Dancing With Velvet by Judy Nickles Read Free Book Online Page B

up our room.”
    Celeste giggled. “That’s nice.”
    “Have you ever been here before?”
    “No.”
    “I’m glad you’re here tonight. You look very pretty.”
    “Thank you.”
    When the music ended, he returned her to her chair and lingered as if he were waiting for an invitation to sit down. She swept aside her skirt from where it touched the next chair. “Would you like to sit down?”
    “I’d like that very much.” He crossed his long legs with the grace of a cat. “You dance very well. Did you do a lot of dancing in high school?”
    “In college, too.”
    He grinned. “When I was in high school, a visiting evangelist came through and told us we were all going to hell in a hand basket if we went to dances.”
    “So did you go?”
    “Just as soon as he left town.”
    Celeste laughed. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
    “I don’t either. So, what do you do at Woolworth, if you don’t mind me asking.”
    “I keep books upstairs.”
    “Do you like it?”
    “I always liked making numbers do what they’re supposed to. I have good hours and a good boss.”
    “Not me. The numbers, I mean. I can do it all in my head, but I always got into trouble for not putting everything down on paper.”
    “Really? I’m kind of like that, but I use an adding machine, just to be sure.”
    “Do you think you’ll ever finish college with a degree?”
    “Probably not.”
    “My brother Neil is a junior. He’d like to work in a museum somewhere, but he’ll probably end up teaching history.”
    “A lady started a museum here a few years ago. It’s small, but it’s a start.”
    “Well, everything has to have a start.”
    “What about you? If you could go to college, what kind of a lawyer would you be?”
    “A good one.” He laughed. “And a rich one.”
    “Well, of course.”
    “Maybe I’ll go someday. Right now, I have responsibilities.”
    Icy fingers skimmed the base of her neck. Was he married?
    He seemed to read her mind. “Oh, I’m not married, if that’s what you’re thinking. Never have been. I meant I have responsibilities to my mother and brother. See, my dad died ten years ago, when I was fourteen, and Neil, my brother, was just ten. I think I told you before that Mother takes in sewing, but it doesn’t pay the bills, not all of them anyway. That’s the real reason I didn’t go on to college.”
    “What did you do before you started traveling?”
    “Delivered groceries, swept up at the market, had a paper route, mowed lawns. You name it, I did it. Then I went with the CCC for a couple of years. It was the right thing for me at the right time. Then I got this job. It’s a good one, but it keeps me away from home a lot.”
    “You’re close to your family then.”
    “My brother and I are close. Always were. Best friends, you might say.”
    Celeste didn’t miss that he left out his mother. “I have a sister, Coralee. She’s still my best friend, even though she’s married and lives out of town.”
    “Where does she live?”
    “In Sterling City, about forty miles from here. I spend holidays with her.”
    “But you’re happy here. You like your job.”
    She ignored the first part of his question. “Sometimes I miss working downstairs with the other girls. I came tonight with two of them. But being in the office pays better than being on the floor.”
    “Well, that’s important. Money’s still tight, but I think things are getting better. Do you still live at home?”
    Celeste hesitated. “It’s just my father and me. My mother died when I was five.”
    He frowned. “That’s tough. Girls need a mother.”
    “Boys need a father.”
    They danced twice more, and then Kent asked if she’d like a soft drink. “I’ll go down and get them,” he said. “It probably wouldn’t look right, the two of us leaving in the middle of things.”
    He brought back two paper cups from the soda fountain downstairs. “I drink too many of these,” he said. “On the road, that is.