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“Why’d you leave?” I asked him. “Sounds like you were happy there.”

He shrugged. “Eh, I don’t know. This is home I guess.”

“I guess it is.”

The conversation kind of stalled so I checked my email, just to have something to do. That only took about ten seconds so I decided to type the name Curtis Mulligan into the search bar to see what came up. There was only one Curtis Mulligan in the results and it wasn’t the one I was looking for. I wondered what he was up to tonight, if the troubles that made him look so exhausted this morning were any closer to being solved.

I turned the phone face down on my knee and looked out the window. Chances were high that even if Curtis confided in me about what was on his mind I’d wind up wishing he hadn’t. Plus if his issues were illegal or degenerate then I was better off not knowing.

“Cassie?” said Parker.

I was so busy dwelling on Curtis I’d half forgotten Parker was sitting right next to me.

“Sorry, did you ask me something?” I said, tossing the phone back into my handbag.

Parker shifted and tapped the steering wheel. “I asked if you might want to go to dinner sometime.”

“With who?” I asked stupidly. Then I said, “Oh,” because I realized Parker was actually asking me to go out on a date or something.

He talked quickly before I had a chance to turn him down flat. “Just dinner. You can even meet me at the restaurant if you don’t want me at your house.”

I looked at him and said the first thing that was on my mind. “Can’t you find another girl to go out with?”

He considered and nodded. “I’m sure I could. But you’re the one I keep thinking about.”

Those words, if said by the right guy, would be enough to make any girl blush. But in this case my reaction was not even lukewarm. When was the last time I was out on a date? I couldn’t even remember. It was true I’d been hibernating for far too long. I just wasn’t sold on the idea that Parker Neely was the guy worth emerging for.

Luckily I was saved by the lights.

The blinking lights atop the tow truck belonging to my Uncle Conway was just turning into the parking lot. I was delighted to see the Brothers Gentry logo on the side and practically leapt from Parker’s car.

“Thanks for hanging around,” I said. “I’m good now.”

Parker leaned over and put his hand in the way before I could shut the door.

“Will you think about it?” he asked. “Think about letting me take you out sometime? Even if you don’t want to go out with me, maybe we could be friends. Things haven’t been so great and I could really use a friend.”

I could see Uncle Conway behind the wheel. He wouldn’t recognize who Parker was unless I told him. My dad would have but thankfully he wasn’t with Conway.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Parker answered with a brilliant smile that was once my undoing and let me shut the door. He waited until Uncle Conway’s tow truck pulled up and then he drove away.

“I sure am glad to see you,” I told my father’s half brother.

Uncle Conway smiled. He was quite a bit younger than Cord, Creed and Chase, the product of an affair between his mother and my grandfather. His mother had been married to a different Gentry, a cousin who was led to believe Conway and Stone were his own sons. They were all adults by the time the real truth came out. As for Stone Gentry, he was actually the son of Chrome Gentry, Deck’s father. It was hard explaining the complex genealogy of the Gentrys and people tended to look at me funny if I tried so I usually didn’t try. We were all family. That’s what mattered.

Conway was a wizard with cars. After spending five minutes poking around inside the Toyota he determined the problem was probably the alternator. I wasn’t sure what that was but Conway said he could tow it to the garage tonight and have it all fixed up tomorrow morning so I was grateful.

“By the way,” said Uncle Conway as he hooked up the car to the tow truck, “who was that guy you were talking to?”

I glanced around to see if there was any hint of Parker Neely’s car. There wasn’t.

“Nobody,” I told my uncle. “Just a guy.”

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