CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Two beers and one hour later, Eli’s resistance to Scarlett’s miniskirt (and her laugh . . . and the stories about her travels . . . and he didn’t even want to get started on how good she’d smelled when they’d hugged hello) was pretty much toast. But they’d had a great time hanging out and celebrating Cross Creek’s great week, along with FoodE’s success. He could handle sitting next to her without making a complete ass of himself.
Scarlett leaned in from her seat next to him to put her empty pint glass on the table, and Christ on a cracker, how could any woman smell like fresh-cut flowers in the middle of a goddamn country bar?
“Hey, you guys.” The distinctly female voice brought Eli back to reality with a snap, and he turned to look at the dark-haired waitress to whom it belonged. “Sorry you’ve had to self-serve up till now, but my shift just started. Can I grab anyone a refill or something from the kitchen?”
“Cate?” Owen’s beer bottle hit the table with a graceless thunk, and he scrambled to cover the move with a smile. “I didn’t know you were working here. I thought you were waiting tables at Clementine’s.”
“I am. I mean, not right now, obviously.” She gestured to the bright-red half apron tied around her waist and her matching T-shirt bearing The Bar’s logo just below her left shoulder. “But I picked up a few extra shifts here to make ends meet.”
Concern flickered over Owen’s face, and huh, looked like Eli wasn’t the only one with a soft spot for a pretty woman. “Oh. Well, it’s nice to see you out.”
“I’m not out,” Cate replied, her smile tightening slightly, but enough. “I’m working.”
“Right. Right, of course,” Owen said.
Silence crept over the group like a solid, heavy weight. But Eli knew all too well how little he liked poor-you sympathy when it came to the subject of his mother. Cate’s story might be way worse, but hell if he was going to remind her of it by treating her with kid gloves.
“Hey, that’s awesome news that you’re working here at The Bar now,” he said, tacking on a wink to make extra sure the distraction made a direct hit. “You’ll pretty the place up, for sure.”
Cate’s lips twisted in a wry smile, scattering the tension at the table. “Shouldn’t you save all that sweet talk for the camera, Eli Cross?”
Segue, party of one, your table is now available. “Speaking of which, have you met our resident photographer?” Eli asked. At Cate’s headshake, he added, “Cate McAllister, this is Scarlett Edwards-Stewart.”
“It’s great to meet you,” Scarlett said, her stack of bracelets jingling softly as she extended a hand toward Cate.
“Likewise. We don’t see a whole lot of famous people out here in Millhaven.”
“Oh God, I’m definitely not famous.” Scarlett’s self-deprecating laughter chased off what little unease remained from the earlier conversation, and Cate murmured a quick “nice to meet you” before offering up one last smile and departing for the bar.
“I’m sorry, did I miss something?” Scarlett asked as soon as the brunette was out of earshot, and Eli exchanged a glance with Hunter, who exchanged a glance with everyone else at the table, before he answered.
“Cate’s husband and nine-year-old daughter were killed in a car accident three years ago.”
Scarlett’s lashes fanned up in a snap, sympathy filling her dark-green stare. “That’s awful.”
Owen nodded, taking a longer-than-usual sip from his beer before saying, “Brian and I were pretty good friends in high school. We’ve all known Cate since . . . God, forever. They were that couple everyone wanted to be.”
“She seems to be doing okay, all things considered,” Emerson offered. “Doc Sanders and I had lunch at Clementine’s last week, and I talked to Cate for a few minutes. Actually, she asked if we needed any help with our filing and clerical work, but we’ve already got Nurse Kelley taking care of that. I’m glad she was able to pick up a few shifts here at The Bar, though. I hope she’s not having too rough a time.”
Hunter and Daisy both nodded in emphatic agreement while Owen knocked back the rest of his beer in one go, and yeah, time for a new subject, stat.
“Looks like everyone in town is a little starstruck by our famous photographer,” Eli said, gesturing to the groups of people around the bar, nearly all of whom he’d caught in various stages of staring or whispering tonight.
Scarlett shifted over her bar stool, the edge of her heel brushing his calf with enough contact that he felt it, yet lightly enough to drive him crazy in the best possible way. “If I’m famous, then so are you.”
“Ah, Eli’s more like notorious. His reputation precedes him.” Hunter waggled his brows at Eli, who offered his brother a nice, long look at his middle finger.
“I’m not that bad,” he argued, and jeez, did everyone at the table have to laugh so loud, so quickly?
“Dude. You conned Dad into letting you get a pet cow for your sixteenth birthday.”
Scarlett’s eyes sparkled at the same time her chin did that lift thing that meant nothing good for him. “He what?”
Hunter’s smile went full-on mischievous as he swung the expression in Scarlett’s direction. “He didn’t tell you the story of how he fast-talked his way into getting Clarabelle?”
“No.” Scarlett lifted the end of the word just enough to twist it into a request, but oh no. No way was he going to get tossed under the Cross family nostalgia bus just for grins.
“Hunter,” Eli warned, but his brother shook his head.
“Oh, come on. It’s priceless.”
“Classic Eli,” Owen agreed from across the table, and for once, it didn’t sound like a barb.
Emerson chimed in with, “I love this story. I can’t believe you didn’t tell it to Scarlett!”
Before Eli could protest or promise murder, Hunter jumped in and started doing exactly that. “So you know we have a cattle farm on the back half of the property, right?”
“Sure,” Scarlett said. Even though their old man had hired a cattle manager decades ago to run that end of their farm, all four Cross men still kept up with the daily operations on both parts of Cross Creek’s business. “Eli took me up there twice this week and filled me in on all the basics of how things operate.”
The lift of Owen’s brows clearly translated his surprise, causing Eli to remind him, “You told me to show her the whole farm.”
“Well done, then,” Owen murmured, and even though Eli paused for a second to wonder whether there was something stronger than beer in his brother’s cup, he kept his trap clapped shut so Hunter could get story hour over with.
“So you know that every spring, we get a pretty big round of cattle.” Hunter placed his half-empty beer on the glass-littered table in front of them, clearly more interested in putting Eli on the hot seat than in drinking. The jackass. “But we’re not a dairy farm. We just raise the cows for a certain amount of time before they’re sold to distributors.”
Scarlett paled at that, her vegan side likely not a happy camper at the reminder that most of Cross Creek’s cows grew up to be cheeseburgers, and Eli took full control of the chance to interrupt.
“Do we seriously have to tell—”
“Yes,” came the chorus of answers from around the table, the loudest of which was Scarlett’s, and jeez, Eli knew when he’d been beat.
Apparently Hunter did, too, because he opened his yap and kept right on going. “Well, this particular spring, when we got our round of cattle, the guy making the delivery asked Pop if he knew someone willing to take a baby Jersey cow. She couldn’t have been but two months old.”
“Two and a half,” Eli muttered, and Owen took the opportunity to grab the conversational baton and run like mad.
“She was a tiny thing. The momma cow had died during the birth, and the calf had to be bottle-fed. She was sweet, to be sure, but we had no reason to take a cow that needed daily hand-feeding. Pop got on the two-way radio and asked me if I knew anyone who’d want her, but of course, I didn’t. He was all set to say no when Eli caught wind of the conversation we’d had.”
A smile played on Scarlett’s lips, and all of a sudden this story wasn’t so bad. “Then what happened?”
Hunter grinned. “He came flyin’ on up to the back half of the property on one of our four-wheelers, looked Dad straight in the eye, and said, ‘Hold everything! That’s my cow!’”
Scarlett’s smile became a full-on laugh that slid right under Eli’s skin. “He did not.”
“Hand to God,” Hunter promised. “There he was, barely a minute over sixteen years old, about as filthy as a person could be from working in a bunch of muddy fields, putting the full court press on our old man for that cow. He swore up one side and down the other we’d never even know she was there. He’d feed her—”
“And groom her daily,” Owen added.
“And pay her vet bills and everything.” Hunter laughed, although the sound wasn’t unkind. “Pop argued for a coupl’a minutes, but Eli’s mind was done made up. Clarabelle was his cow, and she wasn’t leaving Cross Creek property come hell or high tide. I think he even threatened to lie down in front of the trailer.”
“Hey.” God, Eli wanted to squash the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He really did. But it was an exercise in futility. “If you’re gonna tell the story, at least get your facts straight. I said I’d stand in front of the trailer.”
Owen grinned, capping off the story with a flourish. “But of course he didn’t have to. He charmed Dad into keeping ol’ Clarabelle, and she’s been living the high life in that horse barn ever since.”
“Your brothers are right,” Scarlett said, turning toward him on her bar stool. “That’s a fantastic story.”
“My brothers are something.” Eli paused to sling a stare at both Owen and Hunter that substituted “assholes” for “something,” although the laugh that came after probably made the whole bit a tough sell. “But I’m glad you enjoyed the story.”
“You know what else I bet Scarlett would enjoy? Dancing.”
The mischief-making flash in Emerson’s smile registered just a beat too late for Eli to work up any damage control, and seriously, was his entire family trying to kill him?
“Oh, I uh—”
“Yes!” Daisy exclaimed, looping her arm through the crook of Owen’s elbow with a meddling smile of her own. “Come on. We’ll all go.”
Eli was all set to dive into round two of his protest when Scarlett slid her high heels to the floorboards beside him.
“I have two left feet, too, remember? But it’s a slow song, and there are already a bunch of people on the dance floor, so we shouldn’t be too bad off. Probably,” she added.
He studied the open space by the jukebox, where the rest of their group had already coupled off and started to sway to the low, slow twang of the song filtering through the speakers. She was right on both counts, and anyway, as bad as he was bound to be at it, dancing with her sounded kind of nice. “Okay, bumblebee. They’re your toes.”
Leading Scarlett across the bar, Eli stopped at the outer edge of the makeshift dance floor, turning to frame her waist with his hands. She slipped against him and folded her arms over his shoulders, her palms pressing hotly just below the back of his neck, and forget “kind of nice.” Dancing was fucking spectacular.
“I’m glad you decided to come out tonight,” Scarlett said, pulling back just far enough to be able to look at him clearly.
“You should probably reserve your judgment until after you survive the next three minutes on the dance floor,” he teased, and her laughter in response didn’t make concentrating on his feet any easier.
“I’ll be glad no matter what. I’m not used to this whole group/family thing. But it’s a whole lot easier with you here.”
Surprise combined with some deeper emotion he couldn’t quite name, both making his heart beat faster behind the navy-blue cotton of his T-shirt. “If you feel out of place, you sure don’t show it.”
Scarlett made a sound in the back of her throat, half scoff and all sexy. “It’s sweet of you to humor me, but come on. I even got the dress code ass-backward.”
“Are you kidding? You could be wearing a flour sack and you’d still be far sexier than any other woman here.”
Eli realized his egregious breach of brain-to-mouth filter about two seconds after Scarlett’s eyes rounded like dinner plates, and shit. Shit, shit, shit!
“You think I’m the sexiest woman in the bar?” she asked. The rational part of his brain screamed with all the reasons he needed to backpedal, to come up with some glib answer, to not pull her even closer against his body from shoulders to chest to hips.
But instead, he looked at her and told the truth. “I do.”
Her smile made the admission worth every goddamn syllable, and that was even before she pressed up to place her answer just inches away from his mouth.
“Good to know the way I feel about you is mutual. Now what do you say we make a really good excuse and get out of here so I can prove it?”