Author’s Note: I am tempted to quote here. Guess I will. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.” Don’t know that it fits Carson’s situation, but I couldn’t resist. 🙂

“Why are you pacing like that?”

“I keep feeling like someone’s watching me, but every time I look for them, I can’t see them. Apparently, I can’t stop the paranoia here.”

Mackenna frowned, pulling herself out from under Shadow to get a good look at Carson. He wasn’t kidding. She had thought maybe he was getting impatient, sick of watching her tinker around with the engine, but she’d seen him worked up before, and this was different. He was downright twitchy now. Every couple seconds, he jerked and looked in a new direction, but while there were people around, she didn’t see anyone watching them. He rubbed at his neck, biting his lip, and she was almost certain he’d bolt in another minute.

“Okay,” she said, moving toward him and putting her hands on his cheeks to get his eyes on her and her alone. “Calm down and breathe. It’s possible this is nothing more than the lead up to a flashback, and while that can be unsettling, if you try and relax, maybe it won’t be so hard to take.”

He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through it. “I don’t know that I can stay here. Maybe it’s the heat, but I’m going to puke. I need to… to go.”

“Here,” she said, unclipping the Woodsman’s keys from her belt and putting them in his hand. “Go sit in the cab for a moment. We’ll go, I promise, but unfortunately, I can’t leave the cars sitting out like this. I need to put Shadow back together and push them both back in the trailer before we can. Okay?”

Carson grimaced. “I don’t want to make you stop working. Maybe if I walk up by myself—”

“Don’t even think about it. It’s not happening. Not only do you not feel good, but if this isn’t just paranoia, then you need to stick close to someone. We don’t know that your father’s killer isn’t dead. I mean, we’ve been theorizing that it’s someone in your family—you, your mother, or your grandfather—but we don’t know that for sure. We don’t know that it’s not someone else. What about your uncle?”

“I’ve had that thought a few times, and I don’t… It’s still possible, since I know he hated my father and he doesn’t like me, but I don’t know how he’d know that we were here to follow us. I haven’t spoken to the man since the will got read. I’m not planning on it, either. I’m not sure I should talk to him in general, but if someone in my family did it… My uncle’s a good suspect.”

She nodded, wondering why he hadn’t been a part of more of their theories. The worst case scenario thing, was it? Or was it because Carson felt he wouldn’t have blocked memories of his uncle killing his father just because he’d never gotten them back? She didn’t know. They’d have to talk that through some later, when he was calmer.

“I’m going to try and sit, then. You finish what you need to do on Shadow.”

“I will,” she told him, giving the area a quick look and wondering if she could flag someone down to help her push the Maxwells back in the trailer. She might be able to do it on her own, but she didn’t like that idea very much. She was not looking forward to getting hurt. That was not part of the plan.

“Mackenna? Mac said you were down here with the cars, so if you are, I’m supposed to—well, I came down to tell you that my parents might be winning the candlelight tour battle this year—and I wanted to apologize, too.”

She gave Nate a half-smile as he rounded the trailer. At least now she had help, not that she wanted to deal with his shrink-like crap at the moment and she had to wonder if he was what set Carson off or not, but at least she wouldn’t have to push either car by herself. “I’m not so sure they can win that candlelight battle, though. Shadow’s not quite up to it. I’ve been working on her engine since we got back, and I’m not finished. Can you help me put Phantom away, though?”

“Why? I thought the idea was to show that one off as much as possible.”

“Carson’s not feeling good, and I don’t want to leave the cars out while I take him back to your parents’ place.”

“I can take him if he wants. This heat is pretty brutal, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she said with a nod, though it had little to do with the heat, and she didn’t know that she wanted to leave Carson alone if he was headed into a flashback. “I appreciate the offer, Nate, but if you’d help me with the cars, I think that would be better.”

“You afraid to leave him alone with me?”

She let out a breath. “No, but it’s not just the heat, and you don’t need to be—”

“You know, that kind of thing is my field—or it will be, soon enough. You could let me try and help,” Nate said, leaning against Shadow and giving her a pointed look. “There’s a reason why my profession exists, and it is for this kind of thing.”

“I know, but Carson’s not—”

“Do you honestly think I’d hurt him in any way?”

She grimaced. “No, but you know I don’t… I’ve never thought much of your profession, and what he got from his last shrink didn’t help, either. He just avoided the issue and took meds to stay calm. That’s not going to cure anything.”

“True, but since I don’t have the license to prescribe yet, you don’t have to worry about that with me. Let me talk to him. If he doesn’t want my help, he doesn’t have to take it.”

She sighed. A part of her still wanted to argue about it, but it was Carson’s choice, and she shouldn’t try and make it for him. “Fine. Go talk to him, but if you upset him, I’m kicking your ass. Fair warning.”

“I didn’t need it—I know you better than that—but thanks anyway.”

She rolled her eyes as Nate walked away, cursing as she went back under Shadow, hoping to finish the adjustments as quick as she could so that she could take care of Carson and not deal with Nate. That would be better for all of them.

Author’s Note: So things are a bit awkward, but they’re also a bit sweet.

“I didn’t know I was that good of a pillow.”

“Can’t be. Pillows don’t talk.”

Carson laughed. He didn’t know how he’d ended up with Mackenna on top of him—she hadn’t so much as changed into her pajamas, so it wasn’t like she’d sleepwalked in here or mistaken his room for hers. He wasn’t sure what she was up to, but he had a feeling the only reason that he’d managed to sleep all the way through the night was that she’d come in for whatever reason she had.

“I’m sure you have things that you should be doing. Car things, event stuff, whatever it is…”

She nodded. “I do. I didn’t mean to sleep so late.”

He’d figured that much out already. He didn’t think he was supposed to wake up with her there, and he knew this was going to be awkward in a moment. He didn’t want to get there, but if he pushed her out, it would be worse. “What is on the docket for today, anyway?”

“There’s a short run today, always is. Sometimes it’s thirty-five miles, sometimes more. I don’t know the specifics because we didn’t look at the program. We wandered off, and so we’d better find Mac and see what we’re in for today.”

“Are you dressing up for it?”

“I might have if I didn’t wake up late, but I guess I’ll just grab a duster and cheat for this one. Tomorrow I’ll get fancier, if I don’t oversleep again. A lot of people don’t even show up for today’s stuff. They’ll drive down today or tomorrow. They do Friday’s events and Saturday’s. Friday is when they do the lake tour and the parade, and the parade is when you see the most costumes. They’re not as common on the run itself. It’s a hundred and twenty miles, and most people aren’t comfortable with them for that long.”

“You are?”

“I’ve done it for a while, and I like sticking it to people who think either a girl can’t know about cars or that I can’t be feminine,” she said, lifting up her head. She sat back, fidgeting a little. “I should go shower.”

“Okay. Don’t use all the hot water.”

She grinned, and he had a feeling if he got into the shower, it would be cold as ice. He watched her go, shaking his head as she did. They were getting way too comfortable with each other, weren’t they? He’d thought she had a thing about going into bedrooms that belonged to men because of her uncle, and yet somehow she’d stayed beside him for… hours. He hoped that was a good thing. It meant that she was healing, too, didn’t it? If she could put her fear away, if she could overcome that memory, then maybe there was hope for him, too.

He rose, walking to his door and trying to remember how the house worked so that he could go get some coffee. He was covered—t-shirt and the sweatpants she hated so much—so he didn’t think he’d offend anyone or anything, and there wasn’t much point in changing until he’d had a chance to shower. He went down the hall, not sure how he’d forgotten about the stairs, but everything was going to be there. He started climbing, stopping abruptly at the top of the stairs, not expecting a dining table to be right in front of him.

“There you are.” A woman greeted him, pushing back her chair and standing to face him. She pointed to the counter. “There’s coffee in the pot there, cups in the cupboard above it, and feel free to help yourself to whatever you need.”

Carson forced a smile. “Thanks. I’m sorry. I don’t think we met, and I know you weren’t expecting me, so—”

“Not to worry. We’re always open to guests. Trust me,” she said, smiling at him. He wanted to say she reminded him of his mother, but he’d never seen his mother look that happy, not even in his earliest memories. He blinked, trying to focus on the woman in front of him and not think about his mother. They didn’t look anything alike—his mother was smaller, frailer, like a porcelain doll whereas this woman was athletic—active, that’s what she was. “I’m Natalie.”

“Carson.”

“I think you met my son already. Nate?” She asked, and Carson tried hard not to grimace. He hadn’t liked the son much, and that could have been why Mackenna ended up in his room last night. Maybe he’d done something that set her off. “My husband is already in town, so you’ll have to meet him later.”

“Okay,” he said, going for the coffee pot. “I wasn’t really prepared for this trip, and I didn’t know that Mackenna and Mac stayed with anyone—”

“You don’t have to apologize for anything. You’re running a bit late, though, so you might need to hurry.”

“I’m not sure I’m supposed to go with them this morning. I’ll just… wander around town or something. I’m here to ask people about my car anyway, so… I’ll do that, I guess. Not that I know what to ask or who to—Sorry. I’m babbling. I do that.”

“It’s part of his charm,” Mackenna said, and he turned around to see her at the top of the stairs, hair wet and plastered to her scalp, not looking much like herself. “Shower’s free if you want it.”

“That was fast.”

“We have to hurry. Go shower if you’re going to because we don’t have a lot of time.”

“I think I’ll just stay in town while you—”

“Go shower. Now.”

Author’s Note: So I thought it was time to discuss Mackenna’s issues for a change. Well, when I rewrote this section, at least.

“I didn’t mean to scare off your friend earlier.”

Mackenna shrugged. She didn’t know that anything could have made Carson stick around after his flashback and then the others interrupting them while they needed to sort things out. He needed some space, and she hoped that he would be able to sleep through the night this time. She knew that she shouldn’t be watching him from his doorway, but she had this need to keep an eye on him.

“I was joking about the lovebirds thing, but you’re not the business partners you tried to say you are, or you wouldn’t be standing here watching him. You look worried, and that’s not something I thought I’d see,” Nate said, leaning against the door frame. He was always a bit nosy—sometimes she wondered if he wanted something more from her than their awkward casual acquaintance, but he hadn’t pushed. It was better that way. “This about that bullet hole in the car?”

“Carson witnessed his father’s murder,” she said, using the simplest explanation of the situation as possible. “He was just a kid, and he doesn’t remember all the details, so he’s struggling with that at the moment. Having inherited the car, that brought more of it back, but not enough.”

Nate nodded. “That’s gotta suck. I take it he brought the car to you? You never mentioned him before, so he’s not an old friend—”

“Exactly what are you trying to get at, Nate? Carson’s business is his own. I’ve told you more than I intended to already.”

“Just curious.”

“Curious.” She shook her head, turning away from the room. She didn’t want to risk waking Carson, not after the way that memory had shaken him. He needed to sleep. She walked back to the rec room, sitting down on the couch. “What does it matter?”

Nate took the other side of the couch. “Well, I could blame it on the fact that we were the only people around under thirty and above ten that were wandering around the run for a while. I wanted to call us friends. You never did.”

She shrugged. She hadn’t made a secret of the fact that she didn’t want to be friends. “Being the same age was all we had in common. There was no friendship there.”

“You mean I never had anything bad happen to me so I couldn’t possibly understand you or get past your walls.”

She glared at him. “What do you know about my walls? You all gossip about me when I’m not around? Is that it?”

“My parents made friends with your grandparents. They know about you being with your uncle when he died. It’s not much of a secret. You’ve always been kind of… abrupt, even rude, and people couldn’t get to know you. You snapped at everyone back in the beginning, you know. When we got to know you, we liked you, but you don’t make that easy.”

She pulled her legs in and put her head on them. “I don’t need people to like me.”

“Sure you do. Everyone does.”

Nate touched her shoulder. She jerked away from him. He sighed. “Mac, you know you’re not an island. We all need people.”

“I’ve got people.”

“Is it really such a threat to have a friend that didn’t live anywhere near you?”

She shoved him away. “I have plenty of friends. Plenty of male friends, if you want to go there, too, so what I have with Carson is not all that weird or that surprising.”

Nate shook his head. “I never said anything about that. If I did, you’d just assume I was getting upset because I was interested in you. I’m not, not in the way you think.”

“I don’t assume everyone wants me. I know they don’t.” She rose. “This is going to end in a fight, and I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“You don’t have to go. We can change subjects.”

She wasn’t interested in talking. She didn’t want to go into any of the details she had a feeling Nate wanted to get at. That was the trouble with someone who was studying to be a psychologist, they were way too nosy, wanting to get at all of her issues and fix her. She didn’t need him doing that, and she’d have to make sure Carson knew that Nate would be analyzing him any time they interacted. He’d been talking about going to a shrink, but she didn’t know that he wanted Nate to be that person.

“I’m going check on Carson again, and then I’m going to bed.”

“Have you ever wondered why all your friends are guys?”

“If you must know, it’s because of my aunt. She let me down in a big way, and why would I ever want someone like her in my life again? I don’t. You men are tragically predictable, and I can talk cars with most of you. I don’t have anything in common with ‘girls,’ and I don’t like them.”

Nate nodded. She rolled her eyes and walked away. She should have smacked him, but then he’d start in on her violent side or something like that. She didn’t need that on top of everything else. She hesitated in Carson’s doorway, not sure she could or even wanted to step past the threshold, but then she did, crossing over to the empty side of the bed.

She climbed up next to him, and Carson opened his eyes, not quite awake. “Something wrong?”

“No. Go back to sleep.”

He shifted closer to her, and she smiled, letting her head rest against his shoulder before she closed her eyes. Nate had pissed her off, but she already felt a lot better now that she was next to Carson. Her grandfather was wrong. Fixing Carson was fixing her.

Author’s Note: It’s not easy for Carson to get past all his issues, especially not when there’s interference.

“For the lovebirds.”

Carson frowned, looking up as someone set two beers on the table. “Um, I don’t know what you think, but you’re wrong, and you don’t—”

“I know I told you that this was not a date,” Mackenna said, glaring at the man who’d joined them. He was younger than most of the others around them, and Carson didn’t remember seeing him when she told her friends she wasn’t joining them, but that didn’t matter. He’d been too distracted at the time. The bartender had given him a weird look when he ordered, and he didn’t think he’d managed to calm down for at least an hour after that last flashback, and while he knew he’d had more than one beer, he couldn’t remember how many it was.

“She breaks the hearts at this thing every year, you know,” the man went on, ignoring Mackenna’s reaction. “They all love her, but they never stand a chance.”

“That why you think you need to interrupt us?” Carson asked. He shook his head. “Look, we were discussing something private and important, and I don’t know who you are, but please, just go. It’s not what you think, and it’s not—”

“Relax. I’m not here to make any kind of play for your girl.”

“I am not anyone’s girl, Nate. I told all of you that Carson and I had something to discuss—”

“My parents called. They said they found Mac, and he’s looking for the two of you. Also, there’s a bunch of interest in your friend’s car already. I guess Mac took it out, and a couple people gave him offers on the spot.”

Carson shifted in his chair, not sure how to react to that. “I didn’t think the car was worth that much, not as it is.”

“Depends on the collector. Some people around here would love to get at yours because it’s almost all original. Some of them like that. Didn’t Mackenna tell you that? If you’re going to be chatting about the car anyway, you might as well be doing it with people who are wanting to do stuff with it.”

“Honestly, I didn’t think Mac was getting it out until later, and right now is not a good time—”

“Did someone really shoot it?”

Carson put a hand to his head, but before he could respond, the others had joined Nate at the table, surrounding them. They were all talking at once, and he shook his head, getting up. He knew they meant well, but he did not know how to be in a crowd right now. Mackenna hadn’t told them what they were discussing—his father’s murder—or they might have been more willing to give them space, and while he was grateful to her for that, he didn’t want to do this now. The flashback had shaken him more than he wanted to admit.

“Hey. Don’t let Nate chase you off.”

“Now I need air,” he told her, giving her a look. “I know why we’re here, and I know it’s important to see what others think of the car, but I was only just getting to where I could talk about that flashback when we got interrupted.”

“I know.”

“I can’t talk about our theories in front of anyone else. That’s… It’s… I don’t want the worst to be true, and I can’t have random strangers knowing about those things, especially since we don’t know if any of them are true.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t see these people that often, and some of them are pushier than others. I didn’t want to tell them why we needed to be alone, so I just left it about the car, and that was a mistake because they must have figured we were done with all that kind of talk by now.”

Carson nodded. She reached for his hand. “You look exhausted. If we can find Nate’s parents, maybe we should head out to their place and let you rest for a bit. You can sleep now and not worry about waking anyone in the night.”

“Yeah.”

“You are so close now. A few more memories, and you’ll know everything.”

“I think that’s part of what I’m afraid of.”

Author’s Note: I don’t think I’d want to go into the water off that bridge. There is a swimming area in part of it, but I don’t know what it’s like. I’ve never tried that. Then again, I’m usually in a dress and doing something with an antique car. 🙂

“Don’t jump.”

Carson jerked, startled, and Mackenna took the last few steps toward him, wrapping her arms around him. She didn’t know that he would have done it, jumped off the bridge and into the pond, and even if he had, it might not have been fatal or even that dangerous, but he’d scared the hell out of her, bolting out of the store like he had. She’d had to give some cash to the clerk before she ran after him, and to find him out here, looking like he might just plunge into the depths—okay, she didn’t know how deep that water was, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t scary all the same.

“What just happened?”

He trembled in her hold. “I… The car set off a memory… My father gave me one of those cars, and I… The last part of it was me asking him if he was going to hurt me.”

She tightened her grip. “It’s okay. We know that’s a possibility. We’ve known that from the beginning. Try and calm down, take some deep breaths, and we’ll go through the whole thing like we have the others, try and find out what you’re really remembering. Don’t panic. Even if it was the worst scenario that we could imagine—and we’ve imagined plenty, you have to admit that—you can handle it once you know what it is.”

He nodded, but he was still having a hard time getting his body to relax. He shuddered. “I know we’re close because I’ve never gotten as much back as this before, but it’s so hard to be sure of what it means and what I should do about it.”

She moved a hand up to his cheek. “All right, there’s a diner over here behind the bank, so we’re going to go ahead and get a table, get some water, and talk this through, okay?”

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

“You think you can walk that far?”

“I don’t know. I feel sick.”

She stepped back, wrapping an arm around his. “Are you sure that’s all that happened?”

“My mind is ready to make what I did remember a lot worse. I don’t want to, but I keep going toward that, and I think I need something besides a bit of water. I can’t do this. It’s not like I can say I need air—we’re outside. I feel like… Oh, I do miss the medication right now. It helped with this feeling.”

“Well, then, how about a bit of self-medicating to take the edge off of things?” Mackenna didn’t wait for an answer. She used the arm she had around his to help him across the street, dragging him forward. “The Legion will be open, and you can have a drink to take the edge off things. I’m only suggesting one, and only because of the whole depressant thing in the alcohol that might relax you a little. You need to calm down before you break down.”

“Okay.”

“This isn’t going to be like seeing Granger and all the other guys. Well, we might run into some of the locals and the tow drivers, but we don’t have to sit with them if you don’t want.”

“I don’t know that I can deal with people at the moment. I’m doing what I can not to hurl at this point. I’ve… I guess it’s a breakthrough that I’m remembering the flashbacks now, but it’s so hard to cope with them. How do you do it?”

“What?”

“Well, you seem so calm all the time, and you have plenty of bad memories, so… how are you not a wreck like me?”

“I fix cars.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to try that to work through this, though I think when we get started on Phantom, you’ll do a lot better. It’s good to keep your hands and mind occupied. It helps. A lot. It’s not for everyone, though. I admit that. It saved me. I know that. If not for the cars… Well, I don’t want to think about that.”

“Me, either. I need you too much,” he told her. She smiled at him and opened the door, letting him go inside first. He stopped on the other side of the door, leaning against the wall. “Hmm. Not sure I can take the smoke, but the air conditioning is nice.”

“Mac! Over here!”

Carson winced. She put a hand on his arm. “I’ll head them off. Just go order your drink, and I’ll meet you in a minute. Find a quiet corner if you can.”

He looked around the room, rolling his eyes before heading to the bar. She forced a smile and tried to find a way out of drinks with the gang so that he could have his privacy and they could talk through what he remembered.

This was going to be a long day.

Author’s Note: So, yes, they did give us chocolates that had been made with molds of antique cars. I tried to take a picture of mine, but it didn’t work so well.

“They go all out for this, don’t they?”

Mackenna laughed, dragging Carson forward, and he knew they were about to have their picture taken under the sign proclaiming them to be on the London bridge over the river Thames. He didn’t know how they were going to get the picture because they’d left Mac behind, her dragging Carson through the town. They weren’t supposed to meet their hosts for another couple hours, and so she felt they had to kill time in town.

“They do. It’s a big thing for them, a real cornerstone of the local history and flavor now. They love having us here. Well, most of them do.”

“That’s good.”

“One year, they made us little bits of chocolate with antique cars on them. They were cute. I wonder if the local shop has any of them now,” she said, pulling him into the nearest doorway. He frowned, not sure she knew where she was going because this didn’t look much like a chocolate shop—he could see them stocking plenty of novelty chocolates to go with the rest of their wares, but he didn’t think they had their own bakery here.

“Oh, they must have special ordered these. Look at this,” Mackenna said, lifting up a miniature car model and passing it to him. “I’m going to get one. What do you think? You want one?”

He took it from her, turning it over in his hand with a frown. “Is this…”

“A reproduction? I’m sure it is. It’s not like the typical one you’d find in the toy department at at store, but they’re worth it, don’t you think?”

He studied the car, biting his lip. “There’s something about this…”

“It’s a Model T. They’re probably the easiest to find of any old time car. They’ve got their own clubs just for Model T owners, but they’re also very recognizable for the general public,” she said, but then she shook her head. “That’s not what’s bothering you, is it?”

“I think that I had one like this.”

“Bad memory?”

“I… It…” Carson didn’t know, and that was the weird thing. He didn’t know what to think at the moment. He felt weird, and he needed air. He tried to walk away from her, not sure where he was going or where he’d end up, but he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He was going to throw up in a minute, and he didn’t know how to stop himself from doing that. He didn’t need to humiliate himself now.

He made it back to the railing above the pond that called itself the Thames river and leaned over, hoping this would make it easier to breathe. He looked down at his hand and cursed when he realized that he still had the toy car in his palm.

He had to go back and pay for it.

No, he didn’t want it. He’d try and explain and return it, and if they made him pay for it anyway, he would, but he didn’t want to keep it.

“I told you I’d get you something special. What do you think of this?”

“I wouldn’t give you a chance if you bought one of these for real,” Carson said, shoving the toy at him. “Nick and Larry hate you. Uncle Tim hates you. Grandpa hates you. Mom is always sad. You don’t talk to them, though. You talk to me. Only to me. You think I’m just a stupid little kid, don’t you? You’re… you’re gonna hurt me, aren’t you?”

Author’s Note: I do have the blanket. I picked it up a few years back, and it’s actually on my bed at the moment. Soft and warm, with a nice embroidered logo. So is the one I won when they had some kind of scavenger hunt raffle.

We usually stay with a very nice family in New London for the run, so I incorporated that idea into Carson’s story.

“I don’t have the money for this.”

“You don’t have to get it all. Mac and I get a shirt because they include one in the registration pack, so that part’s covered, but I have to admit, I like the rest of it, too. I got the blanket a couple years ago, and Mac gives me this look every time I take it out in the morning, but the morning’s are cold even if it doesn’t rain.”

“You do this in the rain? You are crazy.”

Mackenna shoved him. He stumbled a little, but he didn’t fall. He glared at her, and she laughed. “You know, I did pack some of Mac’s old costumes when I grabbed his stuff, so you could forgo all of this and dress up with me.”

“Um…”

“You’d be quite the picture.”

“Yeah, nice, and I’m supposed to pretend that I didn’t notice your phrasing there. You can’t even say I’d look good in it, can you? You couldn’t pull off that lie—you know I’ll look ridiculous—and so you tried that instead, but it was pathetic.”

She forced a smile. “It’s not like I can’t picture you in them. When I found them, I thought they’d be perfect for you. Much better than that awful suit of yours. You could do a lot better. I’m not kidding. You wouldn’t look ridiculous.”

He gave her a dubious look, and she nodded. She didn’t think that she could explain it. She didn’t think she should. She didn’t want to dwell on what he’d look like. Her reaction to it, the way she wanted so badly to see him like that, all of that worried her. She shouldn’t want it. She shouldn’t want a lot of things, and it bothered her that she did.

“I don’t think so. It’ll make people think I belong here, that I know more about this than I do, and I don’t. I’m… That’s not me. I’m here for a completely different reason.”

“We were in the car together too long. I’m gonna smack you.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to lie. You know that I don’t know much of anything about this stuff, and I don’t think it’s right to let anyone think that I do. Really, it’s not. I’m here because you took pity on me, not because—Ow.”

“I warned you,” she said, shaking her head. “Come on. Mac should be done by now, and we can go get settled in.”

“Right. I was going to ask you where the hotel was.”

Mackenna laughed. “I guess years and years ago, Mac stayed in the hotels around here, since he hadn’t quite developed the same relationship with his tow drivers that he has now. Well, I can’t say I blame the ones that disliked driving for him. The Woodsman can be a real pain. Still, I think things changed a bit after my grandmother died. They took pity on him, I guess, and ever since then, they’ve offered to let them stay with them while we’re here.”

Carson swallowed. “What? You didn’t mention anything about staying with someone. It’s some stranger’s house, and I bet you didn’t even ask them if I could stay—and I can’t. Not with the way my nights have been going lately. I wake everyone with my nightmares, and I’m not doing it, not to some poor kind stranger. I need a hotel room.”

“Carson—”

“No, I do. This isn’t something I can give in on. I cannot do that. It’s bad enough what I’ve done in front of you and Mac, but these people are opening their home to you, and I can’t just… It’s not something I can do. I won’t.”

She frowned. “This isn’t at all about the whole you and me and people getting the wrong idea thing, is it? Because you know we’re not—they’re not—”

“No, but that’s another reason why I should get a room of my own.”

“Okay, how about you meet them first before you go jumping to the conclusion that you can’t handle being around them? I’d even suggest you try it tonight before you go off and get a room of your own—you just got done saying you couldn’t afford to get all the stuff you want here, so why would you want to have that added expense if it wasn’t necessary?”

“To combat the humiliation I know I’ll feel when I wake everyone.”

“Did you wake everyone last night?”

“No.”

“Then you might not do it tonight.” She put a hand on his arm, getting him to stare at it for a moment. “You said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

“Then try it. Please. You can’t avoid every social situation because you’re uncomfortable.”

He lowered his head. “Something about this is making me real nervous, and I don’t think it’s a good idea. I guess I can meet them, but don’t expect me to change my mind. I don’t think I will.”

“Maybe not. Still, I’m not sure that it would be any better in a hotel. Some of those walls are very thin, and you’re going to wake a lot more than me and Mac there.”

He winced. “I hate this.”

“We’re getting closer to your answers. Try and remember that.”