Judge Me Not Read Online Free

the thought that it might be something hot, something new, muffled the annoyance.
    Powell Dennison had rented a large, ugly frame house in one of the older sections of Deron. It was zoned residential, yet surrounded by areas that had been rezoned commercial. Teed parked in the narrow driveway.
    As he went up the last step onto the porch, the front door opened, silhouetting Powell against the hall light.
    “Glad you decided to come back to town, Teed. Come on in.” The voice, like the man, was slow, warm, sincere. He was a big man in his early fifties. Hard fat had larded the athlete’s body. In the firm, florid flesh of his face, the gray eyes were level, honest, and unafraid. This man, Teed knew, had a mind so quick and so certain that, as an administrator, he could have scratched high on the tree in either private industry or state or federal government. Yet his passion was city government, his skill the rejuvenation of weary cities, his creed the potential grass-roots impact of awakened citizens. It was not his fault that he lived in an era when such dedication was poorly paid. Teed had long since decided that Powell would have continued with his work, somehow, even if it were without any salary at all.
    Powell led Teed into the high narrow living room with its ugly rented furniture, brown floral wallpaper, shallow unusable fireplace. Marcia Dennison, the elder of the two daughters, sat in an overstuffed chair, one leg pulled up under her, a book in her lap. She was twenty-three. She did the marketing, and the cooking, in addition to working five mornings a week in a local secretarial school, teaching typing classes. Though it would have been extremely simple for Powell Dennison to have found part-time work for her with the city government, it was the sort of thing that he would never do.
    Though she had never indicated as much, Teed had the strong feeling that Marcia disliked him. She was a lithe blonde, firm-lipped, with her father’s gray eyes, with his air of calmness. Wherever she sat, however she stood, she seemed to be carefully posed, as though awaiting the pop of flashbulbs, yet he knew she was not vain. He always thought that the women of the Vikings had probably been like Marcia. Lithe grace concealed the essential sturdiness of thighs, the lioness loins. She sat there, in a cashmere cardigan that was not quite right for her because the shade of yellow took luster from her hair.
    Jake, the other daughter, the dark, flashing, eighteen-year-old, the one most adored by Powell because she was like the wife who was now dead, was another matter. Entirely another matter, with her gawky ripeness, wide-lipped breathlessness, and hero-worshiping mind which had not yet caught up to bright lushness of the woman-body. She had been reading a paper spread on the floor and as Teed came in, she bounded up, came swinging toward him in jeans and T shirt, eyes bright with the ever embarrassing worship, lips smiling for him, dark hair rumpled, smoothing it now with the back of her hand, with a woman-gesture not quite right for the child mind.
    She caught his arm. “Oh, Teed. Teed, it’s your birthday!”
    Jake hugged his arm, cheek against his shoulder, round breast-firmness all too evident in its pressure against his upper arm. It was good to know that someone else had remembered.
    “And there’s a cake,” she said.
    Marcia smiled faintly. “Under pressure. I said you wouldn’t want one.”
    He met Marcia’s level glance. “But I do. And thank you.”
    “I would have made it, Teed,” Jake said, “but my cakes are godawful.” She let go of his arm and made a face, comically forlorn.
    “You can have him back in a few minutes, girls,” Powell said. “Come on into the study, Teed. I’ve got something to show you.”
    Teed had suspected for a long time that Powell had hopes of his one day marrying Marcia. Teed knew that Powell had no illusions about him, about his private life, and he guessed that Powell reasoned