Carolina Moon

you?”
    “Good, they’re heavy.” Rosie’s eyes, weighed down by false eyelashes that disconcertingly resembled spiders, finally fixed on Tory’s face. “You’re the girl who used to play with little Hope.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Got a way about you, I recollect. I had my palm read once by a gypsy in Transylvania. Said how I’d have myself four husbands, but damned if I want another.” Rosie stuck out a hand crowded with rings and bracelets. “What do you say?”
    “I’m sorry.” Instead of feeling awkward, Tory was marvelously entertained. “I don’t read palms.”
    “Tea leaves then, or some such. One of my lovers, young fellow from Boston, claimed he was Lord Byron in another life. Don’t expect to hear that kind of thing from a Yankee, do you? Cade, get on over here and hold on to these glass things. What’s the point in having a man around if you can’t use him as a pack mule,” she said to Tory with a wink.
    “I have no idea. Would you like some iced tea, Miss Rosie? Some cookies?”
    “I’ll just work up an appetite first. Now, what the blue hell is this thing?” She picked up a polished wooden stand with a hole in it.
    “It’s a wine rest.”
    “Don’t that beat all? Why anybody’d want to give a decent bottle of wine time to rest is beyond me. Wrap me up two of those. Lucy Talbott!” She shouted across the room to another customer. “What’re you buying there?” And was off like a rocket, red and white stripes flapping.
    “We just can’t break Aunt Rosie out of her shell,” Cade said with a smile. “And how’s your day going?”
    “Very well. Thank you for the flowers. They’re lovely.”
    “I’m glad you liked them. I’m hoping you’ll let me take you out to dinner tonight, to celebrate your first day.”
    “I—” She already begged off the evening at her uncle’s, switching that to a Sunday family dinner the following day. She was going to be tired, and wired, she reminded herself. Not fit company. “I’d like that.”
    “I’ll come by your place around seven-thirty. That work for you?”
    “Yes, that’ll be perfect. Cade, does your aunt really want all these things? I don’t know what anyone could want with six glass paperweights.”
    “She’ll enjoy them, then she’ll forget where she bought them and make up some story about how she found them in a dusty little shop in Beirut. Or claim she stole them from her lover the Breton count when she left him. Then she’ll give them away to the paperboy or the next Jehovah’s Witness who comes to her door.”
    “Oh. Well.”
    “You’ll want to keep an eye on her. She tends to slip things in her pockets. Absentmindedly,” he continued, when Tory’s eyes went wide. “You just keep track of what goes in, and add it to her bill at the end.”
    “But—” Even as she glanced over, she saw Rosie slide a spoon rest into the wide slit pocket of her dress. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Tory rushed over, leaving Cade chuckling.
    “Rosie hasn’t changed any,” Iris commented.
    “No, ma’am, not a whit. Bless her for it. How are you, Miz Mooney?”
    “Fiddle fit. You’re looking fit yourself. Grew into your feet well enough. How’s your family?”
    “They’re well, thank you.”
    “I was sorry to hear about your daddy. He was a good man, and an interesting one. You don’t always get both in one.”
    “I suppose you don’t. He always spoke highly of you.”
    “He gave me a chance to earn a decent living after I lost my husband, to put food on my table for my children. I don’t forget that. You got something of him around your eyes. Are you a fair man like he was, now that you’re full-grown, Kincade?”
    “I try to be.” As Rosie let out a cackle and batted at the wind chimes to send them singing, Cade glanced over, met Tory’s exasperated eyes. “Tory’s got her hands full.”
    “She can deal with it. She’s good at dealing with things. Sometimes, maybe, a little too good.”
    “She gets her back up when you want to help.”
    “She can,” Iris agreed. “From where I’m standing, I don’t think the only thing you want to do about Tory is help her. I’d say there’s something more basic on your mind along with that, and as I hope I’m correct in that assumption, I’d like to give you something everyone needs from time to time and no one likes to take.”
    He adjusted the balance of the paperweights he still carried. “And that would be advice?”
    She beamed at him.