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and strong chin are nothing like Dylan’s cute baby face charm.
    “So,” Carson directs to me. “Are you here to marry me?”
    There’s an audible gasp from Lauren.
    “Say what?” Imogene asks in a laughing tone.
    “What?” I whisper.
    “Ignore him, Jess,” Dylan says. “He always has something cynical up his sleeve.”
    “Maybe you forgot, little brother, but this woman said I’d be her husband. Let me see, I think her exact words were ‘Carson Blackard, you can be quite a nasty boy when you want, but someday if you’re nice, I’ll marry you’. ”
    Everyone, but me, Dylan and Carson, is howling with laughter.
    “I remember when you said that, Jessica,” Lois says. “It was when you discovered Carson had eaten all of your homemade cookies and he blamed it on Dylan. We were having dinner outside and you made this announcement to him and stormed back into the house. You were so cute. We had such a good laugh watching you scold Carson and then declare he’d be your husband.”
    “I don’t remember that,” Dylan says, shaking his head.
    “You were a bossy little piece of work,” Carson says to me, although he doesn’t smile as you’d expect when people are sharing humorous stories.
    His eyes quickly take me in from head to toe. He looks like he’s glaring, but I catch his roaming observation even if the others don’t. He’s checking me out and I get the impression that he’s not thrilled to see me. Maybe he sees me as problem—an obstacle in their daily life—and a distraction for Dylan who is supposed to be working with him. Or maybe he liked Aunt Virginia’s home without me in it because I’m a reminder of a time that was painful. Perhaps Dylan saw me as a godsend, the friend he needed, and Carson saw me as a new responsibility, the bratty kid he had to babysit.
    “Sorry, but I don’t remember that at all. Which is a good thing, I suppose,” I say. “And by the way, the wedding is off.”
    Dylan and the others laugh and I’m pretty sure I see a tiny smirk break Carson’s clenched jaw.
    “Sorry to hear that, Jess.” He picks up his drill box.
    Hearing my name on his lips gives me a moment of surprise. The emotion coursing through me is pure elation. He used my proper name and not Babycakes , the nickname that has come back to haunt my images of this house. He sees me as a woman now and not the annoying five-year-old who apparently bossed everyone around.
    “I’m going to drop this off in the library before I go.” Carson takes the drill box up a few steps and then pauses to look back at me. “Babycakes, let me know when I can get back in here to work, okay?” My spirits sink again. Babycakes. I hold no special regard for that name, especially when it’s said in a snide voice.
    “Right, Babycakes, the little spitfire of that exciting summer,” Archie nods. “I had forgotten that nickname.”
    “Babyyyyycaaaaakes,” Lauren and Imogene croon in unison. “How sweet.”
    “There will be no Babycakes while I’m here,” I retort. “Understood?” I hear Carson laughing from upstairs.
    “I prefer Jess anyway,” Dylan consoles.
     
    After the incident with Carson, we take our coffee and pies onto the porch, which is filled with citronella candles in clear glasses lining the railing and positioned on tables. They give off a dreamy, yellow glow as they keep the bugs away. The porch is very wide with two wicker couches, a coffee table, several wicker chairs with end tables on one end and then a big rope hammock that takes up the other end.
    I sit next to Lauren on one of the loveseats and lean forward towards the coffee table so I can read Aunt Virginia’s letter by the light of one of the candles. Everyone stops chattering and focuses on me. I start tearing open the letter as gently as possible when I hear the front door creak open and close. I look up to see Carson fold his thick arms and lean against the doorframe. Our eyes meet and then I look down again at my letter. I