12 Borrowing Trouble (14 page)

She didn’t seem to mind that the man was staring at her,
or notice, but Dylan did.  He stepped into Zane’s line of sight and glared at him.  “We’ll be there in a minute,” he grated.

“Don’t have a minute.  Someone called
the house and there’s been trouble with her boy.”

Dylan had to focus to make out the
man’s words which were soaked in his thick accent.  “Her boy?  Which boy?” he asked in confusion.

“Her little one,” Zane clarified, glancing over Dylan’s shoulder at Carrie
again.

Dylan was still trying to process what Zane said when a
loud sob sounded behind him, and he spun.  Carrie was stuffing her shirt into her pants with shaking hands.  She grabbed her boots, stuffed her underwear inside, then ran to Zane to put her hand on his forearm.  “Take me back to the house, please,” she said in a trembling voice.  “I need to go see about my son.”

And didn’t it just suck to stand there and watch the woman he’d just had sex
with, maybe made a baby with, ride off into the midday sun with Zane Lawrence?  Dylan just stood there stunned, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Carrie Collins already had a kid too.  A son evidently.  If they wound up together that would mean he’d have two kids instead of one.

Sickness boiled in his chest, as he staggered back
into the tree then slid down to sit.  The next two weeks would be the longest in his life.  He figured she would probably know by then if their stupidity would change both of their lives forever.

As much as he didn’t want a child, if she was pregnant, he would do the right thing by her and his kid.  Dylan was not going to abandon them like his mother had done to him by killing herself.  No, he would man up and take care of them.
  Even though his life would be over.

CHAPTER NINE

The Aussie cowboy had barely pulled his horse to a stop at the front porch of the ranch house, before Carrie slid down to the ground.  She ran up the steps into the house,
her heart beating erratically and barely able to breathe.  “Terri!” she screamed, running through the foyer.  She rounded the corner and slammed into a broad chest.  Stumbling back she looked up to see Joel staring at her with both accusation and concern in his eyes.  She didn’t have time for his disapproval.  Her son was in trouble.  Again.  “Where’s Terri?” Carrie choked out.

“She’s in my office with Ronnie,” he said taking her arm to lead her that way.

Her heart sank all the way down to her toes then slingshotted back up to her throat.  “What happened to Chris?” she asked in a strangled tone.

“Take a deep breath and calm down.  He’s safe, but he’s in a helluva lot of trouble.”

Carrie groaned and her shoulders slumped as relief warred with anger in her churning stomach.  “What kind of trouble?”

“Ronnie will fill you in,” he said evasively as they made it to the office door. 

Joel shoved the door inward and she saw Terri sitting behind Joel’s desk, her heart-shaped face barely visible over the stack of paperwork on the desk.  Ronnie Rooks sat in a chair against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest.  Her pinched features told a story that Carrie didn’t really want to hear, but she had to know. 

“Tell me what happened
—
please
,” Carrie said breathlessly, hearing her own voice echoing in her skull.  She put a trembling hand over her galloping heart.  “Where’s Chris?  What did he do?”

Ronnie’s eyes met hers and the disappoint
ment, sadness and frustration Carrie saw there matched her feelings to a tee.  “We woke up this morning and Trace’s truck was gone, and so was Chris…along with one of Trace’s shotguns.”

A wail started near Carrie’s knees and worked its way up to her throat.  It escaped as she sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands.  The pain in her chest was so overwhelming she couldn’t breathe.  Despair filled her, hopelessness and more sadness than she’d ever felt in her life
.  She finally dragged in a long ragged breath before soul-deep sobs wracked her.  She heard hasty footsteps, then felt an arm around her shoulders, and a hand on the side of her face. 

Voices that sounded like they were coming down a tunnel tried to comfort her, but Carrie
was inconsolable.  Her son, the son of a decorated cop, was a juvenile delinquent.  He was already on probation for possession of marijuana, had been suspected of selling it, and now that probation would be revoked.  He knew he had to keep his nose clean, and her son just couldn’t manage to do that.  She’d let him out of her sight for five minutes, and he was at it again.

Carrie finally admitted she was a failure as a mother.  Without Sean to help her, she was nothing.
  She might even lose Chris over this.  Why the hell did Sean have to die?

Bitterness and anger boiled
the bile in her stomach, but a sharp, agitated female voice finally cut through her clouded brain.  A light but stinging slap on her cheek woke her up more.  Carrie looked up to see Ronnie’s full lips moving, but couldn’t seem to absorb what she was saying.  Another slap, Carrie shook her head, then sat back on her butt dazed. 

The roar in her ears lessened a little when she dragged in a heaving breath
.  It finally abated enough that she caught the end of what Ronnie was saying.  “…need you to go sign him out.”

“No money,” Carrie croaked.

“You have the money from the cake,” Terri reminded her.  “Ronnie says the bail is only five-hundred dollars.”

Five hundred dollars.  Every cent she had in the world.  Every penny she had made baking that cake.  Sean’s paltry pension check had been spent for the month on bills
by the fifth of the month.  She thought that cake money would help her get to the first.  Now she had to spend it to bail her son out of jail.

The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them.  “No, I think I need to leave him in there to learn a lesson.”  Even though saying them almost killed her, in her heart she knew they were the right words this time.  She had bailed Chris out enough.  Her son needed to know what the consequences of his actions were.  It was the only way he would learn.

“He’s pretty upset, Carrie.  You should at least go talk to him,” Ronnie said softly.

“He should be upset,” she said in a rising pitch, as her anger escalated again.  “He should be damned upset.  As upset as I am.”

“Calm down.  I’m hoping maybe he’ll talk to you, so I can get information about the situation that will help him when I talk to the judge.”

“He won’t talk to me either.  He wouldn’t talk to the five different counselors I sent him to after Sean died.”  Carrie was starting to think her son would keep everything bottled inside him forever until he self-destructed.  Fresh tears burned behind her eyes.  He was already self-
destructing and she didn’t know how to help him.  Her lower lip trembled.  “I can’t help him,” she admitted in a breathless whisper.  “He won’t let me help him.”

“Trace is up there talking to him now.  Maybe he’ll talk to him,” Ronnie said with a huffed breath.  She grabbed Carrie’s arm and tugged until she stood on shaky knees.  The taller redhead put her arm around her waist and guided her out of the office.  “We have to go up there.  You need to try to talk to him, even if you’re not going to bail him out.”

Carrie hoped Trace could get through to her son, but she didn’t hold out much hope.  Her son was as close-mouthed as they came.  No matter what he did, he didn’t ever try to defend himself or explain his actions.  He just stubbornly took his licks, and did it again when he damn well pleased. Chris never seemed to learn his lessons.

Izzy was easy, but since Sean died, she thought it was her responsibility to take care of them all.  To try and keep Chris on the straight and narrow, and run interference between her brother and mother.  This new situation was going to upset her
too.  Carrie probably wouldn’t tell her.  All that burden on her ten-year-old shoulders was just too damned much.  Carrie was almost thirty-two and it was too much for her.

“Does Izzy know?”
Carrie asked as they walked out onto the front porch.

“She kn
ew Chris wasn’t there when she woke up, but she doesn’t know why.  She’s asked a million times, but we thought it would be better if you told her.  I hope you don’t mind, I brought her out here to stay with Terri while we’re gone.”

“No, that’s
good…as long as Terri doesn’t mind.”  Carrie had imposed on Terri enough.

“She’s perfectly fine with it.  I think she’s helping Terri with Jayden at their house.”

The little mother.  That was Izzy.  Babysitting would be the perfect job for her, but she hadn’t been around enough babies to know the ins and outs of taking care of one.  Worry shot through her.  “I hope Terri watches her closely.  Izzy hasn’t been around many babies.”

“It will be fine.  Stop worrying
, focus on your son for now,” Ronnie chastised as she opened the passenger-side door of the small convertible for her.

***

Dylan finally got himself together enough to make his way back to the barn.  His mind was still in shock, but he forced his body to move.  Anger had started to simmer in the back of his mind though.  He couldn’t help but think that Carrie had purposely not told him about her kid.

She had ample opportunities to say,
I have a son to think of
, but she hadn’t ever mentioned it.  He wondered where the kid was while she was cooling her heels out here at the ranch messing around with him.  Maybe this was all just a little pretend universe she escaped to so she could forget she was a single mother, who had responsibilities.  Like the one his mother had drifted off into sometimes when he was a kid and she disappeared for days at a time.  The circumstances were the same.  They were both widows with a kid, kids in his mother’s case.

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t told him
, why she’d pressed him when he suggested they go riding the other day.  She was playing him.  Using him.  To live out a fantasy that she was free of those obligations.  And he’d offered her the perfect set-up.  Or maybe she was looking for a daddy for her kid.  Dylan was not that man, and he thought he’d been pretty clear he wasn’t into relationships or fatherhood. 

Unlike her, h
e was a free bird, a saddle tramp, a wanderer.  That’s the way he’d lived his life since he turned eighteen years old, and he liked it.  The time he’d been at the R & R Ranch had been the longest stretch he’d ever stayed in one place.  And as soon as he knew he was ready, he was getting back to his old lifestyle.

Maybe she realized if he knew, he wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole.

Because of his lifestyle, and background, Dylan had a hard and fast rule that he did not do mothers, single or married.  They were too complicated, had too many issues, and expected too much.  A lot more than he was willing to give them.  But now, because Carrie Collins had chosen not to tell him, he was knee deep involved with her.  Maybe for eighteen years. 

God, please don’t let her be pregnant
, he silently prayed again.

And she was leaving tomorrow.  He needed to make sure he got contact information from her to check the status in a couple of weeks.  If he found out he hadn’t made a baby with her, he would be the happiest and luckiest man on earth.  He would throw a weeklong drunk to celebrate.  He would never, ever forget again if he some
how managed to get out of this one.

From now on, t
he first question he asked any woman he was thinking of sleeping with would be, “Do you have kids?”  That should have been his first question to her.  His second question should have been, “Are you on birth control?”  Lesson learned, but that second question wasn’t really important.  Because from here on out, he thought he might wear a condom twenty-four seven, so he didn’t forget.

Dylan
rode through the barn and out the front door to discreetly see if he could figure out what was going on.  He squinted his eyes and saw a trail of dust behind a small, but fancy ragtop car as it sped away from the main house toward the road.  Maybe that was her leaving, he thought, as he saw Zane riding back toward the barn on his palomino. 

Dylan waited until he drew near to ask, “What the hell is going on?”

Zane shrugged, as he passed by to walk his horse into the barn.  Dylan dismounted, and led Cason inside behind him.  “What was the emergency?” he repeated, as he stopped beside Zane to unsaddle his horse.

“Ask Terri,” the
Aussie replied, sliding the saddle off of his horse.  “Not my business, and shouldn’t be yours.”

He knew Lawrence wasn’t stupid.  This man knew what had been going on out there by the lake.  Carrie was
still fricking half-naked when he rode up.  He had to know.  “As you could see when you rode up at the lake, it is my business now.”

“That’s monkey business, mate. 
Having a naughty with her don’t give you rights,” he contradicted with a harsh laugh.  “If the boss man knew what you were up to out there, he’d sack you.  Told me that and said he told you that too.”

A little fear worked its way past Dylan’s boiling anger.  “You gonna tell him?”

The Aussie stood up and studied him a moment.  “Nah, no worries here,” he replied with a wide grin.  “I mind my own, bloke.  Wouldn’t have gotten out of the Diamond Bar station alive if I didn’t.”

“You worked there?” Dylan asked incredulously, temporarily distracted from his own problems by the fact that the Aussie cow hand had worked at the ranch recently shut down by the feds for a multitude of criminal activity.

“Yep,” was all he said, sealing his lips with the pop of the p at the end. 

Without a backward glance
, Zane carried his saddle and bridle toward the tack room.  Dylan wiped down Cason, then took him to his stall, removed his bridle and shut the door.  He hefted the saddle onto his left shoulder and walked toward the tack room.

Two hours later, freshly showered, Dylan grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator in the kitchen of the bunkhouse and took it back to his room.  Zane and the other hands were laughing and watching television in the common room, but he didn’t feel much like watching TV or laughing. 

Against all odds, fucking worry had been riding his shoulder since he walked through the door of the bunkhouse.  Now that his anger had cooled a little, he wondered if Carrie was okay.  He had no idea if she’d come back to the ranch, or gone home.  Or if that was even her he saw leaving the ranch earlier.  The only way he could find out would be to go up to the big house and talk to Joel, but that would be admitting he had been with her earlier.  Exactly what Joel had told him not to do.

He could talk to Terri, but if he went up to the house
the odds were at this time of the evening Joel would be there too.  So Dylan stayed put and stewed.  Tomorrow, if he bumped into Terri, he’d ask her casually what had happened.  Right now, he was going to take a pain pill for his throbbing shoulder, drink his beer and hopefully pass out.

Tomorrow he was also going to
get an appointment with the doctor to see how much damage he’d done to his arm.  Hopefully not too much that he couldn’t get a release to return to the circuit soon.  No, Joel hadn’t fired him, but Dylan could see the writing on the wall.  The Aussie was going to take over, and Dylan was going to be left with nothing to do.