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

soon as her mother and the rest of the family skedaddled, she went to her bedroom and pulled a pair of jeans from her younger sister’s closet. She had to lie on the bed to zip them and worried she wouldn’t be able to breathe good once she rolled off the bed. She then pulled one of Leticia’s sweaters on—a size smaller than what she normally wore. Especially since last year.

She spent five minutes at the bathroom mirror, scooping her hair up and clasping it with combs, then pulled curling tendrils toward her high cheekbones and over her forehead. A spritz of Yardley Magnolia, another application of lip balm, and she blinked at her reflection. She looked exactly the way Westley liked her. At least that’s what he’d always said. Light makeup. Hair pulled up “like a Gibson girl,” he once said.

She’d had to ask her older sister what that one meant. And when she found out, it made her feel pretty and special.

The doorbell rang and she jumped, knocking her hairbrush to the tile floor where it bounced slightly, then slapped against her bare foot. Shoes … she’d decided not to wear them. Her mama would skin her alive if she knew … but she wouldn’t know … and that was the way it was going to be.

Cindie hurried to the front door and swung it open to Westley standing there, one hand resting on the doorjamb, the other on his hip. He wore winter-white jeans with a matching denim jacket over a dark-brown turtleneck. The masculine scent of him reached her before she had a chance to catch her breath fully. “Hey,” she said, smiling before she could stop herself.

Westley Houser had that kind of effect on her.

“Hey, yourself.” He looked over her shoulder. “Can I come in or are we going to talk out here?”

She stepped back. “Sorry. Come on in.”

He walked in with all the confidence of a man who belonged, even when he didn’t. And he certainly didn’t belong there, in the little ragtag house she and her family had been calling home since their daddy left their mama for the nurse he’d met while visiting his mama who’d taken ill for a spell. “Are we alone?” he asked.

Cindie closed the door. “Yeah. Mama thought it best.”

His eyes roamed over her. “You look good. Smell good, too.”

She shoved her hands into the back pockets of the jeans that didn’t want to give. “Don’t start nothing you can’t finish.”

“Oh, I can finish it,” he said, then laughed. “I’m teasing with you.” Then he stepped over and kissed her cheek, allowing his lips to linger just long enough that she felt her defenses slide down her spine. “Seriously. I’m sorry I haven’t called. Or written.” He stepped back and pointed to a chair. “Mind if I sit?”

Mind? She’d been dreaming of it all day. Waiting for it. Wanting it as bad as she wanted him. “No. Go ahead.”

He slid his jacket off and tossed it on the sofa before sitting, then pulled a pack of cigarettes from the jacket’s front pocket. “Want one?”

Cindie walked to him, slid a cigarette from between the rows as sexily as she knew how, waited for him to light hers, then his. She wandered over to a chair on the far side of the room and sat, feeling the waist of the jeans cut into her flesh. “There’s an ashtray over there on the end table,” she said, pointing.

He smiled. “I remember.” He took a long drag, blew the smoke into the room that seemed dingier with the likes of him in it. She momentarily wondered what his mama and daddy’s house looked like, figuring they had real fine furniture. Velvet chairs and silver-framed photos like at the Girl Scout house in Savannah she’d visited once upon a time.

“Is she here?” he asked, startling her.

“Who?”

Westley chuckled. “Michelle. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“No. Mama took her with them.”

Disappointment clouded his face. “I’d like to see her.”

“You can come by tomorrow if you want. Or maybe we can meet up—”

“I can’t tomorrow. I’ll be heading back home—”

“What about before you go?”

He took another long drag, then stretched across the length of the sofa and snuffed it out in the oversized tin ashtray that held her mother’s cigarette butts from earlier in the day. Cindie mentally kicked herself; she should have emptied it. Made it look nicer. She bet there wasn’t a dirty ashtray anywhere in his mama’s house. “Can’t,” he said. Then he straightened. “But I’d love to see her. Maybe—”

“I need to talk to you about money.”

“All right.” He sat straight. Rested his elbows on his knees. “Talk.”

“Raising a baby takes more than a hundred a month.”

Westley nodded as if he agreed. “Have you talked to your attorney?”

“I told you I did. Told you in that letter I sent.” She took a final drag, then walked the remainder of the cigarette to an ashtray resting on the fireplace mantel. One that matched the tin one on the end table. One filled with just as many butts. “He says a hundred twenty-five is fair, but I’m thinking more like one-fifty.” Cindie raised her chin a fraction of an inch. “Especially from the looks of that car out there in my driveway. I ’spect you can afford it.”

Westley stared at her. She tried to read his thoughts but couldn’t. She’d never been able to, really. He was a man of mystery. A man of control. She wanted the same. The same over him like he had over her and everyone else he came into contact with. But she’d never have it and she knew it. She’d thought she might when she told him she was pregnant, but even then … Westley Houser lived by his own rules. He hadn’t even told his parents about Michelle and she was nearly a year old already. “All right,” he said finally. “One-fifty isn’t a problem. But first I want to ask you a few questions.”

She didn’t move. “Like