Carolina Moon

at relationships, why I don’t want to be involved in one. It’s perfectly understandable to have questions and doubts, and for those questions and doubts to lead to resentment and distrust.”
    She fell silent, used the silence to gear herself up for the rest.
    “That,” Cade said mildly, “is an amazing pile of bullshit. Mind if I ask whose words you just put in my mouth?”
    “They were your own words.” She shifted, leaning on her own crutch of bitterness to face him. “I am what I am and I can’t change it. I know how to cope and how to get by. I don’t want or expect anyone to stand with me. I don’t need anyone to. I’ve learned to accept my life just the way it is, and I don’t give a damn if you or anyone else doesn’t.”
    “You’d better watch out for gopher holes, Tory. That’s a very high horse you’re sitting on.” When she reached for the door handle, he just lifted an eyebrow. “Coward.”
    Her fingers tightened on it, then released. “Bastard.”
    “That’s right, I was, for taking out a piss-poor mood on you. I was told tonight that sorries are just excuses for bad behavior, but I’m sorry anyway. You, however, are dumping opinions on me that I haven’t expressed and don’t have. I can’t give them to you, as I haven’t finished making them yet. When something’s important, I like to take the time to study on it. You seem to be important.”
    He leaned over. Instinctively she pressed back into the seat. “You know, that’s something that irritates me right down to the bone.” Calmly, he drew her seat belt over, hooked it. “And it’s a challenge at the same time. You see, I’m just bound and determined to keep touching you, to keep getting closer until you stop pulling back.”
    He started the engine, tossed an arm over the seat, let his gaze rest on hers before he backed the car up the lane. “You can chalk it up to pride and ego, if you like. I don’t mind a bit.”
    He swung onto the road, punched the gas. “I’ve never hit a woman.” He said it conversationally, but she heard the viciously controlled anger beneath. “I won’t start with you. I’d like to have my hands on you. I damn well intend to have them on you eventually. But I won’t hurt you.”
    “I don’t think every man uses his fists on women.” She looked out the window, gathering her composure the way she gathered bricks for her wall. “I worked that, and several other issues, out in therapy.”
    “Good.” He said it simply. “Then I won’t have to worry every move I make comes off as a threat to you. I don’t mind making you nervous, but I do mind scaring you.”
    “If I were afraid of you, I wouldn’t be here.” The wind flowed over her face, through her hair. “I’m not a pushover, Cade, or anyone’s doormat. Not anymore.”
    He waited a beat. “If you were, I wouldn’t want you here.”
    She turned her head just a little, studied him with a sidelong glance. “That was a very smart thing to say. Maybe the best thing that could be said. Even better, I believe you mean it.”
    “I’m one of those peculiar creatures who tries to mean what they say.”
    “I believe that, too.” She took a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to come tonight. I was going to walk out of the house, tell you I wasn’t coming, explain how things were going to be. And here I am.”
    “You felt sorry for me.” He shot her a glance. “That was your first mistake.”
    She gave a short laugh. “I suppose. Where are we going?”
    “No place special.”
    “Good.” She settled back, surprised at how quickly, how easily she relaxed. “That’s a fine spot.”
    He drove farther than he’d intended, choosing back roads at random, but always winding his way east. Toward the sea. The sun dipped lower behind them, shooting streaks of red across the sky that seemed to bleed down into the fields, pour through the stands of trees, drip into the snaking curve of the river.
    He let her choose the music, and though Mozart blasted out rather than the rock he would have selected, it seemed to suit the oncoming twilight.
    He found a little waterside restaurant, well south of the crowds that flocked to Myrtle Beach. It was warm enough to sit outside, at a little table where a squat white candle sputtered in a glass globe and the conversation around them was muted under the steady rise and slap of the surf.
    On the beach children chased the bug-eyed sand crabs into their holes or threw bread crumbs into the