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

“Are you working?”

“I’m taking care of your baby, Westley. That’s work enough.”

“What about school?”

“When am I supposed to do that?”

He rubbed the lobe of his ear between two fingers. “You’ll never get ahead like this. And I want you to get ahead, Cindie. I really do.”

She cocked her hip and crossed her arms. “Oh, really?”

He patted the seat beside him. “Come here.”

“What for?”

His chin went up a fraction. “Come here. Sit next to me. I don’t have a lot of time and I want to talk to you, not argue with you.”

She walked over and sat, keeping enough distance to hold on to her wits.

Westley pulled one of her tendrils. “Always so pretty. But you can be more than that, Cindie. You can. And I want you to be. You’re the mother of my child and I want the best for her and for you. Go back to school. Get a good education. A good job.”

She lost it then. She threw her arms around him, pushed up against him, and kissed his neck over and over until he forcefully pulled her away. “Marry me, then,” she said, her voice practically begging. “I’ll make you a good wife. I promise. I’ll cook and clean and you’ll see Michelle all the time.”

Westley’s eyes found hers. “That’s not the answer and you know it. Besides, like I told you before Michelle was born, if you want me, you’ll have to do better than that.”

She pulled away. Oh, he’d told her all right. Let her know right off that she wasn’t good enough and this was the way it was going to be. His way or no way. But she knew—one day she’d have the biggest bargaining chip of all. His child. “I want a hundred and fifty a month,” she said firmly. “Plus other things like insurance.”

“She’s already on my insurance and you know it.” He stood, reaching for his jacket.

“You leaving?” she asked, panic growing inside her. “Already?”

“I’ve got dinner plans with my brother and his wife. I need to head on back.”

She couldn’t let him go. Not like this. She had to get things back in her favor. “Wait,” she said, standing and reaching for his hand. “Wait. I got something for you.” Cindie hurried into her bedroom, opened the small drawer of her bedside table and pulled out a framed photograph of their daughter, dressed in the baby-pink sun dress he’d sent early in the summer. Within a moment, she returned. “I got this for you. It’s not much of a frame—I got it at Kessler’s—but I thought the picture came out nice.”

Westley took the proffered peace treaty and studied it. Smiled at the locks of dark-blond curls framing his daughter’s cherub face. The china-doll expression made even more enticing by round green eyes—his eyes—one more almond shaped than the other. “Look at her,” he said. “She’s something.” Then he sighed. “I really do want to see her. If I can manage it, I’ll swing by tomorrow.”

Cindie smiled. “Really? Will you?”

He kissed her cheek again, lingering once more. “Don’t hold me to it, okay? But I’ll try. If not this trip … I’ll be back real soon. And we’ll do something as a family. Together.”

Her smile broadened. “She’d like that. I’ve been trying to get her to say daddy and she’s already pretty good with mama.”

Westley glanced at his watch. “I gotta go. Call you later.” He stopped at the door and turned to face her. “Promise.”

Chapter Eight

Westley

Westley slid behind the wheel of his car, started the engine and backed out of Cindie’s driveway as quickly as he could without hitting the light pole on one side and the beat-up paper box on the other. A quick check of his watch told him he would make it back to Paul and DiAnn’s right on time. Hopefully, before Ali woke up or came back downstairs looking for him. He stopped at the stop sign a few yards from the driveway, lowered the top of the car, and breathed in the crisp autumn air.

Ali. His hope and his salvation wrapped up in a young woman not quite twenty. How he’d gotten so lucky to find her, or for her to find him, he’d never know. The girl was beautiful. More so than she knew. Which was a good thing. If she had so much as a clue as to how gorgeous she really was—the creaminess of her complexion, the light-honey tan her skin bore after a day in the sun, the warmth of her eyes, the upturn of her nose. And her smile. Dear Lord, did the girl have a clue how much she lit up a room when she smiled?

Ali also had more potential than any woman he’d ever met. The absolute second he saw her approaching his window at the pharmacy, he knew. She was the one … the woman who would take care of the pressing issues in his life. She’d make the right kind of wife and, as quickly as he could arrange it, the right kind of mother for Michelle. She was the kind of girl his parents would approve of—the kind you brought home to Mother, as the old saying went—because the good Lord knew both Mom and Dad would have had a conniption fit if he’d ever brought Cindie to dinner.

Yep, Allison Middleton was the kind of girl who fit in with his family—again, unlike Cindie. But, even better for Westley, she wasn’t one of those women who’d ask too many questions. It didn’t take a genius to know she practically worshiped the ground he walked on, which meant that, even after marriage, she would let him live his life by his own rules and standards. She was moldable to what he wanted and needed. Especially now … him with a child and the child with a mother who’d probably never amount to a hill of beans.

Okay, okay. So in spite of the shock of her, he didn’t regret Michelle. But