Author’s Note: Mackenna needed to share a bit of her thoughts on what Carson just did. 🙂

He shouldn’t have kissed her, but then she shouldn’t have kissed him, so they were even. She didn’t know that she’d ever consider it a mistake, though. She had known for a while that she wanted to keep him around, and while she’d never admitted—not even to herself—that she’d wanted this, she would be a fool to let it go. Where else was she going to find a man who dressed up for a car run for her? She wouldn’t. She knew he was damaged and full of issues, but so was she. They fit. They made each other better.

This kiss made everything better. She almost laughed at that, knowing it was a silly thing to think, but things had been leading up to this for a while. Both of them had tried to say they weren’t, but they had. Things had changed. They wouldn’t be the same again, but she thought she could get used to the way they were now.

The horn bleeped, and Carson jerked, almost falling over in his panic. Mackenna reached for him, holding him steady. She put her hands on his face, getting him to look at her. “Easy. It was just Mac beeping the horn. I think he wants us to get ready to go. That’s all. You don’t have to panic now. We’re just going to get the car started again and be ready to go.”

“Oh.”

“It’s all right. You don’t have to jump at every little thing. No one here wants to hurt you,” she told him, and some of the panic seemed to leave his eyes, his body relaxing a little as it did. She glared at Mac, not sure why he’d felt he had to do that to them. They would have responded if he’d just said something—true, Carson was a surprisingly good kisser, not that she had much experience with that, but since they already had a rather deep bond, the physical stuff had been even better—so he didn’t have to beep the horn. They still had ears even if they were lost in a kiss.

“Time to go.”

She sighed, taking her hands off Carson’s face. Of course it was. She already knew it was. She had only meant to get Carson his cufflinks, but then things had… happened. Now their relationship had changed, and it was a bit awkward—worse because Mac had interrupted him the way he had. “I know, Mac, but you didn’t have to honk the horn.”

“It was my idea. I wasn’t sure either of you would come up for air again.”

Carson frowned, looking over at Larry. Neither of them had been expecting to see either of his brothers before the run, but Larry must have changed his mind. “What are you doing here?”

“What a thing to ask.” Larry shook his head. He gave Carson a long look, studying him for a reaction. “You really that upset about me being here?”

Carson let out a breath. “I’m just… It’s been quite a morning.”

“I bet.”

Mackenna put her hand over Carson’s mouth before he could tell his brother that he was a killer. She wasn’t willing to let him go around saying that. He wasn’t a killer, and she knew that his memories would prove it when he had them all back. She waited for him to glare at her before she let go. “Let’s get the car started.”

Mac went to the crank, turning it like the expert he was, and it caught on the first try. She rolled her eyes. The car always did that for him. Larry looked at Carson and then at Mackenna. “You know, if you hadn’t insisted that this wasn’t what it was all this time, I wouldn’t have—”

“It only was this morning that it became… that,” she said, wrapping her hand around Carson’s. “It’s very, very new. Different, but good.”

Carson gave her a smile, but it wasn’t much of one. She refused to let go of his hand. He was not allowed to give up, not now of all times. She had just kissed him, hasn’t she? That was worth staying strong, another reason to keep going, and she could give him plenty more, too. She would make sure that he made it through this because she needed and wanted him just as much as he needed her. “Come sit down. I’ll make Larry navigate. We get the backseat.”

Larry laughed. “I see how it is. You two gonna make out?”

“Maybe,” Mackenna said, shrugging. She saw Carson frowning again, and she dragged him over to the car. In a minute, they’d be all lined up, ready to fire the starting gun, and she didn’t think it was a good idea to have him standing when it went off, not after the way he’d reacted to the horn. No, she wanted him sitting down and in her arms when that happened.

“I’m…” Carson couldn’t find words, so he sat down, looking like he was in a mood again. “This is so weird.”

“I know, but it’s not bad,” she told him, sitting down and arranging her skirt. She grabbed the blanket and put it over their laps while Larry climbed in next to Mac. “It’s good.”

Carson nodded. “About that whole—”

The starting gun went off, and he buried his head in her shoulder, shuddering.

Author’s Note: I wanted to use these cufflinks in the story for a long time now, and I couldn’t resist them being the catalyst for… something else. 😉

“You sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

Carson shook his head. Food repulsed him at the moment. He’d already had to fend of Natalie and Mac’s disapproving look when he refused breakfast, and he didn’t know why Mackenna would bother asking. She knew that he’d lost his stomach in the night, and she should know better than to ask. “I’m still a bit queasy. You said there was plenty of stuff at the stops, so maybe later on I’ll feel like eating.”

“It’s a good thing your brothers weren’t willing to get up this early. They’d be harassing you about getting carsick.”

“I’d better not. Maybe I shouldn’t go with you. I know you think I should, but I don’t want to puke in the Maxwell and ruin this for everyone.”

She put her hands on his face. “Just remember that I don’t think you’re a killer, and I think you’ll be okay. You can’t resist me, so you may as well except what I say as fact then.”

He almost laughed, and he did manage a smile. She grinned back at him, and he tried to hold onto her confidence, wanting to believe that she was right even if most of him screamed that she had to be wrong. He didn’t know what to do if she was wrong, though. He didn’t think he could handle the consequences of that. He wasn’t sure if he’d have to be committed or serve time or what.

Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was not what he thought at all.

“You are not a killer,” Mackenna repeated, and he nodded, letting his head rest against hers for a moment. She was sure, and he could let her go on being confident enough for the both of them, couldn’t he? He didn’t know. Maybe. He’d try. “I think I’d better get you your present.”

“My present?”

She nodded before she turned to the car, digging around in one of the containers cluttering the backseat. He watched her with a frown, not sure what she’d think he needed out of the Maxwell. She leaned back and held up an item in triumph before jumping off the car.

“Here. Mac refuses to wear these because he thinks they’re Fords, but they’re cute, and only he would know that, anyway,” Mackenna said, taking hold of Carson’s hand. He watched as she put the cufflink through the hole, trying to remember how he’d gotten into this mess, and then she fixed the other, giving him a wide grin. “Perfect. You look just like you belong.”

He should say something about how stupid he felt dressed up like this, that he didn’t know how she’d talked him into it, but after yesterday, he couldn’t help thinking about something else. Combine that with his dream last night and the way she’d tried to talk him out of his worst fears, he didn’t know how to react. He wanted to do something, to tell her how much all of this meant to him, but he couldn’t find any words. He should hug her, maybe. That would work. “Mackenna…”

“Your outfit is complete now,” she said, reaching up to adjust his shirt collar.

He couldn’t help it. He put his hand on her back, leaning forward to catch her lips with his, knowing he was making a huge mistake. This would ruin everything, and he needed her too much to let that happen, but he hadn’t stopped himself. Couldn’t, even now. She should smell like the cars, like grease and oil, but right now she was a bit floral—must have been her shampoo—and he found it a bit dizzying, though that could have been his stomach still being off from the night before. He couldn’t believe he’d done that.

He was a killer. He had no business kissing anyone, and he shouldn’t be kissing her because he knew this was going to ruin their friendship. He was an idiot.

Mackenna stepped back, blinking. “Um…”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just… You in a dress made me realize—No. It’s—I’m just trying to—I’m wrecking everything. That’s what I do. I didn’t—I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.”

“We share the car.”

“What?”

“And I get to keep you forever.”

“Um, Mackenna, I don’t know what you’re—”

She cut him off with another kiss. Oh. So he hadn’t managed to screw everything up after all. Good. Very good.

Author’s Note: So I had the ending to this story clear in my head. I did. I do. I can’t get it on paper, though, not for the life of me, and so I’m getting kind of tempted to stop posting parts until I have that ending. I don’t know what to do. It’s very frustrating. I know what should be there, I know how the flashback should work, but it doesn’t work. It refuses to. Not the the scenes I wrote before it are the greatest ever, but that flashback is key to the mystery and the ending, and it is not working at all. I’ve got a few scenes left before it comes that I can post, but I admit… I’m running out fast, and I don’t know that I can make it work in time for when I’m out of the stuff that was good. 🙁

“Carson? You about ready?”

“I think you should go without me.”

Mackenna frowned, pushing open his door. She didn’t know what he thought he was doing, but if he was going to sleep in, he could do it another day. Today was special, and they didn’t have a lot of time. They were going to be late, and she didn’t want to be late. They still had plenty to do when they got to the car. “You’re not dressed.”

“I… I am not going. Just leave me alone.”

She shook her head, crossing over to his side, and when she got closer, she grimaced as the stench of vomit assailed her nose. “You’re sick? Why didn’t you say so? How long have you been throwing up, anyway?”

“It stopped a while ago. I’m not… sick. I’m just… Mackenna, I killed him.”

She knelt down next to Carson, putting a hand to his head and checking for a fever. He had to be talking crazy. He hadn’t killed his father. That was not who he was. She didn’t believe him, not for a second. “You didn’t. You must have talked yourself into a nightmare or something because you are not a killer.”

“It was so clear. Mom was trying to get me cleaned up, she was talking about the blood, and she… I said it. I said it plain as day. I said I killed him.”

“You were eight. You could have been confused. You don’t know that you did anything of the sort. All you know is that you were injured and she was cleaning you up. You don’t know why you would have thought you killed him, but just because you did doesn’t mean that you murdered him. That’s not you. I know it’s not.”

He shook his head, sounding so lost and miserable that she didn’t know what to do. She wrapped her arms around him, and he stiffened, but she held on tight. She couldn’t let him go, not now, not like this. She just couldn’t. Not when he was convinced he was a killer. She knew better. He had to be wrong.

“I want to believe it must have been an accident, but if it was an accident—”

“Then you, as a little kid, would have assumed that it was something worse. You would have blamed yourself. You wouldn’t have listened to reason then, just like you’re not now.”

“I think I hate myself.”

“You don’t need to do that, either. Carson, please, you still don’t have all the pieces. Yes, your younger self thought you were a killer. Does that mean that you were? No. You didn’t know how to process it. You probably had no idea what it would have meant if it was an accident or if it was self-defense. You didn’t know how to comprehend it, so your brain blocked it out, and now you’re jumping to the conclusion that it was like murder when it couldn’t have been. You’re not that kind of person.”

“If he molested me and I did it in self-defense, is it really that much better?”

“In some sense, yes. Not only did you get a bit of revenge, but you had a good reason to use whatever you had to in order to stop him.”

Carson shook his head. “I… I can’t do this. I think it’s past time that I go—”

“No. If you get all of your memories back and you need help dealing with them, that’s one thing, but you’re not going to lock yourself away just because you might have done something to your father. You don’t know that you did.”

“You don’t know that I didn’t.”

“I do,” she insisted. “I know you. You’re a good man. If you weren’t my instincts would have warned me away from you a long time ago. They didn’t. I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere, not abandoning you.”

He took a couple deep breaths, shaking his head. “I don’t understand how you can do that. Or why you care about any of it. I didn’t mean to dump it in your lap, but for some reason, you stayed with it. With me.”

“Well, at first I felt sorry for you,” she said, knowing the admission wouldn’t help. She reached up to run her fingers through his hair. “I think you should shower and clean up a bit. You’ll feel a lot better when you do. I want you to stay with me today, okay?”

He nodded, and she smiled, glad he’d agreed to that. “Wear the blue shirt today. Then we’ll match. Kind of.”

He snorted, and she gave him another squeeze before rising to deal with the trashcan. “If you take too long in the shower, though, you’ll worry me and I’ll come in after you. Fair warning.”

“I won’t be long.”

“Good. I have something to give you before we leave this morning. Well, it’s in the Maxwell, but I have something for you, all right?”

“All right.”

Author’s Note: Carson decided to wander off, and so he missed the parade. It was a choice between the mystery plot and the parade, and the mystery won, really.

“You missed the parade.”

She should hate him for that, and Carson wouldn’t blame her if she did. He had kind of promised to be there for it, but he hadn’t been. He should have tried to make it there, but he hadn’t known where the nursing home was to meet them, and by the time he thought he was getting close, he’d seen the parade going through town. “I know.”

“You had me worried.”

Yeah, he’d figured he’d end up doing that, too. That wasn’t his intention, and that bothered him more than breaking his promise—knowing that he’d upset her and made her worry about him, but he hadn’t thought he’d had a choice. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Mackenna asked, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Sorry doesn’t cut it. Where have you been? You don’t know anyone here, and you weren’t in the Legion. If you’d gone to the church, your brothers would have seen you because they went there to get shirts, and so you weren’t there, either. You weren’t near the cars, and I didn’t see you anywhere at the lake or at the nursing home, so what the hell? Where have you been?”

Carson sighed. “I was… Down at the lake, I could have sworn someone was watching me, so… I separated myself from everyone and wandered on my own for a while—no specific purpose or plan, just walked and walked—until I figured he’d had plenty of chance to confront me. He didn’t. I don’t know who or where he is. I don’t even know if he was ever following me.”

She sighed. “Damn it, Carson. If there was someone following you, then I needed to know. Your brothers should have known. We should all have been watching you—making sure we found this guy and that you stayed safe. If someone is after you, it’s because they’re afraid of what you remember, and that means that they might kill you, too, like they did your father.”

He nodded. “I know. I… It was stupid, and it dawned on me halfway through the walk that I was being dumb about it, but by then I was kind of lost, and I didn’t have my cellphone with me—I think I left it at Jim and Natalie’s because I was so distracted by the costume idea—and I don’t even know that it would work here because I know it wasn’t working the last time I looked.”

“Okay, well, that’s got to change. No more going off without your phone. Even if the service is spotty, you need it. Also, no going off on your own. It’s one thing to need space or the bathroom or that sort of thing, but when you disappear for over an hour and miss an event, you scare the hell out of people.”

He grimaced. He had not meant to do that, not when he started out. He’d figured it would be easy to tell if he was being tailed, but it wasn’t as simple as the movies made it seem, and while he had still felt like someone was watching him, he never caught anyone doing it, just like the last time. “I won’t. I’m sorry. My paranoia is getting the better of me. I don’t like it, but that’s what keeps happening. I just wish I could get that last part of it back so that I could stop obsessing.”

“It’ll come. Be patient.”

“That is easier said than done.”

“I know,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “Don’t ever do that to me again. I don’t like not knowing where you are or if you’re hurt. I had all these horrible images of what could have happened to you in my head, and I don’t think I was really there for the parade at all. I suppose I smiled and waved and all that, but I don’t remember doing it. All I could think about was you.”

He leaned his head against hers. He should push her away because his mind was bound to take the wrong sort of turn again like it had ever since he’d seen her in that dress this morning, but he liked having her close all the same. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Then don’t go off on your own. Promise?”

“Promise.” He slipped out of her hold and looked at her. “I know there’s a steak dinner tonight, but I’m not in the mood. Can you drop me off back at Jim and Natalie’s before you eat? I think I need a shower—well, I know I do. After the sun and this outfit, I’m kind of rank—and I’ll go to sleep early since we’ve got to leave before seven tomorrow, don’t we?”

“That’s when the starting gun goes off, yes.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s not so bad. There’s always doughnuts and coffee and other goodies at the first stop, and that makes the early morning worth it.”

“If you say so.”

“Let me go give our tickets to your brothers. They were so disappointed that they were going to miss out on the steak, but I think I’m with you. I could use a cool shower and an early night. Besides, we have a puzzle to finish.”

Carson laughed, shaking his head. She dragged him with her, still unwilling to let him out of her sight, and he should have known she’d be like that after what he’d done, but he didn’t know that he’d survive being alone with her, either. He’d just have to be too tired to finish the puzzle. That was it.

Author’s Note: So… A bit of panic never hurt anyone, right?

“Have you seen your brother? He wandered off after we got back, and I thought he was going for air-conditioning, but he doesn’t seem to be anywhere that I can see. It’s getting close to time for the parade,” Mackenna said, giving each of the others a look. Carson had been a little off after he went to the shore, quiet all the way back into town, but she hadn’t thought anything was wrong. He needed to cool off, and she’d gotten caught talking to a couple of other owners while his brothers went their own way as well.

She hadn’t been worried until she’d gone in the Legion and not seen him anywhere. She supposed he could be other places, too, but that didn’t reassure her much. She didn’t want to lose track of Carson now, not when he was recovering memories and could be in some kind of fugue or something. She didn’t want him hurting himself somehow.

“No, sorry. We wandered off to find the people selling the shirts,” Larry said, tugging on his new purchase. “Figured we’d do better being a bit official-like since we were taking up space in your car. Carrie still thinks we’re nuts, but we’ve been having a blast, so why not support the cause a little?”

Mackenna smiled. “I’m not entirely sure you’re contributing to the cost of anything except the printing of the shirts, but I think they’re great to have. If you feel like spending more money, you could always do the raffle. That goes to the nursing home, I think.”

“Already did. Carrie liked the blanket a lot, so we bought a few tickets. Not expecting to win, but that’s okay. If the money helps the nursing home, I’m all for it,” Nick said, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist. She rolled her eyes, but her annoyance faded when he kissed her cheek. They were a cute couple, Mackenna couldn’t help thinking, and she had to wonder if that ran in the family. Maybe, after what Carson had said about Larry and his ex.

“Will you do me a favor and check the bathroom for Carson? There’s more than one in the Legion, and just in case he was in there when I checked the rest of the place, I’d appreciate it. We’re going to need to drive Shadow down to the nursing home in a bit, and he should be back by now.”

“He probably just lost track of time,” Larry told her, putting a hand on her arm. “No need to panic just yet.”

She tried to smile. “I wish I could, but that’s not—that’s not me. I’ve been more worried about him than I should have been pretty much from the moment that we met. I don’t want to be, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”

“We’ll check. Anywhere else you want us to look? I mean, it is possible that he already headed over to the nursing home, isn’t it?”

“Unlikely that he walked that far, but yeah, I guess it is,” Mackenna said. She didn’t like this. The longer it went without her seeing Carson, the more upset she got. She was starting to think something had happened to him, and she didn’t want to think that.

What if those eyes he’d felt the other day weren’t just his paranoia? What if someone here really was watching him?

“Did you tell your uncle about coming down here?”

Nick frowned. “Um, no. Why?”

“I was just… thinking.”

“Thinking about Uncle Tim? Why?”

“Because she thinks he might have killed Dad, that’s why, stupid,” Larry said, and Nick glared back at him. He shrugged before turning to Mackenna. “We all have our issues with our uncle, though it’s true he’s got some kind of weird vendetta against Carson, made worse by Carson getting what was in the barn. I don’t know if that was because of the car or because he was thinking the livestock went to baby brother, but Carson already told him he wasn’t taking any of the cows. He put the scrap metal aside to sell and only took the car. Tim hated Dad, yeah, but I don’t know that he could have killed him. He wouldn’t be down here, though. He’d have no way of knowing that’s where we were because we didn’t tell him.”

“Someone else could have, though.” Mackenna heard herself say. “Everyone at the Legion back home knew we were going. We talked about it Sunday night when we met with Mac’s friends, and even if they didn’t mention it, Chambers might have.”

“Chambers is still alive? Amazing. I’d have thought he’d have been pounded for good by now. He was always asking for it when we were younger.”

“Believe me, he’s still asking for it now.”

“We can make sure he stops.”

She almost laughed. “No, don’t, I don’t need you to pick any fights for me. It’s okay. I handle him just fine. Let’s just find your brother.”

Author’s Note: The root beer floats are a tradition. On the twenty-fifth anniversary, we got to keep our glasses. They’re a bit like a beer stein with the run’s logo on the side, and they were great for floats that year. 🙂

“Root beer floats. I feel like such a kid.”

“You are a kid,” Carson told his brother, annoyed. He didn’t know how much longer he could put up with Larry being Larry. He was going to hit him, and if he didn’t hit him, he’d say something he regretted. He didn’t want to fight with his brothers, and he didn’t want to ruin things with Mackenna, and so he just needed to be quiet. That’s what he’d do. He’d stay very quiet, and then he couldn’t wreck anything.

“I think at this point he’s just doing it to annoy you,” Mackenna told him, shrugging. “Let it go. Enjoy your ice cream.”

“Do you think they’d give me more root beer? This turned out to be all foam,” Nick said. He looked down at his cup and then at Carrie’s. “Yeah, yours is, too. Let me go see if they’ll give us a bit more. It’s not much of a root beer float without the root beer.”

Carrie shook her head, but he was gone before she could say no. “I didn’t need more.”

“You try not to complain about anything. Sometimes it’s something you should say,” Carson told her, stirring the ice cream melting in his cup. He didn’t feel all that nostalgic, and he didn’t even feel that hungry, not that he did most of the time.

“You okay, Carson?”

“I don’t think I can finish my float,” he said, pushing it over to Larry. “I’m going to go walk around and look at the other cars.”

Mackenna caught his arm. “You sure you’re okay?”

He nodded. “It’s… I think it’s the heat. Not sure how they managed to handle it before they decided short-sleeves were allowed, and you have it a lot worse than I do.”

“Not if I take off my coat, but that might make someone’s head spin.”

“Better not then,” Carson said, not wanting to think about seeing her without the coat. Then the corset would be all too visible, revealing more than it did now as it hugged her body, and he’d just as soon not think about that, either. “No, I’m just going to circulate a bit and see if that helps. If not, I’m staying somewhere air-conditioned until the party.”

“The parade.”

“Right. That.”

“Yeah, go get some air. You’d be better off going down to the lake, but if you’d rather look at the cars, that’s up to you.”

“Oh. You’re right. I’ll go down to the lake,” he said, and she smiled. He thought of asking her to join him, but he needed his distance until he could get over this hyper-awareness. When he had that back under control, when he could forget the idea of touching her or anything like that, he’d be able to spend time with her again. Until then, he’d be on his own as much as possible.

He started down to the beach, rolling up his sleeves as he did. They’d just have to forgive him for ruining the costume—he wasn’t used to this. Even in the summer, wearing suits to work hadn’t been that bad because he spent all his time indoors in the cool of the air-conditioning. He wasn’t used to suits and the glare of the summertime sun.

He stopped at the edge of the sand to take off his shoes and slip out of his socks, sure they’d get looks if anyone saw them sitting there. He rolled up the bottom of his pants and waded out into the water, letting it lap over his feet with a contented sigh. This was good.

He walked along the shore for a while, letting the slight breeze coming off the water work to cool him down and wishing it was as easy to settle things in his head. He needed to find a way so that he could put all that behind him. His father, the sudden attraction to Mackenna, all of that needed to go away so that he could live a normal life. He’d have his past—most of it, at least—and he could lay his father to rest, so to speak. Then he’d move on. He’d get a new job, and he’d find his way back to where he should be, where he would be if he hadn’t had his father’s murder weighing on him all this time.

He let out a breath, and then he felt it, again. That same stupid sense that someone was watching him. He looked over at his family, but they were all laughing at something Mackenna was saying, none of them so much as glancing in his direction. Carson searched the area with his eyes, frowning when he saw someone over by the docks. The man was more of a shadow than anything, and he might not be watching Carson at all, but seeing him made him shudder anyway.

So much for calming down and cooling off.

Author’s Note: Still having fun with the costumes. 🙂

“Carrie, get a picture of this. Or a dozen. Look at our baby brother, Nick. He seems rather… dapper, don’t you think?”

“Shut up, Larry. I swear I will smack you,” Carson said, not feeling up to dealing with his brothers at the moment. He’d known that it would be bad when they saw him, but he’d thought that he could hold out for a while and not lose his temper, but that didn’t work. He felt self-conscious enough with this outfit on—he knew it wasn’t that different from his normal clothes, but he didn’t feel right in them, not that he thought he’d be comfortable until he could get away from Mackenna for a while. True, she was in with the drivers at the brunch and he was with his family, but when she’d been around, all he could think about was her, and that wasn’t right. He wanted things back the way they were. They were good friends. That was all they needed to be.

“You clean up very nice,” Carrie told him, adjusting the little tie that went with the shirt and fixing the band on his sleeve. She was so a mom, wasn’t she? Not that she and Nick had kids, but she was more than ready for them. “Try not to fidget so much.”

He snorted. “Around Larry and Nick? All they’ve done my entire life is torment me, and I’m just feeding the fire right now.”

She smiled at him. “You know that’s not true. At least not about tormenting you. In their way, they both love you very much.”

“It does not feel like it right now.”

“It never does.” Carrie stepped back to survey her work and nodded. “Better. Where is Mackenna?”

“Oh, she’ll be along in a minute. The driver’s meeting and brunch goes over the route for tomorrow, so it’s important, and she’s got to be there for it. She said we’d have to work out schedules for who wanted to ride when, though. We can look at the route if you’re coming tomorrow and pick times, but we’re also going to need to decide about today—”

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You have to be in the car the entire time. You can’t not go, not when you’re all dressed up like that.”

Carson groaned. He never should have done this, but he hadn’t been able to come up with any other reason to prod Mackenna out of his room this morning, and if he didn’t get her out of there when he did, something would have happened that would have ruined everything. He couldn’t do that. He had to stop himself.

“I don’t see her anywhere, and everyone’s been huddled around the cars for a while now.”

“Not all of those people are drivers or owners. Lots of people like to look at the cars while they’re in town. There were even people looking at the one I have, some who wanted to buy it,” Carson said, and now that he did, he swore he felt those eyes on him again. Damn it, he was way too paranoid. He couldn’t keep doing this.

“Hey, look, Carson, that woman’s dressed up, too. Why don’t you go introduce yourself? Oh, wait, you’re not dating Mackenna.”

Carson rolled his eyes. “Not funny. Well, no, wait, it is a bit funny.”

“It is?”

Carrie snorted, the first to realize what Carson was getting at, and she shook her head. “Honestly, boys. You’re almost pathetic. That is Mackenna.”

“No way. She’s not—Damn. She is. She looks hot, too.”

“Yes, the heat is rather annoying, isn’t it?” Carrie muttered, and Carson almost laughed after his brothers seemed to take her words at face value. He couldn’t believe them sometimes. Of course, if Nick stared at Mackenna any more than he already was, he was going to get a smack from Carrie.

“There you are. I was hoping you’d meet us up here,” Mackenna said when she jointed them. “Have you decided how you want to rotate who’s riding when?”

“I think Carson should be in the car the entire time. You know, since he went to all the trouble of dressing up for you.”

“I didn’t do it for her,” Carson protested, and then he winced when he realized that he had done it for her, one way or another. “Um, never mind.”

Mackenna laughed. “It’s okay. I think it was sweet of you to cave in to my whims, and I would like it if you rode with us all day, but especially for the parade since you did dress up.”

“If I were to dress up, would there be some kind of bonus points like… a kiss?” Larry asked, moving close to her. “I should mention how nice you look today. Not that your normal look is bad or anything like that, but you do more than clean up good, you know.”

She flushed as red as her hair, and Carson swore he might just hit his brother. Not that he had any right to claim her, not that they hadn’t been denying that they were dating or anything like it since they met, but Mackenna was his. He didn’t like hearing his brother flirt with her, and he really hated seeing her respond to it.

Great, now he was jealous, too. He’d almost wish for a flashback at this rate. He was going to do something really stupid if he didn’t get himself under control fast.