Crossing Hope (Cross Creek Series Book 4)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  Marley’s tears continued to fall, and Greyson continued to clear them away. “Look, I might not be your family’s biggest cheerleader, but even I can see that Tobias cares about you. So do your brothers. They’d never bring you into the fold at Cross Creek if they didn’t. You’re truly good at managing the storefront. You’re happy doing it. And…I care about you, too. I want you to stay.”

  She swallowed, and oh God, oh God. “I want that, too, but…”

  “No buts.” Greyson brushed a finger over her lips, and oh, he tasted like hope. “Life’s too short for that, remember?”

  “I’m scared,” Marley admitted, letting him pull her closer. Letting him have her, just as he’d promised to.

  And he did. “I know you are, darlin’. But I’ve got you. I swear it.”

  As he dropped his face to kiss her, gathering her tight and safe in the cradle of his arms, Marley believed him.

  And for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was right where she belonged.

  Right up until two blazingly bright headlights cut through the darkness, followed by the telltale glare of blue and white police lights.

  If Greyson didn’t know any better, he’d swear he was cursed. But as it stood, he was just cursing. Smack in the middle of what was undeniably the most important conversation he’d had…fuck, pretty much ever, and he had to be interrupted by the cops?

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered as Lane Atlee stepped out of his police cruiser and started walking toward the back end of the Silverado. Lane looked all business, although in fairness, Greyson could count the number of smiles he’d seen the guy crack on one hand with fingers to spare, and his frown multiplied with every bootstep through the grass.

  “Jesus, Whittaker,” the sheriff clipped out. “Can’t you stay out of trouble for…oh, holy shit.”

  Greyson had been so caught up in the depth of the conversation that he and Marley had been having that he’d forgotten until right now exactly how naked he and Marley both were, and exactly how close Lane was with her brothers. Fuck.

  “Hi, Lane,” Marley said, squinting at the painfully bright floodlight. “Any chance you’d be willing to tone that thing down a bit? I kind of like my retinas unscorched.”

  “Marley?” Lane’s face turned roughly the color of the cherries Greyson had been trying his hand at growing in their greenhouse, and damn, could this get any more awkward?

  Lane stepped back to the cruiser, killing the floodlight but not the headlights, then walking back to a spot about ten feet from the tailgate of Greyson’s truck. “Damn it, Marley. What are you doing out here? No, wait. Don’t answer that.”

  “Probably best if I don’t,” she agreed, and Lane blew out a breath.

  “I’m going to need you both to get dressed while I figure out how to handle this.”

  Greyson’s pulse tapped out a steady stream of wait, what? “What do you mean, how to handle this?”

  Lane lifted a brow all the way to the brim of his hat. “Y’all are trespassing—”

  “Oh, come on,” Greyson interrupted, knowing he was in no position to push, what with him not wearing any pants, and all, but still. “Everyone in Millhaven knows this land doesn’t really belong to anybody, Lane.”

  “Sheriff Atlee,” Lane bit out. “You’re also breaking indecent exposure laws—”

  This time, it was Marley who interrupted. “Actually, we’re both covered up by this blanket,” she said, gesturing down to the cotton that was thankfully plastered to her and Greyson’s naked bits, but Lane so wasn’t having it.

  “You’re not decent underneath it,” he argued. It was on the tip of Greyson’s tongue to point out that Lane was just as naked under his clothes as Greyson was under this blanket, but Marley shook her head ever so slightly, and he thought better of it while Lane went on.

  “And you’re both still on probation for the laws y’all already broke,” he said, and shit, he did totally have them there. “So, yeah. I need to figure out how to handle this. Your keys in the ignition?”

  “Of course,” Greyson said. Where else would they be?

  “Good. Leave ’em there and don’t move while I call the judge.”

  “Lane.” Marley’s voice stopped the guy in his tracks, and he pivoted back to face them. “Look, I think it’s pretty clear that Greyson and I aren’t doing anything malicious, and we promise”—she nudged his shoulder, prompting him to nod—“to pick up and head out of here right now. But do you really need to call Judge Abernathy?”

  Lane looked uncertain. “Technically, I don’t suppose I do. No one called in a complaint or anything. I just happened to see Greyson’s truck from the main road as I was driving by. But y’all are, ah, indecent, and…”

  “That is absolutely true,” Marley agreed. “And I know that’s a law you’d never bend, yourself. Not even to, say, go skinny dipping with Daisy in Broward Pond.”

  Lane paled, snapping to complete attention, and damn, it took every ounce of Greyson’s willpower not to laugh.

  “Well,” the sheriff said. “I guess if you happened to get decent in the next two minutes, that’d fix our little problem.”

  “I think Greyson and I can manage that.”

  Marley clasped the blanket to her chest, turning to gather her clothes, but oh, no, that’s not how this was going to go down.

  “Turn around,” Greyson said, making both Lane and Marley pause.

  “Pardon?” Lane asked.

  But Greyson didn’t even think of budging. “Turn around while Marley gets dressed.”

  “Of course.” The guy looked offended at the suggestion he’d do anything but offer Marley the utmost respect. “As long as you turn around, too.”

  “I’m pretty sure the cat is like, fifteen hundred miles away from that bag,” Marley murmured, but when Lane simply stood there, his arms crossed hard over the retaining wall of his chest, Greyson nodded.

  “Fine by me, as long as she gets privacy.”

  Greyson turned, and after some quick rustling and the soft prrrrp of a zipper, Marley hopped down from the tailgate, leaving Greyson to right his clothes and gather up the featherbed.

  “Before y’all go, I’ll be needing a word with Greyson,” Lane said, which—duh—Marley immediately protested.

  “Lane, I’m an adult,” she said, planting her hands over her hips.

  Atlee didn’t blink, and Greyson hadn’t expected him to. “It’s okay, Marley. I’ll only be a minute,” he said. Grumbling under her breath, Marley walked toward the Silverado’s passenger side. As soon as she was in the cab and the door was shut, Lane fixed Greyson with a menacing stare.

  “As the sheriff, I’m going to tell you that I don’t want to catch you out here again. No matter who you’re with or what you’re doing.”

  “Fair enough,” Greyson agreed. He didn’t love being told what to do, but the guy was the freaking sheriff. He could live with it.

  “Now, as the best friend of that woman’s oldest brother?” Lane continued, his tone growing both frost and teeth. “I’ll tell you this. You might not have to answer to the judge for getting indecent with Marley out here where anyone could’ve seen you, but with what Owen, Hunter, and Eli are going to have to say about it? You’re gonna wish you were in jail.”

  Greyson was an inch away from Lane before his brain had a single fucking clue he would move. The guy could eat him alive without breaking a sweat, and right now he totally looked like that was the immediate plan. But Greyson didn’t give a shit.

  “Respectfully, those Cross boys can spit nails ’til the sun comes up, and if they want to try to kick the crap out of me, they can give that their best shot, too. But let me make one thing perfectly goddamned clear. As long as she’ll have me, there ain’t nothing in the world that’ll keep me from their sister.”

  25

  The main house at Cross Creek looked like a fifty-foot Christmas tree had had a love child with the Fourth of July. Every single light on the main floor was l
it up nice and bright, and as Marley counted one, two—yep, all three of her brothers’ trucks in the lot beside the house, she cursed Lane Atlee for the ninetieth time in the last thirty minutes. She’d known he’d call Owen, who would in turn call Hunter and Eli, of course. Greyson had told her Lane had all but promised to get on the phone before they’d even gotten out of the field. He’d also volunteered to come face the music with her, telling her he’d take whatever consequences came with it. Although Marley’s belly had flipped at the offer, she’d declined. The conversation was already going to be a tinderbox. No sense in adding an open flame.

  Pulling in a deep breath, Marley set her shoulders around her spine and opened the front door. Hunter sat on the living room sofa, his light brown hair sticking up as if he’d been tugging his hands through it. Eli and Owen were at opposite ends of the area rug covering the hardwood floor, as if they’d both been pacing on opposite loops. Marley’s stomach bottomed out at the sight of Tobias in the chair by the dark and quiet fireplace, his brow creased in concern. The four men froze for just a beat at the sight of her, and then her brothers’ voices all crashed together like a high-speed collision on I-90.

  “Thank God you’re back—”

  “What on earth were you thinking—”

  “I’m going to wring Greyson’s goddamned neck—”

  Annnnnd redline. “Stop right there!” Marley jammed her flip-flops into the floorboards and stood as tall as her frame would allow. She turned toward Hunter, since he’d spoken first. “I am back, as safe and sound as I’ve been all night. What I was thinking”—she turned toward Owen, who’d launched that little gem—“was that I wanted to spend time with Greyson after a long week of work. And no”—this got leveled at Eli, who looked as mad as she’d ever seen him. Not that it was going to change a single breath of what she had to say—“you’re not going to wring Greyson’s neck for wanting to spend time with me, too. Not unless you want to go through me to do it.”

  Eli shook his head. “He doesn’t want to spend time with you, Marley.”

  His tone easily conveyed his disdain. But for God’s sake, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been in that field, too, just as willing as Greyson.

  “First of all, you don’t know what he wants, or what he’s really like,” Marley said. “And secondly, just because he wants to sleep with me doesn’t automatically mean he’s only interested in sleeping with me, and it damn sure doesn’t make him a monster. We’re consenting adults.”

  All three of her brothers made varying noises of protest, and even Tobias’s jaw flexed tighter at the implication, making Marley bite her lip. Not because she’d fudged the truth, and definitely not because she was the type to hold back, especially over something like this. But she could also respect the fact that, while she wasn’t going to hide the fact that she liked Greyson in a more-than-friends way, there were probably parts of that attraction best left unspoken.

  “Look, Marley,” Hunter said, ever the calm one. “No one’s trying to jump down your throat or tell you what to do. It’s just that we’ve known Greyson a lot longer than you have, and he’s…”

  “An arrogant bastard with no honor,” Eli bit out, and Owen nodded in agreement.

  “He’s bad news, just like his father. Old man Whittaker has always been a nasty son of a bitch, and Greyson’s no different.”

  Marley’s heart pounded, her protest hot on her tongue. “Oh, yes, he is.”

  “Marley,” Owen started, but she’d reached her limit. Lifting a hand, she looked at each of her brothers in turn.

  “No. You three have said your piece, and now I’m going to say mine. You might have known Greyson longer than I have, but I know him far better than any of you do. I’ve spent the past month with him at that shelter,” she added, mostly to quell the argument brewing on Eli’s face. “And I’m the only person who bothered to look past the reputation to see the man behind it.”

  “Greyson comes by his reputation honestly,” Eli said. “He’s the one who threw down that bet last fall that his farm was better than ours.”

  “You didn’t hesitate to accept,” Marley shot back, and that hushed him up, at least for a minute. “Fine, so he pushed. But you pushed back, and both of you were standing up for the same thing—your farm. I don’t think any of you can really fault Greyson for having pride in his work. He loves Whittaker Hollow as much as you love Cross Creek.”

  Since that had stunned them all into silence, Marley took a step forward and continued. “Look, I know Greyson might be rough around the edges, but do you honestly think I’d put up with any crap from him?”

  “That is a good point,” Hunter said after a beat, returning Owen and Eli’s twin stares of seriously, dude? with a shrug. “What? She’s not wrong, about the bet or the fact that she’s not the sort to be taken advantage of.”

  “Still.” Owen shook his head. “This is Greyson Whittaker we’re talking about, here. We’re supposed to just believe he’s turned over some new leaf because he’s taken a shine to our little sister? Sorry, I’m not buying it.”

  Anger rose like a storm tide in Marley’s chest. “I’m right here, you know—”

  “I’m not buying it, either,” Eli cut in. “Greyson has always had an agenda, and—”

  Hunter jumped into the fray. “Okay, yeah, he’s always been a dick, but—”

  “Right, because you three were angels,” Marley protested. “Come on, you guys, this is just—”

  “Enough.”

  Tobias’s voice boomed through the living room, startling everyone to complete silence and making Marley wonder where on earth he’d been hiding all that power.

  “All this jawin’ is making my head hurt. Boys”—he stood, looking briefly unsteady before finding a stance that matched his tone—“I know you don’t like Greyson none, and to be honest, he’s earned that from you. Especially you,” he said to Eli, whose frown was big enough to require its own zip code.

  “You’re damn right,” Eli muttered, and Marley rolled her eyes. This whole thing was pointless. She opened her mouth to say so, but then Tobias shook his head.

  “But Marley’s right. She’s an adult, and she’s got plenty of common sense.”

  Wait. No way. Was Tobias siding with her?

  If her brothers’ expressions were anything to go by, she wasn’t the only one with a metric ton of whoa running through her veins.

  “You think Marley running around with Greyson Whittaker is a good idea?” Owen asked, his blue-gray eyes wide with shock.

  “It doesn’t really matter what I think,” Tobias said. It was an artful way of dodging the question, Marley realized, but she wasn’t about to split that hair, especially when he continued with, “But if y’all can trust her with the storefront, I don’t see why you can’t trust that her head’s on right regarding how she wants to spend her free time, and who she wants to do it with.”

  “Pop, this is Greyson we’re talking about,” Owen said, although his disgruntled frown had softened into something surprisingly close to concern. “Old man Whittaker’s son.”

  “No.” Here, Marley stepped forward. “He’s not like his father.” She took a breath, and God, even though this should scare her, she’d never been so sure of anything in her life. “Greyson is a good man. I know you guys have had your differences, but there are two sides to every coin. I’m not telling you that you have to like my being with him. But I am telling you that you have to deal with it, because it’s not going to change.”

  She measured the passing time by the rapid beat of her pulse in her ears, and finally, Hunter broke the silence.

  “We’re not trying to be jerks about this. We just want to look out for you.”

  “I know,” she said, because beneath her irritation, she really did. “But I just want you to trust me.”

  After a stretch of silence that felt a mile and a half long, Owen finally said, “Okay.” He didn’t look entirely convinced, but he also didn’t look as mad as he had when she’d walked
through the door, so for now, Marley would have to take it. “I don’t like it, and I think y’all spending time together is a terrible idea. But if that’s how you feel about Greyson, then I guess I have to respect that.”

  “Thank you.” She looked at Eli, whose clean-shaven jaw was clenched hard enough to crack walnuts, and of her brothers, she knew he’d be the last to come around. If he ever did.

  “I can’t promise you I’m ever going to like this,” he said, proving her point. “You’re my sister, and Greyson is…” He trailed off, closing his eyes and exhaling audibly. “He’d just better treat you like gold.”

  Marley nodded. “I get it.” The adrenaline she had felt over the last hour started to flag, reminding her how tired she’d been when she’d crawled into bed in the first place. “Look, it’s late, and you guys have the farmers’ market tomorrow.” She had some things she wanted to take care of at the storefront, too, even though she was technically supposed to have the day off. “Why don’t we call it a night?”

  Owen split his gaze between her and Tobias, concern flickering back to life in his eyes. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. We could probably all use some shuteye.”

  Her brothers all said their goodnights, Eli grumbling one last warning of the nine kinds of bodily harm he’d dish up if Greyson gave him the slightest reason to under his breath before heading out the door. Weariness invaded Marley’s muscles, tempting her to slump, but instead, she turned toward Tobias.

  “You stood up for me.”

  “I reckon I did,” he said quietly.

  “Why?” Marley’s cheeks burned as she heard the lack of grace in the question. “I mean, I can’t imagine you’re thrilled about the whole me and Greyson thing, either. It must’ve been hard for you to give me the benefit of the doubt.”