12 Borrowing Trouble by Becky McGraw Page B

all that.  Use some of the money she made from faking it to take classes, so she could become that good .  Nobody would ever know. 
    “I’ll do it.  But it’s already Thursday, so I’d have to get started right now to have it ready for Saturday.  I have to go shopping, make plans.  Do you have a photo of the cake the bride wanted?” Carrie said in a flurry.
    Terri held up her hand.  “Whoa,” she said with a laugh.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your afternoon.  You had plans .  Go take your hike, we can go shopping tomorrow.”
    Just that fast, Carrie had forgotten about her plans with Dylan.  Well, Dylan would just have to take a hike.  Alone.  Getting her groove back definitely took a backseat to the promise of a new future for her and her kids.  Carrie wouldn’t be in that backseat with him, making out with him or anyone else.  She needed to focus on what was important. 
    “No, we need to go shopping now.  I want to plan tonight and lay everything out, so I can bake all day tomorrow.  The decorating alone could take all afternoon.  The flowers have to set before I put them on the cake.  I’ll have to assemble the tiers Saturday morning.  I don’t need a hike.  I need to get started.”
    Terri huffed out a relieved sigh.  “Okay, then.  Let me get my keys, and call the bride.”
    While Terri did that, Carrie needed to call Trace to see if he could keep the kids for a few more days.  She had a cake to bake.  For eight hundred dollars.  Hope and excitement made her almost giddy as she ran for the phone.
     
    ***
    Dylan glanced at the clock in the barn office as he passed by .  It was two-fifteen.  Fifteen minutes past the time Carrie Collins said she’d meet him at the barn.  He walked to Cason’s stall, and opened the door hesitating a moment to slip the sling Terri had forced him to wear over his neck.  He grabbed the lead rope from the nail on the post, then hung the sling there. 
    It looked like Carrie was running late .  He was going to have to saddle the horses himself, or they’d be another hour leaving the barn.  Which meant they’d probably be after dark getting back.   Everyone would be back at the barn then and they’d know he had gone out with her.  Joel would know then too. 
    That couldn’t happen . 
    Dylan was not borrowing trouble he didn’t need by throwing the fact he’d been out riding with the widow in Joel’s face, after he’d been warned to steer clear of her.  He’d already come close enough to losing his job by getting in a fight with the Aussie last night.  Considering Joel’s warning, it had been stupid of Dylan to suggest they go out for a ride together at all.   But the hopelessness he’d seen in her beautiful eyes this morning had freaked him out. 
    It was the same look he’d seen in his mother’s eyes before she committed suicide. 
    Dylan would have done just about anything at that moment to make Carrie Collins feel better.  He wanted to know where her head was, and why she felt so hopeless.  To talk her down off of the ledge she seemed to be standing on.  The same ledge his mother had teetered on for years after his father’s death.  The one he and his brothers had most likely pushed their mother over when they got into trouble one too many times, because they were too stupid and immature to realize she was on that brink.  They all paid the price for that immaturity, for the lack of a strong male hand in their lives. 
    He didn’t want Carrie Collins to feel that same urge.  She was a young and vibrant woman, who didn’t have the four juvenile delinquent boys his mother had.  There was hope for her, and he was going to make her see that.   The only way he was going to be able to do that though, was to spend some time alone with her. 
    Hell, who was he kidding? 
    Dylan wanted to know all that, wanted to help her.  But after that mind-blowing kiss in the kitchen he didn’t give a damn about losing his job,