Crossing Promises

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Wow.” Her curiosity grew another layer. “That’s some serious devotion.”

  They walked a little ways down the path, a breeze cooling the air and rustling through the bright-green stalks of corn that already stood a solid three feet from the wet earth where they were anchored. The silence between them wasn’t awkward—Cate was coming to recognize the V-shaped crease between Owen’s brows and that firm set of his mouth that anyone else would probably call a scowl as his default for deeper thinking. Far be it for her to poke at whatever had him lost in thought before he had the words to answer.

  Finally, he said, “It’s not hard being devoted to something you love. Running Cross Creek is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. I mean, don’t get me wrong.” He gestured to the landscape around them, which somehow managed to burst with vitality even beneath the gray, gloomy sky. “Some days are pretty hellish. Heat waves, crop infestations. Cattle falling to disease. Any one of those things could break an entire season.”

  “But?” Cate supplied, because she knew full well it was coming.

  Owen didn’t disappoint. “But even on the most difficult days, I wouldn’t trade farming for anything. I feel like running Cross Creek is what I was born to do. Like working the land with my family just fits me, and I fit right back.”

  His cheeks reddened a breath later, and he gave up a self-deprecating laugh. “Annnnnd that sounded a lot less weird and new-agey in my head. Anyway, running this farm after my old man retires is my family legacy, and it’s one I definitely intend to uphold. Not out of obligation, but because I can’t imagine doing anything else and being truly happy.”

  “That’s not weird at all,” she said, an odd sensation laddering down her spine before disappearing with a shiver. She cleared her throat. “So, you inherited your love of the land from your father, then?”

  “I did, but truth be told, I think the way I feel about the farm itself came more from my mother.”

  Cate nearly tripped over the gravel beneath her feet. “Really?”

  “Crazy, right?” Owen asked, and she nodded, all truth.

  “Yeah. I mean”—she heard her answer only after it had made a jailbreak, and, God, her lack of filter knew no limits—“your father is the one who inherited Cross Creek from his father, right?”

  “Yep. But my mother loved it here just as much as he does.”

  He paused again, and Cate considered telling him they could change the subject. Lord knew she got how difficult it could be to talk about people you’d lost. But then Owen continued in that quiet, serious way of his, and she found herself not wanting him to stop talking at all.

  “Hunter and Eli were really young when our mom died. I don’t think they remember her very well. In fact, I know Eli doesn’t.” His expression grew wistful, as if he was caught more in memory than thought. “But there are some things I remember like they happened yesterday.”

  “I know that feeling,” Cate said softly, because, oh, she did. A sudden chill sent a spray of goose bumps over her arms. Her heart threatened to climb into her throat, but then Owen’s hand was there, wordlessly closing over hers with their fingers threading together, and she was able to breathe.

  “My mother might not have been born into farming like my father was, but she still came by it so honestly,” Owen said. “She and my father were both only children, so it was really just the two of them at first, running the place with all the farm hands. But she loved it like he does. She’s the one who planted all the gardens around the main house.”

  Cate thought of the rows of blooms, spread out on either side of the main house in colorful starbursts and lush, green thickets, all flowing together so naturally that she’d wondered more than once if they hadn’t simply appeared out of the earth one day rather than been planted or planned. “Your mom must have really loved it, then. They’re beautiful.”

  “The farm was important to her,” Owen said, his fingers tightening against Cate’s just enough for her to squeeze back. “Family was even more important, though. She used to tell me all the time, ‘Family and farm, Owen. Never forget’.”

  “Your family is pretty tight-knit,” she said. Having never been that close with her parents, or had the sort of love with Brian that she suspected Mr. and Mrs. Cross might’ve shared, or that even Hunter and Emerson seemed to be in, the whole thing seemed so terribly foreign to her, like a lost dialect to a language she didn’t even recognize, let alone know.

  Owen huffed out a sound that was equal parts laughter and—oddly—irony. “I hope I’m doing right by her wishes. Anyway, my love of the land might come from my old man, but my love of the farm, of my family legacy and what this place really means? I think that comes from my mother.”

  Cate squeezed his hand, and God, despite the gravity of what he was saying and the reminder they couldn’t get any more serious than not serious, it felt so good in hers. She slid a sidelong glance at him, opening her mouth to answer, but the words stopped short before they could reach her lips.

  He was frowning. Not the lost-in-thought variety she was coming to know so well, but a full-blown, something’s-not-right frown. “Cate,” he said, at the same time a rumble of thunder echoed loudly through the air.

  Her heart began to pound, and holy shit, when had the sky turned so angry and dark? “Owen?”

  A streak of lightning split the sky, followed by a rip of thunder that sent her hair on-end. A gust of wind—no wonder she’d had goose bumps a minute ago—sent her dress into a tangle around her ankles and her hair into a much looser knot, and oh, hell, this storm looked downright freaking scary.

  “Shit,” Owen muttered, whipping a look over either end of the path. Lightning forked the sky again, this time even closer, with menacing thunder following quickly on its heels. “We need to get inside. If we run, we might be able to make the greenhouse before it starts to rain.”

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the sky opened up over their heads.

  22

  Owen kept a firm grip on Cate’s hand and made a break for the greenhouse even though he knew it was fucking useless. The sky had torn open, the rain not so much falling as crashing into them like a tidal wave from above. In less than three strides, he was completely soaked. The proximity of that last lightning strike warned him not to slow down, though, and even though he knew it would do nothing to keep him dry, he ran the rest of the way to the greenhouse with Cate in tow.

  “Oh, my God,” she breathed from the doorway they’d just banged through, turning to look at the storm from the safety of the covered threshold. “That came out of nowhere.”

  Owen tugged a hand through his hair, but he knew a lost cause when he felt one. His chest rose and fell rapidly from both the sprint and the jolt of adrenaline from the storm, and he took a second to catch his breath before answering.

  “The storms have been like this all day. I should’ve known better. Or, at the very least, been paying better attention.”

  Guilt pinpricked his gut. Of course, he and Cate were fine, but Mother Nature wasn’t to be messed with. He’d gotten so caught up in the conversation, in the ease and shocking goodness with which his words had slid out, that he hadn’t even noticed his surroundings.

  He noticed them now. Specifically, the soaked and still-beautiful woman standing directly in front of him.

  “Jesus. You’re drenched,” Owen said, running his palms over the tops of her arms to slick off some of the rain.

  Cate’s throaty laugh went directly to his cock. “I’m hardly going to melt,” she pointed out, but not even her no-nonsense moxie could trump his manners.

  “Come on. I keep some towels in here for cleaning up. Let’s get you dry.”

  Grabbing hold of her fingers again, he closed the greenhouse door with his free hand, making sure to firmly secure the latch. The last thing he needed was for a gust of wind to blow the thing in and smash one of the panels, or worse. The rain—which seemed to be growing even stronger, although Owen had no clue ho
w—rattled over the glass above them, sluicing down the walls and thoroughly blurring any view in or out.

  The air in the greenhouse was still despite the noise, slightly humid and full of comfort. The smell of humus and earth filled his senses as he inhaled, and he moved easily through the rows of produce growing from various planter boxes, emerald-colored leaves sprouting so thickly in some places, seeing past them was nearly impossible. Owen would know where he was going in the dark, though—this greenhouse was his refuge, with its pathways of plants and its wooden work tables built in along the perimeter on three sides of the rectangular structure. He knew each variety of every plant, where their planter boxes stood and how they’d been cultivated, watered, and maintained. Not just because he and his brother and old man kept detailed records of that, because, of course, they did. But he knew because he’d tended to all of them personally, watching their growth and marveling at how something as natural as a seed becoming a fat, juicy tomato or a perfectly rounded bell pepper could be so simple, yet so full of complex, mysterious twists and turns that even a slight variation in the process could drastically change the outcome. Yet, still, these plants defied the odds and not only grew, but thrived. He made sure of it.

  He felt the prickle of Cate’s stare a half-second before he caught it out of the corner of his eye, heat covering the back of his neck despite the fact that his skin was covered in chilly rain. “What?”

  “You look at home here.”

  Owen’s boots clattered to a stop by the spot where the far wall joined the shorter side of the greenhouse in a corner workbench. He grabbed one of the towels stacked beside some empty wooden crates, turning toward her briskly.

  “I work here every day,” he pointed out, running the towel over her bare, rain-streaked arms.

  She slipped his grasp, her fingers stilling his movements. “I know, but you’re right. The farm, this greenhouse. It fits you.”

  Damn it. He should have known better than to open his yap and let any old thing fly right out. But he’d felt so at ease walking side by side with Cate on the path here that he’d done exactly that, complete with the confession that it was his mother who had really crystallized his love for Cross Creek. Yeah, it was true. But he’d still never told anyone that before. And now here they were, soaking wet in the greenhouse with Cate looking at him like she could see right through him, and shit, he should feel vulnerable as hell.

  Yet, somehow, Owen didn’t move. Instead, he stood perfectly still in front of her on the hard packed earth and let her look her fill. His heart slammed in his chest as the rain did its best to match the sensation on the slanted glass roof overhead. The clouds had darkened the space around them, yet even in the shadows, Owen felt the familiar comfort on all sides. Cate took the towel from his fingers, and his heartbeat shifted into a different sort of rhythm at the look in her eyes. Her hair had fallen loose from its twist, hanging around her shoulders and face in dark, wet waves. The rain had turned to a sheen on her face, beading softly on the curve of her cheekbone and in the indent above her upper lip, making her skin almost glow. The pale green fabric of her sundress was—ah, fuck—plastered to her body, clinging to every outline and curve as if they were lifelines. Her chest rose and fell against the row of tiny buttons down the front, her nipples pressing against the soaked material in shadowy peaks, and Owen’s cock jerked beneath the wet denim around his hips.

  She was, by far, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  “Cate.” Christ, even her name felt right in his mouth, sexy and essential all at once. He reached for the towel—he’d promised to dry her off, after all—but she dodged him with a deft shift of her weight that brought their bodies even closer together.

  “You don’t have to take care of me all the time.” She slid a finger over his mouth, leaving it to linger on his bottom lip long enough to quell his protest and make his pulse spark faster from the contact. “I know you want to, and, believe me, it feels good when you do. But I like it when you let me do things for you, too.”

  There was no mistaking the suggestion hanging in her murmur, and Owen cut out an exhale, quick and hot. “We’re in the middle of the greenhouse.”

  Cate nodded, pressing up to her toes until her mouth was just below his ear. “Is anyone going to come out here in this weather?”

  As if to bolster her question, thunder rolled loudly from the other side of the panels, the wind and rain both competing to see which could make more noise.

  Owen’s pulse put them both to fucking shame. “No.”

  Between their location in the far corner and the height and density of the plants in here, nobody would see him and Cate even on the off-off chance they did wander out here in the middle of this monsoon. Not from the door, anyway.

  “Mmm.” Her lips curved against his skin, her smile making his dick impossibly hard even though he couldn’t even see her face. “Are you okay with me seducing you in the middle of your greenhouse, then?”

  “Hell yes.”

  Cate pulled back, her eyes wide with surprise, and Owen faked enough nonchalance to raise a brow and slap together a half-smile. “I just wanted to be sure you knew what you were getting yourself into, is all.”

  She laughed, the full-bodied, unfettered sound echoing through the warm air around them. “I think we’ve already established that I’m not shy. Now, put your hands right here, on the work table.”

  Cate took a little sidestep, angling his back to the corner workbench and tilting her head at the wooden boards running the length of the room.

  “Really?” he asked, his lips parting in surprise. “I don’t even get to use my hands?”

  She shook her head, staring at the workbench on either side of his hips so pointedly that Owen had no choice but to put his hands on either side of him.

  “My seduction. My rules.” She took the towel in one hand, running the soft cotton over his forearms. She didn’t get far before she realized his T-shirt was part of the problem, though, and, before he could blink, Cate’s fingers were beneath the hem and on his skin.

  “Do you know what I thought when I saw you standing outside the main house on my very first day at Cross Creek?”

  The wet cotton cooperated with her touch shockingly well, moving up and over his head with only a few well-placed tugs.

  “No,” he said, his knuckles tightening as he replaced his hands on the workbench. Jesus, this was going to be an exercise in restraint.

  “I wanted to touch your biceps. Actually, no”—Cate moved the towel over his shoulders, then his arms, trading it for her fingers a second later—“I wanted to bite them.”

  He barked out a laugh, unable to help it. “That’s a little filthy.”

  “You were a little filthy,” she reminded him, and the provocative smile on her mouth made his balls ache. Stepping in closer, she kissed his neck, her mouth warm and wet on his skin. “God, I wanted you.”

  “Cate.” His fingers dug into the edges of the workbench, desperate with the need to touch her. She must have heard it in his voice, because she placed her hands over his, anchoring him into place as she trailed a line of kisses over his shoulder.

  “I wanted to touch you.” Her tongue slid hotly over the top of his arm, making his breath grow shallow, then catch in his chest. “I wanted to taste you.” Her mouth traveled lower, her teeth scraping over his bicep in a move that was surprisingly sexy.

  The laugh that came up from the back of her throat pushed the limits of Owen’s already thin resolve. “So, now I’m going to make up for lost time and do both,” she said. Kissing her way back up to his shoulder, Cate repeated her ministrations on the other side of his body. Every glide of her mouth made his skin prickle with awareness and want, and by the time she’d returned to his neck again, his desire to touch her had become a full-blown, screaming need.

  But she didn’t move her hands from his. Instead, she lowered her chin, kissing a path down the center of his chest.

  Owen realized her intended
destination a second later, and even though his cock jerked eagerly at the mere thought of her mouth heading closer, he had to make her stop.

  “Owen. Please,” she whispered, and only then did it register that she’d paused just above his navel. “Please, let me do this. Let me make you feel the way you make me feel.”

  She’d let go of his hands to gather her skirt between her fingers, lifting it around her knees as she’d kissed her way down his body. Her damp hair was wild around her face, her cheeks flushed with obvious desire. Her eyes were what wrecked him, though, pleading in that bold way that could only belong to her, and fuck, he wanted to give her everything she’d wanted on that first day, standing out in front of the main house.

  He wanted to give her everything, period.

  Afraid to trust his voice with anything other than a moan, Owen nodded. He helped Cate wrestle with his jeans and boxers—not nearly as accommodating as a flimsy T-shirt when wet, as it turned out—and they got things shoved down to his knees until they realized that was as good as it would get. She grabbed the towel from the workbench, dropping it to the ground and kneeling between his legs.

  “Oh.”

  All the air abandoned his lungs on a grunt as her exhale moved over his cock, her mouth tantalizingly close. She brushed her fingers up his length, and sweet Christ, he couldn’t tell if he was in heaven from the pleasure or hell from the dark, greedy need pumping through his veins. But then Cate let her tongue dart out to trace a light, long line from root to tip, and that was when Owen knew the truth.

  It didn’t matter if he was in heaven or hell or any point in between, just as long as she didn’t stop what she was doing.

  Cate reached out, her touch soft as she explored his hips, the tops of his legs, the sensitive skin on the inside of his thighs. The friction from her fingertips sent sparks of pleasure through his blood, pulsing along with his heartbeat as she swept and stroked. She pressed her mouth over the midline of his cock, her lips parting just slightly in a wet up-and-down slide, and it took everything Owen had not to thrust blindly into her touch.