12 Borrowing Trouble (31 page)

“Yes he is,” Terri agreed, sticking her tongue in her cheek.  “And I need a pair of those panties.”  Carrie’s blood shot to her face, as Terri turned and sashayed off toward the house.

How the hell did she know? Carrie wondered as she walk ran across the yard toward the salon.  Oh, God—did everyone know?  Were they loud?  Carrie couldn’t hear them. Her face got hotter, and she walked faster.  She couldn’t ask Terri, but she was going to ask Dylan.  If they were loud, if people knew, she wasn’t about to wear them again. 

Had he told?

No, she trusted Dylan.  He wouldn’t have done that.  Wouldn’t have done it even back when he threatened to do it.  That was part of the game, it upped the excitement.  But she was going to find out how Terri knew.  It was just embarrassing.

She stopped in her tracks when it hit her.  Not vibrations, but the fact that Terri must’ve overheard them in the kitchen that day.  Relief washed through her that she didn’t have to give up the panties, and that made her laugh.  She threw her head back and laughed again, as she walked toward the salon.

At a quarter to five, Dylan made a final pass with the shining cloth over his boots, then checked his tie in the mirror.  The damned thing felt like it was choking him.  The last time he’d worn a tie had been to his mother’s funeral.  He wouldn’t be wearing one now, but Carrie had asked him to.  For her.  He would do anything for her.  Even hang himself with the damned thing, if she asked him to.  He loved the woman that much.  She was as much a part of him as the rodeo had been.  She made him a better man. 

He only hoped to be half the man, half the husband she deserved. 

Dylan knew himself, he would step off the track sometimes and piss her off.  But he would never do anything to hurt her or those kids intentionally, and he would kick anyone’s ass who did.  Even that judge tomorrow.  He thought about not going to the hearing for that reason, but Carrie needed him there.  He would just ask for divine intervention if things didn’t go Chris’s way.
  They had to go his way.  Trace Rooks was working with Susan Whitmore to decipher that diary Sean Collins left behind, and Chris had agreed to testify against the drug dealers and school kids involved.  As it turned out he didn’t know much, but what he knew he was telling.  He’d already been to a meeting with Susan, and with the prosecutor.

Both were going to testify on his behalf tomorrow.  Trace was going to do that too.

Ronnie Rooks said the odds were good he would be given probation.  Maybe community service and restitution.  But Carrie was damned worried he would be taken away from her.  If it came down to that, Dylan already told her if it took him working day and night to pay for a good attorney for the appeal process, that is what he would do. 

That kid did not deserve to be given time.
  He was doing the right thing, so he should be rewarded for that.  Dylan sighed, and got his nervousness under control.  He was only nervous that Carrie would change her mind before they said their vows.  He definitely didn’t deserve her.  But somehow he’d been blessed yet again.  He was a lucky man.

Slapping his black dress hat on his head, he tilted it down over his eyes and headed toward the pavilion.  He was not going to be late
for this.  The ceremony would start precisely at five o’clock, according to said bride, so he hustled out the door.  He couldn’t wait for the preacher from the Sugar Bush Church to give him permission to kiss his bride. 

That would mean she was his.  Forever.

Dylan could swear his feet weren’t touching the ground as he started down the white runner between the two sections of chairs set up for the wedding.  His cheeks hurt his grin was so wide as he stopped to shake hands with some of the men he knew on the way up to the gazebo.  Carrie’s mom and dad, who he met last night, were sitting in the front row near the aisle.  He stopped and her dad got up to shake his hand, then pulled him into a hug. 

“I’m going to tell you like I told Sean before you, take care of my baby girl,” he growled into Dylan’s ear.  “Or you’ll answer to me and my shotgun.”

“Yes, sir.”  Dylan stepped away after he received a final, hard pat on his shoulder. 

H
e started to take his place at the gazebo with the preacher, but his eyes tracked to the men sitting beside the Brands, and his heart stopped.  The three men were familiar, but strangers too.  One of them looked just like the man he saw in the mirror a few minutes ago when he checked his tie.  Dylan’s throat closed up, making it impossible for him to speak, but Dev did the speaking for him. 

Devin
was just as choked up though, when he stuck out his hand to him, and said, “It’s good to see you brother.”  Dylan’s knees gave out, but Devin caught him up in a hug and held him up.  It was a good thing he did too, because what self-respecting cowboy blubbered like an idiot into another man’s shoulder?  Dylan couldn’t help it, he had no control over the emotional shitstorm raging inside of him. 

His other two
younger brothers, Cade and Keegan, formed a huddle with them, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the bunch.  Music started from the speakers hidden in the shrubs on either side of the gazebo. Dylan pulled back, but he wasn’t done yet it seemed.  When he saw beautiful, golden-haired little Izzy give him a finger wave and wide smile at the end of the aisle, he lost it again.  Holding up his hand, Dylan turned away and started walking. 

The music stopped, he heard hushed whispers from the crowd behind him, but he kept walking until he got to the swing.  He sat down, laid his head back and started rocking. 
He had to get himself under control, before he could speak, much less think enough to repeat vows.  He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that the three brothers he hadn’t seen for almost twenty years were sitting in the front row at his wedding.  That they were even in the same state as him was amazing.  After the funeral, he’d been given very little information from the social worker who put him into foster care.  All she told him was his twin had been shipped off to Alabama, Cade had gone somewhere up north, Wyoming maybe, and Keegan had been sent to Georgia. 

Dylan
never thought he would see them again.  Ever.  Figured they would be adopted out and not even have the same last name anymore.  He tried to find them once, but Thomas is such a common last name that was like finding a needle in a haystack.  Well evidently someone had blown that haystack to hell, because they were here.  Emotion built in his chest, and he felt like his heart might crack a rib.  They were here.

“Please tell me you haven’t changed your mind,” Carrie said in a raw whisper.  “I knew you might, but I hoped…” her lower lip trembled, and she sucked in a shuddering breath.

Dylan’s eyes swung up to hers, and she looked like an angel standing there in her white dress.  Her shiny brunette hair was slicked back, and the sun shining on top made it look like she was wearing a halo.  “Was it you then?” he asked, his voice ravaged by emotion.

She nodded, and more pressure built in his chest.  This woman was his angel, his heart. 
He couldn’t find the words to tell her thank you for what she’d done.

Her face fell, and she turned away. 

Dylan growled as he shot forward to hook his arms around her waist.  He dragged her back into his lap.  “You will never, never know what you’ve done for me,” he said and his own lips trembled.  His nostrils flared, and he sucked in a sharp breath.  “Carrie, I will never be able to thank you enough.  Today is the happiest day of my life, baby.  I thank God every minute of every day that I met you.  I was miserable until you shook up my life.  So to answer your question, hell no I haven’t changed my mind.  I just needed a minute to get myself together.”

She sighed then put her arm around his neck, and kissed him
tenderly.  “I’m glad my daddy didn’t have to break out his shotgun.  He went back to the car to get it,” she said with a laugh.  “I’m glad you liked your wedding present.”

“I fucking loved it,” he said, standing with her in his arms.  “I love you,” he added dropping a kiss on her hair.  “Now, let’s go get married, so we can get to the
partying then the honeymooning.”

She slapped her pink rose bouquet against his shoulder.  “Put me down before you hurt your shoulder again!”

“I’m never putting you down again.  I will carry your beautiful ass with me for the rest of my life.  You are never getting rid of this cowboy, sweet cheeks.”

***

Carrie was nervous when Dylan held the door open for her to go before him into the courtroom.  Her knees were knocking she was so nervous.  They were all packed for their honeymoon in Austin, but the jury was still out as to whether they would go.

At the reception last night, h
is brothers offered to go to Sugar Bush to stay at the ranch, until Carrie and Dylan returned.  That took a little weight off of her shoulders.  Until then, she didn’t know who would feed Yogi, and cut the hay that was already planted.  When Carrie and Dylan came back from their honeymoon, the brothers would get reacquainted then, and possibly talk about them moving to the ranch to help Dylan run it. 

From what Dave told her,
the brothers were as much tumbleweeds as Dylan had been all his life.  They had never put down roots anywhere.  She thought it was a crying shame that four good men like them had such a rough life, because their mother had been so selfish.  Maybe they could all help each other heal if they moved to Sugar Bush.  Carrie really hoped so.  For Dylan.

Everything depended on the man in the black robes who would be sitting behind the bench at the end of this aisle today.  That man, the hanging judge as per Ronnie Rooks, would be God today.  He would solely decide if her son was going to juvenile jail until he was twenty-one.  Twenty-one.  Eight years. 

Carrie’s throat closed off and she turned around.  Dylan was right behind her, and she let out the breath she was holding into his shirt front.  He held her to him, and kissed her hair.  She felt a little better, but not much.  It felt almost like she was on trial today.  Her mothering skills were in question, which obviously she’d failed at, or they wouldn’t be here.

His voice in her ear calmed her.  “Breathe, baby.  It will be okay.  Whatever happens, Chris will be okay.  We’ll fight for him.” 

She nodded then turned to walk to the seat behind the defendant’s table.  That’s where Chris would be sitting with Ronnie.  But Ronnie wasn’t even in the room.  None of the witnesses were either.  She had come out into the hall and whispered to one of them and they all left and took Chris with them.  She wasn’t invited to come.

Carrie figured they were having a meeting to prepare for the hearing
, and knew she was such an emotional wreck she would just delay things.  She felt sick at her stomach again, but wasn’t giving into it, because she needed to sit here.  Be here when Chris came into the courtroom. 

Her knees started shaking again once she sat down, and Dylan sat beside her and put his hand on her knee.  The other went behind her back to rub it.  Sooth
e her.  Her new husband was her rock right now.  If she’d have done this alone, come here alone, she would be a bawling basket case out in the hall.  The judge would probably have thrown her out.

“Breathe…” he whispered near her ear, and Carrie leaned against him.

It was so quiet in the empty courtroom, Carrie could hear the hum of the air conditioner.  So quiet she could almost hear her own heart beating.  Heard Dylan’s soft breathing in the chair beside her.  That’s why her whole body jerked when loud laughter came from behind the dark wood door beside the bench.  Raised voices followed, and it sounded like everyone in the room was trying to get control of whatever conversation was going on in there, before everything went quiet again.  “What do you think is going on in there, a party?”  Carrie asked.

Dylan snickered.  “That’s what it sounds like.  I hope that judge has a few toddies before he puts on his robe.  Maybe that’ll loosen him up.”

Carrie was surprised when the laugh bubbled out of her.  She clapped her hand over her mouth, and Dylan raised a brow.  “You’re a bad girl.  That judge is going to come in here and spank you.” 

The dark desire in his eyes sent a thrill of anticipation down her spine.  “Or you could,” she said softly.  “I’m sure you have more reason to do it than the judge.  Is that what that spoon was for?  That’s the only thing I could come up with.”

“Well, give the lady a prize,” he drawled, and his eyes fell to her lips.

Carrie shivered.  “What did I do, sir?” she asked, playing along because this new game of his was definitely distracting her.

“You laughed in this courtroom.  That’s almost as bad as laughing in church.”

This man had made her laugh there too.  Just last Sunday. 
He probably owed her a spanking for that too.  The thought sent all the moisture in her body south to pool between her thighs.  “But the judge was laughing too,” she said, sticking out her lower lip.

“This isn’t monkey see, monkey do, baby.  You have to be reverent in these places,” he said, his eyes still locked on her mouth. 

Her lips tingled, and she licked them.  Dylan didn’t ask permission, he leaned down and covered her mouth with his.  Held her head in place with his hand in her hair and feasted on her mouth.  He didn’t seem to care that he was being irreverent in the courtroom, and she didn’t care by the time he finished kissing her.