Imogen almost laughed. It wasn’t like what was in those pages wasn’t available to anyone who had twenty bucks and a bookstore at their disposal. She opened the book, and it flipped automatically to the section on your first date with a driver. The “Don’ts for First Date Night” included drinking any alcohol, even a single glass of wine, an explanation of why beer-drinking women weren’t at all the thing, and how while a chaste kiss at the door might be deemed acceptable, anything beyond that was wrong, wrong, wrong. Girls men wanted to marry did not, repeat did not, have sex with men on the first date.

Feeling like she just might have slid back into 1957 when she wasn’t looking, Imogen flipped to a new chapter. It was a list of places to meet drivers, including the stores they might shop at in Charlotte, the bars and restaurants they were known to frequent, and the gym several worked out at.

The wheels in her head started to turn faster and faster as she scanned through half a dozen more pages.

“What are you looking at?” Tamara asked her, leaning toward Imogen to read over her shoulder.

Imogen looked at her friend and sociology professor in satisfaction. “My thesis. I’m looking at my thesis.”

The book declared itself an instructional manual on how to marry a race car driver. Which led Imogen to the question that would be the basis of her thesis—did dating rules result in success when altered for a specific occupation?

Imogen was going to follow them and find out.

TY McCordle ducked out of Tammy and Elec’s front door and quickly moved to the left on the porch, away from the view of the picture window. He desperately needed a bit of fresh air and a breather from Nikki’s constant chattering. It was obvious to him that he had been dating Nikki way past the point of novelty. She got on his nerves just about every minute that he was with her, and had actually brought up the M word—marriage. Good God, the thought made him want to chew off his own foot to escape that trap. So he had reached the moment he hated in dating. He had to break things off with Nikki, and that was bound to result in a couple of things from her he had a hard time dealing with—tears and anger.