Owen huffed out a soft laugh and took a sip of his beer. “You’re good at that. Being honest,” he clarified.
“Turns out, honesty can get you into as much trouble as the alternative sometimes,” Cate said, her heart smacking against her sternum for letting the omission slip out loud.
Of course, even with his beer buzz, Owen caught it. And, of course, because he had said beer buzz, he got bold enough to ask, “Yeah? How do you figure?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to dodge the question with some smart remark. But the truth was, beer buzz or not, Owen’s kindness deserved more than a baked-goods thank you. No matter how vulnerable the words would make her feel.
“You did a really nice thing for me the other day,” she said, and he coughed into his pint glass.
“Shit. You really do dive right in, don’t you?”
His candid reaction scattered the tension that had been building in her shoulders, and she forked over the truth. “Yep. Why did you send Mike to fix my oven?”
“Because.”
Owen waited out the minute it took Cate to replace a pair of beers for Greyson Whittaker and Billy Masterson, and pour a round of Chardonnays for Michelle Martin and her usual crew for girls’ night out.
“Because?” Cate prompted upon her return, but Owen just lifted one leanly muscled shoulder in reply. Anyone else would’ve taken the cue to let it go, she knew. But she so wasn’t anyone else, and, what’s more, she really wanted to know. “Come on, Owen. We got this far in the conversation. You’re not really going to go tight-lipped on me now, are you?”
The edges of his mouth curved just enough to form the hint of a smile, and ha! Gotcha. “You fixed my books. It only seemed fair.”
“You’re paying me to fix your books,” she pointed out, handing over a couple of checks to people waiting to settle up and head home for the night.
“Okay, fine,” Owen said when she was done, this time without prodding. “How about this? I sent Mike to fix your oven because you needed it. And I…get that.”
“You do.”
Cate’s breath hitched behind her navy blue top. No one knew how much baking meant to her—she’d certainly never told anyone how she felt when she was in the kitchen, how she craved the ease and calm that baking provided. She couldn’t. But something about the glint in Owen’s eyes told her that not only did he see how much she’d needed her kitchen, but he wasn’t bluffing or bullshitting about understanding that need, and when he nodded, she said the only thing she could think of.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He lowered his stare to the half-empty beer in front of him. “I wanted you to know I appreciate your hard work, but I’m not always so great at knowing what to say. In fact, I kind of suck at it.” A self-deprecating laugh punctuated the admission, and God, did Cate know the feeling.
“Then you could just say that. Look, I’m not great at expressing myself, either,” she said, and Owen arched a brow.
“What? You? I never would’ve guessed.”
Cate’s laughter snuck up on her, but, oh, it tasted dangerously good. “Ha-ha. Did you want to be the pot or the kettle, there, Casanova?”
Funny, his corresponding laugh sounded even better than hers felt. “Fair enough.”
“Why don’t we call it a draw and agree to stick with honesty from now on?” she asked. “Deal?”
“Yeah. Deal.”
A pause opened up between them, but before either one of them could fill it, Lane reappeared at the bar, an oddly concerned look on his face as he looked at Owen.
“Hey, so, ah, here’s the thing.” Lane shifted his weight from one foot to the other, running a palm over the back of his tightly cropped crew cut. “Daisy caught a ride here with Hunter and Emerson, and they’re ready to call it a night. She and I are kind of having a good time, though. So I told her if she wanted to stay and hang out for a little while longer, I could give her a ride home instead, but…uh…”
“Oh. Oh.” Owen straightened in realization. The look on his face said the second-last thing he wanted to do was cock block his buddy after the guy had finally made a move that—from the sound of things—was working. But it also said the very last thing he could do was safely drive himself home, and, oh, screw it.
“Go,” Cate said. “Take Daisy home. I’ve got Owen.”
Both men turned toward her with surprise that would’ve been amusing if she wasn’t also feeling it with equal measure.
“You do?” Owen asked, and Cate served up a no-nonsense stare.
“I do. Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
He shook his head, dropping his voice as he leaned toward her. “I was out of those two beers ago.”
“Then I guess it’s settled.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t know where he lived, or Cross Creek was more than five minutes out of her way. She could give Owen a ride home, no harm, no foul.
Lane’s goofy smile was pretty at odds with his tough demeanor and his linebacker-esque physique, but Cate had to admit, it still looked good on him. “Thanks, Cate. I really owe you one.”
She laughed, shooing him from the bar. “I’m going to make Owen help me clean up before I drop him off. Believe me, we’re square.”
“Greeeeat.” Owen tried—unsuccessfully—to hide the smile that canceled out his sarcasm in his pint glass, then focused his attention back on her. “So, what should we talk about now that you’re stuck with me and we’ve got this honesty policy in place?”
“Work?” Boring, maybe, but at least it was something they had in common.
Or not. “Nope.” Owen shook his head. “I came out tonight to forget work.” At her doubt-filled frown, he amended, “At least ’til tomorrow. Try again.”
“The weather?” Cate asked, and, ugh, she had no small-talk game whatsoever. She was totally and completely game-fucking-free.
Thank God Owen seemed to have enough of a beer buzz not to notice. Of course, he didn’t do her any favors, either. “No on that, too. I’m a farmer, which makes the topic of the weather awfully close to work.”
“You have a point.” Cate paused for a quick scan of the bar, picking up a handful of empty glasses from the noticeably less-populated stretch of mahogany on either side of them. “Got any non-work-related ideas, then?”
“What’s your middle name?”
If he’d asked her to jump up on the bar and dance a jig, it might’ve surprised her less. “That’s what you want to talk about?”
“Seems as good a thing as any,” he said, relaxing against the ladder back of his bar stool, and for the love of God, couldn’t the man own a single T-shirt that didn’t make his biceps look like pure arm porn? “Here, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll go first. My middle name is Nicholas.”
Cate snuffed out the heat between her legs before it made her say something stupid. Or, worse yet, vault over the glossy wood and glassware separating them so she could get a firsthand feel of those corded, sexy, arm muscles. “Owen Nicholas,” she managed. “That suits you.”
After she didn’t fill the ensuing pause with anything other than a smile, he said, “Come on, I told you mine. Are you really going to leave me hanging?”
There were no less than ten reasons—good, solid, sound reasons—why flirting with Owen was a bad idea. But, funny, not a single damned one of them could keep her from doing it.
“I’m thinking about it, yeah.” Before he could loosen the protest that he was clearly working up, Cate gave in. Sort of. “Okay, okay! Guess.”
“Are you going to give me any hints?”
“It’s not Nicholas,” she offered. Although he arched a brow at her in reply, that tiny half-smile still played on his lips, and, she had to admit, this bolder version of him was even more attractive than the broody side that she already didn’t hate.
“Okay. Let’s see.” Owen tapped his index finger against his bottom lip. “Cate is short for Catelyn, so…”
Shock worked its way through her veins. “You
remember that?”
Nobody ever called her by her full name, largely because she’d never answered to it. Catelyn had always felt so frilly to her, especially with how her parents had decided to spell it. Cate was far more to the point.
“We were in the same class every year from kindergarten to graduation. Of course, I remember it,” Owen said, and small town: 1. Cate: goose egg.
Assessing her with an up and down look that sent a shiver up her spine despite the warmth of the bar around them, he continued, “How about Ann?”
She laughed. “Nice try, going generic. But no.”
“I suppose that means Mary and Elizabeth are out, too, then.”
“Not even close.”
He held up his hands. “You can’t blame a guy for trying. I should’ve figured this wouldn’t be easy.”
Cate took a turn with the brow-raise they’d been trading all night. “Careful, Casanova, or I’ll think you just called me a pain in the ass.”
“A challenge,” he countered, his forehead creasing in thought. “It’s not anything totally off the wall, like Esmerelda, is it?”
More than anything, she wanted to hang on to her stick-straight stare and make him panic. But the peal of laughter in her chest refused to let her. “No. It’s not Esmerelda. And, yes, it’s something I’m sure you’ve heard before.”
“Grace.”
“No.”
“Melissa.”
“Nope.”
“Ah!” He snapped his fingers in triumph. “Abigail.”
“Still no,” she said with a laugh.
“You’re killing me here, you know.”
The words were simple. But Owen’s eyes flashed, storm-gray and intense as he delivered them, and, suddenly, inexplicably, those seven little syllables went right into Cate’s center.
“It’s Sophia.”
Owen’s blink lasted for less than a second before his smile took over. “Sophia,” he repeated, testing it out on his tongue. “I don’t think I would have guessed that.”
“Mmm.” Her heart beat faster, whooshing against her eardrums in a rapid thump-thump-thump as she pressed her hands over the bar and leaned forward. “There are probably a lot of things about me that you’d never guess. But I don’t go sharing my middle name with just anybody, so you’d better take that one to the grave, Owen Nicholas.”
He leaned in, too, close enough for Cate to be able to smell the crisp, clean scent of his soap, see the sweep of his coal-colored lashes even though his stare never budged. “Your secret’s safe with me, Catelyn Sophia.”
And wasn’t that just what she was afraid of?
10
“All right, everybody, that’s it! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
Cate eyeballed the half-dozen patrons still dotting the dance floor even though Garth Brooks had crooned his last note of the night. Millhaven was a small enough town that last call clocked in at midnight, which might be considered early for the bigger bars and chain restaurants in Camden Valley, but was definitely later than anything else within a twenty-mile radius of The Bar, or any other place in town, for that matter.
Echoing a couple of “goodnight”s, Cate ushered everyone toward the door. “Have you got a ride, Amber?” she asked as the woman teetered on her four-inch boot heels.
“Yes, ma’am!” Amber giggled. “Billy’s gonna drive both me and Mollie Mae home. Isn’t that sweet?”
“As pie,” Cate replied, exhaling in relief. At least the guy had only had two beers all night. As opposed to Amber’s four mango-ritas, which had been three parts ’rita to one part fruity mixer. “Be safe getting home.”
She closed the door after the trio, leaving the bar eerily quiet, save the muffled clink of the glassware Brett was loading into the industrial dishwasher in the kitchen. She had already tidied up and restocked everything behind the bar, as well as run inventory and lined up clean pint glasses and plastic pitchers for whoever was working tomorrow’s shift. Brett had taken mercy and sprung her from the drudgery of putting up the bar stools and mopping the floors, so that left her with only one thing on her agenda.
It was time to take Owen home.
Cate turned toward the spot where he sat at the bar, looking just as infernally sexy as he had when he’d flirted with her an hour ago. “You doing okay over there?” she asked.
A swath of dark hair tumbled over his forehead as he measured her with a glance. “Well, that depends.”
“On?”
“You don’t have a long-lost twin I don’t know about, do you?”
She lost the battle with her smile. “I’m afraid not.”
“Then I’m good,” Owen said, recanting a little with, “also, a little drunk.”
Cate nodded. He was a big enough guy, and even though he’d downed most of the ice water she’d poured after he’d finished his last beer, he’d still had his fair share of liquor tonight. He didn’t seem sloppy enough to be full-on wasted, but the flush on his cheeks said all the alcohol had finally soaked in to tag him right in the happy place. “Let’s get you home, then.”
After a quick trip behind the wood to grab her jacket and purse, and another one into the kitchen to say goodnight to Brett and let him know she was leaving, Cate fished out her keys and made her way back around the front of the bar. “Ready?”
“Mmm hmm. Yyyyyep.”
Owen found his feet, clearly taking a second to recalibrate his balance, and Cate stopped halfway across the floor.
“You sure about that?”
“What? Oh, yeah,” he said. But the hand he waved through the air was wobbly enough to prove otherwise.
“Okay.” Cate’s legs were in motion before her brain had fully registered the command to go. Ducking under his shoulder, she threaded her arm around the back of his rib cage, leaning into him until he had no choice but to sling his arm around her for support. “Come on.”
“You really don’t…o-kay, and we’re moving.”
Thankfully, Owen abandoned his protest in favor of falling into step beside her. He leaned in just enough to make her hyper-aware of all the places their bodies touched—the fit of his upper arm over her shoulder blade, the warmth of his rib cage where he pressed against her side, their skin separated by only the too-thin layers of their shirts because her jacket had fallen open when she’d moved to help him. As if the contact wasn’t enough, each tandem step created just enough friction to make Cate’s heart pound. Step, Owen’s thigh on her hip. Step, her jeans brushing his jeans in reply. Step, his palm curving over the top of her bicep, and, oh, God, she should’ve just risked letting him stumble his way to her car.
“Here we go!” she said far too cheerily as they reached her Toyota. She sent up a fervent prayer that it would cooperate, releasing a relieved breath when the engine kicked over on the first attempt. Owen managed to get his seat belt on, and they made the trip to Cross Creek in ten minutes that were both quiet and quick.
“So, I’m not sure where to go from here,” Cate said after pulling off Millhaven’s one central road and onto Cross Creek’s property. She knew Owen and Hunter both lived on different parts of the farm, but she’d never had occasion to go anywhere other than the main house, which stood in the shadowy distance.
“My place is on the west side of the property. So head left at the fork instead of going right, toward the main house.”
It took Cate a second to realize he hadn’t opened his eyes. “Don’t you need to look?” For all he knew, she could’ve passed the fork already. Not that she had, but…
“Nope,” Owen said. “I was born and raised on this farm. Running the place is my legacy. I’d know where I was with my eyes closed.” He seemed to get his own joke after the fact, letting out a laugh before adding, “Turn right up here, after you pass the greenhouse. My house is up a ways, around the curve and on the left.”
Damn, he really wasn’t kidding about that internal compass of his. Cate paused to make the turn by the greenhouse, slowly navigat
ing the pitch-dark path. A pair of tiny lights twinkled up ahead, dimly at first, then growing brighter and warmer as she made her way around a gentle curve in the gravel road. The lights illuminated the porch of a cozy two-story cottage just enough for Cate to see the stone pavers leading up to the porch steps and the beautiful, natural wood exterior that made the place seem more like a cabin than a traditional farm house. A sturdy, oversized rocking chair stood sentry a few feet from the front door, and between that, the wide, wood-and-copper planter boxes gracing the length of the porch railing, and the pretty, lantern-like fixtures casting a golden glow over it all, the house might as well have leapt off the pages of a home and garden magazine.
“Wow,” she whispered, and again, Owen laughed.
“See you found the place.” His eyes fluttered open, and he indulged in a batch of slow blinks before shaking his head. “Just let me figure out what I did with my keys. Ah!”
His victory was short lived as he held up his key ring in one second, then dropped it to the floor of her Toyota in the next. “Damn it,” he muttered. He leaned forward to search for them in the dark, promptly bumping his head against the dashboard and letting out a darker, harsher curse.
“Oh, jeez! Are you okay?” Cate asked, but Owen just sat up and rubbed his forehead.
“Sorry. That wasn’t a very polite thing to say.”
She bit back her surprise, then her smile. Looked like the Owen she knew from the farm wasn’t too far beneath the surface. But that was okay. She pretty much lived above the surface. “Lucky for you, I don’t put a whole lot of stock in sugar-coating things—including the F-bomb. Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
Owen located his keys easily enough once Cate opened her door and the dome light clicked on, and she slid her arm under his to guide him up the walkway. He fumbled with the whole key/lock thing, but only for a second before getting both where they belonged and freeing the front door with a turn of his wrist. They got over the threshold without fanfare thanks to the light filtering in from the porch, and, come on, come on, there had to be a—yes! Cate’s hand connected with a light switch on the wall in the foyer a second later.
Crossing Promises Page 9