Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts Page A

wait until he’d washed the dog off him.
    Crunching into the apple, he flipped through the mail he’d carried up with him as he walked to the bedroom.
    He smelled her before he saw her. That hot wave of woman hit his senses, scattered his thoughts. She stirred on the bed, a rustle of silky skin against the sheets.
    She wore nothing but an invitational smile.
    “Hello, lover. You worked late.”
    “You said you’d be busy tonight.”
    Faith crooked a finger. “I intend to be. Why don’t you come over here and occupy me.”
    Wade tossed the mail and the apple aside. “Why don’t I?”

5
    I t was a pitiful thing, Wade supposed, for a man to be hung up on one woman all of his life. More than pitiful when that woman insisted on flitting in and out of that life like a careless butterfly. And the man let her.
    Each time she came back, he told himself he wouldn’t play the game. And each time she hooked him in until he was too deep into the pot to fold his hand and walk away.
    He’d been the first man to have her. He had no hope of being the last.
    He was no more able to resist her now than he’d been over ten years before. That bright summer night she’d climbed in his window, and into his bed while he slept. He could still remember what it had been like, to wake with that sleek, hot body sliding over his, that hungry mouth smothering him, devouring him, clamping over him until he was rock hard and randy.
    She was fifteen years old, he thought now, and she’d taken him with the quick, heartless efficiency of a fifty-dollar whore. And she’d been a virgin.
    That, she’d told him, had been the point. She didn’t want to be a virgin, and she’d decided to get rid of the burden with as little fuss as possible, and with someone she knew, liked, and trusted.
    Simple as that.
    For Faith it had always been simple. But for Wade, that summer night, weeks before he’d gone back to college, had layered on the first of many complicated tiers that made up his relationship with Faith Lavelle.
    They’d had sex as often as they could manage that summer. In the backseat of his car, late at night when his parents slept down the hall, in the middle of the day when his mother sat on the veranda gossiping with friends. Faith was always willing, eager, ready. She’d been a young man’s wet dream sprung to life.
    And had become Wade’s obsession.
    He’d been sure she’d wait for him.
    In less than two years, while he’d been studying fiercely and planning for the future, their future, she’d run off with Bobby Lee. Wade had gotten drunk and stayed drunk for a week.
    She’d come back, of course. To Progress, and eventually to him. With no apology, no tearful plea for forgiveness.
    That was the pattern of their relationship. He detested her for it, nearly as much as he detested himself.
    “So …” Faith climbed over him, tugged a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand, and straddling him, lighted it. “Tell me about Tory.”
    “When did you start smoking again?”
    “Today.” She smiled, leaning down to give him a little nip on the chin. “Don’t give me grief on it, Wade. Everyone’s entitled to a vice.”
    “Which one have you missed?”
    She laughed, but there was an edge to it, an edge in her eyes. “If you don’t try them out, how do you know which ones fit? Now, come on, baby, tell me about Tory. I’m just dying to know everything.”
    “There’s nothing to know. She’s back.”
    Faith let out a huge sigh. “Men are such irritating creatures. What does she look like? How does she act? What’s she up to?”
    “She looks grown-up, and acts very much the same. She’s up to opening a gift shop on Market Street.” At Faith’s cool stare, he shrugged. “Tired. She looks tired, maybe a little too thin, like someone who hasn’t been altogether well just lately. But there’s a sheen on her, the kind you get from city living. As for what she’s up to, I can’t say. Why don’t you ask her?”
    She