Author’s Note: So, this is a very long part. It’s part of wrapping things up, and those scenes usually get long. This is not an exception. There’s only one bit more after this.

“No money.”

“I know. There isn’t any money.”

“Mackenna?” Carson opened his eyes to frown at the room, not sure how he’d managed to end up here. The white and the clean said hospital, but that had to be wrong. Last thing he remembered was being with the cars… and his father’s killer. The gun had gone off, and he should be dead. He didn’t understand. “Um… Where am I?”

“Hospital. You were so out of it when you got shot that they figured the wound was a lot worse than it was. Once they got that all taken care of, they knew it was the trauma, so they decided to monitor you overnight just in case.”

“He… They… I didn’t kill him.”

“I know.”

“I thought I did. He put my hand on the trigger, and he forced it back, and he told me I had. He made me think I’d killed him so that I wouldn’t tell anyone, and it worked. It all worked.”

She frowned, taking his hand and wrapping hers around it. He had to figure she’d been there all night—she was still wearing the dress from the run, and it had gotten rumpled in addition to stained. Was that his blood, then? He supposed he owed her a new costume. “What all worked?”

“After… after he shot Dad the second time, he… he ripped off my clothes so that when my family found me, they’d assume that my father had…”

“Oh, hell.”

“That’s why Grandpa covered it up, why he hid the Maxwell and Dad’s body. It looked like our worst case scenario, and even though I knew that man had been there, I couldn’t—I was so screwed up by it that I wanted to do what they kept telling me to do—forget. He said it, Grandpa said it… Mom, I think she couldn’t handle it, couldn’t accept that Dad had done that, but then she couldn’t accept that I had done it, either, and that’s why she was a wreck for the rest of her life. She couldn’t believe it, but she knew what she saw, and it messed her up good, too.”

Mackenna nodded. “I bet it would. That’s not something anyone would want to believe. We certainly didn’t. We tried to prepare you for it if that was what happened, but neither of us wanted it to be that. Your mom… Well, she was stuck trying to believe the man she loved had done a terrible thing to her child, and that… That’s not something many people can accept. It happens all the time in child abuse cases. The other parent just can’t accept what’s being done.”

“Like your aunt not believing you about what was happening to you?”

“Well, my situation was probably more exaggeration than anything, but she didn’t want to believe that the guy had been in our apartment, that was for sure. She said I had to have imagined him walking around there hunting me, that I was giving myself nightmares and huddling in the closet for no reason. To a point, maybe, I was, but if I hadn’t been hiding, I don’t know what he would have done to me.”

“He won’t ever get you now.”

Mackenna smiled. “I’m not sure how we got stuck talking about me again. You’re the one that got shot and who had all those memories locked away in his head, not me.”

Carson grunted. He didn’t want to think about that. If he’d been stronger, he wouldn’t have buried those memories, and it wouldn’t have destroyed his mom or let that bastard get away with his father’s murder. He didn’t like knowing how many lives got ruined because he couldn’t face what had happened. His brothers deserved to know the truth, too, and what his grandpa had done for him… That should never have happened.

“Hey, don’t start down that road now. You didn’t kill your father, so don’t start looking like that.”

“I knew someone else did. I should have said something.”

“Carson, that man made you shoot your father. Even if you weren’t afraid of him killing you, too, you were probably still afraid of him doing more after he took your clothes. You might not have known what that meant, but that just made it that much worse for you. Plus you had people telling you to forget. You were a kid. You were desperate. You did. That’s not a crime.”

He closed his eyes. “I just feel like… I think I should have been able to tell them the truth. That I should have said something rather than let that man get away with murder. I still don’t even know who he is, and that’s after he shot me.”

“Again.”

Carson shook his head. He didn’t want to admit this, but he didn’t have a choice. He cleared his throat, looking at her. “Um… Actually, the first time was my dad’s fault. He was trying to stop the guy from getting me, but he had me and used me as a shield. Then he shot my dad while I was still trying to understand what had just happened to me.”

Mackenna winced. She reached up and brushed back his hair. “I am not surprised at all that you had to block that out. How well could you have understood your father shooting you by accident and all the rest of it when you were eight?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. It’s just that—”

“Mr. Koslow?”

Mackenna glared back at the doorway as the cop entered. At least, Carson assumed he was a cop. He couldn’t see the badge in the suit, but he thought part of the way that awful gray plaid hung on the guy was because of a gun. “Does he really have to give his statement now? He just woke up.”

“I’m fine, Mackenna. Or as close to that as I’ll ever be now,” Carson told her. He took a deep breath. “I can give a statement, even though I don’t know much. I mean… He did kill my father. I know that. He… He thought my dad had money, and I guess he still thought that when he came after me because he thought I’d gotten it somehow.”

“The money was a part of a bank robbery that took place about thirty years ago. The man we arrested today was involved—by all accounts, he is the one that killed the security guard and one of the tellers as well.”

Carson felt sick. “My father was a part of that? The guy said he was the driver, and Dad said he served his time—”

“Your father was indeed the man who drove the getaway car. He turned himself in after the reports, swore he had no idea that there would be any killing, and in exchange for his cooperation, he got a reduced sentence and was allowed to serve his time under another name. Apparently, that was his stipulation—he didn’t want any of this getting back to his family and hurting his kids.”

Mackenna snorted. Carson almost smiled. That sounded like the father his mother had always told them they had. Except, of course, that he was a criminal. She’d never said that part.

“The agent I talked to about it said he figured that the guy was in over his head—three kids, one of them just born, he’d wanted a way to make a quick buck and didn’t figure anyone would get hurt. When they did, he faced up to what he’d done and never expected them to let him go free. He accepted his sentence and served it without complaints.”

Carson let out a breath. “Well, it’s good to know he wasn’t all bad. Mom would have been proud of him. Grandpa and Uncle Tim would still have hated him, but maybe my brothers can forgive him, right? I never really knew him until just before he died, and I didn’t trust him, but it’s… It’s not the same for me. He was never my father in the way he was theirs or her husband or anything.”

The cop grunted, pulling over the other chair. “The trouble is, they never found the money after the bank robbery.”

“That’s why the guy came after me today, but I swear Dad never told me where it was. He died insisting that he didn’t have it. If he had known where it was… I don’t think that he would have risked coming back to us. He said he wanted to start over. He said he’d worked a bunch of odd jobs trying to get some money before he came back to us, and I guess… That’s the part I want to believe. That he meant it when he said he was trying to make it right with us.”

Mackenna looked at the cop. “I suppose you know that Carson inherited what was in the barn from his grandfather and that the car was a part of that.”

“Dad swore he bought that free and clear, and if there was anything hidden in it, you would have found it when you went through and took all those pictures.”

She nodded. “I know. That was my point. The car will be worth something when it’s working. It’s worth a bit now, but we are not talking bank robbery sums here. Maybe when she was first purchased, but not now.”

“Dad said he got a good deal because it needed an overhaul.”

“Maybe we can find the person who sold it to your father and confirm the price. That is, though, all Carson got that was of value, and it’s not that much.”

“Did your father give you any hint as to where the money was?”

Carson shook his head. “No. He never mentioned the money. The other guy was the only one that did. None of what my father said suggested anything about him having a lot of money to spend. Once he told me he was getting me something very special—it was a toy car. A Ford Model T. It was not like he was buying me the earth and the moon. If he had the money, he didn’t spend like he did, and he never said anything about it to me.”

“All right. We’ll get someone over to take your official statement.”

Mackenna drew in a breath. “Are you going to be able to put the guy away for the murder? I suppose you have him for the ones in the bank, but if you don’t, then he’d just be going down for assault or attempted murder and could get out again, couldn’t he? He could come after Carson again.”

“I think he’d know better than to mess with a woman who can hurl suitcases like you can.”

She blushed. “Um, well, I have a lot more upper arm strength than people realize, but even still, that’s not necessarily going to be an option every time. Can we get this guy for Carson’s dad’s murder or not? Is it enough that Carson remembers him killing him?”

“We need a bit more than that.”

“We have a car with a bullet hole in it.”

“That probably came from when Dad’s shot went wide,” Carson said, shaking his head. “Although… My mom and my grandfather are both dead now, and they know the most about what was done after they found me and Dad and thought I’d killed him, but… My uncle might know more of it. He might know where Grandpa buried the body. Or it’s in Mom’s journals. I’m assuming that would be a big help, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll see what I can get from your uncle, then. We’ll be in touch.”

The cop rose, and Carson winced, closing his eyes again. Mackenna’s lips brushed his forehead. “It’s almost over. We survived, and you have your memories back. You can finally move on with your life. This is a good thing, Carson. It is. Your dad will have justice after all these years, and you can stop being tormented by nightmares.”

He nodded. “I hope so.”

Author’s Note: So I’ve always liked those suitcase racks on the old cars. I had to use that detail somewhere in the story.

“Where’s Carson?”

“He was just here,” Nate said, frowning, taking a look behind him. Mackenna grimaced, not liking the way her stomach was twisting up. She’d felt this way before, when Carson wandered off before the parade, and maybe that meant that it was nothing, but maybe not. He had supposedly been watched, and he did think he was a killer—to her, that might even be more dangerous than him being watched. She knew what feeling that way had done to her uncle, and the last thing she wanted was history repeating itself.

“I have to find him.”

“Why don’t you calm down and think about—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, stepping away from Nate and trying to think. She had to remember what she knew of Carson and make that work for her. She could find him. She knew enough of the way he thought that so long as he’d wandered off on his own, she could at least narrow down where he went. She had to figure he’d just taken the opportunity to slip away when Nate distracted her with that whole marriage thing—she wished people weren’t pressuring Carson about it when he was like this. She didn’t need a ring. Well, she’d kind of like one, but she could have gone on being his friend forever, and that was all she really wanted out of marriage anyway. She figured the rest of it was bonus—or disadvantage, depending on the circumstances.

The other cars. Mackenna’s eyes went to the side lot where the locals would park their classics, sure some of the Model A club would be here again this year, and that was a good place for Carson to go if he thought he needed space. He could wander around there, look at the other cars, not talk to anyone unless he had to, and that was what he’d needed.

She started toward the grass, wishing she knew for sure that something was wrong. The crowds were out in full force for Stockyard Days, and it was hard to tell anyone from the other, even with Carson being in costume. She should have made him wear the hat. Then he would have been easier to spot.

She almost missed seeing the two men by the Nash, but the blue shirt made her stop and look back, and when she did, she cursed. She didn’t know who that other man was, but he couldn’t be a friend. Not with the way Carson’s body was all tensed up like that.

He was in trouble. The other man had to have a weapon.

Damn.

If the guy had a knife, that was one thing. She’d learned a few tricks from Granger that could help with that any day, but if it was a gun, there was a good chance that anything she did would end up getting Carson shot. The other man was standing way too close to him for her to risk it.

She let out a breath. She knew she’d seen cops around on their way into the park, but that was back over by the bridge, and she didn’t think that she’d make it back there before something happened to Carson. They were bound to have others down by the entrance, maybe even a booth up in among the others, but both of those locations left her with the same problem. They were all too far away.

“I see you found him.”

“Nate, go get the cops. Now.”

“What?”

“That man killed Carson’s father. Go get the cops, now.”

“Mackenna, you can’t—what are you going to do?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m trying to think of something, but I know that me going for the cops will take too long. You’re pissing me off by asking questions. If you don’t go now, I’ll hurt you myself, and so help me, if anything happens to Carson, I won’t forgive you.”

She turned back to the car, wondering if there was something on one of these classics that she could get her hands on. She didn’t care how much she’d have to pay the owner when this was all over. She’d make it right, but she couldn’t let anything happen to Carson. Not now.

Not ever. She was in love with him, after all, and for her to have reached that point… Well, that had always seemed impossible in the past, but now that she knew it wasn’t, she couldn’t lose the man who’d managed to make her feel that in spite of all her issues.

She rounded the Model A, almost smiling when she saw the suitcase resting in the rack. She doubted that there was anything in there if she could get it open, but with enough leverage, that thing could work like a vase going over the killer’s head, right?

Okay, so it was a terrible plan. She could accept that. She didn’t care if it was perfect, only if she managed to make it work. She lifted it up off the running board and tested its weight. She could do this. She had hoisted greater weights than this when working on the cars. She just needed to make it count.

“…You can spare her that if you cooperate.”

Mackenna frowned, wondering if that bastard was talking about her. Carson shook his head. “Honestly, if I knew, I’d tell you, but I don’t think there is any money.”

“Liar.”

She thought that the guy might have shot Carson just then, and she wasn’t sure if she’d known that when she raised the suitcase, but she followed through with it anyway, hearing the wood crack as it impacted with the man’s head. The gun went off, and she dropped the remains of the suitcase, rushing toward Carson, glancing back to see that the killer had at least stumbled forward. He might get back up in a minute, she might not have knocked him cold, but if she got Carson away from him, that was what mattered.

“Mackenna?”

“I owe someone a new suitcase. Are you okay?”

“Um… no… I…”

She cursed, kneeling down next to him. She could see the stain starting to soak his shirt, and she didn’t know how to react to that. She had to keep herself calm. “You’re bleeding. Tell me that is just a graze and not something worse. Please.”

“I think so. I don’t…” He looked down, his eyes bulging a little, and she thought he might be dizzy, too, since he wavered a little before he spoke again. “Oh, hell. He’s moving.”

She should have gone for the gun. She’d been too focused on Carson and made a stupid, stupid mistake. She knew it was the heat of the moment, but she didn’t feel like that was much of an excuse. “Come on. We have to get you moving, get you to safety.”

“He threatened you. You’re not safe, either.”

“I sent Nate for the cops. They’re here. He won’t get away, and people will have heard that shot even if it was muffled and there’s so many around right now—”

“He killed my father.” Carson leaned against her, and she didn’t like how weak he was. “He… I thought I did, but he… He killed my father.”

She shifted her position, trying to drag him back with her. Getting hit by that old suitcase had at least slowed the bastard down, and he wasn’t able to scramble up and threaten them again, which was good, because she was pretty sure that Carson was in shock, and it wouldn’t be easy to get him away in this state. “I know, Carson. I know. It’ll be all right. We’ll get through this.”

“There never was any money.”

“Shh.”

“He made me pull the trigger. He said I did it.”

She closed her eyes. Damn it. That had to be why he couldn’t remember it. He’d been too young to know that it wasn’t really him, and his mind had forced him to forget until now. Poor Carson. She wished she’d done more than whack that bastard with the suitcase. She should have grabbed the gun and shot him. Of course, she didn’t know that she could have, no matter what he’d done to the man she loved.

“It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Author’s Note: Mac’s complaint is a familiar one. We usually hit Crystal long after all the cookies are gone. Sometimes when the lemonade is, too.

“You gave your cookie to Mac.”

Carson nodded. Even though the signs above the refreshments said they were for the car run, he had a feeling that they’d been swiped by people who were not part of the run at all. Maybe even Nick, since he and Carrie had been here when Mackenna drove in. Then again, his brother was a passenger part of the time, so he could be allowed a cookie and some of the lemonade.

Really, though, they should have had bigger vats for the drinks and more goodies like the earlier stops had if they wanted to be sure that the drivers got some. Mac had been disappointed to see the box was empty, and Carson had passed him the cookie Carrie’d given him. He didn’t much care if he had a cookie or not.

“Thank you,” Mackenna said before she kissing his cheek. “That was sweet of you, and you have no idea how much that means to Mac. He’s always missing out on the cookies.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

She put a hand on his cheek. “If I could, I would shake those memories right back into your head, make it so that you had them all and so that you knew for sure that you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t. Your brothers know you didn’t. You’re the only one that thinks you did.”

“I think I love you.”

“I think you do, too.”

He frowned. “That’s not a joke. I didn’t actually intend to say that. It’s not like I should feel this way about anyone, and not now, not when I might be a killer. It’s not like this is good timing or I even know that I feel the way I think I feel. I am so messed up right now, and I hate the confusion and the guilt and the rest of it. I may have put too much on you because you’re one of few things that seems clear, even when this thing is complicated as hell.”

“All right, make it simple. You want to kiss me?”

“Are you suggesting that every time I have any kind of doubts, I just kiss you and forget about them?”

“It would work, wouldn’t it?”

“For a little while. Not forever.” He leaned his head against hers. “It would be nice if I could just forget everything else and be with you, but we both know life doesn’t work that way. We can’t avoid our problems. I mean, most of mine are in my head, so where am I going to go to run away from that?”

She wrapped her arms around him. “You don’t have to run anywhere. You’ve got me. We’re going to get you remembering things, and after you have your memories back… Well, then we’ll fix Phantom, I guess, assuming that we don’t have to give her up because of how your father got her, and we can live on the farm… You can get a new job that you don’t hate—or at least don’t hate as much—and we’ll just… be us, I suppose. That sound good to you?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re just leaving out having the period wedding.”

“Damn it, Larry. No one asked you,” Carson said, trying not to groan. How much of that had his brothers heard, anyway? He didn’t want to know, not really. All that would do was humiliate him, and he thought he’d had enough of that already.

“It sounds like a good idea to me,” Carrie said, leaning against her husband. Nick smiled, nodding. Great. Carson was outnumbered, and if they didn’t elope, it would be a period wedding, the kind of horror that only his brothers could create. Them as wedding planners… Now that was a nightmare.

“I’d have to make a new dress.”

“Mackenna, do not give in to them. Please.”

“You could help me pick what to make.”

“I don’t actually remember either of us asking that question. Not officially. We never said we were doing that.”

“Someone’s got cold feet.”

“Larry, don’t make me kill you, too,” Carson snapped, walking away from all of them. He didn’t want to joke about it. It wasn’t funny, and while he did want to hold onto Mackenna and the hope that he hadn’t done anything to his father, he didn’t believe that. He couldn’t think about marriage right now. She’d been distracting him, and it worked, but Larry had gone and ruined all of that, and Carson just needed to get away from them.

“Carson—”

“I need a minute alone.”

“Only a minute,” Mackenna said, biting her lip. “You take any longer than that, and I’ll get worried. Don’t make me worry, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to you. Don’t even worry about the whole wedding thing. That—It’s not important right now. You staying safe. That is. That’s what matters. So you come back, all right?”

“All right.”

Author’s Note: So Carson is a bit paranoid. He’s also a leg guy. Go figure.

Carson would have been relieved not to feel like someone was watching him—since that seemed to have happened every time that he was out in a crowd—if he didn’t think that they were all watching Mackenna instead. He knew he kept staring, and he didn’t think he was the only one who was. How could they not? Everyone could see her legs out from underneath the car, and they were a much finer set of legs than he’d realized when she wore pants.

Trouble was, she wasn’t wearing pants right now. He’d thought that her fixing the car in a dress would be something to see, but now he wished she’d stopped to change into her overalls. She hadn’t been joking about protecting her dignity. He didn’t think he’d managed it, not when there were so many people around. He could try and block their view, but he wasn’t enough. He didn’t even manage to cover her with his shadow.

It didn’t help that he kept looking at her legs.

He was pretty damn jealous, too. He should have known that he would be after the way he’d reacted to Larry flirting with her, but it was at least ten times worse knowing that everyone was getting such a good look at her legs.

He knew why she had to take off the longer part of her skirt—at least, he did intellectually; she needed to be able to crawl under and move around underneath the car—but he wished she hadn’t done it. He wanted her legs covered so they’d stop distracting him and anyone else that might walk by.

“Are you almost done?”

“This is sensitive work, you know. You could try and be more patient.”

“There’s patient, and there’s I’m going insane because your legs are very visible underneath there and it’s driving me crazy in more ways than one.”

She laughed. “I didn’t know you were a leg man.”

“Frankly, I didn’t know I was, either, not until you did this. Then again… Everything seems to be changing now that you’re in my life. That sounds so corny, but I’m getting my memories back, I’m joining clubs and driving historic cars, and then there’s… us. That’s got to be the biggest change.”

“I would imagine it would be.”

He knelt down next to her. “You’re done, aren’t you? Now you’re just milking this. You heard me start babbling like an idiot, and you decided to let me go on like an even bigger moron. Admit it.”

She crawled out, a smirk on her face. “You do know me well.”

“I’d hope so since you’ve been hinting around about marriage.”

She frowned. “I never said—well, I did, but you don’t need to act like I suddenly turned into one of those clingy, commitment demanding girls that no man wants to date. I was just—I wanted you to know I wasn’t leaving you. That’s all.”

“So now, if I did ask, you’d say no?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

He forced a smile. He still wasn’t asking, not until he was sure that he hadn’t killed his father, but if the idea of someone else looking at her legs bothered him this much, he didn’t think he’d have much choice. No one else was going to be touching them. “Ready to get up?”

“Yeah,” she said, accepting his hand and pulling herself up to her feet. She started dusting herself off, and his eyes went right to that torturous hemline of hers.

“I swear, I have to be drooling, and I know I wasn’t the only one,” he told her, and she laughed.

“I know, not the most ladylike look ever, and if not for what I had to do under the car, you’d never be seeing me in such a scandalous way,” she said, continuing to dust off the shorter part of her skirt as she walked around to the back of the car, taking the longer skirt off the side. She slipped it on again, putting herself back in order. The legs were covered. He should be relieved. “You gonna kiss me now or what? I honestly didn’t think I’d manage to get away without one, not with the way you were drooling.”

He rolled his eyes, about to catch her against the car and make her regret egging him on, but then he felt it again. He stopped, turning around, frowning as he tried to find the source of that damned feeling. He didn’t understand—had she just distracted him that well, so much so that he didn’t even notice it before, or was he really going crazy? Why had that feeling come back the moment he was going to kiss her? He’d blame it on a fear of intimacy, but he had been able to kiss her without the paranoia doing this to him, so it wasn’t that. Or not just that. Something else was going on.

“Carson?”

“I’m sorry. I feel like someone’s watching me again.”

She cursed. “Come on. We’ll go get the others and get back on the road.”

Author’s Note: Carson’s brothers, even with all their habits that annoy him, really do care. It’s good to have a supportive family when there’s a crisis, and he’s got one.

“How many of those have you had?”

Larry laughed, passing Nick a root beer float, making his wife roll her eyes. He went back to sucking down his own, and Mackenna could only smile. He was a big kid, a good guy, and she liked him for all that he was. If not for her knowing Carson first, maybe she could have gotten closer to him, but she did have Carson. He was all she needed and more than she thought she’d ever want.

He handed her his bag of chips, and she smiled. She hadn’t even asked for one, but he’d offered them without thinking. That was sweet. She took one, biting into it, and he set the bag down between them.

“I needed something to keep me company while I waited for you,” Larry said. “I will have to get another one.”

“Like you needed company. Jim, Natalie, and Nate were all sitting here when we got here. What happened to them anyway?” Nick asked before he bit into his bison burger, much to his wife’s dismay. So much for the diet she’d tried to put him on.

Larry smiled, scooping up more ice cream. “Well, I think the arrival of their conversation topic of choice might have scattered them a bit.”

“What?”

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Carson and Mackenna, Nick. Larry’s saying they were talking about the two of them before we got here.”

Carson groaned. Mackenna put a hand on his back. “Hey, at least this whole romantic thing is keeping the focus off your flashbacks. It’s not like you want them involved there. Not until you have them all back. You need more information first. You did not kill your father.”

“Are you on that again? Mackenna’s right. You didn’t. You couldn’t have. I don’t believe that,” Larry said, reaching for Carson’s arm. “Listen to us: none of us thinks you could have done that. I know you think he was shot, and yeah, maybe an eight year old could have pulled the trigger, but I still don’t see why you would have. You’re not a killer. Remember all those hunts you refused to go on?”

“Maybe I refused to do that because I couldn’t stand repeating what I did to Dad.”

“Don’t be a bastard. You are not allowed to talk like that. Stop trying to say you did when you didn’t,” Nick told him. He pointed a finger at him. “You did not kill Dad. Maybe Grandpa did. Maybe Uncle Tim did. Not you. I don’t believe that for a second. Dad wasn’t… he wouldn’t have done anything to you to scare or hurt you that badly, and he didn’t let us handle guns when we were little.”

“You were three, Nick. The hell do you know about it?”

Larry shook his head. “He might have been three, but that doesn’t make him wrong. Dad was a decent guy from everything I remember, everything everyone told us about him when they weren’t talking about how much he ruined by leaving. We had hunting guns all through our childhood, Carson, and no one treated them as a joke or a game or a toy. There is no way that you were goofing off with one and killed Dad. It’s also not like he would have put one in your hands. Something is missing in those memories of yours, and you need that part back before you accuse anyone—including yourself—of killing Dad.”

Carson looked at his brothers, torn between being grateful for them standing up for him and wanting to argue with them, and Mackenna figured she’d better intervene one way or another. “I need to get out to work on Shadow. You want to keep me shaded while I do? Give me tools and something to drink and pretend you’re not trying to peek up my skirt?”

“What?”

She laughed. “Well, I am going to take part of it off so I can get under the car, so I might need someone to—”

“To keep everyone from staring at you?”

“Not exactly, but I do need some help, and Mac is looking more peaked than I’d like so if Larry and Nick distract him, you and I can fix the car quickly enough. You can even… protect my dignity while I’m at it.”

“Uh…” Carson shook his head. “Not sure I want to know, but you know where you go, I go. That’s just how it is with us.”

“Grab your water. We’re going to want that.”