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

we finished preparing our coffee. Westley returned to the table and I followed, this time sitting as far from him as possible. “Was she just letting you know then? About the pregnancy and the marriage? No strings? No demands?”

He took a sip. Swallowed. “I guess so. Just wanted me to know.”

My hands quivered; I wrapped them around the heat of the mug. “And you really like this guy? You think he’ll be good to Michelle?”

Westley’s brow shot up. “What little bit of time he’ll see her. Yeah, I do. Seems like a straight-up kind of guy.”

I drank from my mug. Set it down, willing my hands to stop shaking. Why were they shaking? What premonition haunted me in the cool of this spring morning? The same one that wove its way through my days? My weeks and months and years? The one that compromised my happiness at every turn? Or was this something new? Something that had nothing to do with Cindie ripping Michelle from my life? “Well, all right then,” I said, forcing aside the rush of emotion threatening to overtake me.

Westley stood. My eyes traveled the length of him. As much distance as there seemed to be between us, I still loved him. Wanted him. But more than anything, I needed to know for certain that Westley was right. All was well. Changes were sometimes good, but not always. Sometimes they brought devastation. “Wes?”

“I think I’ll go for a ride on my bike,” he said. “No sense in wasting this day sitting inside the house.”

The words sounded promising. They also held truth. “Can I go with you?”

He seemed surprised by the request, eyes never meeting mine. “Ah—not this time. I’m not steady enough yet.”

He reached for his keys and headed out the same door he’d walked through not fifteen minutes before.

“Well, maybe we can do something together later. Go to a movie, maybe? That Matthew Broderick movie looks good.” As long as our choices didn’t include She’s Having a Baby, no matter how adorable Kevin Bacon appeared to be in it and how absolutely wonderful DiAnn had reported it to be. “Biloxi Blues?”

“All right,” he said. “Dinner first? Henry’s?”

Henry’s? A dress-up place. Candles flickering on tables covered by linen, their light reflecting on crystal stemware under dimly lit chandeliers. The very notion of Westley wanting to take me there held a promise from a happier time and I smiled. “Who needs a movie if we’re going to Henry’s?” I asked, hoping he caught the teasing in my voice. I decided I’d wear my black-beaded dress and diamond stud earrings. A gift from Westley in happier days.

He smiled back, but—even from across the room—I could see the force behind it. “Whatever you say.” He was halfway out the door.

“I love you,” I called out.

“You too,” he said as the door closed behind him.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Biff came home for Easter. Unexpectedly. He never arrived announced—a fact that thoroughly aggravated Miss Justine, infuriated Ro-Bay, and tightened a knot inside my soul I could not explain. This man held an attraction I could never be sure of. I only knew that he did and that with things the way they had been of late between Westley and me, Biff’s visit could not have come at a worse time.

Ro-Bay met me at the door on Monday with a determined frown and a huff. “He’s back,” she muttered.

“Who’s back?” I asked, knowing the answer. My thoughts went to my appearance. That morning, although the last thing I felt like doing was dressing according to Miss Justine’s specifications, I had donned a form-hugging denim skirt with a long-sleeved white with dark-blue pinstripes button-up blouse. Before leaving the house, I grabbed a sweater, which I now shrugged out of and handed over, all the while grateful for the extra care I’d taken.

“That boy of Miss Justine’s, that’s who. Got her in a dither. Dander riled up.” She looked up the staircase. “Still in bed, too. Just like always. Acts like all we’ve got to do around here is wait on his lazy bones to get up and get moving. Well, if he thinks I’m gonna make another breakfast just for him, he’s got another think coming.”

“I take it you mean Biff,” I remarked as matter-of-factly as I could steady my voice.

Her fist went to her hip. “Who else?”

I glanced up then toward the back of the house. “Where’s Miss Justine?”

“Gone already. Had some church ladies circle meeting she couldn’t miss.”

I started for the library that continued to serve as my office. “Oh, that’s right. I remember now. Her Garden Club is meeting with them to talk about their summer show now that the Easter show is over and how they can work together.”

Ro-Bay harrumphed. “Every one of them ladies that’s in one is in the other. Coffee?”

“I’ll come get it shortly,” I said.

“Oh no you won’t,” Ro-Bay said, the thick soles of her shoes sighing against the marble floor. “It’s Monday morning. You been here long enough to know that on Monday mornings I mop and wax and nobody, but nobody, is gonna walk across my linoleum till I say so.” I smiled as she raised her chin in hopes that her voice would carry up the stairs, something I’d long been watching her do. “I’ll bring it like I’ve done every Monday since you started here.”

I found the usual Monday stacks dotting my desk. My shoulders fell as I dropped my purse into an empty drawer. The usual … everything in my life … the usual. Ordinary. Scheduled and expected. On Mondays Ro-Bay mopped and waxed and brought me my coffee. On Mondays I looked at the same reports from the previous week and then entered their numbers into a ledger. Every Monday, every Tuesday, every Wednesday through Sunday … the same. My life had become a Ferris Wheel I could not get off.

I glanced at my watch. Westley had stayed home to wait for Cindie and her new husband to