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

I’m going to put things away. After that, I don’t know. What time do I need to pick you up?”

“Six.”

“I can’t wait. I miss you so much.”

“Miss you more. Gotta go, hon.”

“Love you,” she said again.

“More.”

Westley stopped at the post-Christmas sales display and grabbed a small stuffed Santa, then snatched the tag off and handed it to Miss Ramona, the fifty-something who’d worked the register since “Moses was a boy,” as Miss Justine put it. “Miss Ramona, hold on to that for me if you will. I’ll pay for it after lunch.”

One dark, penciled-in brow shot up over cat-framed glasses. “Mind telling me who was that young woman who came in a while ago?”

Westley gave the spinster his best smile, one that always worked when it came to the fairer sex. “Just someone I knew from Baxter. Went to school with her sister.” He waved the Santa back and forth in the air. “Be right back,” he said, then scooted two blocks over to Mama Jean’s. Along the way he pulled his wallet from his back pocket, then tucked his wedding ring behind his license before sliding the wallet where it belonged. He glanced at his left hand, worried that the barely-a-week impression of nuptial vows would give him away before he had a chance to share his secrets. His torment.

With Cindie, that he was married.

With Allison, that he was a father.

He found Cindie exactly where he’d asked her to be, near the back, two cups of coffee on the table, steam curling and hovering like the Spirit over the deep. And, as luck would have it, he didn’t recognize a soul in the restaurant. Give him another month, and they’d all know him and he them. But for now …

“For Michelle,” he said as he handed Santa across the table and dropped onto the seat left vacant for him.

Cindie smiled. Rubbed it against the cheek that didn’t seem nearly as red as it had earlier under the florescent lighting of the pharmacy. “She’ll love it,” she said, then dropped it onto her purse.

“Your cheek looks better.”

“Don’t worry none about Lettie Mae. I rile her up every now and then and she just has to let off steam, I reckon.”

“As long as—”

“She don’t hurt Michelle, Westley. I promise you that.”

He nodded. Looking at her. Taking her in. She tried; he knew she tried. Still, she couldn’t come even remotely close to Allison’s beauty. Her purity. Her intelligence. Everything about the woman sitting across from him reminded him of how stupid a bottle of wine—okay, two bottles of wine—could make him. How desperate, perhaps. What’s more, how quickly he needed to act to get his daughter away from the day-to-day influence of Lettie Mae Campbell, if not from her own mother. “Earrings look nice,” he said, mainly because he needed to say something. The air around them was changing to something he may not be able to control—her wanting more than he would ever give her again and him wanting to blurt out the truth then and there and be done with it. He peered over his shoulder. “Where’s the waitress? I’ve only got an hour.”

“Oh, I already ordered,” she said, and he looked back at her. “Burgers and fries … like that night.”

He blinked. “What night?”

She pinked. “The night we—you know …”

And he understood. “Ah. Yeah.”

Cindie leaned forward, her arms tucked under the table, her hands in her lap. Probably clutching each other if he were to bet. “So, are you coming over tomorrow? I mean, now that you’re back in town and all? I figured … Wednesday is our day.”

He would, had he a car. And that might take some explaining. “We’ll see.”

Her face fell. “Well—why wouldn’t you? Michelle misses you.”

The thought of his daughter looking for him turned his stomach to beach sand—the kind closest to the shoreline—and brought about a surprising expectancy. “I miss her, too.”

“And me?”

Westley his opened mouth to say something trite like “yes, of course,” but the waitress appeared at the exact moment, the aroma of grease and burger and crinkle fries brought to a perfect golden brown causing his mouth to water, reminding him that he was actually pretty hungry. He and Allison had skipped dinner the night before and he’d only had a bowl of cereal with a sliced banana for breakfast. No coffee; Allison hadn’t learned how to perk it yet and he didn’t have time to show her or make it himself. He inwardly thanked God for Miss Ramona and the pot she made each morning, fresh and hot and waiting in the employee’s lounge at the pharmacy. “Wow,” he said, then glanced up at the waitress. “My compliments to the chef and I haven’t even taken a bite yet.”

The young woman with a slicked-back ponytail and too many teeth for the size of her mouth smiled, her chewing gum peeking out from where it rested on a molar. “Y’all need anything else?”

Westley searched the table, spied the Hunt’s Ketchup, which Mama Jean’s continued to serve in the commemorative Spirit of ’76 bottle, and said, “Mustard?”

“Be right back.”

Westley watched her spin on a heel and leave, aware that Cindie stared at him, conscious that she waited for a reply to her question. Knowing it was time to be honest—at least partially. “Look, Cindie …” he began, then stopped as the waitress returned with the mustard bottle, then left again. “I know what you’re hoping for …” He watched her expression change. Hope giving way to honesty and then again to heartbreak. What was it the preacher said at his wedding? Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life. “Keep hope alive,” he’d coaxed the bride and groom who stood side by side, their hands clasped in union. “Fulfill desire,” he’d added with a wink toward the groom. He could do that with Allison, but not with Cindie. Never again with Cindie. But he didn’t have to crush her. That certainly wasn’t