“Why are you smiling, Mace?” Mama said. “You said you’re sick of Teensy stories.”

“Sorry, what?”

“His little top hat for the wedding.”

I tuned back into the table talk, rolling my eyes at Tony. “That’s not the worst of it. Has she told you that the dog is the ring bearer?”

He burst out laughing. “No way!” He had a really nice laugh.

“Yes, way.” I chuckled, and Mama laughed, too.

“What’s so funny?”

The voice at my shoulder was cold enough to re-frost my beer mug.

“Well, hey, Carlos. Mace, honey, look who’s here!” Kicking me under the table, Mama signaled me to brush the bangs out of my eyes.

I could feel my face turning red. Carlos was the one with the rude tone of voice, so I don’t know why I felt guilty. It’s not like Tony and I had been making out in the booth. I grabbed the bread basket and held it up.

“Dinner roll?” I said.

“I’m not hungry.” He scowled.

Before I could ask why he was in a dining establishment if he didn’t intend to dine, Carlos said, “I’m meeting someone.”

Mama kicked me again. When I didn’t open my mouth, she said, “Well, Carlos, why don’t the two of you join us for a drink? Is it a friend from the Himmarshee police?”

Carlos peered into the bar, and my gaze followed his. Ms. Sunglasses was watching our every move.

“Not exactly,” he spoke to Mama, but now his eyes were on Tony.

“Oh, sorry. Where are my manners?” I said, and performed introductions. “You’ve met C’ndee, Carlos. Tony is her nephew,” I added.

The two men nodded. Tony raised his hand for Carlos to shake, but he didn’t get up from his chair. And he made no attempt at the kind of friendly small talk he’d made when he met my cousin, Henry. He and Carlos faced off like two bull gators in the same small lake. There was a chill at the table, and it wasn’t the air conditioning.

“I better get going.” Carlos clipped off the sentence like it was costing him money. “Enjoy dinner.”

Mama barely got out, “Are you sure you won’t …” before he’d stalked away.

Several of the women from the baby shower followed Carlos’ progress as he made his way to the men’s room. Tony might have had the advantage when it came to classic good looks, but add in Carlos’ dark, brooding countenance and those bottomless-pool eyes, and the total package is hard to resist. At least that’s the way it seemed from the head nods and elbowing coming from the ladies at the table for eight.

It was a big night for beefcake at the Speckled Perch.

I guess my eyes were following Carlos, too, because Tony said, “Why don’t you go after him?”

“Me?” I snapped my head toward Tony.

“No, your mother.” The dimple winked.

“Believe me, darlin,’ you do not want to go there with Mace. If I didn’t know how old she was, I’d swear by the way she acts she was in junior high. One day she likes Carlos; the next day she doesn’t.”

She stuck her spoon into my ice water and stole half my cubes for her sweet tea. I glared at her.

“And how does Carlos feel about all of that?” Tony asked.

I traced a finger through the water Mama had sloshed on the tabletop. I wasn’t about to answer. Mama, of course, pounced like a left tackle onto Tony’s question.

“Well, it never does a man any harm to wonder a little bit about his gal,” she said. “Keep ’em guessing, I always told my girls. But Mace has taken that advice to the extreme. Any day now, I expect Carlos will decide he’s had just about enough.”

Normally, I would have made some smart-aleck remark, but my heart had jumped into my throat, and I couldn’t strangle out a single word. While Mama and Tony were dissecting my love life, Carlos had come out of the bathroom and beelined to the bar. Ms. Sunglasses signaled to the bartender, who brought two beers. She got off her stool, greeting Carlos with a big smile.

My plans to grill Tony about his aunt flew from my head.

Sunglasses offered Carlos her hand, and he enfolded it in both of his. And that handshake was a hundred degrees warmer than the one he’d shared with Tony.

I cranked the Jeep’s ignition in front of Mama’s house for a third time. It answered in universal car language: You’re screwed.

No engine meant no AC, and the June night felt like August. A drop of sweat rolled off my nose onto the steering wheel. I slapped at a mosquito siphoning blood from my neck.

Tony leaned his head into the driver’s window. “Sounds like the battery’s dead.”

Mama had caught a ride home from the Perch, while Tony and I stayed behind to linger over coffee and key lime pie, which I couldn’t even enjoy. Trying to act like I wasn’t interested in what was going on in the bar between Carlos and Ms. Sunglasses kept my stomach in knots.

All they’d done was talk, but that in itself was saying something. Carlos normally doled out his words like a miser with nickel tips. Yet he and Sunglasses were still there, deep in conversation, when Tony and I left the restaurant.

Now, it was late, and Mama was already asleep. Teensy was likely snuggled deep into his doggy pillow at the head of her bed.

“I’d be glad to give you a jump off my rental car. Have you got any cables?” Tony said.

I shook my head. I’d loaned my set to Rhonda at work. Her battery had been acting iffy, and I didn’t want her to get caught out somewhere.

“What about …” Tony started to say.

“Mama’s ancient turquoise convertible is in the shop, as usual,” I finished.

He slipped his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Want to pop the hood and let me take a look?”

And ruin that manicure? “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m sure it’s the battery. I can’t even remember the last time I replaced it.”

I turned on the Jeep’s headlights and asked Tony to tell me if they lit.

“Sorry. Not even a flicker.”

Almost all the houses around Mama’s were dark. Folks in a country town like Himmarshee hit the sack early. Only Alice’s window showed a blue glow, leaking around the edges of her drawn drapes. She’d probably left the TV on in the living room for company.

Mama did the same thing after Daddy died. For months, she drifted off each night on the couch before she could finally return again to the double bed she’d shared with our father.

“Can I give you a ride home?” Tony asked.

My cell phone lay on the passenger seat. I hated to call Maddie so late. But I also hated to ask a guy I barely knew to do me the favor of driving me twenty miles outside of town to my little cottage in the woods. I told Tony he could drop me somewhere close and dialed my sister’s number.

“Hmmpf?” Maddie answered.

“It’s Mace.”

“Everything okay?” She was instantly awake, a note of fear in her voice.

Having a teenaged daughter and a mama with a penchant for trouble made Maddie aware of what a phone call at eleven-thirty p.m. might mean.

“Everybody’s fine,” I reassured her. “My battery’s dead, and I wondered if I could borrow Pam’s car.”

Maddie took a deep breath, preparation for a rant. “I sincerely hope you’re not going to ask me to get out of bed and come get you somewhere, Mace. What have I told you about keeping a regular maintenance schedule on that vehicle? This would never have happened if you were more …”

“Yeah, I know, Maddie. More like you.”

“Responsible, I was going to say.”

I cut her off, or it’d be sunrise by the time she was through cataloguing my character flaws. “Save your breath, Sister. I’ve got a ride.”