Carolina Moon

I’ll wear the dress, and we’ll have Lilah take our picture. We’ll put it in a nice frame for Miss Rosie, then we’ll pack them away someplace dark and safe before the wedding.”
    “That’s brilliant. I’m marrying a very wise woman. But we’ll have to take the picture tonight. We’re getting married tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow? But—”
    “Here,” he said, as he turned her into his arm. “Quietly, in the garden. I’ve taken care of most of the details, and will get to the rest this afternoon.”
    “But my grandmother—”
    “I spoke with her. She and Cecil will be staying another night. They’ll be here.”
    “I haven’t had time to buy a dress or—”
    “Your grandmother mentioned that, and hoped you’d be receptive to wearing the one she wore when she married your grandfather. She’s running up to Florence to get it this afternoon. She said it would mean a lot to her.”
    “Thought of everything, didn’t you?”
    “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
    “We’re going to have lots of problems with that over the next fifty or sixty years, but just now? No.”
    “Good. Lilah’s baking a cake. J.R.’s bringing a case of champagne. The idea brightened him considerably.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Since you’re grateful, I’ll just add, Aunt Rosie plans to sing.”
    “Don’t tell me.” She drew back. “Let’s not spoil the moment. Well, since everyone has approved the schedule and the details, who am I to object? Have you arranged for the honeymoon, too?” She saw him wince and rolled her eyes. “Cade, really.”
    “You’re not going to argue about a trip to Paris, are you? Of course not.” He gave her a quick kiss before she could. “You might want to close the shop for a few days, but Boots really liked the idea of running it for you, and Faith had some ideas.”
    “Oh God.”
    “But that’s up to you.”
    “Thank you very much.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “My head’s spinning. We’ll discuss all this when I get back.”
    “Sure. I’m flexible.”
    “The hell you are,” she muttered. “You just pretend to be.” She shifted the basket of flowers, handed him the shears. “Don’t start naming the children while I’m gone.”
    Exasperating man, she thought, as she slid into her car and set the basket of flowers on the seat. Planning their wedding behind her back. Planning exactly the sort of wedding she wanted, too.
    How irritating, and how lovely, to be known that well.
    So why wasn’t she relaxed? As she turned onto the road, she shifted her shoulders. She just couldn’t quite break through the tension. Understandable, she reminded herself. She’d been through a hideous ordeal. She couldn’t imagine getting married within twenty-four hours with so much still tied up inside her.
    But she wanted to begin. She wanted to close this door and open the next. She glanced at the flowers beside her. Maybe she was about to.
    She pulled off onto the side of the road, where Hope had once parked her bike. And climbing out, she crossed the little bridge where tiger lilies burst into storybook bloom, then took the path she knew her friend had taken that night.
    Hope Lavelle, girl spy.
    The rain had turned to steam, and the steam rose out of the ground in curling fingers that broke apart, then twined together again around her ankles. The air was thick with wet, with green, with rot. Mysteries waiting to be solved.
    As she approached the clearing, she wished she’d thought to bring some wood. Everything would be too damp to start a fire, and perhaps it was foolish to want to in all the heat. But she wished she’d thought of it, and could have laid one, the way Hope had.
    Just thinking of it, remembering it, she caught a drift of smoke.
    There was the fire, small and carefully built to burn low, a little circle of flame with long, sharpened sticks beside it waiting for marshmallows.
    She blinked once, to clear the vision. But the fire simmered, and the smoke puffed sluggishly in the mist. Dazed, Tory stepped into the clearing, the basket tipping to spill out flowers at her feet.
    “Hope?” She pressed a hand to her heart, almost to make sure it continued to beat. But the marble child who’d been her friend stood in her pool of flowers and said nothing.
    With a trembling hand, she picked up one of the sticks and saw that the cuts to sharpen it were fresh.
    Not a dream, not a flashback. But here and now. Real.
    Not Hope. Never again Hope.
    The pressure rose