Read Online Love on the Line by Pamela Aares - Free Book Online Page B

said. “You know how you hate the rain.”
    “I might make an exception for you.” Her mother paused. “Alston called with the news,” she said in a lowered voice. “That’s a lot of money, Cara. You can talk to me about it, you know.”
    Cara heard her father’s voice in the background. He sounded impatient. He always was.
    “I have to run. But think about Thanksgiving, darling. I could pay for a driver to take your shift. It’d be easy.”
    “It’s not about the money, Mom.”
    How could she explain to her mother that driving the bus on the days following a holiday break were her favorite times? The kids were all lit up with their taste of freedom and energized by being back around their buddies and friends.
    She didn’t try to explain.
    After she hung up she couldn’t concentrate well enough to stitch up her dress. She pulled a soft white one from the back of her closet. To hell with the fact that it was well after Labor Day. She really didn’t have another choice.
    But as she turned to leave her bedroom, she took one last look in the mirror and frowned. She dragged the dress off and threw it across the bed, then fumbled in the drawer of her vanity and came up with a roll of transparent tape she’d stuffed in the back with some wrapping paper. Without measuring, she tore off a long piece and taped the hem of her blue dress. She slipped it on. Then she sat at her vanity and stared at the tubes of makeup she hadn’t worn in weeks. A stroke of mascara and some blush-pink lipstick looked okay. As did the tiny gold earrings she added. She looked into the mirror again.
    What the hell was she doing primping for a hoedown being held in Grady’s old feed barn?
    Maybe she had been inhabited by an alien.
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    The sound of fiddles and clapping met Ryan as he walked the potholed street that led to the feed barn. Just inside the huge open doors, long strings of Christmas lights hung above stacks of hay bales and lit the dust stirred up by dancing couples. Tables lined the perimeter, and men and women clustered around them, chatting and eating. Ryan scanned the barn, but didn’t see Cara.
    He nodded a greeting to Sam, who sat in a corner with a group of boys from the middle school team. The boys eyed the girls on the other side of the barn, laughing and chatting and shooting glances at them.
    The music stopped, and a man walked to the mike in the middle of the plywood platform that served as a stage.
    “Now I know you all can do better than that,” he said with a laugh. “This next one’s the Grapevine Twist. I’ll call the figures, but Grady, get out here and show these sprouts how it’s done.”
    A few more couples made their way to the dancing area, and the fiddlers started in on an upbeat tune. Ryan had never seen a barn dance. In Texas dances were more formal affairs that he and the other boys avoided. As soon as he was old enough, he’d joined his friends and gone off to nearby towns for concerts in arenas. He’d grown up watching other people play music. This was local people making and enjoying music of their own. No massive sound systems or towers of speakers or commercial hype, just a few townies and a whole lot of energy.
    “Decided to slum it with the locals, did you?” Belva said as she sauntered up and took his arm with her unbandaged hand.
    “I heard there was free food,” Ryan teased back. At least he hoped she was teasing. He didn’t want people in town thinking he was too good for their company. His roots were poorer than most of theirs.
    “Better get at it before those boys do,” Belva said. “Or before Cain gets here. The man can eat his share and that of three other men.”
    She looked up and smiled at something behind him. He turned and saw Cara. If a woman could look confident and awkward at the same time, she did. But it was her simple beauty that shone through and reached out to him.
    She smiled at Belva, maybe at him too; he wasn’t sure. His pulse picked