When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) (28 page)

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Authors: Gwynne Forster

BOOK: When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance)
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“Is that what keeps you from committing to Francine?”
“No. I got over that some years ago. But I met a woman in my circle, well placed, and her status about equal to mine, and she was no pushover. I thought she was playing hard to get, but as it turned out, she wasn’t. She was elegant and well aware of who she was. There was a guy around her, but I discounted him as of no importance. Certainly no competition for me, an ambassador.
“I meant to have her as one of my trophies, nothing more. When I’d about given up, she let me make love with her, and I fell in love, but she didn’t. More proof that I didn’t understand her. She let me down gently, and about six month later, she married another man. Not a night passes when I don’t think about her.”
“How long ago did all this take place?”
“I last saw her three years ago. I reached the pinnacle. I had everything. I went from life in a four-story walk-up apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, to executive-director of an important nongovernmental international agency in which my personal office was bigger than the apartment in which I grew up. The world was my oyster, and I walked away from it.”
Judd’s creased brow showed how perplexed he was. “Why, for goodness sake?”
“I had paid too dearly, stepped on too many people on my way up. I couldn’t enjoy it. I began to see my shallowness and that of my colleagues. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted out. Forty-three years old, and I didn’t have a person I could call friend, didn’t even know I needed one.” His sigh seemed to pour out of him like water streaming from a jug. “When I realized that I cared deeply for you, I was shocked. It was a strange new feeling. I don’t know how it came about, but I’m thankful.”
Judd sipped what was left of his cold coffee, thoughtfully, as if he wanted his next words to have strong import. “You’ve painted a dark picture of yourself, Richard Peterson. Now, I’d like you to tell me some of the good things you’ve done.”
“What do you . . . Oh, I suppose there’ve been a few.”
“But the ones that stay on your mind are the ones you’re not proud of. Whatever you did that you’re not proud of, let it loose. Let all of it go, including that woman.”
“Judd, I can’t forget her. It’s as if she’s my jail sentence.”
Judd cocked his head to one side and looked Richard in the eye, his expression stern. “You want it to be your jail sentence. Don’t enjoy your punishment so much. Go to see her, talk with her, and get rid of that thing that’s bedeviling you. Then you can get on with your life.”
“But, she’s married. I can’t do that.”
“You can so, and it’ll be the best discipline you ever had. When you face her, you may find you’ve been overestimating your feelings for her.”
“Suppose I find that I care more for her than I thought I did. What if seeing her exacerbates an already intolerable situation?”
Judd threw up both hands as if losing patience. “It can’t happen. If it could, you wouldn’t feel the way you do about Francine. You haven’t taken Francine to bed, because you won’t lie to her and treat her the way you treated all those women you didn’t care about. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
Richard got up, walked to the fireplace, stood there for a few minutes, and then went back to his chair and sat down. “I promised myself I wouldn’t call or contact Estelle in any way, that I’d respect the fact that she’s married.”
“Normally, I’d agree, but your passion for that woman has been your bedmate for so long you think you can’t sleep without it. I see what’s going on between you and Francine, and I say you don’t love any other woman.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“’Cause I’ve lived a long time. I know when I’m looking at lust and when I’m looking at love between two people who are perfect for each other.”
“Wish I could be that certain,” Richard said and blew out a long breath. He had exposed himself to Judd, a man he’d known a mere eight months, in a way that he’d never revealed himself to another human being. He spoke to the man in soft tones. “You don’t think less of me after what I just told you?”
Judd furrowed his brow. “Me? Not a bit, and why should I? I’m only concerned with who and what you are now, m’best friend, the fellow who gave me—an old man—m’first birthday party, who opened a new world to a lot of people in Pike Hill. Sixty adults and well-nigh seventy-five kids will have computer skills because of your efforts. You’re a fine man.”
He hoped his eyes communicated his feeling at that moment, for Judd’s words touched him deeply. “Thank you,” he said. “You don’t know what hearing you say that means to me.”
 
 
Richard and Judd arrived in Ocean Pines around eleven o’clock the next morning and returned the rental car. After wondering what he could do to placate Fannie, Richard bought a bushel and a half of crabs, called Dan, the taxi driver, and he and Judd got to the Thank the Lord Boarding House in time for lunch. Fannie met them at the door.
“I don’t like my boarders to stay out all night, but at least you called so I wouldn’t worry.”
Instead of responding, Richard pointed to the sack of crabs. “We thought you’d like to have these. The crabber had just pulled them out of the sound.”
The reprimand forgotten, her eyes widened, and a smile brightened her face. “Oh, thank you. Thank you! Lord, I do love these crabs. We’ll have them for supper.” She dashed off in the direction of the kitchen.
Richard gazed at Judd. “How do you like that? I knew she’d lecture to us, and I also knew that those crabs would cool her off.”
“Yes, siree,” Judd said, scratching his head. “There’s more than one way to seduce a woman.”
 
 
After a day of acting for the first time as manager of the beauty parlor in her boss’ absence and dealing with the consequent hostility of her coworkers, Jolene stepped off the bus and rushed up Ocean Road, her eyes burning from the wind’s assault. Getting a second promotion should have made her happy, and in a way, it had, but she didn’t seem able to shed the weight of Gregory’s indifference or to forgive herself for having caused it. Maybe if she hadn’t told him all those things about herself . . . No. She wanted a clean slate, and she’d done the right thing. “I’ll get over it,” she told herself.
With the icy wind slamming into her, it seemed to her that the short, three-block walk took far longer than usual. When she finally reached the Thank the Lord Boarding House, she fumbled in her pocketbook for the door key, but couldn’t find it. After a minute or so, the door opened, and she stared into Richard’s face.
“Thanks. My fingers are so numb I couldn’t feel the door key.”
“No problem,” he said. “Glad I was down here.”
She started up the stairs, turned and walked back. “Richard . . . you . . . uh . . . got a minute?”
“Sure. Let’s go in there.” He pointed to the lounge.
She sat across from him and tried to figure out how to begin. “I’ve never known a man like you,” she began without planning to say that. “You’re so perfect, Richard, so you must know a lot of people.”
He stiffened, and she suspected he thought she intended to ask him for something. “Richard, how do you make friends, and how do you know when somebody is your friend?”
He stared at her until, embarrassed, she rose to leave. “Please don’t go. I’m the last person you should ask that question, Jolene. I have no idea. Judd is the only friend I ever had.”
It was her turn to stare. “What? You’re joking. You’re so handsome and so . . . so polished that anybody would want to be your friend.”
His laughter held no mirth. “Jolene, what a person looks like hasn’t a thing to do with friendship. The way I see it, friends are people who’re there for you when you have nothing to give them. What’s the problem?”
She hadn’t thought he’d tell her anything so personal as his not having friends. She reached toward him, but quickly withdrew her hand. “Richard, my life is a mess. I had a chance to start life here without my mother riding my back, free to live like other people, to make friends so I wouldn’t be so lonely, and to find someone who would care for me. I never had anyone who loved me, starting with my mother, a mean, bitter woman who wouldn’t even tell me who fathered me.”
He didn’t seem to react to her statement and she remembered that she had already told him about her mother.
“You’ve made remarkable progress here, Jolene, and you should take pride in that.”
“Richard, whatever I know about life now, I should have known when I was sixteen. I’m almost thirty-six.”
She looked him in the eye and took a deep breath. “I’ve met several nice men since I’ve been here, and I’ve messed up with every one of them.”
“What do you mean?” He wasn’t sure that he wanted to serve as a confessor for Jolene or anybody else, but he remembered his relief after spilling his guts to Judd, and he softened his tone to give her courage. “Sometimes it helps to talk about it.”
“I thought all men wanted from women was sex, that they used them and left them to handle the result as best they could. That’s what my mama said, and she said it all the time. I think she hated men. When I came here, I’d never gone anywhere with a man; all I knew about them was what my mama said.
He leaned toward her. “You didn’t date any of your school mates?”
She shook her head. “Gregory Hicks was my first date. He liked me, and it gave me a . . .” she looked for the word . . . “a superior feeling, so I used him, asking him to take me to expensive places, maneuvering him into buying me a cell phone, writing me a job reference, and things like that. Then, I stood him up for Bob Tucker. I see my mistake now, but he’s apparently not much interested. Oh, heck, I might as well tell you all of it.” And she did, including the insensible loss of her virginity. He whistled sharply at that.
“I didn’t know it was important until Jim was so shocked and disgusted. Mama had never mentioned it to me.”
“My Lord!”
She plodded on. “Harper told me I didn’t have feelings for a man, that I was only out for what I could get. I caused him to have that accident, and the first time I went to the hospital to see him, he told me that he’d fallen in love with me, but he didn’t want any part of me.” She sat forward. “Richard, I don’t mourn my mother.”
“Wait a minute! You can’t blame this on your mother. You could read, and you could have talked with other people. You could also have observed relationships between the men and women you met. You’re the one who charted your misdeeds. A thirty-five-year-old woman is responsible for herself and for everything she does, so stop blaming your mother. You wanted revenge against her, your unknown father, or maybe against life, and you took it out on men because you’d been taught that men are the source of all problems.”
She pushed back the tears that threatened to embarrass her. “Maybe you’re right, but I was so immersed in my newly found freedom that I didn’t consider the effect of what I was doing. Francine told me that men have feelings, that they love, hurt and suffer just like we women do. She said a man’s tenderness is a precious thing. Richard, I had never heard words like those.”
“That caused you to change?”
“No. I was already looking hard at myself, thanks to Harper’s accident, experiences at my job, and living here. You, Judd, and Francine have taught me what I should have known twenty years earlier.”
Hearing the agony in her voice and seeing the pain etched on her face tugged at his heart. He knew nothing of women’s sufferings, had become inured to the effect on them of his callousness. In Jolene, he saw himself as he had been when he strode through life stepping on women as if they were weeds.
Francine would love and cherish him, but he wanted Estelle. Jolene wanted Gregory Hicks, but Harper Masterson nearly gave his life for love of her. Jolene had the power to straighten out her life and, he realized with a start, he could do the same with his own life. He leaned forward and capped his knees with the palms of his hand.
“I’m not used to giving personal advice, but I think you’re pining for the wrong man. And you ought to straighten things out with Percy. I knew something had happened between the two of you, and I can see why he was devastated. It took the starch out of him.”
“I know. I wrote him a letter, but I haven’t given it to him yet.”
“A letter? Talk to him. Face him. If you don’t, he’ll continue to avoid you.”
“Thanks, I’ll try to find an opportunity.”
“If you’re interested in doing the right thing, Jolene, you’ll
make
an opportunity.”
“I will. Thanks for talking to me and listening to me. I hope you don’t think I’m a bad person.”
“Why should I? Your slate’s as clean as mine. I’d be the last person to judge you.”
She rose to leave him, and he stood. To his astonishment, she reached up and kissed his cheek. “See you at supper.” She did it impulsively, he knew, but the feeling it gave him of belonging, of rapport with a kindred soul would remain with him for a long time.
She started toward the stairs, stopped and turned back. “Francine is in love with you, Richard. Are you going to try to fix things up with her?”

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