Carolina Moon

sandwiches. A nice, homey meal for a rainy evening. The kind a couple might share with light conversation, and for the hell of it, a good bottle of wine.
    He could have used an evening like that, he thought. Instead here he was slathering butter on bread the way Lilah had taught him and trying to figure out the way through Tory’s thin and prickly shield.
    “You could do better than soup and a sandwich down at Beaux Reves.”
    “I could.” He set the skillet on the stove and stood beside her. Close, but not close enough to touch. “But I like the company here.”
    “Then something’s wrong with you.”
    She said it so dryly, it took him a minute. With a laugh he laid the two sandwiches on the heated skillet. “You’re likely right about that. After all, I’m a hell of a catch, you know. Healthy, not overly hard on the eyes, got me a big house, good land, and money enough to keep the wolf from the door. And in addition to that, and my subtle charm, I make a terrific cheese sandwich.”
    “All that being the case, why hasn’t some smart woman snatched you up?”
    “Thousands have tried.”
    “Slippery, are you?”
    “Agile.” He flipped the sandwiches. “I like to think of it as agile. I was engaged once.”
    “Were you?” She said it casually as she reached for bowls, but her focus had sharpened.
    “Um-hmm.” He knew human nature well enough to be certain leaving it at that would swell her curiosity until she either burst or surrendered.
    She held until they’d set plates and bowls on the table, sat. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?”
    “Darling, a man in my position has to be. Cozy in here with the rain and all, isn’t it?”
    “All right, damn it. What happened?”
    “About what?” The way her eyes narrowed delighted him. “Oh, about Deborah? The woman I was on the point of vowing to love, honor, and cherish until death and so on? Judge Purcell’s daughter. You might remember the judge, except I don’t think he was a judge yet when you left.”
    “No, I don’t remember him. I doubt the Bodeens moved in his social sphere.”
    “In any case, he has a lovely daughter and she loved me for a while, then decided she didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife after all. At least not one who actually worked at it.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “It wasn’t a tragedy. I didn’t love her. Liked her considerably,” Cade mused as he sampled the soup. “She was lovely to look at, interesting to talk to, and … we’ll say we were compatible in certain vital areas. But one. We just didn’t want the same thing. We discovered that, much to our mutual embarrassment, a few months after we were engaged. We broke things off amicably enough, which goes to show there was considerable relief on both sides, and she went off to live in London for a few months.”
    “How could you—” She broke off, filled her mouth with sandwich.
    “Go on. You can ask.”
    “I just wondered how you could ask someone to marry you that you could let go again without a qualm.”
    He considered it, kicking back to chew the sandwich as if he were also chewing his thoughts. “I suppose there were some minor qualms. But the fact is, in hindsight, I was twenty-five, and there was a bit of family pressure. My mother and the judge are good friends, and he was a friend of my father’s as well. Time to settle down and make myself an heir or two, was the idea.”
    “That’s awfully cold-blooded.”
    “Not entirely. I was attracted to her, we knew a lot of the same people. Her daddy was mine’s lawyer for years. It was easy to slide into an arrangement, one that pleased both our families. Then as time got closer, I for one began to feel like you do when your tie’s just a mite too tight. So you can’t quite get a good gulp of air. So I asked myself, what would my life be like without her? And what would it be like with her, in five years.”
    He took another bite of his sandwich, shrugged. “Turned out I liked the answer to the first part a whole lot better than I did the second. And as luck would have it, so did she. The only ones who were truly upset were our families.” He paused, watching her eat. “And we just can’t live our lives around what our parents want or don’t want for us, can we, Tory?”
    “No. But we do live our lives carrying around the weight of it anyway. Mine could never accept me for who and what I was. For a long time I tried to be someone and something else.” She lifted her gaze. “I