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

that she would so you wouldn’t be faced with what a house looks like after a man has been in it alone for a few weeks.” He blinked furiously in jest.

The still-moist lips of his wife turned downward. She wasn’t pleased. “Oh.”

“Something wrong?” he asked, his arms still circling her waist, still pulling her to him.

She shrugged. “No … I just … I figured I’d …”

“What?”

Allison shrugged again. “Never mind. I’ll be sure to thank Miss Justine when we see her again.” She looked over her shoulder. “Well, then … let’s get that U-Haul unloaded.”

Two hours later Allison had managed to have every piece of luggage unpacked and every gift put in its place, including the hope chest, which she positioned perfectly centered and at the foot of their bed, followed by one of her mother’s knitted afghans placed lovingly on top. “What do you think?” She stood away from it, hands on hips, hair tucked behind her ears then pulled over one shoulder.

“I think it looks like we’re home.”

She couldn’t have given him a brighter smile; his own heart leapt at the sight of it. “Home,” she breathed out. “Yes.” Then, as if reality struck, she added, “Are you hungry?”

Westley patted the toned abs of his stomach. “I could eat. You?”

“A little.”

She walked past him and straight into the rest of the house without another word. On into the kitchen where he found her standing in the middle of it, looking at the stove as if it were a phenomenon of nature. “What is it?” he asked.

“I’m not really sure what to cook.”

Westley chuckled. “What can you cook?”

Allison looked at him, her eyes wide. “Well, Grand has been working with me, but …” She sighed. “I can boil an egg …”

“And do what with it?”

She pressed her lips together. “I can make a tuna salad. A pretty good one actually. Grand taught me. And Mama taught me how to make tuna hash.”

Westley grimaced. “How about we go out to dinner tonight and tomorrow you can stock the kitchen and then tomorrow night you can cook.”

“But how will I—Julie and Dean aren’t bringing my car until this weekend, remember?”

Yes, he remembered. His wife had been too afraid to drive all the way across the state alone, so her sister and brother-in-law had risen to the task. Which also meant they’d have another couple in their home within days of them being in it—something Westley wasn’t sure he was quite ready for yet. “Yes, but—”

“How can I get groceries without a car?”

Westley leaned against the frame of the back door. “Well …” he said, pondering their issue. “I suppose you’ll have to drive me to work. Pick me up afterward.”

She stepped over to him and looked up. “Oh, Westley. I’m so sorry about the car. Really, I am. I’m just not ready for such an undertaking as driving all the way across the state—”

He smiled down at her. How could he do anything else? “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We can make do with one car for a few days.” He kissed her forehead, breathing in, already intoxicated by the floral scent of her shampoo. “Why, if I remember the story correctly, Hillie and Isaac only had the one horse and buggy.”

Allison slipped into his arms without reservation. “Oh, Westley. I must have done something so wonderful when I was a child. So fantastic. But I cannot remember it to save my life.”

He leaned back as best he could to tip her chin and her face toward him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I don’t deserve you. I don’t.”

“I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you.” And he didn’t. He knew he didn’t. She didn’t. Not yet, anyway. So, he hoped—no, he prayed—she would still love him … would forgive him after she learned the truth about Cindie. About Michelle.

“Westley?”

“Hmmm?”

She smiled, all pre-bridal coyness gone from her. “I’m not hungry anymore …”

Cindie

Too much time had gone by since she’d last seen Westley. Since he’d seen his daughter. Yes, he’d said he was going to his parents’ for Christmas, but to her way of thinking, there hadn’t been much reason for him to have left over a week before.

Her mother felt the same way. And she’d drilled it into Cindie’s head nonstop since the day after Westley left, the day after he’d stopped by with a few more holiday-wrapped boxes filled with what turned out to be Fisher Price toys suitable for a one-year-old. He’d also managed to hide two gifts for her under the tree. Gifts she’d found on Christmas Day, hidden, supposedly, when she’d gone to get Michelle from her crib. Waking her from her afternoon nap just so she could see her daddy and then him not even calling since.

She looked at herself in the dresser mirror that had clouded with time, leaning in for a better look at the gifted dangling opal earrings, wishing he’d been around to put them on her for the first time. Hoping for so much more than a token of his feelings, but happy to get whatever portion of him he gave nonetheless.

“You going on over there again today?” her mother asked from the open bedroom door, startling her.

Cindie turned to look at the woman who had, once upon a time, been a pretty woman. Thin and shapely. But who now looked like a woman who’d had life beat out of her and all its joys with it. “Yeah. Will you watch Michelle?”

“Course. Don’t I always?”

Yes, she did. And she might as well. She didn’t do much of nothing else all day. “Mama. Don’t start.”

Her mother crossed her arms over breasts that hung thick and large against her midsection. “I’m telling you, girl, something is up with that one. Him coming around like he did for a while there and then suddenly—poof—he’s gone? And right at Christmas? Don’t make no sense to me.”

Cindie looked a final time in the mirror for an approval of the form-fitting ecru sweater, denim skirt, and the boots her