Boomer looked down at Cady and saw that she was serious. He burst out laughing. “Hell, Cady, I never did this before. Let’s just have some fun.”

Sam McInerney held up his musket and waved it around. “I’m gonna fire on the count of three! If you fall, you’re out of the race. One! Two! Three!”

The screaming and yelling was so loud as kids, grandparents, and the carnival workers shouted for their favorites. Dogs barked and howled as their owners struggled past the colored flags along the route to the back of the parish house.

“This is work!” Cady shouted.

“You’re telling me,” Boomer gasped. “Do you want to quit?”

“No. Keep going, Boomer! Keep going!”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

“You said this was going to be fun,” Cady said.

“It is fun! It’s a lot of fun! I paid twenty bucks for us to have fun. Tell me you’re having fun!”

“I’m having fun!” Cady gasped. “We aren’t going to win, are we?”

“Nope! There are at least sixty-two couples ahead of us. And another sixty-two behind us. Want to quit?”

“Do you?”

“I asked you first,” Boomer said through clenched teeth. “You look tired, Cady.”

“You look like you’re in pain, Boomer.” She hardly recognized her own voice. Her mouth felt dryer than cotton candy. “You have to finish, Boomer. You’re the police chief. How’s it going to look if you bail out?”

“Oh, God, you had to say that, didn’t you? Ooops, watch out, there’s a pileup ahead.”

Cady was struggling with each breath she took. She moved to the side to avoid the couples on the ground who were rolling to the side to get out of the way.

“We’re going to laugh at this tomorrow,” Boomer said.

“Ha-ha. How much farther?”

“We’re almost there. Don’t quit now. There goes another pileup. If we can stay on our feet, we’ll finish in the top ten.”

When they trudged across the finish line, Boomer tripped on something, sending them both to the ground. They rolled across the grass. Gasping for breath, they held on to each other. “Let’s not do this next year,” Cady said.

He kissed her then, his lips crushing hers before his tongue plunged into her mouth. She clung to him, her whole being on fire. His hands were in her hair, on her throat, on her breasts. She pressed herself against him, heard his moan of pleasure just as she sensed someone hovering nearby.

“Chief, Father Cyril would like to talk to you for a minute. I told him it looked like you were busy, but he said he didn’t care. He wants to give you a consolation prize. Sorry.”

“Who was that?” Cady said as she untied their legs, then did her best to straighten out her dress and get to her feet at the same time. “I think I lost my shoes.”

“That was Father Bernard. Try to look like we weren’t doing what we were doing, okay?”

“Okay, Boomer.”