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

jacket, lit it, then blew a thin line of smoke from between his lips where it joined the shredded cloud hovering over a dying fire. “Are you cold?” he asked.

My gaze went from him to the glowing embers. “No,” I said. “I don’t think I could ever be cold when I’m this close to you.”

He reached over, took my hand in his. “Your hand is cold.”

Cold hands, warm heart, I thought, then closed my eyes. “Westley,” I breathed out. “I wish …”

His fingers tightened around mine. “What?”

I shook my head so slowly I wondered if he perceived it. How could I answer him? I wished so much that we were married already … that we were alone, in our own home … that there were no premarital barriers standing in our way. I wished—oh, how I wished—that whatever I’d overheard that morning had already been made clear to me. That his trust in me was enough to tell me what Paul and DiAnn already knew. I wished …

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. The embers crackled and glowed, showing off the darkest outline of the few trees between us and the lake where the water rippled under a quarter moon. “I wish …” I turned to him again, my mind as clear and as foggy as I’d ever known it to be. “. . . that we could live this day all over again. I wish we didn’t have to go home tomorrow.” This time, my smile was slow. Catlike.

Westley leaned toward me. “Come here,” he said, his voice low and throaty.

My lips met his, our kiss so tender I believed the purity of it would kill me before we broke apart. And, when we did, I ran my tongue across my lips, tasting him … his cigarette … the leftover tanginess of wine and food. “Come here,” he said again, this time opening his arms to me. I slid out of my chair and went to him, sitting in his lap, draping my legs over the hard, wide arm of his chair. Westley took a final draw from his cigarette, then strained to toss it toward the fire.

“Here,” I said, taking it from him and bringing it to my own lips. I’d never smoked before, but tonight I felt grown up enough to try. Besides, I reasoned, there was a first time for everything and tonight seemed so perfect for acting more adult than I truly was. Then again, there were so many things I’d never done before and so many things I wanted to try. Especially tonight—

“No,” Westley said, removing the cigarette from between my fingers and flicking it toward the fire where it landed dead center. “I don’t want you to smoke.”

I stroked his jawline with my fingertips, cognizant of a bravado I’d never known before, most likely brought about by the day, the night, and the wine. “Why not?” I asked, truly wondering. “You do.”

“Nasty habit. I need to quit, and you don’t need to start.”

I kissed his chin lightly, then laid my head on his shoulder, again closing my eyes. “When did you start? How old were you?”

His chest lifted then fell as if it were collapsing, causing me to place my hand against the warmth of it for assuredness. The rhythmic beat of Westley’s heart warmed me, and I spread my fingertips as my lips pressed against his Adam’s apple. “Hmm?” I asked, truly wanting to know.

“Twelve.”

My head came up. “Twelve?”

He smiled and my eyes found his—sleepy but content. “Put your head back,” he told me, and I did as I was told, trying to imagine him on the cusp of adolescence, trying his first cigarette.

An odd thought crossed my mind: I would have been all of four years old. What a difference growing up makes when it comes to okaying relationships.

“I was twelve when I smoked my first cigarette,” he continued. “I didn’t really start until I was probably sixteen. Seventeen.”

“You really were a daredevil, weren’t you? Always pushing the envelope. Taking risks.” I waited to see if he would answer, and when he didn’t, I said, “What was the last truly crazy thing you did?”

He chuckled. “I asked you to marry me.”

I slapped my hand against his chest, even as laughter rumbled within my own. “I love you so much.” The words came as a whisper. A moan to my own ears. A begging and a longing.

“Ali,” he said, his voice as strained as my whole body felt. “I need you to listen to me because I have something to tell you.”

I nodded, wondering. Was this it? Was he finally going to confide in me? Tell me that thing he shared with Paul and DiAnn?

“Have you thought about where we’ll live after we marry?”

I brought my head up again. “Not really. But I figured we’d talk about it sooner or later . . .”

Westley gently pushed my head to where it had been before. “I want you to do something for me. Okay?”

“Anything.”

“I want you to think about living here.”

My brow furrowed. “Here?” That certainly hadn’t been in my plans. Renting a house in Bynum until we could build one of our own, perhaps. I was even willing to live with his mother and father—for certain not mine—for a season. His was the large bedroom off the kitchen—probably at one time serving as the maid’s quarters. With its own access to the kitchen and its own bath, it could suffice. But move across the state? Would we live— “With Paul and DiAnn?”

He kissed my forehead. “No, sweetheart. Here. In Baxter. Actually, not exactly here. There’s a town—about a stone’s throw from here—Odenville. We passed through it, remember? It’s larger than Baxter, but not by too much, so don’t be concerned about going from such a small town to a larger one. DiAnn’s grandmother lives there. She—she owns a string of pharmacies on this side of the state and she’s offered me a job at the one there.”

I brought my head up again; this time