Carolina Moon

much. I don’t know those people anymore. I’m afraid I won’t know myself once I’m there.”
    “You won’t settle yourself until you do this thing, Tory. Until you take hold of it, you can’t let go of it. You’ve been heading back to Progress since you left it.”
    “I know.” And having someone else understand that helped. Smiling a little, Tory lifted a slice of bacon. “So, tell me about your plumber.”
    “Oh, that sweetie pie.” Delighted with the topic, Iris dug into her breakfast. “Looks like a big old bear, doesn’t he? You wouldn’t guess looking at him how smart he is. Started that company on his own over forty years back. Lost his wife, I knew her slightly, about five years ago. He’s mostly retired now. Two of his sons do most of the running of the business. Got six grandsons.”
    “Six?”
    “Yes, indeed. Fact is, one of them’s a doctor. Good-looking young man. I was thinking—”
    “Stop right there.” Eyes narrowed, Tory slathered jelly on toast. “I’m not interested.”
    “How do you know? You haven’t even met the boy.”
    “I’m not interested in boys. Or men.”
    “Tory, you haven’t been involved with a man since …”
    “Jack,” Tory finished. “That’s right, and I don’t intend to be involved again. Once was enough.” Since it still left a bitter taste in her mouth, she picked up her tea. “Not all of us are made to be half of a couple, Gran. I’m happy on my own.”
    At Iris’s lifted eyebrows, Tory shrugged. “Okay, let’s say I intend to be happy on my own. I’m going to work my ass off to make sure of it.”

3
    I t had been too long, Tory thought, since she’d sat on a porch swing watching the stars come out and hearing the crickets chirp. A long time since she’d been relaxed enough to simply sit and smell the breeze.
    Even as she thought it, she realized it was likely to be a long time before she did so again.
    Tomorrow she’d travel the last miles to Progress. There she would pick up the pieces of her life and finally lay a dead friend to rest.
    But tonight was for soft breezes and quiet thoughts.
    She glanced up at the squeak of the screen door and offered Cecil a smile. Her grandmother was right, she decided. He did look like a big old bear. And, at the moment, a very nervous one.
    “Iris kicked me out of the kitchen.” He had a dark brown bottle of beer in one hand and shifted uneasily from foot to foot on size fourteen boots. “She said how I should come on out here and sit a spell, keep you company.”
    “She wants us to be friends. Why don’t you sit a spell? I’d like the company.”
    “Feels a little funny.” He eased his bulk down on the swing, darted a look at Tory out of the corner of his eye. “I know what you young people think. An old coot like me courting a woman like Iris.”
    He still smelled of the Lava soap he’d used to wash up before dinner. Lava soap, Tory mused, and Coors. It was a pleasantly male combination. “Your family doesn’t approve?”
    “Oh, they’re all right with it now. Iris’s charmed the socks off my boys. She’s got that way about her. One son, Jerry, he got a mite huffy about it, but she brought him around. The thing is …”
    He trailed off, cleared his throat twice. Tory folded her hands and bit back a grin as he launched into what was surely a prepared speech.
    “You’re mighty important to her, Tory. I guess you’re about the most important thing there is to Iris. She’s proud of you, and she worries about you, and she brags on you. I know there’s a rift between her and your mama. Guess you could say that makes you even more special to her.”
    “The feeling’s mutual.”
    “I know it. I could see how it is over dinner. The thing is,” he said again, then lifted his beer and gulped deeply. “Oh hell. I love her.” He blurted it out and color sprang into his cheeks. “I guess that sounds foolish to you coming from a man who won’t see sixty-five again, but—”
    “Why would it?” She wasn’t comfortable with casual touching, but since he seemed to need it she patted his knee. “And what does age have to do with it? Gran cares for you. That’s good enough for me.”
    Relief slid through him. Tory could hear it in his sigh. “Never thought I’d have these feelings again. I was married forty-six years to a wonderful woman. We grew up together, raised a family together, started a business together. When I lost her I figured that was the end of that part of