Dust by Eva Everson (epub e reader .TXT) 📕

lip to stop it from quivering as my hand had. “Let’s not play at this. You feel it. You always did.”

“No … I—”

“Stop. I hate games and I refuse to play them, so grow up, cupcake. And when you do, when you can stand it no longer, let me know.” He looked first to the door, then to the ashtray where two cigarette butts lay in a tattered sheet of ashes. “Take care of that, will you? I’m going to the kitchen now for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Rose Beth can just pitch her hissy fit.”

“I will,” I whispered, but not until he had left the room.

Miss Justine entered the library/office as the old cuckoo struck two, walked straight for the wingback chairs, and lit a cigarette.

The gaze she shot across the room informed me that I was to join her, which, after I retrieved the ashtray, I did. She offered me a cigarette, but I shook my head. The one I’d had earlier with Biff had left a bad taste in my mouth and a tightness in my chest.

“On this you’re wise,” Miss Justine said, then drew on her cigarette as though it were an old lover. “On other things, not so much.”

Heat coursed through me. Somehow, this woman I carried such respect for, had my number. “What things are we talking about?”

“Rose Beth is worried about you.”

A modicum of relief slipped down my spine. “She told you about what we talked about this morning?”

Her sharply penciled-in brow cocked once before she thumped ashes into the ashtray. “No …”

“Then?”

“She suspects my son is making one of his quintessential moves.”

“Quintessential?”

“Darlin’ …” She drew again on her cigarette and, again, thumped the ashes. “Rose Beth has a sixth sense about certain things—could be in her DNA, I don’t know—but she has long said—and I quote—she ‘don’t trust Biff around that sweet chile.’”

I groaned.

“Allow me to rephrase that.”

“I wish you would,” I said, then reached for the cigarettes.

“She doesn’t trust Biff around any beautiful woman, but—as she said to me earlier—especially one who seems to be in the middle of … something. She also said the air crackled in this house this morning.”

“I don’t know what she means by that,” I said, although I most assuredly did. I lit my cigarette before adding, “But Westley and I are having issues.”

“In the bedroom?”

“And out.”

“And my son has finally seen his chance to pounce and he has.”

“Gracious, Miss Justine, why in the world would you say such a thing?”

Seriousness shadowed her face. She took the cigarette from my hand and, having put hers out, followed with mine, crushing it against the bottom of the crystal ashtray. “Darlin’, I want you to pay attention. One day you will grow old. I’ve crossed into my octogenarian years, so I know.”

“You’re not old.” I didn’t like to discuss Miss Justine’s advanced age; it meant death could come at any time. Life without her in it wasn’t conceivable. Not yet.

“That kind of flattery doesn’t fit here, and I hate repeating myself. But in this case, I will—you’ll grow old and you’ll see things as they were. As they really were, which means as they are. As they really are.” She pointed an index finger at me, one riddled with arthritic knuckles and decorated, as always, with oversized, ostentatious rings. “And one day … one day … you’ll realize that the only enemy you ever really encountered was yourself.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You, Allison. Your misconceptions.” She blinked once, then closed her eyes against something too ugly to look at with them open. “You believe in storybook marriages and books that teach you how to have one and if yours slips away from that idea—even by an iota—then you are faced with your own weaknesses.”

“Miss Justine—I could never—”

“Yes. You could.”

I sat stone still. Yes, I could. She was more than a little right. And that’s what scared me most. I loved Westley. And I believed he loved me. So, surely, we could never—I could never—

“He’s right, you know.” Her eyes were on mine now. “He’s not my husband’s son. But he is his father’s.” She pressed lips painted deep red together until they trembled. “A man with such charisma I thought I’d die in his presence, in spite of his age—just like you and my son.”

I sat back, the air seeping from me as though I’d just drawn and exhaled my last. And I knew, somehow, that the best thing I could do now was listen. Sit and listen and say nothing. So I swallowed hard enough and loudly enough that she caught my invitation to go on.

“It wasn’t a heart attack, but my husband had gotten so wrapped up in his business—papers and meetings and trips here and there to seal this deal and that contract—that he forgot about me.” She chuckled. “Or maybe he didn’t.” The fingertips of her right hand fingered the large diamond on her left ring finger. “He’d land some business deal and I’d get jewelry.” Her eyes met mine. “He called it good investments and, as far as I know, no other woman was getting anything of any value.

“Then Cheney—that was his name—Cheney came into my life when I wasn’t paying attention to the dangers.” Her eyes roamed the bookcases as though she were searching for the right title. “When I didn’t expect him. He saw a vulnerable woman who thought she was no longer loved by her husband... and he made her strong.” Miss Justine’s head shook slightly. “Not by loving me, mind you, but by not loving me when it mattered most.”

I waited as her fingers traveled from the diamond to the doily on the small table between us, creating waves within its pattern, then patting it flat. “Once he had his way, Allison … once he’d finally seduced and conquered, he walked off the victor and left me with a baby inside.” Her face returned to mine.

“What did you do?” I whispered,