Carolina Moon

look at the pretty side of things, but you know better than that.”
    “They had a good marriage, Faith, until—”
    “A good marriage?” With a sound of disgust, she pushed to her feet, dragged her cigarettes from her robe pocket. “What the hell does that mean? A good marriage? That they were suited for each other, that it was smart and convenient for the heir of the county’s biggest and richest plantation to marry the well-to-do debutante? Fine, it was a good marriage. Maybe they even had feelings for each other, for a while anyway. They did their duty,” she said bitterly, and snapped on her lighter. “They made us.”
    “They did their best,” Cade said wearily. “You never wanted to see that.”
    “Maybe their best was never good enough, not for me. And I don’t see why it was for you. What choice did they ever give you, Cade? All your life you were expected and groomed to be the master of Beaux Reves. What if you’d wanted to be a plumber, for God’s sake.”
    “That always was my secret life’s ambition. I often fix a leaky faucet just to give myself a thrill.”
    She laughed, and the roughest edge of her anger smoothed. “You know very well what I mean. You might have wanted to be an engineer or a writer or a doctor, or something, but you weren’t given the chance to choose. You were the oldest son, the only son, and your path was set.”
    “You’re right. And I don’t know what might have happened if I’d wanted to be any of those things. But the point is, Faith, I didn’t.”
    “Well, how could you, growing up and hearing ‘When Cade runs Beaux Reves,’ and ‘When Cade’s in charge’? You never got to be anything else, never got to say ‘I’m going to play guitar in a rock-and-roll band.’”
    This time he laughed and she sighed and leaned back against the rail. It reminded her why she so often came to his room, so often sought out his company. With Cade she could say what she needed to. He’d let her. He’d listen.
    “Don’t you see, Cade, they made us what we are, and maybe you got what you wanted in the end. I’m glad you did, and I mean that.”
    “I know you do.”
    “That still doesn’t make it right. You were expected to be smart, to know things, to figure things. And while you were off learning your life’s work, I was here being told to behave, to speak softly, not to run in the house.”
    “You can take comfort that you rarely listened.”
    “I might’ve,” she murmured. “I might’ve if I hadn’t already figured out that this house was a training ground for a good wife, a good marriage, just like Mama’d made before me. No one ever asked me if I wanted something more, something else, and when I questioned I was shushed. ‘Let your father worry about that, or your brother. Practice your piano, Faith. Read a good book so that you can discuss it intelligently. But not too intelligently. Wouldn’t want some man to think you might be smarter than he is. When you marry, it’ll be your job to make a pleasant home.’”
    She stared at the tip of her cigarette. “A pleasant home. That was to be the sum total of my ambitions, according to the rules of the Lavelles. So, of course, being me, I was bound and determined to do just the opposite. I wasn’t going to discover myself some dried-up repressed woman at thirty, no indeed. I made sure that wouldn’t happen to me. Ran off with the first slick-talking, wild-eyed boy who asked me, one who was everything I wasn’t supposed to want. Married and divorced before I was twenty.”
    “That showed them, didn’t it?” Cade murmured.
    “Yes, it did. As did my next foray into marriage and divorce. Marriage was all I’d been trained for, after all. Not Mama’s kind of marriage. I twisted that around and strangled myself doing it. Now here I am, twenty-six years old and two strikes against me. And no place to go but here.”
    “Here you are,” Cade commented. “Twenty-six years old, beautiful, smart, and experienced enough to know better than to repeat your mistakes. You never asked for any part in the farm, or the plant. If you want to learn, if you want work—”
    The look she sent him stopped the words. It was so quietly indulgent. “You really are too good for the rest of us. Christ knows how you manage it. It’s too late for that, Cade. I’m a product of my upbringing and my own rebellion against it. I’m lazy and I like it. One of these days I’ll find me a rich and doddering old man and