When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) (18 page)

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Authors: Gwynne Forster

BOOK: When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance)
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“Congratulations.” Very soon, she knew the story of Jolene’s life from birth until her arrival at the boarding-house and, for a woman who a few weeks earlier uttered the time of day only grudgingly, she wondered at the change in Jolene.
“We need to do a little work with you,” she told Jolene. “Unfortunately, your mother closed her eyes to a lot of truths and misled you.”
“I sure don’t know much about men, Francine. Looks like I make a wrong move with every man I meet.”
“You’ve been operating with your mother’s attitudes. Get rid of them.”
Jolene’s gaze shifted to the floor. “Do you mind if I ask whether you’re married?”
“I’m a widow now, but I was a happy wife. If my husband so much as smiled or winked at me, it was as if the heavens opened up and the angels sang.”
“Gee. That’s the way it is in the romance novels I read, but my mama said men just use women, getting what they want out of them and . . . Ever since she died and I’ve . . . uh, been on my own, I’ve . . .” How could she say it without indicting herself?
Francine sat forward, aware that Jolene was about to release a bombshell. “You’ve been what?”
“I’ve been using them in every way that I could.”
Francine didn’t want to believe what she heard. “And you’ve been killing your chances to develop a meaningful relationship. Men are human beings. They feel, hurt, ache, and love the same as we do. You’ll meet good ones and bad ones, honey, but you have to learn the difference.”
Jolene traced boards on the parquet floor with her right foot, and Francine wanted to force the woman to look at her. Patience, girl, she counseled herself.
“I . . . uh . . . I’ve already loused up with somebody who I . . . oh, heck. That’s water down the drain.”
What could she say to that? She sensed that Jolene was warming up to her when Jolene changed the subject and said, “I’m sorry you lost your husband, Francine. That must have been a blow to you. You know, when I first saw you, I thought there was something sad about you, but I didn’t follow it up; I’m just beginning to think about other people.”
Francine didn’t want to sink back into that loneliness, so she forced a smile. “It’s been eighteen months. I’ve learned to thank God that, for five years, I had greater happiness than some people have during their lifetime. I’d better get up to my room and make a few calls before it gets too late.” She stopped to say good night to Judd and Richard. “How’s the game?”
“I’m winning as usual,” Judd said without taking his gaze from the cards in his hand. “Richard’s giving me a birthday party Saturday. That’s m’birthday. You coming?”
“If that’s the invitation I’m getting, yes. I wouldn’t miss it.”
Richard looked up at her with what appeared to be a reprimand in his eyes. “I completed the arrangements today. Tomorrow, you will all find an invitation under your door.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my! Did I do bad?”
“We missed your company tonight,” Judd said, and she knew that he had deliberately doused the flame of their rising conflict.
Judd’s eyes had witnessed a lot in their day, and she didn’t doubt that he’d seen more in her and in Richard than either of them had seen in each other. She climbed the stairs with the unwanted weight of an attraction to Richard bearing on her. She had come to Pike Hill to locate a smuggler of illegal aliens, a man who always lived and operated around open waters, and she didn’t need to have her wits clogged by the numbing effects of passion.
 
 
Marilyn moved from the doorway as he approached, and Richard knew she did that so as to have more privacy with him. “How’d you like the cheese soufflé tonight? I knew you would appreciate it if nobody else did.”
“Up to your usual high standard. I’m planning a birthday party for Judd on Saturday night, and I’d like you to prepare the food. I have a menu, and I want you to follow it to the letter.”
A smile crawled over her face, and he’d never seen anyone, not even a sexually sated woman, with a more exultant expression of satisfaction. “Honey, that’s right down my alley. I’ll fix you a party that’ll make their eyes pop out. Just tell me how much I can spend, and I’ll do the rest.”
He didn’t blink. “I said I’ll give you a menu, and I want you to follow it. If you can’t do that, I’ll hire a caterer from Ocean City.”
Her hands went to her hips, and her glare held no semblance of sexuality. “No caterer you hire is gonna cook in my kitchen.”
His gaze bore into her. “In a battle of wills, Marilyn, if you tie up with me, you will lose. I appreciate that you’re a first class cook, but I want what I want the way I want it, and that’s what I’m used to getting. It’s my menu or a caterer. Is five hundred dollars adequate compensation for the extra work?”
She drooped against the wall, rubbing and twisting her fingers and, for the first time since he’d known her, stripped of her aplomb.
“Five hundred did you say?” She let out a long sigh. “Bring the menu to breakfast in the morning. I’ll need to order whatever we don’t have, so I’ll need to speak to Fannie.”
“She’s already cleared it. The party will start at seven, replacing supper. Give me your grocery list, and I’ll shop for you in Ocean City or Ocean Pines.” She nodded, visibly subdued, and he hoped she wouldn’t give him any more trouble.
 
 
He needed help choosing favors for his guests and, considering Fannie’s lack of imagination in decorating the house and her choice of table linens, he didn’t think she would be of much help. He didn’t want to ask Francine either. Something had happened between the two of them; she didn’t want it, and he didn’t trust that or any other attraction so long as Estelle Mitchell owned his heart. Moreover, he didn’t think Francine would accept the paltry affair that was all he could offer her. Yet, he wanted her, and he had a feeling that his newly found self-discipline and honor in regard to women was about to be tested.
Lila Mae had no taste and, of the female boarders, that left Louvenia and Arnetha. Out of the question. Deliberately, he joined Jolene for breakfast and related to her his problem. To his amazement, her face lit up. “Balloons. We can fill ’em with helium, tie bunches of them to long ribbons, attach them to sandbags, and put clusters in the lounge and dining room. The more the better. How about a color scheme matching the balloons and table linens? And we can get party hats—” Flabbergasted, he stared at her. Speechless. Her enthusiasm seemed to wane. “You think that’s too much?”
“I think it’s perfect. Wonderful. I had no idea what to do. Can we manage this by Saturday?”
“I saw a party store in Salisbury near where I work. I can call you from there today while I’m on my lunch hour. What’s your cell phone number?”
He gave it to her, and she told him to expect a call around twelve-thirty. She hurried off to work, and Judd soon joined him.
“She’s a perfect example of what improper nurturing can do to a person,” Judd said after Richard related his conversation with Jolene. “A grown woman over thirty with breast milk still on her lips.”
“Come on, Judd. You really believe she’s that naïve?”
“She didn’t get a chance to be a normal teenager, so of course, she’s naïve,” Judd said. “That girl’s matured more in the six or seven months she’s been here than in her previous thirty-some years.”
Richard sat back in his chair and allowed a long breath to leave him. “Makes me appreciate my parents more and more.”
Judd nodded his thanks to Rodger when the man refilled his coffee cup. “Me, too. Good thing is that she realizes she’s handicapped.”
“Man, that girl is smart. Think what she could have been if she’d had the opportunity.”
“Yeah,” Judd said. “Six months ago, she was so drawn into herself, like a turtle hiding his head, that you wouldn’t have been able to figure out whether she was smart or stupid. One thing’s certain; something happened to make her open up.”
“Right. I won’t be around much today. See you this evening.”
 
 
He hadn’t expected to see Francine in Ocean Pines, although he knew she worked there, and he stumbled when he saw her get out of the driver’s side of a car that had police lights and megaphones attached to its roof.
“What a surprise! I was about to look for a place to eat lunch. Do you have time to join me?” When she seemed taken aback, he added, “I only have time for a short one, but if you’re busy—” He let it hang.
She pointed across the street. “I was about to eat in that restaurant over there. The food’s pretty good, but it might not be to your cultivated taste.”
His right eyebrow shot up. “For a good part of my life, curried goat with rice and peas was my most frequent meal. My mother eventually learned to cook other things, thank goodness.” He fell into step with her and, a minute later, nearly knocked her down moving her from the path of an on-coming car as they attempted to cross the street.
“Oops.” She said as they stood pressed together chest to chest. “That was close. You are very disconcerting. I never start across the street without looking both ways.”
Anxious to move the hardened tips of her breasts out of contact with his chest, he turned her to one side and, in response as, she raised an eyebrow, he said, “I probably saved your life, Francine, and that makes me responsible for you.”
“I’m not going there, Richard.”
He opened the restaurant door, stood aside, and allowed her to enter. “Refusing to entertain the idea does not, repeat does not, refute its veracity.”
She ignored him. “I’ll have the shrimp scampi,” she told the waitress when they’d seated themselves.
“I’ll have the same, along with rice and the chef’s salad.”
Silence enveloped them while they waited for their food, and he was tempted to see how long she would allow it to prevail. After two or three minutes, he realized that she didn’t feel obliged to talk.
“You’re neither shy nor skittish,” he said. “Is it possible that you just don’t want me to know who you are?”
“Let’s say I’ve never had an impulse to satisfy other peoples’ curiosity about me.”
It was a cop out, and she knew it. “I’m not ‘other people, as you put it, and we both know it. If you don’t want us to be any closer than we are, so be it. Right now, I’m not sure how free I am to enter into a meaningful relationship, but I do want to get to know you.”
She stopped eating, put her fork down and frowned. “Not free? Are you married?”
He rippled his long fingers over the white tablecloth, idly, as if he didn’t know he was doing it. “No, and I never have been, but when I realized that I wanted marriage, it was too late. Much too late.”
“So you were a player who destroyed his chance and lost out to another man?”
“Not quite, but close enough. I had more integrity than a player. In any case, those days are behind me.”
“Do you still love her?” He thought he detected apprehension in her voice.
“It’s been a year since I opened a newspaper and saw an announcement of her marriage, and I still think of her. There’s been no one since.”
“I’m sorry, Richard. I’ve been a widow for eighteen months, and I haven’t formed any kind of liaison either.”
“Were you happy . . . in your marriage, I mean?” It was too personal a question, but he had to know.
“Oh, yes. In every respect.”
“It must have been a terrible blow.” He hurt for her, and the realization that he had rarely before known such empathy for anyone made him uneasy.
“It was, but I’m grateful for what I had.”
A remarkable woman. The ringing of his cellular phone intruded upon his thoughts. “Excuse the disturbance, please,” he said. “I’m expecting this call.”
“Hello . . . Great. Ask him if they will deliver it Friday, and we need a helium tank, too. You did? Super. Let me speak with him.” He gave the man his credit card number. “Good, I’ll expect it Friday morning. Listen, Jolene, pick out everything. Oh. Silver and blue will work fine, then. Twenty people. Right. Thanks a million.”
He hung up and couldn’t help laughing as Francine gaped at him in astonishment. “Did you say Jolene?
Our
Jolene?” she asked.
“She surprised me, too. I was in a quandary, mentioned the party to her at breakfast, and she was full of ideas. I think her mother impeded her maturity with her negative attitudes.
“To say the least. That woman did a hatchet job on her daughter.”
He didn’t want to talk about Jolene; it was Francine who interested him. “Is there a reason why I shouldn’t know you were driving a squad car?” He could see that she expected that or a similar question.
“I don’t broadcast it, because wide knowledge of it might hinder success in what I’m doing right now.”
“Nobody will learn it from me.”
She leaned toward him. “Thanks. I was looking for someone that day on the beach.”
“And you thought you recognized him?” She nodded, speared a shrimp with her fork and put it into her mouth. “He’s been in that area, and he hangs around the ocean and the bay.”

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