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

“Couple of weeks.” Trev pointed his pen toward Westley. “Meanwhile, do everything you can to get her not to fight this. Promise you’ll dance at her wedding if you need to, but if we can keep this thing from going to some kind of long, drawn out day in court . . .”

“Got it,” Westley said, confident, while I wondered what the everything might entail.

We stood to go. Trev walked with us all the way out to the parking lot. He shook my hand again, then slapped Westley on the shoulder. “Son,” he said, thickening his drawl and winking at me again, “You done good. Got lucky and married up.”

“Yes, I did,” Westley said, gazing at me with all the love I could have ever imagined or hoped for.

I smiled a thank you, but deep inside, I knew better. I was the one who had married up, not Wes. No one of Westley’s caliber—his intelligence, his good looks—had ever given me a second glance before that day in the pharmacy. So, if becoming a part-time mommy to a one-year-old meant keeping Westley, then so be it.

I was the lucky one.

Chapter Twenty-one

Cindie

The “something” she was looking for came over a BLT served with a side order of coleslaw.

“Just passing through?” Cindie asked the man with dark eyes and thick brows that, on anyone else, would have appeared wormlike. The man sitting in the farthest booth from the café door, shoulders back, legs crossed like he was somebody, reading a book like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever picked off a library shelf. A smart man, no doubt. A man like Westley.

He looked up as if he were surprised that she’d brought him his order or that he’d forgotten completely where he was at. “Sorry?”

She smiled, giving it her all. Whatever “it” was. “I don’t recognize you as a local.” She allowed her smile to grow. “And believe me, if you were a local, I’d know you.”

The man smiled back as he slid the thick eggshell-white platter closer to his edge of the table. “Ah … yes. Small-town woes.”

“You could say that.”

“I did say that.”

Cindie laughed then. Lightly. Not too much. This man was uptown. High class. She could spot it on him as easily as she had the night Westley walked in. The night he took her for a drive and changed her life. Of course, she had known Westley already. Had known him since she’d been a little girl. But still … that same air of sophistication Westley wore like aftershave settled around the stranger in the booth who now looked up at her as though—the book aside—she now held the title of “Most Interesting.”

“Yes, sir. You did,” she admitted, because she knew that men like him needed to hear they were right about the things they said. Lettie Mae hadn’t taught her a whole lot, but that much she’d made sure her three daughters knew.

His eyes traveled from her face to her chest—something she was accustomed to—but didn’t linger—something she was not accustomed to. “Cindie, is it?”

She pressed her hand against her nametag. “Yes.”

“How old are you, Cindie?” He picked up the slice of dill pickle stretched out next to the sandwich. Took a bite.

“Why?”

“Graduated from high school yet?”

What was this? Twenty questions? Was he planning to ask her out on a date? Trying to figure out if she were legal enough to— “No. I had to—I dropped out.” And not because she wanted to—although she couldn’t tell him that. No, she dropped out because a fickle man named Westley Houser used her for his own need … then left her alone and pregnant … didn’t marry her . . . married someone else … and hadn’t even bothered to try to come see his daughter yesterday like she’d thought he would.

The man took another bite of the pickle, small enough to swallow right away. “Did you get your GED?”

Cindie frowned now. Seriously, what was this? “No, sir, I did not,” she said as if she were proud of it. As if she dared him to say anything against not having a high school diploma.

The man chuckled then. “I’m sorry.” He pulled a napkin from the holder, wiped both hands, and extended the right. “I’m Dr. Miller,” he said. “Harry Miller.”

“Oh,” she said, then looked over her shoulder because any minute now her boss would come around the corner. Would catch her talking to the customer longer than he preferred. Keep it moving, he always said. But Cindie knew that a little personal time spent gabbing nonsense equaled a better tip. And tips was what she lived on. “What kind of doctor?”

“Am I holding you up?” he asked. “You’ve got other customers. I’m sorry.” He picked up one side of the sandwich that had been cut on the diagonal. “I don’t want to get you into trouble. You go on. I’ll eat.”

Cindie nodded, then turned as the ever-annoying ding rang from the back. “Order up! Cindie!” She hurried to the counter, grabbed two plates of spaghetti with meat sauce, waltzed them over to Table Five, then rushed to where large pitchers of iced tea and water were stationed. She grabbed the handle of the sweet tea, taking it immediately to the booth with the doctor who had finished off the first half of his sandwich and now worked on the coleslaw. “More tea?”

The doctor looked at his glass, which had hardly been touched. “Sure.”

“So … since we’ve pretty much established that you are not from here, where are you from?” Cindie asked as she topped off his drink.

“Atlanta,” he said after a swallow of tea and a lift of his glass. “This is good.”

“A little heavy on the sugar, if you ask me.”

His eyes shone. “Like my mother used to make it.”

“Oh,” she said, noting that he hadn’t said his wife. Noting that he also didn’t wear a ring. Not that this necessarily meant anything. “So … what kind of doctor?”

He glanced at the book