Carolina Moon

the way back.”
    “I will count on you. I do. I—”
    There was a sudden squeal from the kitchen that had Dwight bolting across the room in alarm. He burst in to see Lissy, eyes wide, mouth open, with Tory’s hand clutched in hers.
    “Engaged! Why, I just can’t believe it! Dwight, look here what Tory’s wearing on her finger, and neither of them saying a word about it.” She jerked Tory’s hand forward, her own face alive with the bliss of being, she was sure, the first to know. “Isn’t this something?”
    Dwight studied the ring, then looked into Tory’s eyes. He saw the fatigue, the embarrassment, the faint irritation. “It sure is. I hope you’ll be very happy.”
    “Of course she’ll be happy.” Lissy dropped Tory’s hand so she could waddle around the table and hug Cade. “Aren’t you the sly one, never letting on. Then snapping Tory up so fast. Why, her head must still be spinning. We have to celebrate, drink a toast to the happy couple. Oh.”
    She stopped, had the grace to flush even if her eyes continued to dance. “What am I thinking? I’m just a scatter-brain, that’s all. Oh honey, you must be so torn.” She scurried back to Tory as quickly as she could manage. “Getting engaged and losing your mama this way so close together. Life goes on, you remember that. Life does go on.”
    Tory didn’t bother to sigh, but she did manage to get her hand in her lap before Lissy could grab it again. “Thank you, Lissy. I’m sorry, I hope you understand, but I need to call my grandmother. We have to see about arrangements.”
    “Of course we understand. Now, I want you to let me know if there’s anything I can do. Anything at all. Nothing’s too big or too small. Dwight and I are more than happy to help. Aren’t we, Dwight?”
    “That’s right.” He put his arm firmly around Lissy. “We’ll go on now, but you can call us if there’s anything you need. No, don’t you get up.” He steered Lissy toward the doorway. “We’ll let ourselves out. You call now, you hear?”
    “Thank you.”
    “Imagine that. Imagine it!” Lissy could hardly wait until they’d gotten to the front door. “Wearing a diamond big enough to blind you, and on the day she finds out her daddy killed her mama. I swear, Dwight, I don’t know what to think. She’ll be planning a wedding and a funeral at the same time. I told you, didn’t I tell you, she was a strange one.”
    “You told me, honey.” He nudged her into the car, shut the door. “You surely told me,” he murmured.
    Inside, Cade sat at the table. For a moment he and Tory studied each other in silence. “Sorry,” he said at length.
    “For?”
    “Dwight’s my friend, and she comes along with him.”
    “She’s a silly woman. Not particularly crafty, not particularly mean. She thrives on other people’s business, good and bad. Right now, she doesn’t know which to highlight. Here’s Victoria Bodeen, in the middle of a tragedy and scandal. And here she is again, engaged to one of the most prominent men in the county.”
    Tory paused, glanced down at the ring on her finger. It was a jolt to see it there, she thought. Not a bad sensation, just an odd one.
    “Such bulletins,” she continued. “It all must be rattling around in her head like marbles. Clinking together as there isn’t much else in there to get in the way.”
    His mouth twitched. “Is that speculation, or did you take a look?”
    “There’s no need to. And I don’t do that, anyway, when everything she’s thinking runs riot over her face. Dwight would never have gotten her out so quickly if she hadn’t been jumping to get to a phone and start spreading the word.”
    “And that bothers you.”
    “Yes.” She pushed back from the table, wandered to the window. Odd that it comforted somehow to look out into the dark shadows of the marsh. “I knew when I came back here I’d be under the microscope. I understood that. And I’ll deal with it. My mother… I’ll deal with that, too. There’s nothing else I can do.”
    “You don’t have to deal with it alone.”
    “I know. I came back here to face myself, I suppose. To resolve or at least accept what had happened to Hope, and my part in that. I expected the talk, the looks, the speculation and curiosity. I planned to use them to build my business. I have, and I’ll keep on using them. That’s cold.”
    “No, it’s good sense. Tough maybe, but not cold.”
    “I came back for me,” she said quietly. “To