Dust

by Eva Marie Everson

  I nodded, newly self-conscious of the physical attention, especially in front of Paul and DiAnn, both of whom I had a difficult time looking in the eye.

  “Have a seat,” DiAnn said as she pushed away from the table. “I put a plate in the oven on warm for you. Wes, pour her a cup of coffee. How do you like it?”

  “Lots of cream and two sugars,” Westley answered for me. I shot a glance over to Paul, who winked, then pointed to a chair next to him. For a moment, all seemed right with the world again.

  “Come here and we’ll tell you about what all we have planned for you.”

  I ate, forcing myself to concentrate while Paul and Westley mapped out a day of being out in their boat on the lake—DiAnn had already packed a picnic basket for a lunch we’d enjoy at a spot they’d found a few miles up toward the river. “If the weather keeps up, I may even get in a little skiing,” Westley said, his exuberance reminding me of a child’s.

  “Do you ski?” DiAnn asked.

  I took a sip of the coffee Westley had made to perfection. “No,” I said after a swallow. “Never learned, to tell you the truth.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve grown up in Georgia and you don’t know how to ski,” Paul noted.

  “I’m not very coordinated,” I said. “I can’t skate … I can’t dance … you should have seen me on track and field day back when I was in school.” I laughed to take away the sting left behind from years of teasing.

  Westley took my hand in his. After a squeeze he let me go. “But you should see her swim. She’s like a fish in water. When we go to Tybee—”

  “Westley,” I said, keeping my eyes on my food, most definitely not wanting to discuss swimming or body surfing. “Let’s talk more about our day,” I said, wanting more than just to stay away from our frivolities while swimming. Wanting only to talk about anything that would keep my mind focused on the here and now rather than the giant question that hung over my head. What was Westley—and Paul and DiAnn—keeping from me? “What about after the boat and the lake?” I asked, which only brought a roar of laughter from him.

  “All right. There’s a little place downtown …”

  Westley had insisted I bring my bathing suit and by the end of the day, I was happy I’d not questioned his wisdom. Despite the lateness of the year, the sun had turned the world around us warm and had made for the most pleasant day I could imagine.

  I changed into a bikini I’d purchased on sale near the end of the summer—one I hadn’t worn yet, so it was a complete surprise to Westley—along with one of his long-sleeved shirts in case I got chilled. I hadn’t truly come into my own womanhood yet, but even at such a young age, I recognized the combination of my swimsuit and his shirt kept nearly all his attention toward me.

  Me and the pair of skis his brother loaned him.

  DiAnn, who wore the most seductive gold-toned one-piece I’d ever seen, drove the boat most of the day, her eyes nearly always straight ahead, while the brothers skied behind, bouncing over the waves of the wakes, their tanned bodies lean and angled in such a way that told me the two had been doing this nearly their whole lives. True to what their parents had always told me, Westley proved to be the daredevil, performing stunts that reminded me of the ones I’d seen during a family vacation to Cypress Gardens in Florida. I clapped and cheered from my place at the back of the boat as hair from my makeshift ponytail whipped across my sun-kissed cheeks and forehead.

  Paul docked the boat in the late afternoon. Westley helped me onto the pier, his hand sliding under his shirt, now wet and clinging to my body. Fiery tingles shot through me as his fingertips rested alongside the curve of my waist and he coaxed my body close to his own. “Did you have fun?” he asked, his voice low and provocative.

  My arms instinctively went around him. “It was the best day I’ve had in a long, long time,” I said, thinking what a strange place I found myself in, surrounded by three people who knew something I didn’t—something I needed to know—and yet, out on the boat, watching Westley, for a little while, I’d drunk in the wind and sun and forgot. I’d had a good time. “What about you?”

  “More than a little.” He squinted down at me. “Although I’ve got a little bit of a headache I need to get rid of.”

  I glanced toward DiAnn and Paul, who worked to tie the boat off. Seeing an opportunity to help and become more a part of the family, I slid away from Westley and said, “Let me help. Just tell me what to do.”

  DiAnn smiled, her chin rising. “Grab that rope right there.” She looked at Westley. “Show her how to knot, Wes.”

  Within seconds his hands worked alongside mine as we tied off the back of the boat. When we’d finished, we gathered up the skis, the life vests, and the picnic basket and made our way back up the hill toward the house.

  Paul and DiAnn were treating Westley and me to dinner at their favorite Italian café located in the heart of Baxter. “Get a shower,” DiAnn instructed me, then glanced Westley’s way and back to me. “You may even want to nap a little after a day out in the sun.” She turned to Paul. “I know I’m ready for one. How about you?”

  “A nap?” I asked, surprised but content to comply. I wanted to be a part of whatever the evening held, and I had grown sleepy.

  Westley pulled what was left of my ponytail from the elastic band that held it at the top of my head. “Go on upstairs,” he said. “I’ll do the same down here …”

  I took the ponytail holder from his fingertips. “I hope a little sleep will help your headache before tonight.”

  “It should.”

  I took a long, hot shower, wrapped myself in a thick terrycloth robe DiAnn had hung on the back of the door for me, and then padded into my room wearing socks on feet that now felt cold to the bone. I closed the door behind me with a gentle click, aware that Paul and DiAnn might possibly be in their nearby bedroom, already asleep. I leaned against the door, felt a yearning to already have what they had—a marriage and a marriage bed. I wanted to be able to lay beside Westley, feel his arms around me, his breath warm against the back of my neck as we faced the same direction. I wanted to know—

  The slamming of a car door and the start of an engine startled me. I crossed the room to the window, stood beside it and lifted the edge of the draperies in time to see Westley driving away from the house. My brow furrowed. Where would he be going at this hour? To get aspirin? Surely Paul and DiAnn had some here … Or maybe they were out.

  I dropped the curtain, crossed the floor, and turned off the light with a flick of the switch. Minutes later, I snuggled between the bedcovers, the robe still wrapped around me, and fell asleep, not giving Westley’s whereabouts another thought.

  Chapter Seven

  Cindie

  Cindie Campbell paced from the small living room of her mother’s house to the kitchen to check the stovetop clock one more time. Six-o-five and this clock was usually slow. Westley had said he’d be there by six-fifteen. No later. And she’d warned him. Warned him good. He’d better be . . . or better not be. Late, that is.

  She’d put up with a lot from him. She’d put up with a lot from everyone. When her mother had caught wind of the fact that he was coming into town to see his brother and sister-in-law, she wasted no time in giving her middle daughter what for. “Whatever it takes,” she’d said. “You get him over here and you make him listen.”

  The next day Cindie marched herself into DiAnn Houser’s uppity finance office and let her know in no uncertain terms that Westley had best get himself over to her house at some point while he was in town.

  DiAnn kept it cool, she’d give her that. Not a blink or a change of expression before she raised her brow and said, “I’ll be sure to let him know.”

  “I mean it, DiAnn,” Cindie had said. She stood over the woman’s desk, her arms crossed and the toe of her scuffed boot tapping. “I’ve wrote him not too long ago and he didn’t even acknowledge the note. I’m not putting up with much more.”

  DiAnn placed her forearms on top of t
he paperwork scattered on her desk. Paperwork full of tiny boxes filled with numbers. DiAnn was smart when it came to books but Cindie was smarter when it came to getting what she wanted. She’d place a bet on it. “Do you want to sit down?” the blonde businesswoman now asked her.

  “No, I don’t want to sit down.”

  “A cup of coffee? Coke?”

  “No. I don’t want—” Then again, a Coke over ice sounded pretty good. “All right. A Co-cola. But only if you serve it in a glass with some ice.”

  DiAnn picked up the handset of her desk phone and dialed a number. “Sherry, would you bring a Coke over ice in here for Miss Campbell, please … thank you.” She hung up, raised her brow again. “Seriously. Sit, Cindie.”

  Cindie jerked a well-placed faux-wood and orange vinyl chair from its perfect angle to dead center in front of the desk. She crossed her legs as she sat, which only hiked her skirt higher than even she felt comfortable. She tugged at the hem without result before resting her elbows on the hard arms of the chair. “So,” she said. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

  The door to DiAnn’s office opened and the woman who’d taken Cindie’s name and “the reason for your visit” when she’d walked in off the street sauntered in with her soft drink. “Just put it there on the desk,” DiAnn said, pointing to the edge.

  Clever. Make her reach for it.

  Which she did. Cindie took a long swallow, waited for the woman to leave, then said, “Well?”

  “Paul talked to him a few days ago.”

  “Did he say anything about me?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Cindie. Paul doesn’t give me a play-by-play after he talks with his brother. He only told me that—that he was coming for the weekend. Which you apparently know already.”

  Cindie set the glass on the desk a little harder than she’d intended. DiAnn glanced at it, then back up, her eyes never showing a care. She was a good one, DiAnn Houser was. Always been the coolest chick. The girl every boy wanted to date, and every girl wanted for a best friend. Little girls wanted to grow up to be her. Or like her. Cheerleader. Tennis champ. Everything she ever wanted, she got … right down to her own horse and the latest fashions. Not like Cindie, who’d never even been close to a horse and who wore her sister’s hand-me-downs, which had been someone else’s hand-me-downs before that.

  Cindie licked her lips. Tasted the Coke and the cherry lip balm she’d swabbed across them before she’d gotten out of her mother’s beat-up excuse for a car earlier. “Like I said, you tell him I mean it. I called information and I got his mama and daddy’s number. All it’s going to take is a single phone call and they’ll know the whole story.”

  “I told you I’d tell him, and I will,” DiAnn said, her shoulder jerking slightly. “I’ll even do you one better than that. I’ll insist that he call you first thing Saturday morning. How’s that?”

  “Well, I hope you’ve got that kind of say-so over him.”

  “I think I can manage it.”

  And apparently, she had. At seven thirty that morning he’d called, sounding every bit as gorgeous and inviting as he always had. Westley Houser. Who would have ever thought that a man like him would be under her thumb? Or wrapped around her pinky?

  But he was. Or at least he would be, if she kept playing her cards right. Because she sure hadn’t been able to convince him—so far—to marry her. Not even with all of Lettie Mae’s threats, which meant all the more to Cindie. If she was ever going to break free of her mother, she’d need a man like Westley.

  And so they needed to talk, she’d told him. Alone.

  And he’d agreed.

  When she told her mama that he said he’d be there by six-fifteen, Lettie Mae had made sure the house was cleared out by five-forty-five. “In case he comes early,” she said. Then she pointed her sharply manicured nail at Cindie’s nose and said, “You don’t do nothing to cause any more issues, you get what I’m telling you?”

  Cindie pushed her mother’s finger away. “I get you.”

  “And you put his feet to the flame. We ain’t gonna keep this up forever. He’s practically a doctor. He can do his share. More than his share. If he ain’t gonna marry you right off—”

  “I got it, I got it,” Cindie said. “Now let me handle it.”

  As soon as her mother and the rest of the family skedaddled, she went to her bedroom and pulled a pair of jeans from her younger sister’s closet. She had to lie on the bed to zip them and worried she wouldn’t be able to breathe good once she rolled off the bed. She then pulled one of Leticia’s sweaters on—a size smaller than what she normally wore. Especially since last year.

  She spent five minutes at the bathroom mirror, scooping her hair up and clasping it with combs, then pulled curling tendrils toward her high cheekbones and over her forehead. A spritz of Yardley Magnolia, another application of lip balm, and she blinked at her reflection. She looked exactly the way Westley liked her. At least that’s what he’d always said. Light makeup. Hair pulled up “like a Gibson girl,” he once said.

  She’d had to ask her older sister what that one meant. And when she found out, it made her feel pretty and special.

  The doorbell rang and she jumped, knocking her hairbrush to the tile floor where it bounced slightly, then slapped against her bare foot. Shoes … she’d decided not to wear them. Her mama would skin her alive if she knew … but she wouldn’t know … and that was the way it was going to be.

  Cindie hurried to the front door and swung it open to Westley standing there, one hand resting on the doorjamb, the other on his hip. He wore winter-white jeans with a matching denim jacket over a dark-brown turtleneck. The masculine scent of him reached her before she had a chance to catch her breath fully. “Hey,” she said, smiling before she could stop herself.

  Westley Houser had that kind of effect on her.

  “Hey, yourself.” He looked over her shoulder. “Can I come in or are we going to talk out here?”

  She stepped back. “Sorry. Come on in.”

  He walked in with all the confidence of a man who belonged, even when he didn’t. And he certainly didn’t belong there, in the little ragtag house she and her family had been calling home since their daddy left their mama for the nurse he’d met while visiting his mama who’d taken ill for a spell. “Are we alone?” he asked.

  Cindie closed the door. “Yeah. Mama thought it best.”

  His eyes roamed over her. “You look good. Smell good, too.”

  She shoved her hands into the back pockets of the jeans that didn’t want to give. “Don’t start nothing you can’t finish.”

  “Oh, I can finish it,” he said, then laughed. “I’m teasing with you.” Then he stepped over and kissed her cheek, allowing his lips to linger just long enough that she felt her defenses slide down her spine. “Seriously. I’m sorry I haven’t called. Or written.” He stepped back and pointed to a chair. “Mind if I sit?”

  Mind? She’d been dreaming of it all day. Waiting for it. Wanting it as bad as she wanted him. “No. Go ahead.”

  He slid his jacket off and tossed it on the sofa before sitting, then pulled a pack of cigarettes from the jacket’s front pocket. “Want one?”

  Cindie walked to him, slid a cigarette from between the rows as sexily as she knew how, waited for him to light hers, then his. She wandered over to a chair on the far side of the room and sat, feeling the waist of the jeans cut into her flesh. “There’s an ashtray over there on the end table,” she said, pointing.

  He smiled. “I remember.” He took a long drag, blew the smoke into the room that seemed dingier with the likes of him in it. She momentarily wondered what his mama and daddy’s house looked like, figuring they had real fine furniture. Velvet chairs and silver-framed photos like at the Girl Scout house in Savannah she’d visited once upon a time.

  “Is she here?” he asked, startling her.

  “Who?”

  Westley chuckled. “Michelle. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  “No.
Mama took her with them.”

  Disappointment clouded his face. “I’d like to see her.”

  “You can come by tomorrow if you want. Or maybe we can meet up—”

  “I can’t tomorrow. I’ll be heading back home—”

  “What about before you go?”

  He took another long drag, then stretched across the length of the sofa and snuffed it out in the oversized tin ashtray that held her mother’s cigarette butts from earlier in the day. Cindie mentally kicked herself; she should have emptied it. Made it look nicer. She bet there wasn’t a dirty ashtray anywhere in his mama’s house. “Can’t,” he said. Then he straightened. “But I’d love to see her. Maybe—”

  “I need to talk to you about money.”

  “All right.” He sat straight. Rested his elbows on his knees. “Talk.”

  “Raising a baby takes more than a hundred a month.”

  Westley nodded as if he agreed. “Have you talked to your attorney?”

  “I told you I did. Told you in that letter I sent.” She took a final drag, then walked the remainder of the cigarette to an ashtray resting on the fireplace mantel. One that matched the tin one on the end table. One filled with just as many butts. “He says a hundred twenty-five is fair, but I’m thinking more like one-fifty.” Cindie raised her chin a fraction of an inch. “Especially from the looks of that car out there in my driveway. I ’spect you can afford it.”

  Westley stared at her. She tried to read his thoughts but couldn’t. She’d never been able to, really. He was a man of mystery. A man of control. She wanted the same. The same over him like he had over her and everyone else he came into contact with. But she’d never have it and she knew it. She’d thought she might when she told him she was pregnant, but even then … Westley Houser lived by his own rules. He hadn’t even told his parents about Michelle and she was nearly a year old already. “All right,” he said finally. “One-fifty isn’t a problem. But first I want to ask you a few questions.”

  She didn’t move. “Like what?”