He Stole My Bill, So I Divorced Him and Outranked His Father novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Two-Step
The dance hall stood under four live oaks a mile past the Pedernales bridge.
It was a tin-roofed barn with a plank floor and strings of bulbs along the rafters.
On the third Saturday of October, it held two hundred people and a six-piece band.
The old men sat along the wall in pressed jeans with their hats on their knees.
The old women sat across from them and watched who asked whom.
My father had put on his good boots.
"Come on, Greta Mae," Gus said, and held out his hand. "Your mother and I did this to this very song."
I took it.
He had not danced in six years.
He led me onto the floor with a straight back and a shy, stubborn face, and the band slid into a slow two-step.
We went around the room in the old counterclockwise way, his hand dry on my back and mine on his shoulder.
He smelled of starch and peach soap.
"The bank came Monday," he said, looking over my head.
"I heard," I said.
"They renewed the note for ten years. Four percent, in writing. I can say that number out loud."
"I'm glad, Daddy," I said.
"The old chairman brought it himself, with his hat in his hand."
His voice roughened.
"I thought I'd lose her orchard," Gus said. "That's what I thought. I thought I'd lose your mother's trees."
"You didn't."
"No. You stood up in front of the whole state, and I didn't."
I put my cheek on his shoulder and we went on turning.
When the song ended he bowed to me, stiffly, and he walked me to the edge of the floor.
Emilio stood there with a paper cup of beer.
He had left his jacket in the truck. His sleeves were rolled.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Stole My Bill, So I Divorced Him and Outranked His Father are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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