Carnal Innocence

get out. The Lord helped those who helped themselves, and he would find a way.
    He would make his way back to Innocence and do what he should have done more than thirty years ago. He would kill the part of Beau that lived in his son.
    And balance the scales.
    Caroline stepped out onto the flower-decked patio and inhaled deeply of summer. The light was gentling, easing quietly toward dusk, and insects stirred in the grass. She had that smug, too-full feeling she’d forgotten could be so pleasant.
    The meal had been more than platters of food served on old silver trays. It had been a slow, almost languorous pocket of time filled with scents and tastes and talk. Teddy had done magic tricks with his napkinand the flatware. Dwayne, passably sober, had displayed a remarkable talent for mimicry, moving from old standards like Jimmy Stewart to Jack Nicholson and on to locals like Junior Talbot.
    Tucker and Josie had kept her laughing with rambling, often graphic stories of sex scandals, most of which were fifty or sixty years old.
    So different, she thought now, from her own family dinners, where her mother would dictate the proper conversation and not a drop would spill on the starched damask cloth. Those dinners had been so stifling and lifeless—more like a corporate meeting than a family meal. The peccadilloes of ancestors would never have been discussed, nor would Georgia McNair Waverly have found it amusing to have a guest pluck a salad fork out of her bodice.
    No indeed.
    But Caroline had enjoyed the evening more than any she could remember, and was sorry it was nearly over.
    “You look happy,” Tucker commented.
    “Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “It’s just nice to see, that’s all.” He took her hand, and what he felt when his fingers linked with hers was not so much resistance as uncertainty. “Want to walk?”
    It was a pretty evening, a lovely spot, and her mood was mellow. “All right.”
    It wasn’t really a walk, she thought as she wound through rosebushes and the heavy scent of gardenia. It was more of a meander. No hurry, no destination, no problems. She thought meander suited Tucker perfectly.
    “Is that a lake?” she asked as she saw the glint of water in the last light of the sun.
    “Sweetwater.” Obligingly he shifted directions. “Beau built his house there, on the south side of it. You can still see what’s left of the foundation.”
    What Caroline saw was a scattering of stones. “What a view they had. Acres and acres of their own land. How does that feel?”
    “I don’t know. It just is.”
    Dissatisfied, she looked out over the wide, fiat fields of cotton. She was a child of the city, where even the wealthy held only squares of property and people crowded each other for space. “But to have all this….”
    “It has you.” It surprised him to say it, but he shrugged and finished the thought. “You can’t turn away from it, not when it’s been handed down to you. You can’t see it go fallow when you’re reminded that the Longstreets have held Sweetwater for the best part of two centuries.”
    “Is that what you want? To turn away?”
    “Maybe there are some places I’d like to see.” His shoulders moved again with a restlessness she recognized and hadn’t expected. “Then again, traveling’s complicated. It takes a lot of effort.”
    “Don’t do that.”
    The impatience in her voice nearly made him smile. “I haven’t done anything yet.” He skimmed a hand up her arm. “But I’m thinking about it.”
    Frustrated, she broke away. “You know what I mean. One minute you act as though there might be something inside your mind other than a thought for the easiest way out. The next thing, you shut it off.”
    “I never could see the point in taking the hard way.”
    “What about the right way?”
    It wasn’t often he came across a woman who wanted to discuss philosophy. Taking out a cigarette, Tucker settled into the conversation comfortably. “Well, what’s right for one isn’t necessarily right for the other. Dwayne went off and got a degree he’s never done a damn thing with, because he’d rather sit around and brood about how things should have been. Josie runs off and gets married, twice, flies off to anywhere at the drop of a hat, and always ends up back here pretending things are better than they can be.”
    “What about you? What’s your way?”
    “My way’s to take it as it comes. And yours …” He glanced back at her. “Yours is to figure out