When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) (34 page)

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Authors: Gwynne Forster

BOOK: When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance)
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He looked up as Marilyn placed an individual dish of crab soufflé before Judd and glanced at Fannie for her reaction. “I thought I planned crab salad for lunch,” Fannie said.
“They didn’t look like they wanted salad,” Marilyn said. “Your salad is coming right up.”
“Would you like some of my soufflé?” Judd asked Fannie after Marilyn left the table.
Fannie’s pursed lips and puffed cheeks were answer enough, but she looked at her tablemates, frowned and said, “I wouldn’t taste it to save her life. By the way, Richard, one of the town councilmen told me he wants to put your name up for mayor of Pike Hill.” Richard stopped eating and stared at her, but she held up her right hand, palm out. “Hear me out. He said you’d done more for this town in the short while you’ve been here than anybody has in the last quarter of a century. He said that, because of your example, people are volunteering to do things that used to cost Pike Hill plenty. He couldn’t believe you’ve got kids sitting still to learn the computer at five o’clock in the afternoon. You think about what he wants you to do.”
He didn’t want to hear it. In his present mood, he had a mind to leave Pike Hill. But where would he go? Pike Hill was home, the place where he’d finally found himself. “I don’t know, Fannie. I’ve always stayed clear of partisan politics.”
“Nothing but Democrats here,” Judd said, “so you’ll still be clear of it.”
“I am not going to walk around this town begging people to vote for me. I think this habit of adults kissing babies and leaving their germs on them is scandalous, and I refuse to say a thing merely because it’s politically correct.”
Judd scraped the soufflé dish for the last morsel of crab soufflé and locked his gaze on Richard. “It hasn’t been
that
long since you were an ambassador. I thought all you fellows did was lie with a straight face and drink martini cocktails.”
Richard leaned back and looked Fannie in the eye. “That’s behind me. I might consider it, if it’s a part-time job. I’m not giving up our tutoring classes, and after Christmas, I want to start a career-guidance workshop for high school juniors and seniors. It would be good if we could get visiting experts in different fields to talk with them. I’ve been working on that, and—”
Fannie interrupted him. “And you’d make the perfect mayor.”
The booted footsteps of Percy Lucas entering the dining room drew their attention to the man they had thought was somewhere around Charleston, South Carolina, en route home. “I thought you were due in tonight or tomorrow morning,” Fannie said.
“I was, but we’re supposed to get a bad hurricane, and they say it will tear up things from Florida to Maine, so I put my foot on that pedal and hightailed it back here as fast as I could. I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours. Any lunch?”
“I’ll get you something,” Fannie said and went to the kitchen.
“It will do you good to have a steady job,” Judd told Richard.
“I know. That’s why I’m considering it, but damned if I want to come home tired every night.”
“Pshaw. You wouldn’t get tired if you spent the day visiting every citizen in this town. Ever been in a hurricane?” Richard shook his head. “Well I have, and being this close to the ocean during one can make you pray.”
He answered his cell phone. “Hello. Peterson speaking.
What?
” He stood up. “What a surprise! This is wonderful.” He walked out of the dining room to the hallway and leaned against the wall beside the house telephone. “You’ll love it here. No, it won’t be any problem. I have a very large room facing the ocean, and I’ll ask my landlady to put a single bed in there for you. It’s been a long while since we spent any time together. Me? Something’s different about me? What do you mean? Right. We can talk about it when you get here.” He hung up, went back into the dining room and took his seat.
“That sounded like good news, so I don’t suppose it was one of your faceless lovers on her way here to finish off your relationship with Francine. Was it?”
“Hate to disappoint you, friend, but that was my dad.”
He hadn’t spent any quality time with his father over the last twelve or thirteen years, mostly because he hadn’t valued the minutes they had together. As he’d bathed in his status and his rising fame, he’d forgotten that, while he floundered in his teenage years, his father had propped him up, constantly sacrificing his own well-being for his son’s goals.
He recalled those days to Judd, adding, “He deserves better than I’ve given him.”
Judd patted Richard’s hand. “I suspect most of us could have said that at one time or another. You gonna introduce him to Francine?”
“If she’ll let me. I’ll speak to Fannie about a bed for him. See you at supper.” He trudged up the stairs and knocked on Francine’s door.
 
 
Jolene raced out of her room and barely missed plowing into Richard as she rounded the corner to speed down the stairs. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Which one of them are you going to meet?” he asked in a teasing tone.
“Harper. I don’t know what’s going on with me, but I think Gregory is out of my system. I have a feeling that what he did straightened me out.”
“He was never in your system, Jolene. He’s an attractive prospect for a woman, so he might have been in your head but, from what you’ve told me, he was never in your heart. Have a good time.”
She skipped on down the stairs and, as her feet touched the bottom step, the doorbell rang. Fannie reached the door first and opened it.
“Good afternoon. Is Miss Tilman here?”
“Uh . . . why . . . yes. Come in. Who should I say is calling for her?”
Jolene rushed to them. “Hi, Harper. This is my landlady, Mrs. Fannie Johnson. Fannie, this is Harper Masterson.”
Harper stared from one to the other. “How do you do, ma’am? I’m glad to meet you.”
“And I sure am glad to meet you,” Fannie said. “Jolene, you bring him to supper one night, you hear?” She looked at Harper. “We’ve got the best kitchen anywhere around here, so you come see us.”
“I will, if he’ll come,” said Jolene.
Harper eased an arm around Jolene’s waist and half turned toward the door. “I hope to see you again soon, ma’am.”
Jolene looked up at the big man beside her and thought that she had never been so happy. He wore a brown tweed overcoat, brown leather gloves, and a green paisley scarf, and she could see that he wore a tie. However, it surprised her that what he wore didn’t matter, that she would have been happy with him if he’d worn a leather jacket and a baseball cap.
“Anything special you want to see?” he asked her.
“You pick something. I don’t really care what we see.”
He stopped in the process of opening the passenger’s door for her. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I just want us to be together.”
He grabbed both of her shoulders and stared into her face. “Are you handing me a line? Don’t mess with me, Jolene. I was getting the impression that you were different from what you were when you used to ride my bus, that you were a tender, caring woman, and that you had stopped being manipulative.”
Stunned, and aware that he was capable of walking off and leaving her right there, she opted for the truth. “I’ve been on high all day waiting for you to ring that doorbell. I hardly slept last night. I don’t want to manipulate you, Harper. I just want to be with you. If you don’t believe me, I’m going back in the house.”
His cold lips bruised hers, but his groan warmed her heart and she opened to him and pulled his tongue into her mouth. As quickly as he started it, he stopped. “That’s the first time I ever kissed a woman in public, but I’d have done it if we’d been standing on the White House steps. Have you seen
Swept Away
?” She shook her head. “Come on. Let’s go.”
During the movie, they held hands, and from time to time, he squeezed her fingers. She wished the frames of their seats didn’t separate them, and that she could be closer to him. “Maybe I’d better ask Richard and Judd about this,” she said to herself, for her feelings seemed to be getting ahead of her mind.
They left the theater holding hands, and it seemed to her so natural, but how good a judge of character, of men was she? “Would you like to have supper with me at the boardinghouse tomorrow night, or we could do it Monday. But I work Monday, and I’ll hardly have time to wash my hands after I get home.”
“Tomorrow, if you like. What does she charge?”
Why was he asking her that, and how much proof did he need? “I pay my room and board bill monthly, and as my guest, you pay nothing. It’s on me.”
“But—”
“You coming or not? You can’t pay to eat in my home. Harper, what do I have to do to prove to you that I learned my lesson, that I am no longer struggling under the yoke of my mother’s prejudices?”
He took his time answering. They walked nearly half a block before he said, “I don’t believe anybody can understand how hurt I was that night. I’d never been in love before, and I knew I loved you, but all I could see was that you were the wrong woman for me. I made love to you for the hell of it and . . . almost lost my mind. You were so perfect for me; I had never touched a woman who made me feel as you did. Can you blame me for being wary, for feeling that this second chance with you is too good to be true?”
Her shoulders slumped, and she expelled a long breath. “No, I can’t blame you, and I don’t. I’d give anything if I’d been different. It took your accident to shake me up. Then, Francine and Richard opened my eyes, talking to me about life and how people relate, telling me things I should have known when I was sixteen. Judd taught me about friendship, and he did it just by the way he acts. I’m glad I found that place, ’cause only the Lord knows what kind of person I’d be now if I hadn’t.”
They reached his car, and when they were both inside with the doors closed and locked, he asked her, “How do you feel about me?”
“I’m scared to say, but you mean a lot to me, more than . . . than anybody else ever has. At least I think so.”
Her shivers when he eased her into his arms were out of her control. She wrapped her arms around him and held him while he kissed her eyes, lips and cheeks until she could taste her own tears.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I can’t undo all those stupid things I did when I first came here, and I’d g . . . give anything if I could.”
His arms tightened around her. “All right. Let’s both of us put that in the past. I don’t dwell on it, and neither should you. Let’s see what we have going for us.”
She nodded. If only he meant it. On the way back to Pike Hill, he stopped at a drive-in fast food shop and bought them grilled barbecued shrimp kebobs, French fries, and coffee.
“Is any man at that boardinghouse going to be jealous because you brought me to supper?” he asked as they ate in the car with Aretha Franklin’s “Chain, Chain, Chain” in the background.
His question surprised her. “No, indeed. I told you about Percy, but I straightened things out with him not so long ago, and we’re on speaking terms now. I cleaned up my act.”
“I wasn’t talking about him. Who is this Richard fellow?”
“He’s Francine’s guy. Wait’ll you meet him.”
He cleared his throat. “Something tells me that boarding house has an unusual cast of characters.”
“You can say that again.”
 
 
With a heavy heart and fear cramping his gut, Richard knocked on Francine’s door and waited. He knew she hadn’t left the house, so he knocked again. After what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes, she opened the door.
“Francine, I have two things to say. I believe I deserve a hearing about what happened this morning, and I want my father to meet you when he comes here next week. Will you step out of the room and talk with me?”
“That’s three things,” she said, and his heart leaped in his chest, for if she could joke or tease, she would be amenable to reason. “I don’t want to talk about anything standing out here, but tell me this . . . you really didn’t remember her?”
He crossed his heart. “So help me God, I don’t remember ever having seen her. I also know that I probably did it.”
She stared at him for a long while, and he waited for the hatchet to fall. Then, she looked at her watch. “If we sit at one of those side tables for two down in the lounge, no one will join us. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”
And not a hint as to how she would react to what he had to tell her. When he got down there, she had chosen a table against the wall, far away from where they usually sat with Judd. He nodded to Judd as he entered the lounge.
Francine didn’t soften what she had to say with preliminaries. “I’m in deep with you, Richard, but I can walk away, and I can stay away. So please start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out. I’m not judging you; I just want to decide fairly if I want to cast my lot with you.”
“Fair enough,” he began. “The man you’re looking at would hardly be recognizable to the man I was less than eighteen months ago.” He left out nothing of what he remembered from his nineteenth birthday to the day he decided to leave Geneva and the diplomatic world.

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