Holly Jolly Cowboy (The Wyoming Cowboy #7)(61)

Maybe a good cry wasn’t what she needed.

She pulled back and gazed up at him, need in her eyes. “How fast can you eat?”

Adam groaned and kissed her, hard. “That what you want?” When she nodded, he picked her up by the hips and carried her out of the kitchen. “I can eat afterward.”

Holly wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her away from her problems, even if it was only for a little while.



* * *



? ? ?

Ashort time later, they had made love, showered together, and eaten. Or rather, Adam had eaten. Holly hadn’t been all that hungry. She’d picked at a few bites of food, lost in thought. Adam hadn’t liked how quiet she was, so he’d dragged her back to bed and they’d made love one more time before he wrapped himself around her and went to sleep in bed next to her.

And she was too distracted to enjoy the sight of him in bed with her. Hannibal was curled up in Pumpkin’s bed, with the tiny dog tucked against his hip. It was cozy and nice and yet . . . she couldn’t stop thinking about money. How was she going to make everything work? How could she keep Polly at university if she couldn’t afford her tuition? Heck, how could she keep her own apartment if she didn’t have money coming in? Painted Barrel was a small town and a lot of the businesses were family owned. She didn’t know of anyone that was hiring.

Worry flooded through her. Maybe unemployment would be enough to cover her through the lean period.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE





Unemployment was going to pay Holly exactly $193.00 a week.

Holly hung the phone up, sick to her stomach. She’d thought the week couldn’t possibly get any worse than the moment when the restaurant had burned down, leaving her without a job. Boy, she’d really underestimated that one. She’d called the unemployment agency to see what kind of compensation she could get, but because she was a tipped employee, it wasn’t much.

Wade had called her a few days later, explaining that he was temporarily filling sandwich orders and delivering them to customers that put in requests. Holly was delighted to hear that—at least it was some work, right?

Except Wade couldn’t afford to pay both Holly and Bonnie, and Bonnie had three kids, so he’d rehired her instead.

“You understand, don’t you, Holly?” Wade sounded so sad. “She needs the money badly.”

“It’s fine,” Holly said brightly, even though she wanted to fling the phone away. She understood. She really did. Bonnie did need the job and her kids were young. It was just . . . Holly needed money, too.

“Do you think you could bake some bread for me?” Wade had asked. “I’ll pay you by the loaf and people love your bread.”

“I’ll think about it.” It was a nice gesture, but it wouldn’t be enough, of course. Baking a few loaves of bread for money on the side wouldn’t cover her grocery bill, much less her rent. She’d had a few people from town asking around about baking, too. Becca had wanted Christmas cookies to set out in her salon and a friend of hers was having an office party and wanted cookies with the company logo on them.

Holly had told them no.

Maybe part of it was the pity aspect. Holly was used to scraping herself off the ground and moving on. There was no room in her world for self-pity, and so she just soldiered on. The fact that people were putting in orders for her baking reeked of pity. They all knew her cake at the baking competition had been a mess. They knew she was now hard up for money. This was their way of giving her charity.

She wouldn’t take it.

Not only was it charity, but it was dangerous charity. She still wanted to open her own business someday. She still had dreams of running her own bakery, and she couldn’t afford to sabotage it now just because she was hard up for cash. What if she made another mistake and word got around that silly, stupid dropout Holly Dawson had baked another terrible cake and passed it off for money? Even the pity orders would dry up then.

She couldn’t bake for money. Not now. Not when she doubted herself.

Polly had sent her sympathetic texts and love from afar, of course. Polly felt bad for her. Everyone did. She’d been short with her sister on a phone conversation because she hadn’t wanted to talk about money issues, so as a way of apology, she’d decided to bake some more cookies to ship to her. The postage would take a bite out of her limited bank account, but her sister deserved to have a bit of home as the holidays approached, didn’t she?

So Holly had baked Polly’s favorite—maple walnut shortbread with a glazed icing. Or she’d tried to. The first batch had been in the oven when the unemployment office had called back, and Holly had been on the phone with them for so long that the cookies had burned. The second batch had a funny consistency when she’d pulled them out of the oven, and she’d tasted one, only to find that something in the ingredients had turned.

She’d thrown away the entire lot and turned off the oven, heading upstairs to hug her dog for a while.

When Adam had come in after a long day, he’d immediately noticed her mood. Holly had said nothing, but he’d known. He’d come into her room, curled up behind her on the bed, and just hugged her.

“Who do I need to hurt?” he asked.

For some reason, that made her smile. Not that she wanted him to hurt someone, just that he’d immediately had her back, no questions asked. So she’d told him about her day, about her failed baking attempts, the annoyance with the unemployment office, and a litany of small hurts that had just made her want to hide away from the world and never come out.