Carolina Moon

want to call the police, and maybe, well, maybe it’s easier on your mother if we don’t. But I’m family.”
    “I know.” She let him draw her into a hug. “He’s gone now. All he wanted was money. He’s scared, running scared. They’ll catch him before long. I just want it to be away from here. Away from me. I can’t help it.”
    “Of course you can’t. I want a promise from you.” Gently, J.R. held her out at arm’s length. “If you see him around again, even if he doesn’t try to get near you, I want you to promise you’ll tell me right off.”
    “All right. But don’t worry. He got what he came for. He’s miles away by now.”
    She needed to believe it.

19
    S he believed it for the rest of the day. She covered herself with the thin, battle-scarred armor of that belief through the long afternoon. And though she knew it was foolish, she opened one of the candles wrapped and ribboned on display and set it on the counter.
    She hoped the light and scent of it would help dispel some of the ugly film her father’s visit had smeared on the air.
    At six, she locked up, then caught herself scanning the street as she had done for weeks when she’d escaped to New York. It angered her that he could put that cautious anxiety back in her step, that jolt back in her heart.
    Had she really stood in the ruin of her mother’s house and claimed she could and would face down her father and all that fear if he dared slither into her life again?
    Where was her courage now?
    All she could do was promise herself she would find it again.
    But she locked the car doors the minute she was inside, and her pulse jittered as she constantly shifted her glance from the road ahead to the rearview mirror on the drive home.
    She passed cars, even stirred herself to wave at Piney as his pickup rumbled by with a quick toot of the horn. Field-work would be done for the day, she thought. Hands would be heading home. And so would the boss.
    So it was with an irritating bump of disappointment that she turned into her lane and found it empty. She hadn’t realized she’d been expecting Cade to be there, anticipating it. True, she hadn’t greeted his statement that he was basically moving in with any real enthusiasm. But the more she thought of it, the easier it had been to accept. And once accepted, enjoyed.
    It had been a very long time since she’d wanted companionship. Someone to share the day with, to talk over inconsequential things with, to find little things to laugh over, complain about.
    To have someone there when the night seemed too full of sound, and movement, and memories.
    And what was she giving back? Resistance, arguments, irritable and unstated agreement.
    “Just general bitchiness,” she murmured, as she climbed out of the car. That, at least, she could stop. She could do what women traditionally did to make up for petty crimes. She could fix him a nice dinner, and seduce him.
    The idea lifted her mood. Wouldn’t he be surprised when she made the moves for a change? She hoped she remembered how, because it was about time she took back a little control. By doing so she’d take some of the responsibility for whatever was going on between them off his shoulders.
    She’d tried to please Jack that way, and then …
    No. She pushed that train of thought firmly away as she unlocked her front door. Cade wasn’t Jack, and she wasn’t the same woman she’d been in New York. Past and present didn’t have to connect.
    When she entered she knew that was just one more delusion. She knew he’d been there, inside what she’d tried to make her own home. Her father.
    There’d been little for him to destroy, and she didn’t think he’d put much effort into it. He hadn’t come in to break her few pieces of furniture, or punch holes in the walls. Though he had done some of both.
    Her chair was overturned, and he’d taken something sharp to the underside. The lamp she bought only days before was shattered, the table she’d hoped to refinish tossed into the corner with one of its legs snapped like a twig.
    She recognized the size and shape of the dents in the wallboard. It was his signature mark, left when for whatever reason he chose to use fists on inanimate objects instead of his daughter.
    She left the door open, an escape route in case her instincts were off and he was still in the house.
    But the bedroom was empty. He’d yanked off the bed-clothes, ripped at the mattress. She supposed the iron bed frame had