Carolina Moon

remembered watching the crop dusters dropping their clouds, and how the filaments would linger and drift toward the house.
    She remembered the stench of it. And the burn in the air.
    “How did you get interested in the whole organic method?”
    “First year of college. I started reading about it and, well, the fact is, there was this girl.”
    “Ah.” Amused, Tory cut into her trout. “Now we see the picture form.”
    “Her name was Lorilinda Dorset, from Mill Valley, California. My tongue fell onto my toes the first time I saw her. A long, lanky brunette in tight jeans.”
    He gave a sigh at the memory, sweet with distance. “And a card-carrying member of PETA, Greenpeace, the Nature Conservancy, and God knows what all. So of course, to impress her, I read up on animal rights and natural farming and whatnot. Gave up meat for two months.”
    She lifted a brow at the steak on his plate. “Must have been love.”
    “For a few bright, shiny weeks it was. I let her drag me to a seminar on organic farming, and she let me get her out of those tight jeans.” His smile was slow and wicked. “Of course, eventually, my desperate need for a hamburger outweighed my devotion and Lorilinda turned in disgust from the carnivore.”
    “What else could she do?”
    “Exactly. But I kept thinking about what I’d heard in that seminar, and what I read in those books, and it made more and more sense to me. I saw how it could be done, and why it should be. So when Beaux Reves came to me, I started the long and not entirely without conflict process.”
    “Lorilinda would be proud.”
    “No, she’ll never forgive me for the cheeseburger. It was a serious breech of faith. For months afterward, I could barely choke one down over the guilt.”
    “Men are bastards.”
    “I know it.” He also knew that she might actually eat a full meal if he kept her mind engaged. “But forgiving that genetic flaw, how would you feel about being Progress’s exclusive outlet for Lavelle’s Green Cotton products?”
    “You want me to sell your shirts in my shop?” she asked, surprised.
    “Not necessarily shirts, if that doesn’t fit the ambiance. But linens? Tablecloths, napkins, that sort of thing.”
    “Well.” Caught off-guard, she shifted gears to business. “I’d want to see some samples, of course. But as the product would be produced here in the state, it should fit in with my stock. We’ll need to discuss cost and supply and quality and style, of course. I’m keeping clear of assembly-line type products. I’m providing the unique, and celebrating South Carolina’s impressive variety of artists and craftsmen.”
    She paused to sip her wine and think. “Organic cotton linens,” she murmured. “From field to display to table, all within Georgetown County. That could be very appealing.”
    “Good.” He lifted his glass, tapped hers. “We’ll find a way to make it work for both of us. To make it all work,” he added.
    The evening was certainly ending on a much nicer note than it had begun. With a full moon riding overhead, and a lovely fog of wine in the brain. She hadn’t meant to drink, she did so rarely, but it had been so pleasant to sit by the water and sip at wine.
    So pleasant that she’d had two glasses instead of one, and was now comfortably sleepy. The car ran smooth and fast, and the wind that blew over her smelled of the approaching summer.
    It made her think of honeysuckle and overblown roses, the smell of tar melting in the sun and the lazy hum of bees courting the magnolia blossoms in the marsh.
    Wishing to God it’d get a little cooler now that the sun’d gone down. If a ride didn’t come along soon she could hook her thumb around, she’d end up walking all the way to the goddamn beach. ‘Course it was Marcie’s fault, the bitch, ditching her so she could go off and make it with that asshole Tim. Well, she didn’t give a flying fuck about Marcie, she’d hitch her way up to Myrtle Beach and have a fine time.
    All she needed was a fricking ride. Come on, sweetheart, stop the car! There you go. Hot damn.
    Tory reared up in the seat, eyes wide, sucking at air like a swimmer surfacing from a long, lung-bursting dive.
    “She got in the car. She tossed her pack in the back and got in the car.”
    “Tory?” Cade pulled to the side of the road, shifted to take her shoulders. “It’s all right. You just fell asleep for a minute.”
    “No.” She shoved at him, sick and desperate, and yanked at her