this morning. We’ve got string beans, corn and coconut cake. There’s plenty,” Gretchen added, looking at her mother and not at him.
So she knew that her mother wouldn’t approve of her behavior. Hmm. Probably a phony. Suddenly, his bruised nerves heated up. He’d bet a few thousand that she was a virgin. An experienced woman wouldn’t feel the need to broadcast her sexuality. Well. Well. He swallowed the liquid that accumulated in his mouth, and closed his eyes, for he remembered the one experience he’d had introducing a woman to her sexual potential. Before it was over, she drove him to the stratosphere, so to speak.
“Until you’ve eaten North Carolina ham, you haven’t tasted ham,” Judd said.
Richard observed Judd’s eagerness to show him hospitality, even though he expressed it through his sister. “You won’t catch me turning down this kind of food,” he said. “Of course, I’ll stay.”
He had to admit that the food was, indeed, first class and that he hadn’t eaten better biscuits. “You’re an excellent cook,” he told Gretchen. “These biscuits are to die for.”
“Thanks.” Her eyelids fluttered. “I’m good at everything I do.”
Judd’s fork clattered against his plate. He looked first at his niece and then at him. Now what? She had made her interest in him clear to Judd, who stopped eating and stared at her. But Gretchen continued her game as if Judd was either too old or too stupid to know that she was flirting with Richard. He saw the disappointment and the sadness on the old man’s face and was moved by it. In forty-four years, he had made one friend, and he was learning that doing things for a person didn’t prove friendship, that loyalty was probably the test. For the past hour, he had been thrashed alternately by the ravages of his libido and by what remained of his habit of accepting what women offered, provided it interested him and had no strings. He looked at Judd, who seemed shrouded in sadness, and decided to put an end to it.
“How old are you?” he asked Gretchen, and he could see that she was taken aback.
“Uh . . . twenty-two.”
“I’m exactly twice your age and old enough to be your father. You’ve been flaunting your breasts and your behind at me ever since I’ve been here. I’m tired of it, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop it right now.”
She gasped. “How can you say that?”
“I’m a man of the world, Gretchen, and when it comes to women, I haven’t misunderstood one in years. And trust me; I’ve had a slew of ’em. No point in being offended. I didn’t get mad when you deliberately brushed against me at the top of the stairs.” He changed the subject. “Judd, if I told Marilyn how good these biscuits are, she’d never forgive me.”
He hardly believed the change in Judd’s demeanor. Had Judd really thought he would take his friend’s niece to bed for the sport of it? “You’re too smart to tell Marilyn that,” Judd said and turned his attention to his niece. “You just learned a lesson and, if you got any sense, you won’t have to learn it again. You thought I didn’t know what was going on, didn’t you? I was on to you from the time I came down here to ask Ambassador Peterson to come meet m’ sister. Try that on some men, and they’ll make you deliver whether you want to or not.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle Judd.”
“You should be. You got any lemonade or sweetened iced tea?”
She brought a pitcher of each and, to Richard’s surprise, she rejoined them at the table. “What’s it like where you live, Uncle Judd?”
Judd sipped the iced tea with relish, the pleasure of it mirrored on his face. “Water everywhere. Perfect in summer, and just cold enough in winter. All in all, it’s a lot like paradise.”
With a long sigh, she leaned back in her chair, a person without purpose. Richard looked at Gretchen,
twenty-two years old, bored with her life, and ripe for trouble. If she thought he was going to provide excitement for her, she could forget it
.
“We ought to get started pretty soon,” Judd said. “Fannie will kick up a storm if the two of us are late for supper.”
“Right,” he replied, though the prospect didn’t worry him. “I’ll run up and say good-bye to your sister.”
Judd drained his glass of its remaining iced tea. “I’ll go with you.”
 
 
“I don’t think we’ll make it home for supper,” Judd said about two hours later. “We’re just getting to Northampton.”
“You’re right, and this looks like a good place to stop,” Richard said as they approached an inn, a large white brick structure with red shutters at its windows, smoke billowing from its chimney, and an elegant facade that faced the ocean. “Let’s see what this place is offering.”
“Nice place,” he said to Judd when he returned to the rented Chevrolet. “What do you say we spend the night here? I’ll call Fannie and let her know. It’s on me.”
“I can’t let you pay for m’ room,” Judd said. “Pretty soon, you’ll be broke, and I’ll have to take care of you.”
“I already paid in advance,” he told Judd. “Come on.”
After an excellent supper of fish right out of the bay, he sat in the lounge sipping coffee and thinking over the day. A day in which he’d done something that he would always look back on with pride. He hadn’t let his friend down, and he had turned his back on what every molecule of his body screamed for—sex with a luscious female naïve enough to give him carte blanche.
“I got a lot to thank you for,” Judd said, bringing him out of his reverie.
“What’s that?”
“You could have had Gretchen if you wanted to, and for a while there, I thought you would because she was getting to you. You’ll never know what a relief I felt when you put her in her place. She loves to toy with men; I’ve seen her at it since she was twelve or thirteen. She’s a tease, and I hope you taught her a lesson.”
Richard rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand. “For once, I did the right thing.”
Judd rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Yeah, and you haven’t always done that, have you? When you dance with the devil, son, you gotta pay the tab, and I suspect you owe him.”
Richard leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “And how! I’m no saint, and you know it. If she hadn’t been your niece, I’d probably be in her right now, good intentions be damned. It’s been a year since I touched a woman.” He sat forward and looked straight at Judd. “You know, something happened to me. You could say it was an epiphany of sorts. I felt cleansed after I straightened her out. For the first time in my memory, I did the right thing with a woman at a time when . . . when my needs said do the opposite.”
The fire crackled, and sparks shot up the old fashioned chimney, but it was more than the fire that warmed Richard Peterson. For the first time in his life, he had a friend with whom he could talk, a friend with whom he needn’t bother to posture or pretend. He leaned back again, clasped his hands behind his head and spoke softly.
“You know, Judd, I don’t believe there are many men my age who can regret as many deeds and as many experiences as I do. I was self-centered from childhood, demanding things that my parents couldn’t afford. As I look back, I realize they made so many sacrifices for me, denied the fulfillment of their own needs for my sake and with no thanks from me.
“I’ve mistreated more women than I’ve been gracious to. Oh, I didn’t abuse them physically, slander or betray them, but I took what they offered—knowing that I had beguiled them with charm, manners, and my appearance—and then I left them to deal with it as best they could. I’m speaking of dozens of women, Judd. Married, single, young, old, white, black, any color or nationality. I made love to them efficiently, flawlessly, felt nothing but physical release, and went on my way.
“When I was nineteen, I fathered a child with a girl I loved and wanted to marry.” Judd’s eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing. “But she had her own agenda,” Richard continued, squeezed his eyes tight and said, “and she aborted it. I felt that for many years.”

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