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

Biff found me in Miss Justine’s library, which doubled as the office where she and I—mostly I—did our work. At one time, it had been her husband’s, then masculine in color, design, and scents. But when he died—she once told me—she brought in a new floral sofa and a baroque vase she’d “spent entirely too much money” for, which she filled with flowers. Within weeks, she had replaced heavy draperies with chintz and window sheers and added a cluster of cranberry-scented candles that stood like soldiers on a gold-dusted charger in the center of an elegant coffee table. Candles she insisted stayed lit while we worked, poring over the financial reports and books from the small empire her husband had created from a single hometown apothecary.

Miss Justine had been correct about her son—his eyes were brooding. Nearly mesmerizing, which—in all the years I would know him and no matter how close our faces came, one to the other—I could never pinpoint in color. His hair, so black it shone nearly blue, had been cut to wear stylishly long, but neat. He was tall and well-built. Bronzed and polished and much more appealing than any camera could ever capture. His nose, which was more Italian than English, only served to make him more handsome in a not-quite-perfect sort of way. But his shoulders were squared like those of a man who life had treated with smiles and favor. Respect, even if from a distance, but most definitely, up close. He stood in such a way to express the suave ease of being in his own presence. Years later, when I sat still long enough to look back on the story of my life, I could say with clarity that this was the first moment I ever remembered gasping at the sight and scent—fresh and moneyed—of someone. Even Westley—adorable and sexy as he was—hadn’t had that kind of effect on me. Not so all of a sudden. Until that very second, I’d not been aware that a human could hold that kind of power—to literally take one’s breath away. No wonder Miss Justine had warned me.

He stood in the doorway, dressed in a pair of blue-and-white tennis shorts and a crisp white tee, matching socks and shoes, looking for all the world like a Sears and Roebuck catalog model, not that I could ever, as time went on, imagine Biff stooping to such a degree. His lips, exquisitely bowed and shaded, bore a slight curl and over those magnificent eyes ran an arched brow. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”

His voice bore something between the genteel lilt of a refined Southern man and an aristocratic Brit. I had to bite my tongue to find my voice. “No. Why?”

“You gasped.”

“I just wasn’t expecting—” I looked down at the papers and ledgers scattered on the desk before me, then back up.

“You must be the wonderful Allison I’ve heard so much about,” he said, now brandishing a smile that would well please those four out of five dentists that went about approving toothpaste and mouthwash and such.

I stood. Closed the ledger as inconspicuously as I knew how, then walked around the desk and toward the door. “I don’t know about wonderful, but the Allison part is right.”

Biff took the necessary steps to meet me, his hand extended for a shake, which I obliged. His cologne—rich and spicy—met the wafting scent of the candles, forming a most intoxicating aroma.

Like Miss Justine’s, his hands were warm. Soft. Not the hands of a man who’d spent any time working in his mother’s garden.

Or tending to his own.

“Buford Henry Knight II,” he said. “Or so my parents named me. My friends call me Biff.” The smile broadened, which surprised me. I hadn’t thought it possible. “I hope you’ll be my friend.”

When I didn’t answer, he roared with laughter at my expense, then sauntered into the library and plopped into one of the two old leather wingback chairs left over from his father’s days of occupying the room. “My mother ...” He opened a small drawer of the table propped between the chairs, pulled out a box of Virginia Slims along with a silver-plated lighter. “... has told you to be wary of me.” He held up the cigarettes. “She also hides her ciggy-butts in here. Thinks I don’t know.” He extended the pack toward me, his brow raised again in the offering.

“No. No, thank you,” I answered the unasked question. “I don’t smoke.”

“Neither does my mother,” he said, then pulled a cigarette from the box as I found my way to the sofa. The candles flickered and, for once, I wished I could blow them out before leaving for the day. The light, the scent, the ambiance was too much, especially in the company of this man. “Yet, somehow, these little beauties …” He lit the cigarette, then placed the box and lighter back into the drawer and slid it shut. “… always manage to find their way into this drawer. There are twenty … then nineteen … eighteen … all the way down to one. If you were to ask her, which no one would ever dare, she’d tell you she has no idea how it happens. Or who they belong to.” He studied me then. Studied me through the veil of smoke that floated between us and added to my comfortable discomfort. “So, you married young Westley.”

“You know my husband?” I asked, fingering my wedding band. An involuntary action he picked up on with a lazy blink and an even slower smile.

“He and Paul and DiAnn used to come here to go skiing out on the lake when they were kids.” He took a long draw of his cigarette, then stood in search of an ashtray, which he found hidden behind a few books on one of the shelves. After thumping ashes into it, he returned to his seat. “Of course, I know Paul much better now.”

“Oh, that’s right. He would be your nephew-in-law.”

“Something like