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 peeked at Logan again and this time found him watching her, seeing too much. Swallowing hard, she looked away. She realized with a shock that ignoring Logan Warren would be easier said than done.
Chapter Two
Caroline glanced up from the drawer where she’d been mentally cataloging baking tools only to find that the two cake decorators she’d met earlier were studying her just as intently.
“You’re Trina Scott’s daughter, aren’t you?” the redhead named Margie asked, squinting as if she hadn’t quite placed her.
“Yes, I am.”
Come to think of it, Logan had introduced Caroline only by her first name when he’d updated the staff on his mother’s condition and on changes at the bakery. After that, he’d slipped off to his mother’s office with the excuse of learning the accounting software. Well, at least one of them could avoid curious glances from the staff.
Figuring it was time to take charge, Caroline stepped toward the stainless-steel counter where the women sat on stools, working on their masterpieces. “Do you know my mother?”
The women looked at each other and laughed.
“Do we know her mother?” Margie asked her cohort as she spread chocolate buttercream frosting over a sheet cake.
Their laughter was enough to make a person nervous.
The stout brunette named Kamie paused from her task of stretching a sugar dough called fondant over a three-layer yellow cake. “Even if we didn’t already know Trina since…oh…second grade, we would have known her from here at the shop.”
“Oh. Right.”
Her mother probably spent more than her share of time at Mrs. Warren’s business since moving back to Markston. Caroline could only hope that it hadn’t been so much time that she had been tempted to share family stories.
Margie shook her frosting-covered spatula at Caroline. “You’re the one who’s decided not to marry.”
“I—” Caroline frowned. Definitely too many stories. She needed to establish professional employer-employee boundaries with the staff here…and fast.
“You sure messed with your mother’s and Amy’s matchmaking plans before they realized they were targeting the wrong bride,” Kamie said, chuckling. “But they figured it out, didn’t they? They got your sisters matched up just right.”
Her face felt like it was on fire. She needed no reminders of those humiliating matchmaking events, where the two moms had tried to set her up first with Matthew and then with Dylan. It didn’t matter that she’d never planned to marry or even that she was thrilled that both of her sisters had found love. She still couldn’t help feeling sensitive over all of that rejection.
The decorators were staring at her, curiosity painted all over their faces. If someone asked her if she was married to her career, Caroline was sure she would die of embarrassment. What was she supposed to say now? That she and her career had divorced? It wasn’t anyone’s business, any more than anyone needed to know that her choice not to date was less about her feminist leanings and more about a broken heart.
Caroline braced herself, waiting, but the two women were suddenly studying something behind her. She didn’t have to turn to know that Logan was back there, witnessing the whole humiliating exchange. The tingling at the back of her neck gave her enough of a hint.
“Just thought I’d check in and see how the cakes were coming along.”
Logan leaned against the wall just inside the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed. His words were innocuous, but his jaw was tight, and his fingers pressed too tightly into the snug-fitting cuffs of his short-sleeve polo shirt. His words were layered with meaning, as well. It couldn’t have been clearer that he thought the decorators should spend more time decorating cakes and less time looking for information on Caroline’s personal life.
Margie must have gotten the message because she bristled. “They’re coming along just fine, Mister Warren.”
“Well, that’s great to hear, Margie.” He put as much emphasis on her first name as the decorator had on his title since she’d avoided using his given name. “We’ll all have our work cut out for us with Mom out of commission.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Kamie said in a banal tone.
Caroline couldn’t help staring at Logan. Had he really just stepped in to defend her? Inexplicably, a memory from last Christmas sneaked into her thoughts. It was one of Logan with chilly rain plastering his flannel shirt to the wide expanse of his back as he hefted an ax to take down his mother’s massive
