Read Online When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) by Gwynne Forster - Free Book Online

her time wandering along the beach, which, she had discovered, held many facets. She walked in the town park, and when she didn’t feel up to pretending she was happy being alone, she stayed in her room.
    If only one of the six entrepreneurs to whom she had applied for a job would telephone her! That morning, after sitting beside the swimming pool for an hour, afraid to jump into it, she despaired, put her long blue skirt over her bathing suit and headed home. As she stepped up on the porch, she collided with Richard.
    “Sorry,” he said. “I was sitting around there on the shady side with Judd. I hope I didn’t hurt you. Are you all right?”
    She refused his help, picked herself up and walked around him toward the front door, but he grasped her arm, startling her.
    “I said, are you all right?”
    “I’m fine, Mr. Peterson. Would you please let go of my arm?”
    He reminded her of a red-combed cock with his plumes raised and ready for a fight. “Yes, indeed,” he hissed. “Bubbling with friendliness, aren’t you? I’d like to know what you’re trying to prove.”
    She slapped both hands on her hips—something mama said a woman shouldn’t do—and glared at him. “I could ask you the same question. You’re not the only peacock in the yard. Excuse me.”
    She dashed up the stairs to dress and got the twelve-thirty bus to Salisbury for her appointment with the hairdresser. “You’re right on time, as usual,” the hairdresser exclaimed when Jolene walked in. “Have a seat, and I’ll be with you in ten minutes.” Knowing that the ten minutes might stretch into forty-five, Jolene sat down and slumped in the chair. She could just as well have gotten the one o’clock bus.
    “Did you see in The Maryland Journal today where Callie Smith got married last Saturday?” one woman asked another.
    “Did I ever! Can you beat that? We all thought poor Callie was gonna die an old maid.”
    “Well, not quite,” another woman chimed in. “Callie ain’t been no maid in thirty-five years. How old you think Callie is? Fifty?”
    “Pretty close to it,” Mabel, the hairdresser, said. “And she can wear the hem of her skirts up to her behind and get that weave with the hair hanging down her back, but when she gets in bed with that man, he gon’ know the difference between twenty-five and fifty.”
    “You telling me?” the woman holding the newspaper said.
    “He already know the difference,” another said, “but I guess it didn’t bother him none. He married her.”
    “What he look like?” one asked
    “Well, from this picture, he ain’t no Prince Charming, and he sure could use some hair. Course, hair ain’t what makes it swing it the sack.”
    “You telling me?”
    With her head half-bowed, Jolene’s gaze scanned the room. Every woman there, except her, had an opinion about Callie Smith, whoever she was. She walked over to the magazine rack, not for something to read—she seldom read anything—but for a means of appearing engrossed in something other than the conversation. Her eyes nearly doubled in size at the sight of a book, the cover of which showed a nearly nude blonde in the arms of a swashbuckling pirate. She glanced around, saw that no one looked her way, picked up the book and went back to her chair.
    With no interest in reading the book, she skimmed the first few pages without knowing what she saw. “Good Lord!” she breathed and nearly sprang from her chair when her gaze captured a description of a lovers’ kiss with the man’s tongue deep in the woman’s mouth. She slammed the book face down on the chair next to her. But when she realized that none of the women paid her any attention, she picked up the book, made a note of its author and title and replaced it on the chair face down.
    “How far is the nearest bookstore?” She asked Mabel as she was about to leave the beauty parlor.
    “Walk down to Easter Street, turn left, cross two streets, and it’s in that block.”
    Jolene