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was a sure way to invite those kinds of complications.
    And he liked things just fine the way they were.
    “I don’t think I’m much of one for loop-the-loops anymore,” he said. “I’m a whole lot older than I used to be.”
    She snorted softly. “Please. You’re thirty-four. Same age—”
    “As Mark would have been,” he finished when she broke off.
    Her lips twisted. “Yes.” She fell silent for a moment, watching a little girl nearby purchase a huge yellow helium balloon from one of the street vendors. “It’s strange,” she finally said, once the girl dashed off with the balloon bobbing in the air after her, “the more I don’t want to think about him, the more I seem to dwell on him.”
    He couldn’t help himself. He slid his hand against the back of her slender neck. “I’ve got six brothers and sisters. I can’t imagine losing one of them.” Particularly in such a senseless way as getting behind the wheel of a big-ass pickup truck when he was three sheets to the wind drunk. “Maybe talking more about him will help the dwelling.”
    She exhaled loudly and shook her head as though she was shaking off a bothersome fly. “He died a long time ago.” She pointed. “Looks like the lunch rush has hit the Foaming Barrel.”
    Sure enough, a line extended from the popular concession stand and Aurora had tugged her locket watch out from inside her sundress. “I don’t think we’ve got time to wait before we need to get set for the next show. Rain check?”
    “Sure.”
    She gave him that winning, whole-body smile again and started walking back the way they’d come.
    Galen settled his hat down harder on his head and shoved his hands back into his pockets and away from...complications. Then he followed Aurora as she made her way from Main Street to the backstage area once again.
    The space around the costume trailer was considerably busier now than it had been earlier. A half dozen leggy women were sitting on top of the picnic table, looking like a rainbow, dressed as they were in their colorful ruffled saloon-girl getups. Frank—handlebar mustache already in place—was hanging over one buxom girl in particular. She looked a lot more receptive to him than Aurora had earlier.
    Galen followed Aurora into the trailer. It was now crowded not only with the racks of clothes and props he’d already seen, but bodies in various stages of undress, as well.
    Maybe it was the hick in him, but he couldn’t help doing a double take at one young woman, only realizing belatedly that she wasn’t quite naked. The nude-colored bodysuit she wore just made her look like it as she stepped into a flaming red ruffled dress. She obviously had no problem not stepping behind the changing screen that was situated at one end of the trailer.
    He realized he was sweating a little as he reached for Rusty’s shirt and tie where he’d left them hanging, until he saw Aurora step safely behind the screen and he breathed a little easier.
    Until a moment later when her white sundress was flung up to drape over the top of the changing screen and his temperature seemed to shoot up several notches.
    He grabbed Rusty’s white hat and brushed past several bodies, clomping down the trailer steps. Out in the open, he pulled in a long breath and exchanged his T-shirt for Rusty’s button-down once again.
    “Galen Jones, I
thought
that was you.” One of the saloon girls had left the picnic table and was sashaying toward him in frilly peacock blue. Her hair was a pile of blond curls down the back of her head. “Serena Morris!” She patted her hand against her tightly fitted bodice, smiling widely. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me. I’ll be crushed forever.”
    “Serena?” He squinted at her face. Then couldn’t help but laugh. “Last I saw you, you were—”
    “—nine years old and mad as hops that my folks were moving us to Missouri.” She propped her hand on her shapely hip and grinned. “You look just the