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

Chapter Seven

Cindie

Cindie Campbell paced from the small living room of her mother’s house to the kitchen to check the stovetop clock one more time. Six-o-five and this clock was usually slow. Westley had said he’d be there by six-fifteen. No later. And she’d warned him. Warned him good. He’d better be . . . or better not be. Late, that is.

She’d put up with a lot from him. She’d put up with a lot from everyone. When her mother had caught wind of the fact that he was coming into town to see his brother and sister-in-law, she wasted no time in giving her middle daughter what for. “Whatever it takes,” she’d said. “You get him over here and you make him listen.”

The next day Cindie marched herself into DiAnn Houser’s uppity finance office and let her know in no uncertain terms that Westley had best get himself over to her house at some point while he was in town.

DiAnn kept it cool, she’d give her that. Not a blink or a change of expression before she raised her brow and said, “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

“I mean it, DiAnn,” Cindie had said. She stood over the woman’s desk, her arms crossed and the toe of her scuffed boot tapping. “I’ve wrote him not too long ago and he didn’t even acknowledge the note. I’m not putting up with much more.”

DiAnn placed her forearms on top of the paperwork scattered on her desk. Paperwork full of tiny boxes filled with numbers. DiAnn was smart when it came to books but Cindie was smarter when it came to getting what she wanted. She’d place a bet on it. “Do you want to sit down?” the blonde businesswoman now asked her.

“No, I don’t want to sit down.”

“A cup of coffee? Coke?”

“No. I don’t want—” Then again, a Coke over ice sounded pretty good. “All right. A Co-cola. But only if you serve it in a glass with some ice.”

DiAnn picked up the handset of her desk phone and dialed a number. “Sherry, would you bring a Coke over ice in here for Miss Campbell, please … thank you.” She hung up, raised her brow again. “Seriously. Sit, Cindie.”

Cindie jerked a well-placed faux-wood and orange vinyl chair from its perfect angle to dead center in front of the desk. She crossed her legs as she sat, which only hiked her skirt higher than even she felt comfortable. She tugged at the hem without result before resting her elbows on the hard arms of the chair. “So,” she said. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

The door to DiAnn’s office opened and the woman who’d taken Cindie’s name and “the reason for your visit” when she’d walked in off the street sauntered in with her soft drink. “Just put it there on the desk,” DiAnn said, pointing to the edge.

Clever. Make her reach for it.

Which she did. Cindie took a long swallow, waited for the woman to leave, then said, “Well?”

“Paul talked to him a few days ago.”

“Did he say anything about me?”

“I wouldn’t know, Cindie. Paul doesn’t give me a play-by-play after he talks with his brother. He only told me that—that he was coming for the weekend. Which you apparently know already.”

Cindie set the glass on the desk a little harder than she’d intended. DiAnn glanced at it, then back up, her eyes never showing a care. She was a good one, DiAnn Houser was. Always been the coolest chick. The girl every boy wanted to date, and every girl wanted for a best friend. Little girls wanted to grow up to be her. Or like her. Cheerleader. Tennis champ. Everything she ever wanted, she got … right down to her own horse and the latest fashions. Not like Cindie, who’d never even been close to a horse and who wore her sister’s hand-me-downs, which had been someone else’s hand-me-downs before that.

Cindie licked her lips. Tasted the Coke and the cherry lip balm she’d swabbed across them before she’d gotten out of her mother’s beat-up excuse for a car earlier. “Like I said, you tell him I mean it. I called information and I got his mama and daddy’s number. All it’s going to take is a single phone call and they’ll know the whole story.”

“I told you I’d tell him, and I will,” DiAnn said, her shoulder jerking slightly. “I’ll even do you one better than that. I’ll insist that he call you first thing Saturday morning. How’s that?”

“Well, I hope you’ve got that kind of say-so over him.”

“I think I can manage it.”

And apparently, she had. At seven thirty that morning he’d called, sounding every bit as gorgeous and inviting as he always had. Westley Houser. Who would have ever thought that a man like him would be under her thumb? Or wrapped around her pinky?

But he was. Or at least he would be, if she kept playing her cards right. Because she sure hadn’t been able to convince him—so far—to marry her. Not even with all of Lettie Mae’s threats, which meant all the more to Cindie. If she was ever going to break free of her mother, she’d need a man like Westley.

And so they needed to talk, she’d told him. Alone.

And he’d agreed.

When she told her mama that he said he’d be there by six-fifteen, Lettie Mae had made sure the house was cleared out by five-forty-five. “In case he comes early,” she said. Then she pointed her sharply manicured nail at Cindie’s nose and said, “You don’t do nothing to cause any more issues, you get what I’m telling you?”

Cindie pushed her mother’s finger away. “I get you.”

“And you put his feet to the flame. We ain’t gonna keep this up forever. He’s practically a doctor. He can do his share. More than his share. If he ain’t gonna marry you right off—”

“I got it, I got it,” Cindie said. “Now let me handle it.”

As