Her eyes surprised her by forming tears, hot and unbidden, and she clamped them shut to ensure that the tears wouldn’t fall. Sure, things were bleak right now, but she’d been through worse, most of it without breaking down for a boo-hoo. She just needed to grit her teeth and muscle through like always.
Not that she’d ever done that without her oven. But she’d figure out a way.
Probably.
After a few rounds of deep breathing, Cate opened her eyes. While the unease that had parked itself inside her rib cage like a Buick hadn’t budged, at least her stupid tears had taken a hike. Now, all she needed to do was grab a lightning-fast lunch and get on the rest of this paperwork.
She grabbed her bargain-brand canned soup du jour—vegetable, today—and headed into the Cross’s kitchen. Pretty, golden sunlight streamed in through the windows on the far wall, illuminating everything around her in a happy glow. It should’ve lifted her mood, Cate knew. Instead, the view just reminded her of everything she couldn’t have right now, and God, what was with her and the tears today?
How am I supposed to find anything in this tornado you’ve created?
No. No. She would not think of Owen and his storm-colored stare that seemed to cut a direct path right to where she felt most vulnerable.
Because on top of everything else, feeling vulnerable around her beautiful, brooding boss just might break her right now.
The sound of the back door squeaking on its hinges captured Cate’s notice, and by the time Hunter had taken the half-dozen steps into her line of sight, she’d tacked a business as usual expression over her face.
“Oh, hi, Cate,” he said, his blue eyes crinkling as he gave up a friendly smile. “I just came to grab some extra bottled water. Hope I’m not bothering you.”
“It’s your house.” Her cheeks burned at the unintended gracelessness in her words, and she scrambled to add, “You’re not bothering me at all.”
Hunter glanced down at the can she’d popped open and poured into the chipped ceramic bowl she’d brought from home. “Canned soup, huh? You must really like that stuff.”
Cate bit her tongue—not lightly—to keep from pointing out that nobody liked bargain-basement canned soup enough to eat it for lunch for a week straight. “It’s not so bad,” she said, because it was better that than a lie.
Hunter’s expression said he thought otherwise, although he was too kind to say so out loud. Instead, he surprised her by going with, “You know, we’ve got more salad greens and tomatoes in the fridge than we can probably eat, and there are a bunch of strawberries in here, too.”
More shock made her lips part. “You have fresh strawberries? How is that even possible?” They weren’t in season for another two months. Even the ones The Corner Market had in those little plastic containers were pretty much impossible to get this time of year unless you were willing to settle for fruit that was either anemic-looking or way past its prime because it had been shipped from so far away.
“You’d be surprised what a good greenhouse will yield off-season. Plus, Owen tends to all the produce in there like a mother hen.”
Hunter paused, just for a blink, but his wince in hindsight at the maternal reference didn’t slip by her. Owen wasn’t her favorite topic of conversation, but she’d take him over a poor-Cate pity party—even a subtle and well-meaning one—any day.
“Your brother does seem pretty serious.” She stirred a can of water into her soup, which didn’t add to the appeal of the blah-brown broth or the mushy vegetables, but hey, beggars and choosers and all.
“He does,” Hunter agreed, reaching into the refrigerator for two oversized bottles of water. “But don’t take it too personally. The legacy of being oldest might make him kind of a drill sergeant about the farm sometimes, but deep down, he’s really just a big ol’ softie.”
Cate couldn’t help herself. Despite the unease still bundled in her chest, a smile slipped out. “Does he know you’re spilling his secret?”
“No, ma’am.” Hunter smiled back. “I was kind of hopin’ you’d keep that under wraps for me.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Well. I’ve got a whole bunch of things to get done before the day is through,” he said, and Cate’s breath re-cemented itself to her lungs in response.
“I know the feeling,” she muttered, her nervous system springing right on back to DEFCON 1 at the thought of getting the storefront project paperwork organized and entered into the database in a manner that made sense.
Hunter tipped his baseball hat at her and turned toward the door. “I won’t keep you, then. Enjoy your lunch, and feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen, too, okay?”
“Thank you.”
Cate dropped her stare to her soup, sliding it into the microwave and pressing the start button, even though her appetite was lukewarm at best. She had a minute to kill, so she let her stare coast over the big, beautiful double oven beside her, the long stretches of counter space just begging to be used, the white ceramic canisters labeled “flour”, “sugar”, and “salt” that stood close enough to make her fingers twitch.
Feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen…
Salad greens and fruit were one thing, and a generous offer at that. But what if Cate wanted more?
What if she wanted the kitchen itself?
Her chin whipped up, common sense quickly stamping out the suggestion from her clearly delirious brain. Was she crazy? She couldn’t hijack the Cross’s kitchen just to get her baking fix. It would be improper on so many levels. She’d not only have to invade their space, but she’d have no choice but to use ingredients from their pantry. She couldn’t possibly justify either, not even in the name of calming her French-fried nerves.
Except.
While she’d have to raid the Cross’s cupboards for ingredients, she could leave whatever she baked here for them to enjoy, and—of course—she’d clean up after herself. So the only thing she’d technically be taking would be the space, and she was already in their house for nine hours a day, anyway. She wasn’t some stranger walking up the lane and into their kitchen without permission.
Cate’s heart beat faster at the burst of excitement flooding her veins. It was nearly one o’clock. All three Cross men had come and gone for lunch. She usually didn’t see any of them again until three or four o’clock, and, even then, those sightings were hit or miss.
She could totally borrow their kitchen without getting in anybody’s way, and no one would know until after the fact.
Soup forgotten, Cate opened the fridge with a gentle tug. Not one, but two pints of strawberries greeted her, and oh, God, they were gorgeous. Not humungous or oddly shaped like some of those imported berries that had likely been sprayed with nine kinds of chemicals to “enhance” growth, these were bright red and bite-sized. She slid the closest container from the shelf, placing it on the counter next to a bowl of oranges and lemons, and she smiled instantly.
Strawberry lemon quick bread.
The idea echoed through her brain first, then quickly migrated to her heart. It was the perfect recipe to whip together on the fly. The summer-sweet bread didn’t require any ingredients that weren’t common pantry staples. She wouldn’t need a mixer to make it, and she’d know the recipe even if she were in a coma—plus, the bread lived up to its name. She could put the double-batch recipe together, start to finish, in the time she’d normally take for her lunch break. No harm, no foul, no time missed from work.
Cate’s fingers wiggled impatiently, her breath catching in her throat at the thought of soothing away the worries of her week with the simplicity of the ingredients and the motions she knew by heart. The motions that would offer her more sustenance than food or drink or sleep.
The motions that would calm her enough to let her get the books organized and keep her job.
She moved before her brain even registered the command it had sent to her legs to get in gear. Within minutes, she had all the ingredie
nts assembled in front of her. Finding two loaf pans took a little doing, but didn’t prove impossible. Now, if she could only dig up a mixing bowl big enough to—ah! Cate struck gold (or, in this case, stainless steel) in one of the cupboards beneath the island, and she didn’t waste any time putting her newfound tools to work.
Flour, baking soda, salt, butter, sugar…she measured and stirred and mixed, letting each step chip away at the tension in her shoulders. This, this was the only thing that could calm her. Baking made her feel not only awake, but alive. The routine flooded her with relief, like that first gasp of air after diving to the bottom of a deep, dark pool, like some sort of vital puzzle piece that fit only her and didn’t make sense to anyone else.
I like cookies as much as the next person, Cate, but we have a baby now. Anyway, no one ever makes money off a hobby…
She sucked in a sharp breath, her hands freezing mid-motion before she locked down on the memory and parceled it back to the basement of her brain. Nope. No way. She wasn’t going to wreck the one shot she had at kicking her shitastic week to the curb by dwelling on a past she hadn’t been able to change then, and damn sure couldn’t change now.
Cate willed her muscles to unwind, stirring the batter with even turns of the spatula until it became a smooth, satiny mixture. Placing the bowl on the counter, she rinsed the strawberries and carefully patted them dry, the paring knife from the block on the counter sounding off in a rhythmic tat-tat-tat as she treated them to a quick slice. The jewel-toned berries popped against the pale yellow batter, to the point that she almost regretted folding them in. But she’d saved a handful of the prettiest ones for the top of each loaf—people ate with their eyes first, after all. And, wow, the strawberries really were some of the prettiest Cate had ever seen.
On impulse, she tossed one into her mouth. She hadn’t really thought anything of the move; hell, she’d probably eaten truckloads of strawberries in her thirty-two years. But she realized, too late, that this was no ordinary strawberry. The flavors exploded on her tongue, juicy and ripe, and she let out a blissful moan before tasting another one, then another. The berries carried a flawless balance of sweetness to acidity, not too tart, not too cloying. Just perfect.
Kind of like this moment she’d craved more than food or water or air.
Getting the batter evenly distributed in the waiting loaf pans, Cate put both into the oven she’d preheated, quickly backtracking to tidy the kitchen and erase any signs that she’d been there. Even doing the dishes wasn’t a chore, and as the last of her unease slipped down the drain along with the soap bubbles, she allowed herself to think that maybe—just maybe—she could tackle this job and pay her bills, and things would be okay.
One measly hour later, Cate realized things were definitely not okay. She’d been so desperate to get into the Cross’s kitchen for a little innocent baking that she’d forgotten the quick bread would make the entire first floor of the house smell like a strawberry-lemon paradise.
Which wouldn’t be so terrible, except for the fact that someone had just unexpectedly opened the back door not even ten minutes after she’d turned out the quick bread to cool on the windowsill, and the increasingly louder echo of boot-steps in the hallway said that someone was headed directly for her. God, what had she been thinking, using the Cross’s kitchen like that, even if it had been on her lunch break?
Cate whipped a panicked glance around the office. Of course, the place didn’t look any better than it had when Owen had raised his eyebrows at it—and her—ninety minutes ago, even though she’d actually made more progress than she’d hoped. The lack of stress had cleared her mind enough to let her really dig in to the multiple options the software offered. Not that that little tidbit was going to help her right now.
Owen crossed the threshold of the office, and Cate’s gut bottomed out on the floorboards. She couldn’t have been busted by Hunter or Mr. Cross, could she? It just had to be grouchy, gorgeous Owen, standing there with a tea towel-wrapped loaf of quick bread balanced between his big, rugged hands and a stupidly sexy crease bisecting his brows.
“What is this?”
In a lot of cases—most of them, even—the question would be totally innocuous. But this wasn’t going to be one of those cases, so despite her hammering heartbeat, Cate stood up and said, “It’s a strawberry lemon quick bread.”
The only change in Owen’s expression was the slight lift of his stubbled chin. “You baked a loaf of quick bread in our kitchen?”
She bit back the no-filter urge to point out that she’d actually baked a pair of them.
“I did it on my lunch break, and I know it was really brash to just raid your pantry like that. But I wouldn’t dream of taking it home with me. It’s, you know. For you to enjoy,” she said, the words tumbling out in a rush. Better to just rip off the Band-Aid in one painful tug. “I apologize for overstepping my bounds. Hunter said I should help myself to anything in the kitchen, but I’m sure he didn’t mean this. I just…the oven at my place is broken, and I can’t afford to fix it right now, but I wanted…I needed…”
Cate trailed off, unable to finish the sentence without sounding like a bigger wingnut than she already did. How on earth could she expect Owen to understand why she’d needed to be in the kitchen so desperately? That when she had her hands on the ingredients and her mind on the recipes, it was the only time she ever felt right?
She cleared her throat. “Anyway. You’re my employer, and this is where I work. It was wrong of me to take such a big liberty with the house. I won’t do it again.”
“Cate—”
Oh, God, his eyes were brimming over with equal parts question and pity, and really, she just couldn’t. “Look, I have a lot of work to do if I’m going to get these books organized before the construction on your storefront project begins next week, so can we just forget about this? Please? I really won’t ever do it again.”
For the longest minute of Cate’s life, Owen said nothing, simply looked at her with that steely gray stare that she was certain could see every single thing she wanted to hide. Her throat knotted, her palms going clammy with the certainty that he was going to call her out or fire her, or maybe even both.
So she was shocked right down to her toes when he said, “Okay, then. I guess we should both get back to work.”
7
Owen huddled down low in his thermal-lined jacket, warding off the early morning chill with a cup of coffee strong enough to strip the paint off his truck. He loved Cross Creek in all lights and seasons, but there was something a little exceptional about the place right after dawn, just as the sun warmed the tree line over the east fields. The way the sky morphed so seamlessly from dark blue to purple to pink, the sun ushering the shadows into the past tense and turning the fields all green and gold…Christ, it was enough to take a man’s breath away.
Even if he had been working those fields so much lately he could feel it in his fingernails.
“Well. I s’pose that face is one way to go.”
Owen shifted against the fence line and gifted his brother with a single-fingered salute, although the corners of his mouth edged up in enough of a smile to take most of the heat out of the gesture. “Yeah, yeah. It’s six thirty on a Wednesday morning and we’re about to get our asses kicked by a twelve-hour workday. Sue me if I’m not all rainbows and unicorns right now.”
Hunter laughed, leaning against the planks of the split rail fence so they were shoulder to shoulder. “You should be all unicorns and rainbows right now, seeing as how we’re breaking ground on the storefront in a couple of hours and you weaseled the last piece of that quick bread for your breakfast. You sneaky bastard.”
So many things to unpack there. Owen decided to go with the easiest. “I can’t help it you stayed in bed an extra ten minutes and missed out on breakfast. You snooze, you lose, brother.”
Hunter’s laugh became a snort, lickety split. “Pretty sure I win, considering I spent those ten minutes enjoying something even be
tter than quick bread.”
Ah, shit. He’d waltzed right into that one, hadn’t he? “Right. Well, good for you, then.”
His brother’s reply was—blessedly—cut off by the buzz of his cell phone, which he slid from the back pocket of his jeans. “Oh, hey! It’s Eli on FaceTime.”
Hunter swung the phone around, and a few taps had Eli’s face on the screen, his cocky, up-to-no-good grin firmly in place.
“Hey! Morning, slackers,” he said, the words arriving on enough of a delay to remind Owen that his youngest brother was easily a half-dozen time zones away.
“Slackers? Are you kidding me?” Hunter replied with mock indignation, and Eli laughed.
“I’m in Athens. It’s already afternoon here, and there y’all are, just getting started.”
Owen shook his head. Six months later, it was still so hard to picture Eli, who hadn’t set foot outside of King County for twenty-eight years, jet-setting all over the globe. He worked hard, though, and even though his career one-eighty had caused a whole lot of changes on the farm, Owen couldn’t be mad that his brother was following his true passion with a woman he loved.
“It’s been a while since I caught both of you together,” Eli said. “So, tell me, what’s new out there?”
Owen opened his mouth to give Eli a full farm report, but Hunter beat him to the punch with a wry grin. “Nothing much. I was just ribbing Owen for his complete lack of a sex life.”
“Dude.” Owen gave up a look of pure what the fuck. Not that it fazed either of his brothers.
“What?” Hunter arched a brow high enough for the thing to disappear beneath the brim of his baseball hat. “It’s not like I’m wrong.”
Owen frowned. “And it’s not like we’re not busy around here.”
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