Carolina Moon

“You’re a smart boy. Always thought so. Advice it is. Just one little bit of it. Don’t drag your feet. If there’s one thing every woman deserves at least once in her life, it’s to be swept off hers. Now, give me some of those things before they get banged together and cracked.”
    “She’s not sure of me yet.” Cade transferred two of the paperweights and carried the other four to the counter. “She needs some time.”
    “She tell you that?”
    “More or less.”
    Iris just rolled her eyes. “Men. Don’t you know a woman who says that’s either one of three things. She’s not really interested, she’s being coy, or she’s been hurt before. Tory’d tell you straight out if she wasn’t interested, there isn’t a coy bone in her body, so that leaves number three. You see that man over there?”
    Baffled, Cade glanced over to where Cecil was arranging fresh cookies on a plate with hands the size of whole smoked hams. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “You hurt my baby, and I’ll send that big old bear after you with a pipe wrench. But since I don’t think you’re going to do that, I’d suggest you show her that there are some men worth trusting.”
    “I’m working on that.”
    “Since my girl is trying to convince herself that the two of you are no more than friendly acquaintances, I’d say work faster.”
    Chew on that, Iris mused, then moved off to try to prod another customer into a sale.
    “She put five napkin rings into her pocket.” At six-ten, with the door locked and Cecil nodding off in the stockroom, Tory plopped on her counter stool and threw up her hands. “Five. Now, I could see, in a twisted way, taking four or six. But what kind of person takes five napkin rings?”
    “Don’t imagine she was thinking of them as a set.”
    “Add two spoon rests, three wine toppers, and a pair of salad tongs. She put those in her pocket while I was standing right there talking to her. Put them in her pocket, smiled, then took off her pink plastic beads and gave them to me.”
    Still bemused, Tory fingered the beads around her neck.
    “She likes you. Rosie’s always giving things to people she takes a shine to.”
    “I don’t feel right charging her for all those things. She might not even have wanted them. Lord, Gran, she spent over a thousand dollars. A thousand,” she repeated, and pressed a hand to her stomach. “I think I might be sick after all.”
    “No, you won’t. You’ll be happy soon as you let yourself be. Now, I’m going to go give Cecil a shake and move him along so you have a chance to catch your breath. You come on by J.R.’s around one tomorrow. It’s too long since we had the family together.”
    “I’ll be there. Gran, I don’t know how to thank you for staying all day. You must be tired.”
    “My feet are smarting some, and I’m ready to put them up and let Boots give me a glass of wine.” She leaned over to kiss Tory’s cheek. “You celebrate, you hear?”
    Celebrate, Tory thought, after she’d made her notes, tidied, and locked up. She could barely think, much less celebrate. She’d gotten through the day. More than gotten through it, she told herself on the dazed drive home. She’d proven that she was back, to stay, back to make a mark.
    Not just survival this time, but success. Some might look at her and see the small, hollow-eyed girl in hand-me-downs. But it wasn’t going to matter. More would look and see just what she’d made herself. What she wanted to be.
    She would make that matter.
    She wasn’t going to fail, and she wasn’t going to run. This time, finally, she was going to win.
    The wonder of that began to set in as she turned into her lane, as she saw the house as it had been, and as it was. Herself as she had been. As she was.
    Unable to fight them back any longer, she laid her head on the steering wheel and let the tears come.
    She was sitting on the ground, trying not to cry. Only babies cried. And she was not a crybaby. But the tears leaked out despite her.
    She’d skinned her knees and her elbow and the heel of her hand when she’d fallen off the bike. The scraped skin burned and seeped blood. She wanted to go to Lilah and be hugged and petted and soothed. Lilah would give her a cookie and make it all better.
    She didn’t care about learning how to ride a stupid bike anyway. She hated the stupid bike.
    It lay beside her, a downed soldier with one wheel still spinning in a mocking whirl as she lay her head on her folded arms and