by Lynne Gentry
“Say what, Maxine?”
“Howard has a mistress, Leona. There. I said it. Are you happy now?”
Leona’s stomach dropped. “Oh, Maxine.” She reached for Maxine’s hand. “I’m so sorry. Maybe it’s not what you think.”
“What else could it be? He’s paying another woman’s rent. I know it.” Maxine pulled away, her face contorted with pain. “I don’t want your sympathy, Leona.” She swiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I want your attorney to take my case.”
“Maxine that might—”
“I know I don’t deserve your help, not after how I’ve acted since the pot brownie incident, but I don’t know what else to do. Howard will hire some highfalutin’ city lawyer and leave me with nothing. I need a lawyer who’ll clean his clock and teach him a lesson.” The pleading tone in her voice was a knife to Leona’s heart.
Leona worked to swallow the sticky mess she’d made when she fired her attorney. “You want me to ask Saul to be your divorce lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Have you tried talking to Howard? Letting him explain?”
“No.” Maxine was resolute in her rejection of that idea. “He doesn’t know I know, and I don’t want him finding out from you or that Brewer woman. Where is she, by the way?”
“Roxie is the soul of discretion,” Leona assured her.
Maxine chewed on her bottom lip, weighing her options. “Will you ask Saul Levy to help me or not?”
Becoming a party to the end of a marriage made her stomach sick. “What if you and Howard tried some counseling first?”
“And give Howard time to hide more money? I think not.”
An energetic rat-a-tat-tat on the screen rattled Leona from the mire of Maxine’s crumbling marriage and her failed relationship with one of the best lawyers in town.
Roy! Lord, she’d forgotten all about her date with Roy.
Leona glanced at the clock. And on time! Why did he pick tonight to give up his African ways?
“We’ll think of something, Maxine.” Leona held her breath, hoping Roy would think she wasn’t home and decide to meet her at the dance studio.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.
Maxine dabbed her eyes. “You goin’ to get that or not, Leona?”
Leona let out a pained sigh and hurried across the living room, hoping to intercept Roy on the stoop and keep him safely out of sight.
But the moment she opened the door, Roy burst in, flowers in hand and a huge smile on his face. “Ta-da!” He spun around on the balls of red and black dance shoes. Her date had shed his standard safari attire for flowy black pants, a tight-fitting black shirt with enough buttons left undone to expose a few chest hairs. He had a new black fedora with a small red feather cocked on the side of his head. “Ready to give ’er a whirl, beautiful?”
“Roy?” Maxine took in Roy’s appearance, her mouth hanging speechless.
“Roy,” Leona’s voice squeaked. “Could you wait outside?”
To her surprise, Roy instantly assessed that the source of Leona’s angst was Maxine’s troubled state. Looking more like a debt collector for the Mafia than an African missionary fresh from the bush, Roy set out to prove he could still charm the gristle off a pork chop.
He swept across the living room and presented Maxine with the bouquet. “For you, madam.” His arm came across his trim middle and he took a deep and graceful bow.
Maxine brightened for a moment at the male attention. Then, as if she needed Leona’s approval, Maxine’s let her gaze hop from Roy to Leona. And that’s when, for the first time, the wronged elder’s wife noticed what Leona was wearing. Maxine burst into tears. “I’ve obviously interrupted your evening, Leona.” Flowers clutched to her chest, Maxine picked up her handbag and bolted for the door. “Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Maxine.” Leona followed her down the stoop. “It’s not what you think. I promise. We’re just taking dance lessons together.”
Maxine stopped and turned. “Most of us will never get a second chance.” Her anger had been replaced by a haunted expression, a loss Leona understood by heart. “Dance, Leona, and don’t look back.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Before Roy could ask what had sent Maxine packing, Leona grabbed a couple of bottles of water and suggested that they get on the road. She needed a moment to process Maxine and Howard’s dilemma.
Roy didn’t needle her with questions, which she appreciated. Instead, he whistled some tune she didn’t recognize and helped her navigate the step into his shiny, 4-wheel drive rental jeep as if the start of their date had been everything he’d hoped. He closed her door and nearly waltzed around to the driver’s seat.
How much of her money had he spent on impressing her with this expensive ride? The question was a dagger to her conscience. “Where did you get the car?”
What was she thinking assigning expectations and motives to how someone used her gift? A gift was a gift. When had she become like Howard and Maxine? Giving with strings attached rather than giving for the pure joy of sharing her blessings?
“Howard let me pick a car off his lot to use while I’m in town.” Roy cranked the engine.
“Maybe Howard was feeling unusually charitable.” Leona couldn’t get Maxine’s wounded, tear-streaked face out of mind.
“Howard’s always been good to me.” Roy backed down the drive. “I know he says he didn’t send the money for my trip home, but who else could have done it?”
“Who else indeed?”
The dissolution of Howard and Maxine’s marriage would devastate more than just the Davis family. Before Leona came into her millions, the Davises were the largest contributors at Mt. Hope Community Church. Since David took the pulpit, the congregation’s morale and attendance had improved. But the town’s economy was not recovering and the weekly contributions had remained stagnant. If it weren’t for Howard’s occasional infusions of cash, Mt. Hope Community would have shut its doors a year ago.
Leona had carefully considered her options. She could use her wealth to help fix the expanding shortfall, or she could let the weekly total, the one reported in the bulletin and posted on the wooden board on the stage, remain low, except for the months Howard kicked in extra. In the end, she’d chosen to avoid causing a sudden spike, knowing an increase of that magnitude would set tongues to wagging and send curious minds digging deep to locate the source of the increase. For now, she preferred to keep her wealth a secret. She’d been careful to funnel her tithes into special projects. A new youth van. Camp scholarships. And the all-expenses-paid furlough of the handsome grieving missionary escorting her to her first dance lesson.
“Maxine seemed upset.” Roy wheeled his jeep onto Main Street. “Anything I can do?”
Was there anything anyone could do? She knew the work required to piece marriages together. J.D. had invested hours and hours into the couples he’d counseled. Sometimes it worked. Most times, it didn’t. Why? Because once someone made the decision to jump the fence, driving them back to the barn was almost impossible.
“Pray,” she said softly.
“Keeping my biggest contributors happy is always high on my prayer list.”
“I hate the business of ministry.”
“Water wells don’t dig themselves, LeLe. Unfortunately, it takes money to make a difference in the world.” Roy reached over and squeezed her knee. “That, and an adventurous spirit.” Hope raised his eyebrows until they disappeared beneath the brim of his black fedora. “Given any more thought to comin’ with me to Africa?”
Seeing Maxine’s marriage fall apart had obliterated her anger at J.D for not telling her about his stock investments. When J.D. made his little expenditures, he probably thought they wouldn’t amount to anything. Spending a bit of money without telling her was small in comparison to Howard breaking Maxine’s heart. J.D. had loved her and she still loved him. What she’d had with J.D. would never be duplicated. She’d been a fool to allow the possibility to sweep
her off her feet.
“Could we just dance tonight, Roy?”
He gave her a brief, side-ways study then flashed a charming smile. “I didn’t spend $39.95 on this flashy get-up to miss out on an opportunity to hold you in my arms.”
Leona chuckled. Roy’s easy manner was as close to J.D. as she would ever come. Yet something held her back and she knew what it was. Roy McGee was not and never would be J.D. Harper. “You really can charm gristle off a pork chop, Roy.”
His brow furrowed at her valiant attempt to make him laugh. “What?”
“It was silly. Never mind.” She pointed to the old gas station up ahead on the left. Neon lights bathed a gravel lot filled with vehicles. “That’s the studio.”
“Guess I can have your oil checked after I give you a few spins around the dance floor,” Roy laughed at his own joke as he wheeled the jeep off the highway. He idled slowly down the line of pickup trucks until he found a parking space in a darkened corner. “Are you sure you didn’t sign us up for square dancing? ’Cause all I see are ranch vehicles.”
Leona pointed to the lighted sign she’d passed a dozen times before she’d gotten up enough nerve to call.
BALLROOM LESSONS EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT.
“Starlight and satin slippers it is then, pretty lady.” He hopped out, raced around to her door, and flung it open. He reached in and took her by the waist. “Ready?”
Suddenly her stomach felt as undone as the day J.D. convinced her to strap herself into the harness of a rickety zipline in the Hill Country. “Give me a minute, will you, Roy?”
“Second thoughts?”
“No,” she said out loud, more to bolster her own confidence than to satisfy Roy.
“’Cause if you’re wanting to back out, we don’t have to do this.”
“I thought you had moves like a gazelle.”
“I did thirty years ago.” His scrunched face and honest confession reminded her of J.D. when he stretched the truth for the sake of a laugh. “But unless dancing is like riding a bike, I may be too old to start over.”
Was she too old to start over? If so, what was she doing here with Roy? Had she agreed to partner with him because hanging around Roy felt like taking up where she and J.D. had left off? “Let’s hope dancing is like riding a bike.”
He tucked a stray hair behind her ear then gently stroked her cheek. “You’re as beautiful as the Serengeti in spring.” Admiration gleaming in his eyes, he leaned in and kissed her. The tender brush of his lips was a feather duster lightly removing a layer of grief. “Let me show you Africa.”
“Roy,” she said, as she breathlessly pushed away. “I thought we’d agreed tonight we’re just here to dance.”
“I don’t know about you, but my heart is dancing.” With a wickedly pleased grin, he offered his hand and helped her navigate the descent from the jeep’s running board.
Her own heart racing, Leona freed her hand and picked her way across the gravel lot, walking on the balls of her new dance shoes. Music boomed from every crack in the gas station’s newly painted stucco.
Maybe she’d been a bit hasty in deciding her future. Maybe happiness didn’t have to look exactly as it had with J.D.
Roy slipped his hand in hers. “Nervous?”
If the Lord wanted her to have a second chance at happiness, maybe tonight was her shot. “I’ve never danced with anyone but J.D. And he had two left feet.”
The lights in the parking lot illuminated the devilish twinkle in Roy’s eye. “Keeps the bar low for me, then.” He leaned in and kissed her. Again.
CHAPTER NINE
Leona’s heart was doing all sorts of unusual gyrations after Roy’s series of kisses. Either she was too old to take up flirting again, or she was on the verge of suffering a heart attack of her own. What would happen once she attempted real physical exertion was only one of her worries. What if she let her heart open toward another man? No, she couldn’t. The strain of it would kill her. And she wasn’t about to let herself die before setting foot on the dance floor.
She peeled out of Roy’s arms. Maybe if she forced her mind to consider all the sober issues pressing her, the giddy cartwheeling in her stomach would settle down.
David and Amy and their baby. No, thinking about that scary situation would send her elevated blood pressure through the roof. Especially since there wasn’t a thing she could do about obtaining the proper medical care Amy needed.
Parker leaving the country. Maddie was too busy getting her career off the ground to realize how close she was to letting a fine man slip through her fingers. Saul’s warning immediately pricked a hole in this dark cloud. She hated to admit it, but that arrogant attorney was right. If she continued to butt in on her children’s lives, she’d run the risk of alienating them. Then who would be the lonely one? Besides, she hadn’t come up with a good reason to bring Maddie home, let alone worked out the details of how she’d throw her daughter and Parker together before he left town.
Okay, there was Maxine’s crumbling marriage. That was a dreadfully sad situation, and she didn’t want to feel sad tonight. She’d had enough sadness to last her a lifetime. Maxine hadn’t gotten herself into this mess overnight. Helping her sort this mess would take more than a single Friday evening.
Other than the thought of spending the rest of her own life alone, she’d come to the end of her list of serious matters. For now, she had no choice but to embrace the excitement of Roy’s offered possibilities.
She turned to her handsome dance partner and took his hand. His approving wink set her heart soaring. She floated into the studio in a swirl of navy chiffon and crashed smack into a brick wall masquerading as Saul Levy.
“Are you alright, Leona?” Saul, serious faced as ever, steadied her with a firm grip on each of her arms. While he’d shed his business suit, he’d exchanged it for a monkey suit consisting of a white tuxedo shirt, white bow tie, black vest, and fitted black trousers that kept his rigid posture perfectly aligned. The only thing about his appearance that indicated he’d come to the studio for fun, was the pair of shiny black dancing shoes peeking from beneath the crisp hem of his pants.
Of course, she wasn’t alright. Her son’s wife needed a good local doctor. Her daughter was throwing away her chance at love. Her concern for Maxine made her feel guilty for running off to have a good time. Roy McGee was turning her world upside down with kisses and promises of exotic travel. And just when she thought the night couldn’t get any more awkward, she’d just body-slammed the lawyer she’d fired at breakfast.
The last thing she wanted to do was demonstrate her lack of coordination in front of a man who was looking at her like he was presiding over a court-martial rather than pleased that they’d inadvertently signed up for the same fun-filled evening of dancing.
Leona pulled out of Saul’s grasp. “I thought you didn’t dance,” she shouted over the beat of loud music.
“I didn’t say I didn’t dance,” Saul’s grin carried a tinge of smugness. “I said, I preferred not to.”
Did he mean with her? “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” He nodded toward the young Smoot woman standing in the middle of the ballroom and clapping her hands in an attempt to gain everyone’s attention. For a girl who’d had five kids in six years, the petite brunette was fit and trim and full of energy. “Kendra is a client. Lessons were part of her retainer.”
Leona smoothed her skirt, fully aware that Saul’s explanation was directed at her horrible accusations. The possibility of Saul charging her huge fees was not the reason he’d helped her and she knew it. Saul Levy was an honorable man who would never gouge anyone, and she was a hothead who’d acted shamefully.
Heat crept up Leona’s neck. “Kendra can be quite persuasive when she spots a potential client.”
“Unlike me?” he asked, implying she’d dug herself into a deeper hole.
Before she could redeem what little was left of her pride, Roy interrupted. “Saul
.” Roy’s offered hand was met by Saul’s dismissive nod.
“I believe the class is coming to order.” Saul executed a military-pivot and marched to the opposite side of the four-car repair bay now a single dance room. He settled into the empty space next to Ruthie.
Ruthie?
Leona did a double-take. The gray-haired diner owner had poured herself into a silver-sequined top and a mid-calf, flowy skirt. Ruthie flashed a broad smile and waved to Leona, then slipped her hand through Saul’s proffered arm. Shock froze Leona in place. Were Saul and Ruthie a couple? Ruthie was at least ten years older than Saul. Maybe fifteen. What was he thinking? The woman did cook the man three meals a day. She’d seen men do far more for far less.
Roy nudged her with the elbow of his crooked arm. “Shall we give it a whirl, LeLe?”
Stomach clenching, Leona slipped her arm through Roy’s. “That’s why we’re here.” Together, they stepped out onto the wooden planks.
The air was thick with the scent of new paint, spandex, hairspray, styling gel, and excitement. Leona’s eyes scanned the group. While she recognized most of the faces, and was certain most of Kendra’s patrons recognized her, Leona was relieved that except for Saul and Ruthie, none of the other dance students attended Mt. Hope Community Church.
Leona’s heels clicked past Kendra visiting with two elderly dancers as she and Roy walked toward the only space left along the mirrored wall opposite the garage doors. The slot next to Saul and Ruthie. With each step, Leona could feel Saul’s eyes raking her over. If only Kendra had not had the oil changing pits securely covered. She could have dropped in, broken her neck, and have been spared the need to make civil conversation with a certain lawyer.
Far too soon, she found herself sandwiched between Saul and Roy. Heart thumping to the rapid beat of the music, Leona kept her eyes focused on the instructor, averting her gaze from Saul as if he didn’t exist. All she could do was pray Kendra would realize that allowing two blue hairs to tie her up in conversation was impinging on everyone’s dance time.