Carolina Moon

been more trouble to him than it was worth, as he’d left it be.
    The drawers of her dressers were pulled out, her clothes heaped in piles. No, he hadn’t really wanted to destroy her things, she mused, or he’d have taken that sharp tool to her clothing as well. He’d done that before, to teach her a lesson about dressing appropriately.
    He’d been looking for more money, or for things he could easily sell for cash. If he’d been drinking, it would have been worse. If he’d been drinking, he’d have waited for her. As it was … She bent down to pick up a rumpled blouse, then let out a cry of despair when she saw the small carved wooden box she used to hold her jewelry.
    She pounced on it, sinking down when she found it empty. Most of what she’d owned had been trinkets, really. Good trinkets, carefully selected, but easily replaced.
    But among them had been the garnet and gold earrings her grandmother had given her when she’d turned twenty-one. Earrings that had been her own great-grandmother’s. Her only heirloom. Priceless. Irreplaceable. Lost.
    “Tory!”
    The alarm in Cade’s voice, the rush of footsteps, brought her quickly to her feet. “I’m all right. I’m here.”
    He burst into the room, had her pinned against him before she could say another word. Tangled waves of fear and release pumped from him, over and into her.
    “I’m all right,” she repeated. “I just got here. Minutes ago. He was already gone.”
    “I saw your car, the living room. I thought—” He tightened his grip, pressed his face into her hair. “Just hold on a second.”
    He knew what it was to have terror dig slick claws into his throat. He’d never thought he’d feel it again.
    “Thank God you’re all right. I meant to be here before you, but I got hung up. We’ll call the police, then you’re coming to Beaux Reves. I should have taken you there this morning.”
    “Cade, there’s no point in all that. It was my father.” She drew away, set the box down on the dresser. “He came to the shop this morning. We had words. This is just his way of letting me know he can still punish me.”
    “Did he hurt you?”
    “No.” The denial was quick and automatic, but his gaze had already landed on the side of her neck.
    He said nothing. He didn’t have to. His eyes went dark, narrowed into slits, as violence—she knew how to recognize violence—swam into them. Then he turned away and found the phone.
    “Cade, wait. Please. I don’t want to call the police.”
    His head snapped up, and that same narrowed rage snapped out at her. “You don’t always get what you want.”
    Sherry Bellows celebrated her potential job by opening a bottle of wine, turning up her Sheryl Crow CD as loud as her neighbors would tolerate, and dancing around her apartment.
    Everything was working out perfectly.
    She loved Progress. It was exactly the sort of small, close-knit town she wanted to be a part of. The stars, she thought, had been well aligned when she’d followed instinct and applied for the position at Progress High.
    She liked the other teachers. Though Sherry didn’t know all her associates very well as yet, that would all change in the fall when she started full-time.
    She was going to be a wonderful teacher, someone her students could come to with their problems and their questions. Her classes were going to be fun, and she’d inspire her students to read, to enjoy, to seek out books for pleasure, planting the seeds for a lifelong love affair with literature.
    Oh, she’d make them work, and work hard, but she had so many ideas, so many fresh and wonderful notions on how to make the work interesting, even entertaining.
    Years from now, when her students looked back, they’d remember her fondly. Miss Bellows, they’d say. She made a difference in my life.
    It was all she’d ever wanted.
    Wanted it enough, she thought now, to study like a demon, to work long and hard to subsidize her scholarship. It had been worth every penny.
    She had the bills to prove it.
    But that was only money, and she’d found a way to deal with that.
    Working at Southern Comfort was going to be a delight. It would help ease the burden of those student loans, give her a little financial breathing room. But more, it would provide her with one more access to the community. She’d meet people, make friends, and before long she’d be a familiar face in Progress.
    She was already widening her circle. Her neighbors in the building, Maxine at the