Wedding Cake Wishes. Dana Corbit
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been around this business a long time. You’re wasting my time when I need to be getting up to speed on things. I told Mom I would do this, and I’m going to do it…alone.”
She fisted her hands at her sides. “You must be the most infuriating person who ever lived.”
“No, I think there are two of us.”
“I think you’re both right.”
At the sound of the third voice, Logan turned to look at the glass door that Caroline had unlocked. Trina Scott stood just inside it, her crossed arms over her chest.
Logan sighed. None of the employees had even arrived, and it was already looking as if he wasn’t cut out for the job he’d promised to do. But his brothers, Mrs. Scott and even Caroline were wrong to doubt him. Somehow, with God’s help, he planned to make this work.
Caroline stared at the floor avoiding her mother’s gaze, her cheeks burning. She was so shaken that several seconds had passed before her pulse slowed. It didn’t make sense. In the business world, she’d always been cooler than a cucumber on ice. No one had been able to get a rise out of her. Now, infuriatingly stubborn Logan Warren had done it without breaking a sweat.
Why couldn’t he just be gracious and accept the help he so obviously needed? In a bakery, a park ranger would be like a bull in a china shop anyway. But instead of being grateful for her offer, he’d insisted on asking questions about why she had the free time to come to Markston.
She’d hoped in the confusion regarding his mother’s health crisis that no one would have time to wonder about her sudden availability. She hadn’t expected Logan Warren to be the observant type, but nearly as soon as he’d seen her, he’d zeroed in on the point she’d most hoped to hide.
What surprised her even more was she’d been tempted to share her whole humiliating story with him. Something about the way he’d studied her with those bright green, penetrating eyes had made her wonder if he could see how lost she felt. Maybe he understood because they shared that feeling of uncertainty in common.
“Will one of you explain what’s going on here?”
Her mother’s words pulled Caroline back from her strange thoughts. Where had they come from, anyway? Logan had enough on his mind with his own family crisis for him to concern himself with her problems. And for her to imagine that she had anything in common with ne’er-do-well Logan Warren demonstrated just how off-kilter she’d been the last few days.
“It was nothing,” Logan answered for the both of them. “Just a disagreement.”
“I can see that.” Trina tucked her chin-length brown hair behind her ears with all the care of someone who had a huge mane of it—or someone waiting for a better answer.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Caroline asked.
“Refereeing apparently. I had hoped you two would work this out together, but…”
That her mother was standing inside the bakery rather than the hospital’s critical care unit made it clear she hadn’t trusted the two of them to find a way to work together.
“Sorry, Mom.”
“I’m sorry, too.” As Logan bent his head, his light brown hair fell across his eyes. “I know you were trying to help when you called Caroline, but—”
Trina shook her head to interrupt him. “Logan, stop right there. Your mother’s facing the crisis of her life, and all you can do is spend time arguing about whether you need my daughter’s help at the bakery?”
“I’m not trying to upset you, Mrs. Scott, but I have this under control. I already took leave from work.” He gestured toward Caroline. “We don’t both need to lose time at our jobs during Mom’s recovery.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Trina glanced sidelong at her daughter. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”
With heat scaling her neck and face, Caroline shook her head.
Her always matter-of-fact mother took a step toward Logan. “Because of the current economic downturn, investors pulled the financial backing on the Ultimate Center, and the whole project for the mega-mall that Caroline managed folded.”
“You lost your job?”
Caroline looked up to find Logan watching her. She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks.” His compassionate tone made her shift where she stood. Vulnerability was a new feeling for her, and she doubted she would ever wear it well.
“As soon as Caroline told me what had happened at work, I knew this would be perfect. God definitely has a plan here.”
“God wanted your daughter to lose her job?” The side of Logan’s mouth lifted.
“Oh, you know what I mean.” Trina waved away his usual attempt to be a class clown with a brush of her hand. “So it appears that you’re both available to work here, at least for a while. And it’s going to take both of you.”
He appeared to consider what she’d said. “Go on.”
“Okay, Logan, your heart was in the right place when you volunteered to run the bakery, but you don’t have any business experience. Caroline has that, so it’s a blessing that she also has an abundance of free time right now.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Caroline slid a glance Logan’s way and was relieved he wasn’t watching her now. Her mother had managed to praise and offend both of them at the same time.
“Just telling it like it is.” Trina held her hands wide. “And, Caroline, though you have more business experience than he does, Logan is more invested in this business than you are. He’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the bakery survives.”
“She’s right,” Logan said. “I will.”
“Even if that means putting up with my daughter being here to do it.”
Logan opened his mouth, but he must not have been able to argue with that logic because he closed it and nodded. “Mom needs to have something to return to when she recovers. No matter what, we have to make this work…for her,” he said after a moment.
“Yes, we do,” Caroline agreed. The vehemence in her voice startled her, but she couldn’t help it. His determination was contagious. Strange, the compassionate and purposeful man she’d faced today didn’t fit with the image she’d had of Logan any more than his broad shoulders and toned, tanned arms, clearly of a man who worked with his hands, matched those of the boy she used to know.
She smiled to herself as she realized that maybe she didn’t know him as well as she’d thought. But when he grinned back at her, his trademark dimples popping on his cheeks, Caroline’s breath caught, and a ticklish feeling settled inside her belly.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?”
“What?” Caroline jerked, caught daydreaming for the second time in a single conversation.
“Are you going to be okay to handle this project?”
“Of course I will.”
But was she really okay? Something had to be wrong with her if she was reacting so strangely to Logan. She usually didn’t let any man faze her. Certainly not a guy who was four years younger than she was. Absolutely not a player with boyish charm and movie-star good looks. Hadn’t she learned her lesson about men like Logan Warren a long time ago?
She pushed away painful, private memories with a shake of her head. Whatever was going on inside her, it had to stop right now. She’d just promised to help Logan learn to run his mother’s business, and she couldn’t do that if she allowed herself to be distracted. The answer to that challenge was simple: in order to help the baker, all she had to do was to ignore the baker’s son.
She