Author’s Note: So much for writing ahead of where I’m posting. Then I hit Three Word Wednesday and end up posting four scenes instead of one since the one with the words comes after all the others. Well, if people are reading this, they get spoiled by extra today. If not, they can’t really complain, can they?

Today’s words: pale, naughty, and douse.

“You still look pale.”

“I still feel queasy,” Carson said, looking out at the fields. He didn’t think Mac did that work, but then again, he didn’t know anything about this family. He didn’t understand that. Mac was his grandfather’s friend, wasn’t he? Why had he kept so much from his friend? Why hadn’t he told anyone about this? Why was it all some sort of… game?

“We can go back. Maybe you should splash your face again, get some water on your face, douse whatever is turning around in your head that makes your stomach so upset,” she said, and he gave her a slight smile, wishing he could summon something within him to counter what he felt, to keep going like she always seemed able to do. Sure, all of that was behind her, had been for a while, however long she’d lived with Mac, but his should have been behind him, too. All of that was at least as far back as high school, so why couldn’t he just leave it alone?

“Show me Phantom,” he said, trying to force himself to work through it. Ironic, wasn’t it? He had called in sick today, and it wasn’t even a lie. He wasn’t home in bed, but he’d thrown up at least once, and that kept threatening to happen again, so he wasn’t lying.

Sanders had to figure he was. He knew how Carson felt about handling the Myers claim, and he knew that Carson wanted no part of another attempt to take the land rights from another family, so there was no way he’d believe that Carson was sick.

Maybe he should have said he was crazy. He was. He could probably call himself certifiable by now. He didn’t want to excuse it with stress or trauma. He could have killed his father, and if he had, if he had a reason for that… Crazy sounded good. He almost liked it.

He bet the sharks on his socks would agree. Of course, he’d changed them for the monkeys, so they might not forgive him, but he didn’t care about that right now.

“You do look sick. We don’t have to work on the car today. Don’t even have to discuss it. You can sit inside and rest up a bit, think about innocuous things that have nothing to do with your past.”

He gave her a slight smile. “Is there anything that keeps that sort of thought at bay? Honestly? I have been pretending for a long time that I’m okay, that I’m not stuck back there, but I have been. All my life I have been. There’s this part that broke and splintered off when that happened—whatever it was—and I’ve never gotten it back. I went to college, I got a job, I stopped needing medication to get me through the day, but I don’t sleep much and it doesn’t take more than a stray word to bring up that image that I can’t forget, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t understand why I can’t just face it for good and all.”

She shrugged. “Some things don’t work that way. My aunt could be singularly blind to things going on right in front of her, to things she already knew.”

Carson had the urge to hug her after she said that, but he didn’t know her that well, and since when did anyone in his family do hugs? Not that Mackenna was family, she wasn’t, but he couldn’t remember the last time anyone in his family had hugged anyone. Not even Nick and his wife. Weird.

“If we had a pond or something, I’d suggest taking you out to skinny-dip.”

“What?”

She laughed. “Anything to change the subject and get that look off your face. You’re starting to get scary—in the sense that my uncle was before he killed himself. So I figure, hey, pick something off-the-wall to say, get your mind off whatever it was that put that look on your face.”

“I’m not sure that bringing up skinny-dipping is the right choice.”

“Well, I was more enjoying the idea of tricking you into it and stealing your clothes,” she said, still smiling. “Not that I want to see you naked, but the whole idea of playing some naughty prank… I should have had a sibling, you know. Someone to play with so that I was more of a kid when I was a kid. Did you have a lot of fun with your brothers?”

Carson thought about that for a moment. “I don’t remember. It’s… After the nightmares started, everyone treated me differently. They didn’t… It was like I was fragile, something that might break, might go insane at any moment. I don’t have a lot from before then that’s clear at all.”

“Being protected would have been nice.”

“For me, it was smothering, but for you… I’m sorry there wasn’t anyone to help you back then,” he said, and this time he did touch her, just a hand on her arm, and she gave him a grateful smile before she leaned against him, letting out a breath.

“I like cars,” she said, eyes going out to the fields. “Cars have order, pieces that fit together, and when they’re in their right place, they run like a dream. Humans don’t get to fix themselves the same way. There’s no part to order from the store to replace what gets broken in us.”

He considered bringing up organ transplants, grimaced, and let the idea go. “I wish there was. Maybe that one last screw would put it back where it should be so I knew what happened and could finally deal with it instead of this… limbo I’m stuck in because I just don’t know.”

“Hmm. Now I want a conga line.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I am.”

“Thank you,” he told her, not sure what else to say, not now. “For all of this. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you to talk to.”

“You’re welcome.”

Author’s Note: Really, it was funny when I started. I think someone sabotaged it on purpose.

This lead to me writing “Not Broken.”

Also, these are the socks.

“Morning.”

“Is it? I guess it must be. That’s the dawn,” Carson said, grimacing. His neck hurt, a penalty of falling asleep on the couch. They’d played cards until they were both sick of the other “cheating,” and then it seemed like a good idea to sit somewhere more comfortable. Falling asleep hadn’t been part of the plan, but it happened anyway. He didn’t know if she fell asleep before him or not. At least he hadn’t fallen into another nightmare. He did not want to dream about his father, no matter how much he wanted answers.

He stretched, trying to loosen up all of the kinks, get his body back into some sort of shape before the aches got worse.

“Your socks are… how should I put this? Loud might work, or maybe it is more of a bright but those aren’t bright so much as…”

“Awesome?” Carson asked, wiggling his toes and then making the sharks attack the coffee table. “Admit it. These are the coolest socks you’ve ever seen.”

“You are a strange, strange man.”

“I have a thing for socks. Maybe it’s a quiet rebellion sort of thing, but they’re one of few things that can be individualized when one works in a boring, evil office type job. You have to go for the cool socks and ties to stay sane. Of course, they relaxed the tie policy, and that just made the socks get crazier. I used to stick to patterns, tame things, but now… Now I have sharks.”

Mackenna shook her head. “Those are ridiculous.”

“What would you know about it? I bet all your socks are white, aren’t they? Some generic multi-pack type deal where they all look the same and have no personality at all. How can you do that to your feet?”

“My feet are just fine in my socks,” she said, reaching over to muss up his hair. He glared at her, and she laughed. “Man, sometimes I wish I had a brother. You’re way too much fun to tease.”

“I suppose we could ask Mac if he’ll adopt me. Not sure he’d want to. I’ve got so many issues after all. A real problem child.”

“I don’t know that your issues would hold him back. He’s not the most talkative man on the planet, but he can deal with people who have issues. He just kind of… stares or shrugs them into submission. It’s kind of weird. Still, since I can’t talk him into getting a dog, I don’t think we can keep you.”

Carson frowned. “Excuse me?”

She smiled. “I’m not calling you a dog or implying you’d be a pet. I’ve considered in the past whether I’d like a slave or not. Do my bidding, minion… No, that’s not me. I’m not a cruel person, not most of the time, and slavery is just another word for abuse.”

He knew she was trying to be lighthearted, but he couldn’t do it. Not even the sharks could keep him from going where he shouldn’t go. “You didn’t get your warped ideas from your books or watching too much tv, did you? You’re with Mac now because something bad happened to you in the past.”

Mackenna rolled her eyes. “Everyone has a past, and everyone has something bad in it. Some people’s ‘bad’ is worse than others, but no one is immune.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t change what happened, does it?” He didn’t want to do this, so why was he pushing? She pushed him, sure, but he needed to remember. She didn’t. She knew what happened to her and lived with it every day. He could avoid it because he didn’t have all the pieces, could pretend things were better than whatever secret his mind had locked away years ago. “It’s—No, I’m sorry. I don’t have the right to ask or push, and I don’t—”

“Things were bad after my uncle died. My aunt was a mess, and since she had custody of me… It was rough for a while. That’s more than enough said on that subject, okay? Well, I should say my parents were killed in a car crash when I was too young to remember them, but that’s why I was with my aunt and uncle, at least until his PTSD got too much for him, and then it was just her. She wasn’t Mac’s daughter, so I didn’t even know my grandparents were still alive until later, but once I did, I came here and stayed, obviously.”

Carson nodded. “Okay. I’m… I’m glad you told me that much. I promise not to push for more. I don’t need to know.”

She forced a smile. “Yeah. Sure. Um… I should warn you that this is not a house where you can say you don’t eat breakfast. You’re not allowed coffee unless you put something in your stomach first. So… Come find something you want to eat. Mac should be up soon.”

“Okay.”

“Stop saying that.”

“O—Sorry.”

Author’s Note: This story is not really what I envisioned it being when I started it so many years ago. I was going to bother my grandpa for stories about restoring his Maxwell, a friend of mine suggested making the car a time machine, I thought about something like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and then Carson ended up with these nightmares and secrets locked in his head. The restoration parts still fit, but I don’t know about the rest of it.

“Mac’s room is down at the end, and on the right is the bathroom. My room is here on the left, but this is where you’ll be staying. Well, if you decide to try and sleep, that is. I don’t know if you’ll want to or not.”

Carson didn’t know, either. He was tired, since the day had been miserable and he hadn’t slept the night before, not after the nightmare, and then he’d driven out to her place, so he should just crawl into bed and call it a night. He didn’t want to sleep, though. He knew it was stupid, but he was afraid of what he’d find in his dreams this time. He had a feeling he’d picture his father doing horrible things to him, and he wouldn’t know if it was real or not. He did know it would be ten times worse because of his close resemblance to his father—if he looked in the mirror at his own face, would he always remember those horrible nightmares? Could he live with himself looking like he did if that was the truth?

“Carson?”

“Sorry. Mind wandering. I don’t think I want to sleep.”

Mackenna nodded. “I don’t blame you. Mac’s a pretty heavy sleeper, but we don’t want to be too loud all the same. Can sit out in the front room and look at pictures or talk. The television always wakes him, so watching it or a movie is out. I do a lot of reading if I’m not working on a project. If I’ve got one, then I’m planning it out. What do I need, where can I get it, what can I afford to buy, and what I need to put it together. I do a lot of research online. Mac hates that.”

Carson found himself smiling. “Yeah, my grandfather wasn’t big on the internet, either. Must be his generation.”

“I think so.”

“Tell me about what you’d do with Phantom. I don’t know anything about old cars. Or new cars. I was never that into them—Larry liked to tinker with a few of Grandpa’s old wrecks, but not me. I’ve never been all that comfortable with them.”

“Well, since your dad was apparently murdered by one and you saw it happen or were involved in it somehow, I guess that makes sense.”

Carson sighed. “It’s amazing how many of my issues go right back to that.”

She shrugged. “That’s the same for a lot of people. We all have things that seem to tie back to one moment in our lives, and if we could go back and change that, then everything would be different. Better, probably. Worse in a few cases…”

“What’s your one moment?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have one moment. I have several, and I’m not in the mood to talk about them.”

“You know just about every dark secret of mine—even if some of them are only suspicions, not facts. You really think I am in any position to—what, judge you? I can’t. I’m not. I’m a mess, remember? I’ve got panic attacks and flashbacks and nightmares and sometimes I jump at my own shadow. Earlier we were discussing the possibility—and it’s unfortunately a good one—that my father was abusive in some way, that he might have… Well, I guess I just don’t know that there’s much worse than what I might have. I’m either a killer or a victim, maybe both.”

She shook her head. “You could still be a witness.”

“I don’t think I am. If I was just a witness, it doesn’t make sense for Grandpa not to tell me what I must have seen.”

“Unless, of course, he didn’t know. He just suspected. Maybe he didn’t know who killed your father, but he hid the evidence to protect his family.”

“And then left me it in his will?”

“So you could find your answers if you wanted—though the truth is, they’re just locked up in your head. They always have been. That’s what you have to face. It’s not about the answers anyone else can give you.”

Carson leaned against the wall. “My mind has never been willing to give them up before, so why would it start now?”

“I don’t know.”

Author’s Note: The accident Mackenna talks about was a real one that happened in Minneapolis, years ago on the New London New Brighton antique car run, near the end of it, and the car was destroyed. The driver lived, I believe, but I don’t think he was ever able to drive on the run again.

“Nice car.”

“Go ahead and laugh,” Carson said, shaking his head at the wreck he’d driven into the yard. Mackenna would have if the image wasn’t so painful. She didn’t know that she’d seen a car in that bad of shape since that antique Oldsmobile was crushed off the interstate. “You should.”

“How is that thing still on the road?”

“I honestly don’t know. I put gas in it, and it runs, so I drive it. One of these days, it’ll just die on me, and then I’ll look at my bank account and realize I still don’t have enough for a new one, and I’ll sit down with a six pack and try not to cry,” he said, giving the car a push. The suspension shuddered, and the front fender fell off.

“How did that happen?”

“The fender or the rest of it?”

She shook her head. “All of it. Or maybe I don’t want to know. I’m not sure. You seem to collect wrecks, don’t you? This and Phantom—at least the other car is worth fixing. This one is only fit for the junk heap, and I say that as a talented mechanic who used to think she could fix anything.”

“I see. So you can’t fix everything? I’m so disappointed.”

She laughed, shaking her head at him. She didn’t know how he’d managed to do it to her again. She couldn’t believe she was friends with someone who could drive a car in that kind of state. “Are you sure this isn’t… a prank?”

“I wish. Some jerk ran the light right in front of my apartment building, skidded right across the corner, and plowed into my car, knocking it onto a fire hydrant. The car was stolen, they think the driver was drunk, but since they never found him—or her—and so I never got a payout from their insurance. Mine tied it up in red tape, so I’m stuck, can’t afford to do anything to it.”

She nodded. “At least it wasn’t you, right?”

“This time, yeah.”

She sighed. “Not that again. Just because you might have done something does not mean that you have to act like everything that has ever gone wrong is your fault. Look, if you did kill your father, I have to believe that you were… defending yourself. Think about it—you were a kid. You were too young to fight back whatever might have been going on. If you were threatened, you did the only thing you thought you could.”

“You don’t even know me.”

She shrugged. “You’re the first person I’ve liked in a long time. That has to mean something. I don’t usually trust people, so why you?”

“I have no idea. Maybe because I look helpless… I’m kind of a mess, right?”

He was. Maybe that was why she liked him so much. He wasn’t much of a threat in his state, and she preferred it that way. She also knew he was kind of… dependent on her. That made their relationship a bit unbalanced, but at the same time, it made her more comfortable with the idea. She had the power so, she was okay with that. She couldn’t get hurt this way. That was important, what she needed because she did not get along with people. They weren’t like machines, like cars. Cars had parts that went together in a predictable order. People were always changing, and when they changed… They tended to hurt the people who thought they knew them.

“Maybe if you fix Phantom, I’ll just drive it around.”

“I think it would be safer than that wreck,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t let you drive home in it, that’s for sure. Why’d your grandpa leave your brother the truck when your car is such a mess?”

“He didn’t know. We… We hadn’t really talked much before he died.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes, you just lose touch. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”

“Yeah.”

“I think I should have bought that six pack after all. This is getting kind of… awkward, isn’t it?”

“Let me show you where to put your stuff. We’ll see what happens after that.”

Author’s Note: Mackenna has a way of changing everything. She’s that type of friend, apparently.

Carson sat on his bed, arms wrapped around his knees, trying to figure out if he was remembering or just freaking out because the possibilities that Mackenna raised made him extremely uncomfortable. He didn’t want to be a killer, no, but he also didn’t know that he was okay with a self-defense explanation for his actions—if he was even the one that had killed his father. His latest dream seemed to suggest that maybe he might have been—or maybe he was just injured because of something else—the killer or his father and not necessarily because of anything else.

He closed his eyes. He wanted a straight answer. After all this time, if his mind was going to crumble, shouldn’t it have done it by now? Why did he have to have all the questions and none of the answers?

Mackenna was right—he needed the truth. No matter how bad it was, he was not going to be okay until he had it. Even if it was the worst possible scenario, that had to be better than being tormented by endless questions and possibilities, each worse than the last.

His phone rang, and he cursed as he jumped, hitting the headboard with a wince. Damn, he’d gotten jumpy again. He might have to go see the doctor for sleeping pills or anti-anxiety meds, not that he wanted to, but he didn’t need to repeat the times when he didn’t sleep for almost a week because he couldn’t relax, he was too stressed, too terrified to close his eyes.

He glanced at the screen. He’d figured it was Mackenna. No surprise there. “Hi.”

“Well, don’t sound so pleased to hear from me.”

“I’m not sure I am. I don’t know. Things are weird right now. On the one hand, I keep talking to you because I’ve got no one else, and I’m terrified of being alone. On the other hand, the stuff we keep discussing scares me, so… I don’t want to talk to you.”

“What if I called you up to say that I found something in the car that could answer all your questions?”
“If you’re joking, I might have to kill you,” he said, and then groaned when he realized what he’d just said. “Damn it. I can’t even talk without bringing up all this crap. This isn’t right. I don’t care what happened to me or how close to a nervous breakdown I might have been—if Grandpa knew, he should have told me. One way or another, I should just know.”

“Yeah,” she said, letting out a breath. “Look, I didn’t find any groundbreaking clues or letters or anything like that in the car. I took the pictures—just about every angle I could get of each inch, wanting to make sure I knew for sure where I started from and could see what I’d done. Mostly, it’s so I know what I did wrong if I take too much apart.”

“I see.”

“Well, so I didn’t actually do anything with Phantom yet. I have to ask you—do you want her fully restored or not?”

“I thought I told you—I don’t have the money for that. I also don’t know anything about cars like that, so you can just… keep it. I can’t have my family knowing I’m pursuing anything with it.”
“I already told you if you’re worried about that, then you should just tell them it’s not the car, it’s the mechanic.”

He put a hand to his head. “That’s crossing a line I don’t think either of us is interested in crossing. I mean, you feel sorry for me, right? So there’s that. There’s the whole possible killer thing, too. We’re just not going to complicate things further by a fake relationship, too. Hell, with the way I work, I’d screw up a fake one, too, the way I always manage to do the real ones.”

“Oh? What do you do to the real ones?”

He caught the edge to her voice, and he frowned. “Um, Mackenna, I… I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and I do really need a friend right now, and I didn’t mean to imply that this whole friend thing we’ve got going isn’t real, but as for taking it further…”

“Good grief. All I suggested was that you tell someone else that it was about me, not that we were actually going there. You’d think I’d just proposed the way you’re freaking out about it. For the record, I am not interested in being more than your friend. I don’t do relationships. I don’t even like people that much, so you don’t have to worry about me getting… clingy or thinking we’re something we’re not. I just think your family might buy that you thought you might want to see more of a woman you happened to meet—maybe that’s why your grandfather left you the car. It’s got nothing to do with the murder. He wanted you to meet me. He’s matchmaking from the grave.”

“Very funny.”

She laughed. “Well, it’s a possibility, too, and you have to admit, it’s a better one than the one I brought up earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what? You should come back out here anyway. Don’t worry about your family—we have extra rooms, they don’t have to know you’re staying with us, and you might even be able to drive back the same day depending on how long it takes—but you should see the car, think about what your options are—Mac has two Maxwells, I think I said that before. Anyway, one of them is original, almost a hundred percent original and unrestored. The second one has been restored a couple times. They’ll give you an idea of what’s involved and what you want to see. Plus… you can go for a drive in one. It’ll show you just what you inherited—and it is not junk.”

“That’s… Um…”

“Tempting?”

“Yeah. Especially since I don’t want to work tomorrow—maybe ever again—and I’ve pretty much kissed my promotion goodbye, so…”

“So come out, see your car, see Mac’s cars, and make a decision. You can take a day to do that, and it might just help with all the stress you’re under.”

“Okay.”

“You mean it? You’re coming out first thing in the morning?”

He let out a breath. “A part of me is tempted to say I could come out now, but no, that’s a bad idea. It’s a stupid one.”

“Why? You’re not going to sleep. I’m not going to sleep. We’d end up talking on the phone all night, so why not talk in person with the car to look over?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just come. That way I don’t have to spend hours worrying about you because you hung up on me. Again. You have a bad habit of doing that.”

“Um…”

“See you soon,” she said, hanging up on him.