Like she’d been made to get there from the beginning.
“I guess I just feel like the tough stuff gives you more of a sense of accomplishment when you beat the odds and nail it,” Cate said.
All at once, Marley’s arms whipped over her chest, her expression turning stony and shuttered. “That’s a little rah-rah for a bunch of butter and sugar, don’t you think?”
Whoa. “Maybe a little, but—”
Marley’s coffee cup met the counter with a hard clunk. “Yeah, well, I can read between the lines. I’m not some charity case who needs a pep talk to get over my mom. I’m just fine the way I am.”
But as she turned on her heels and stalked out of the kitchen, Cate couldn’t help but think that was far from true.
Four and a half hours and one pound cake later, the molehill on Cate’s desk had become a speed bump. She still had no less than a dozen major tasks on her To Do list, especially where the storefront project was concerned, but at least now the books were manageable. She had a schedule. Order. A plan.
And, more importantly, her bills were getting paid.
The back door off the kitchen opened with a now-familiar squeak, and the equally familiar sound of boot-steps sounded off on the floorboards in the hallway. Cate’s heart tripped in her chest, and, oh, for the love of Christmas, it had only been a couple of kisses.
Hard, hot kisses that reminded you exactly how long your vagina has been a ghost town…
“Hey,” Owen said, the sight of his tousled, slightly-too-long-but-still-wildly-sexy hair doing nothing to squash the heat growing low in her belly. “Do you have a second?”
Taking a deep breath in an effort to get her girly bits to stand down, Cate said, “Sure. What’s up?”
“The contractors are making really good progress on the storefront. I’d like to be sure the next phase is really solid on the books since it seems we’ll be getting to it on or maybe even a little ahead of schedule.”
“Okay,” she said. She’d put everything he’d given her so far into the system, but it made sense for them to cover the details of the next steps of the project to be sure they were both on the same page.
Cate reached for a pen and a legal pad. But instead of grabbing the spare chair that sat on the other side of the desk so they could get to business, Owen stood firm just two steps inside the doorway. He glanced down at his boots, running a palm over the back of his neck before sliding his gaze back in her direction.
“Actually, I was thinking, if you’re free for dinner, we could go over the plans tonight.” Quickly, he added, “I’d pay you for your time, of course, since it would be work-related, but I’ve got some garlic chicken marinating at home. There’s plenty for both of us. We could kill two birds with one stone.”
Surprise parted her lips, but only for a second before they found the smile that had started in her chest and worked its way up. “The first bird, I get. We’d be talking about the project. But what’s the second one?”
“Oh. Well, the second one is that I’d really like to spend time with you.”
The unabashed honesty of his words made a shiver move through her. “Okay, then. My answer is yes, but on one condition.”
“And that is?”
Cate was certain she shouldn’t flirt with him. Folks were going to start lifting eyebrows and wagging tongues, and she didn’t want the attention. Dodging their whispers was already hard enough, and nothing would ever come of her spending time with a man like Owen Cross.
Yet, still, she heard herself say, “You let me make dessert. A girl can’t go to dinner—even a working one—empty-handed.”
“Deal,” he said, finally breaking into a smile. “I’m going to head over to my place and get cleaned up. How does meeting there in half an hour sound?”
Feeling this good was risky. Dangerous, even. Cate knew that all too well. But right now, in this moment, she didn’t care.
“Great. I’ll be there.”
13
Cate stood on Owen’s magazine-worthy porch with a grocery bag in each hand and her chest full of butterflies. She’d been perfectly calm until now, using twenty-eight of the thirty minutes before they’d agreed to meet on a quick trip to The Corner Market and a pit-stop at her house to pack up what she needed and quickly change her clothes. She’d had a plan, with objectives, none of which had included thinking of Owen in the shower. But now she had two whole minutes to kill. One hundred and twenty seconds to let her mind wander to whether his long, black eyelashes would spike together with drops of water clinging to them, or how his hands might look roaming over the ridged muscles of his chest and abs as he lathered and rinsed.
“God! Down, girl,” she whispered, shuffling the bags to jab the button for the doorbell with one finger. Yes, Owen was sexy as hell, and, yes, they’d traded a pair of very hot kisses. But at the end of the day, a man like that, so serious and family-driven, wasn’t meant for her. Plus, he was her boss. They might work well together, but she still had to see him every day. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just sleep with him, and she damn sure couldn’t do something insane like date him. She had to dial it back and keep this dinner platonic, no matter how good it had felt to flirt with him a little while ago.
The door swung open, and sweet baby Jesus, why did this man have to make her work so hard for her composure?
“Hey. You made it,” Owen said. He’d traded his work clothes for a pair of fresh but faded jeans and a navy blue button-down shirt that Cate would swear was made specifically to complement the steel-gray of his eyes. He’d rolled up his sleeves just high enough to showcase his corded forearms, completing the casual look with a blue and white checked dish towel slung over the broad line of one shoulder. His dark brown hair curled over his ears and his forehead, damp from the shower and perfectly imperfect, and she had to swallow twice before rummaging up a smile and a suitable reply.
“It’s easier to navigate during daylight hours,” she said. The truth grounded her, turning her smile more genuine. It was only dinner, for cripes’ sake. No reason not to enjoy it. “Plus, I figured if I really got turned around, I could just call.”
Owen stepped back to usher her over the threshold. “Ah, good luck getting cell service if you’re not at the main house. Here, let me take those.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay. I promised I’d make dessert. That includes the hard labor.”
She lifted the bags and did a no-frills twirl to show him how light they really were—just an eight-by-eight baking pan and a few plastic containers full of dry ingredients, plus one holding some canola oil.
But he didn’t step back to start walking her down the hall to the kitchen. In fact, he moved closer.
“Cate,” he said, slowly, as if measuring his words with precision. “I don’t want to take your bags because I think they’re particularly heavy.”
“They’re not,” she assured him. She’d thought the twirl would kind of hammer that home, but then again, she forgot most people weren’t really fluent in her brand of sarcasm.
“I know, and I also know you’re perfectly capable of carrying your own things.”
“Okay.” She extended the word into a question, and Owen blew out a breath in nonverbal defeat.
“I’d like to carry your things for you because it’s nice. So could you please do my manners a solid here, and let me?”
“Oh. Oh.” God, her social graces needed a good dusting off. “Well, in that case, ah, go for it.”
Cate passed the bags over, making sure not to let his fingers brush hers in the exchange, even slightly. He led the way through the foyer and living room, turning to aim his next words over one shoulder as he went.
“I was just getting the chicken ready to go into the oven. If you don’t mind sharing the kitchen space a little, you’re welcome to bake while I get dinner ready.”
Yes, yes, yes. She needed to get her hands on the ingredients and her sanity, ASAP. “That sounds great. I hope you like brownies.”
“Are there people who don’t?” He gestured to the kitchen island, placing the bags on the pretty, light gray granite after she nodded.
“I suppose in theory. But I’m not sure I’d trust one.”
Cate moved to the sink to wash her hands, stealing a long look around Owen’s kitchen as she went. Of course, she’d had plenty of time to catalogue the place yesterday morning while she’d waited for him to wake up, but now, with the evening light streaming in through the bank of windows along the far wall, the room was even more gorgeous.
“Your kitchen is really nice,” she said, walking back to the island to unpack her grocery bags. With its stainless steel appliances, sleek countertops, and spacious antique-white maple cabinets, it was a hell of an understatement. But since Cate was fairly sure that “your kitchen gives me a giant lady boner” would make Owen send her straight home, pink slip in hand, it would have to suffice.
“Thanks.” Owen turned toward the L-shaped counter, choosing the small space at the end for prep so he was still half-facing her as he spoke. “I can’t take a ton of the credit, though. The architect and designer pretty much did all of it. I just made a couple requests.”
Huh. “Like?”
“Well, I like to cook, so I definitely wanted function to go with the form. And I don’t plan to really ever move out of the place, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have things I’d want down the line even if I don’t use them too much now, like a big pantry and a double oven.”
Cate rubbed a hand over the ache that passed beneath her breastbone and reached for the baking dish, hitting it with a liberal dose of cooking spray. “Lucky for us that you did, since we’re about to put that double oven to use. Do you mind if I preheat the lower oven for the brownies?”
“Not at all,” Owen said, breaking into the half-smile Cate was starting to find even more attractive than its full-wattage counterpart. Somehow, it just seemed to fit him better. “In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d rather have in there for its maiden voyage.”
“You’ve never used it?” Cate asked, thoroughly shocked. “Are you crazy?”
Owen’s laugh made her realize—too late—how blunt the question had been. “Not last I checked. Just busy. Anyway, we do all of our family meals up at the main house, and it’s just me here for now, so, nope. I’ve never used both ovens at the same time.”
“I’m so glad we’re fixing that, because really, for an oven this nice, it’s a crying shame.”
She preheated the oven with a few quick taps of the buttons, then returned to her spot at the island. After asking for a mixing bowl and a pair of eggs, both of which she’d known he had after yesterday and neither of which would have traveled easily from her house, Cate reached for the container with the dry ingredients. Owen worked at his end of the counter, putting the chicken into a large baking dish, then the dish into the oven, before trimming the ends off some of the prettiest asparagus Cate had ever seen. The silence that rolled out in the sunlit space between them wasn’t uncomfortable, and the fact that she didn’t feel some awkward urge to fill it took her ease up another level. She stirred and mixed and breathed deeply, adding in the ingredients for the brownies one by one until the batter was satiny smooth and ready to go.
“Damn, even the batter smells good,” Owen said, lifting a brow over his steel-gray stare as she slid the pan onto the shiny oven rack and closed the door. “Is there anything you don’t bake well?”
Ah, the question was loaded like a two-dollar pistol. “I find some things more challenging than others,” she offered, but Owen read right between the lines.
“That’s a no.”
After a second, Cate admitted, “Okay, yeah. I mean, I’ve had some master disasters to go with my masterpieces, but I’ve also loved baking forever. The tougher the recipe, the more I tend to like it. So I suppose I do bake pretty much everything well. Even if that does sound immodest as hell.”
“I don’t think that sounds immodest at all,” Owen said, setting the asparagus—which was now wearing a liberal dose of olive oil and some earthy-smelling fresh herbs Cate couldn’t name but definitely wanted to eat—aside in favor of a saucepan and a box of rice. “You work hard, and you’re great at what you do. No shame in being honest about your accomplishments.”
Cate paused with her fingers over the timer app on her cell phone, her pulse quickening at her throat. The steady thump-thump-thump went for broke when he added, “Miss Clementine is right, you know. You should go into business and sell some of this stuff.”
“I wanted to.”
She heard the words only after they’d made a jailbreak, and she pressed her lips together even though it was too late to snare them back.
Funny, though, Owen didn’t seem too stunned. “How come you never did?”
Well, shit. Her choices now were to either fess up or tuck tail and run, and she couldn’t exactly run without him noticing. It was just the two of them, standing there, shooting the breeze in his kitchen. What would a little selective sharing of the facts hurt?
“It was ages ago,” Cate said, qualifying the claim with, “before Lily was born, so buying in on an actual space to start a bakery was out of the question. The initial investment, plus the overhead costs, made even renting way out of my reach, and I was too young to know anything about business plans or profit margins. No bank in their right mind gives a loan that big to an eighteen-year-old with no credit and no collateral.”
She didn’t add that she knew because she’d tried. Cate had never even made that admission out loud—not to Brian, not to her friends at the time, all of whom she’d grown apart from after she and Brian had gotten married, anyway. Letting it loose now, when it didn’t even matter and nothing could be done to change things? No, thanks.
Owen nodded slowly, shifting back from the saucepan full of broth and rice, which was now burbling happily over one of the burners on the stove. “Yeah, that makes sense. Cross Creek has established credit and sources of income, and securing the loan to make the storefront happen still took a bunch of hoop jumping. Which I guess you know since you’re managing the books,” he added with a self-deprecating smile. “Anyway, I hear you. Business loans can be tough to secure. Still, that was a long time ago. Why don’t you apply for one now?”
The question blew right past selective sharing, sticking into the soft, vulnerable part of her that warned her she shouldn’t have opened her mouth to begin with. Damn it, she needed to build some sort of immunity to Owen’s straightforward appeal.
“Because I’m scared I’ll die of boredom filling out the paperwork,” she volleyed, hoping like hell that her smile didn’t look as ill-fitting as it felt. Admitting that she’d once wanted to bake for a living was one thing. Forking over why she couldn’t possibly do it now was quite another, and not one that would ever change. “Anyway, I already have a job or three. Unless you’re trying to get rid of me already.”
“No.” The response flew out of him, and he paused to put the lid on the saucepan before turning all the way toward her. “I’m really not. The way you’ve organized our books is nothing short of amazing, to be honest. I don’t know how we survived as long as we did without the change.”
Cate shrugged. At least this was easier territory. “You had a system you were used to. Most people have to be dragged out of their comfort zones, kicking and screaming. All I did was grab you guys by the boot heels and tug a little.”
“You did much more than that,” Owen said. His voice was quiet, but oh, it slid through her deeply all the same. “We’re really grateful for your hard work, Cate. I’m grateful.”
Pride warmed her face, feeling both unusual and tantalizingly good. “Thank you,” she whispered, clearing her throat a second later. “So, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Did you want to get to work while the ovens do their thing?”
“Sure.”
Armed with a pair of legal pads and Owen’s laptop, they relocated to the kitchen table, taking over two of the four sturdy ladd
er-backed chairs there. Early-evening sunlight streamed in through the windows to provide an abundance of light, and between the cozy setting and Owen’s clear enthusiasm for the project, not getting excited—even about work—was pretty much a no-go.
“Okay. I was thinking we could start with a review of the overall plan, then talk about the budget and timeline for the next phase to be sure we’re still on track for both. Sound good?”
Cate nodded. While she’d managed a decent grasp of the farm’s finances over the past couple of weeks, she had to admit the specifics for this project were still a bit outside of her wheelhouse. A plan overview wouldn’t hurt. “You got it.”
“The goal of the project is to build a place where a wide variety of our produce will be available to folks on a daily basis,” Owen said, his gray-blue eyes crinkling around the edges as he clicked to open Cross Creek’s website. A banner appeared at the top, with a slide show of gorgeous, vibrant photos—that had no doubt been taken by Scarlett—showing off everything from the produce to the landscape. God, she’d even captured a great picture of the henhouse. “Not just tomatoes and corn and melons, although those are things we’ll certainly have in abundance, like always. But we want to use this storefront to really showcase the specialty items people can only get here. Heirloom tomatoes, a wide assortment of greens and herbs, varieties of fruits and vegetables that are a little more upscale than their everyday counterparts. Things like watercress, pattypan squash, Chinese eggplants, purple cauliflower. ”
He ticked each item off on his fingers, his face growing more animated as he went, and Cate’s stomach dipped down low beneath her jeans. “So, you’re essentially combining the best of both worlds by offering both the staples everyone is used to and broadening your customers’ horizons with new and unique produce. Kind of like running your own personal farmers’ market every day.”
“Exactly,” Owen said. “We had a lot of success with our late-season marketing bringing people out here for Pick-Your-Own crops like apples and pumpkins in the fall, and to our tent at the farmers’ market in Camden Valley every Saturday, too. But this storefront will let us expand on that even more.”
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