When You Dance With The Devil (Dafina Contemporary Romance) by Gwynne Forster Page B

I’ve seen you swimming in the bay, Mr. Walker.”
    “And thank God I can still do it. Been swimming since I was three, so it comes natural.”
    She drank the remainder of the soft drink and rose to leave. “Thanks for the drink, Mr. Walker.” She paused. “And for the company.”
    “It was my pleasure. We live here in this boardinghouse, because we don’t want to be alone. And that applies to all of us.”
    It was nice talking with him, she admitted to herself, and while she sat with him, she hadn’t felt lonely. She stepped into her room and was closing the door when she heard Fannie’s voice.
    “Philip! What a surprise!” Philip? Did Fannie have a man? She threw off her jacket and skirt and headed for the shower.
    “Jolene. Jolene,” Fannie called, knocking on Jolene’s door as she did so. “Reverend Coles is here, and he’s asking to see you.” She opened the door. “Come on in, Fannie. You’re his sister, aren’t you? He said you are, but I forgot about it, I guess because I didn’t see a resemblance.”
    “That’s what everybody says. Philip looks just like our mother, and I look like our father. Put on something and come downstairs.”
    She slipped on a pink linen shirtdress and went with Fannie to the lounge where Philip Coles sat talking with Judd and Richard. He rose and walked to meet them. Looking at him not as a preacher, but as a man, she saw a handsome, sleepy-eyed man who reminded her of the men in her books. She had never noticed that his smooth brown skin, towering physique, and chiseled features set him apart from most men. Even at the age of sixty or so, Philip Coles could give Richard Peterson a run for his money. She wondered why he had never married.
    “How are you, Sara Jolene? You look wonderful, like a new person. I knew you would thrive here.”
    “I’m fine, Reverend Coles. And I’m Jolene now. I dropped the Sara. I . . . uh . . . I’m working as a receptionist in Salisbury.” She wanted to laugh and to dance when she said it, for Philip Coles knew that she’d had no experience at holding down a job and taking care of herself financially. She smiled and her chest felt as if it expanded. “I’m doing just fine.”
    “Yes, I can see that,” he said, “and you can’t know how happy that makes me.”
    She glanced at Richard Peterson and shrank back. His gaze was a laser piercing her and making her transparent before his eyes. What did he know? He didn’t blink, and she had to look away, but not before Judd Walker examined the expression on Richard’s face. He had caught her at something, but what and with whom?
    “I’m glad you came, Reverend Coles,” she said. “Good-bye.” She didn’t care what they thought. She had to get out of there. Richard Peterson had seen her with either Jim, Bob, or Percy. She ran up the stairs to her room, shut the door and bolted it. Lord, please don’t let him tell Reverend Coles. And Judd. Don’t let him tell Judd. She didn’t know how she would face them at supper.
    She sought solace in one of her books, but the magic didn’t work, and it was the old Sara Jolene who trudged down the stairs that night, walked into the dining room and took her assigned seat without looking left or right or saying a word to anyone. She got up to leave the table and saw that Philip Coles had faced her across the room during the entire meal. But if she had looked in his direction, her gaze would have landed on Percy Lucas, and she preferred never to see him again, so she had focused on her plate.
    “Join us in the lounge?” Fannie asked her. She shook her head and was the recipient of Fannie’s glare of disapproval.
    “Maybe later,” she said, and didn’t stop walking until she was in her room with the door closed. Sitting alone on the side of her bed, she asked herself why she couldn’t chitchat with people the way the other residents in the house did with ease. And what had she wanted from Percy? Would it have been better, as he said, if