Cate rocked back on the heels of her cross-trainers and surveyed the throng of people milling through Camden Valley’s pavilion. The farmers’ market was even more crowded than last weekend, thanks to upward trending temperatures and an over-abundance of the pretty, late spring sunshine that had chased yesterday’s storms out of town. The increased foot traffic should have made her edgy; hell, just the thought of being here, putting her dreams on full display by selling the baked goods she’d made with her own time-tested recipes should have been enough to send her nerves into a complete tizzy. But she and Owen had simply gotten out of bed, falling into the same get-ready, get-out-the-door routine they’d cultivated over the course of the past week, then busying themselves with setting everything up for the market, and Cate had found she’d had neither the time nor the inclination for nerves. They simply hadn’t made sense. She was here with Owen, doing something she enjoyed and making money, to boot. Plus, she had to admit, watching him in his element was enticing as hell. The way his eyes crinkled around the edges and lit from gray to blue when he told Mollie Mae Van Buren about the different varieties of summer squash they’d be sure to have later in the season, or the natural honesty of his smile when he helped Mrs. Ellersby choose just the right bunch of cut flowers to show off at her bridge club meeting—God, something about his ease just made her feel happy, too.

Careful not to get too happy there, girl. You can’t give that man the fairy-tale ending he deserves.

“My, my. What have we here?” Clementine’s voice tugged Cate back to reality with a jolt, and she slathered a smile over her face even though she knew it was a poor fit.

“Oh, hi, Clem!” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to dial it down. “Would you like to try a strawberry white-chocolate chip cookie? They’re a brand-new offering this week.”

“You know I would,” Clem said, eagerly taking a sample from the plate Cate had placed front-and-center on the red and white tablecloth in front of her. “Delicious,” she proclaimed a second later, turning toward the spot where Owen stood over by the baskets of radishes and kale. “I’m not sure what you did to get Miss Cate here out of her shell, but whatever it was, thank you.”

Owen laughed, sauntering over as Cate flushed. “Much as I’d like to, I can’t take any credit,” he said. “All I did was ask her to give it a go.”

“You must be mighty persuasive,” Clementine said, her voice lilting up just enough to mark the words with suggestion, and, ahhhh, Cate should’ve known that between Amber seeing her and Owen flirting at The Bar and the fact that her car had been parked at his place every night for a week straight, the rumor mill would catch up with them sooner rather than later.

Owen’s cheeks turned roughly the same shade as the strawberries in the pint-baskets behind him, and Cate camouflaged her laughter under the guise of a poorly constructed cough.

“I, uh. Yes, ma’am,” he replied, adjusting his baseball hat.

Thankfully, Clem had the good grace to let him off the hook. “Well, I’m glad she listened to one of us. Truth be told, her talents were wasted in my diner.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Owen said again, his chin bouncing up a half a breath later, and once again, Cate suppressed a smile. “I mean, no offense. You know I love your diner, but—”

Clementine cut him off with a deep, melodic laugh. “None taken, child. I think you and I are of like mind when it comes to Miss Cate’s abilities in the kitchen. I’m just glad you could nudge her out of the nest.”

Cate crossed her arms over her chest, although she knew her deep-down smile made the gesture pretty much pointless. “I’m right here, you two. Totally close enough to hear you, and everything.”

“Mmm hmm,” Clementine murmured. “Now, do me a favor and stay here, would you? I won’t lie and say I don’t miss you on Sunday mornings, but baking cookies for Cross Creek looks good on you.”

“Thank you, Clem,” Cate said softly, her chest giving up a squeeze. She might not have been an open book when she’d worked for the woman—in fact, she’d probably been a smart-mouthed pain in the ass. But Clementine’s genuine support was just one more sign that maybe she was ready to start her own business after all.

Clementine winked, scooping up two packages of cookies as she turned toward the checkout line across the tent. “My pleasure, honey. My pleasure.”

Cate waited a beat, then one more for good measure before she looked at Owen. “You can wipe that smile off your face any time now.”

He nudged her with one hip, his smile getting even bigger. “Not a chance. See, I kinda like this smile. Along with the person who put it there.”

Damn it, now she was smiling, too. “Aren’t you just living up to your nickname, Casanova?”

“Mmm hmm.” Owen dropped his mouth to her ear, and, God, how could he make her feel so good with one little murmur? “Just wait ’til later and I’ll prove it.”

A snort caught Cate’s attention from a few feet away, and she stepped back just in time to catch Greyson Whittaker’s eye roll from the edge of the thoroughfare.

“Well, aren’t y’all just sweet? I can practically feel myself getting cavities from here.”

Owen stiffened beside her. “Greyson.”

“Owen,” he replied with an equal amount of under-enthusiasm, lifting his darkly stubbled chin in greeting. “See you’ve been busy.”

Greyson’s gaze lingered on Cate just long enough to turn Owen’s hands into fists at his sides, and surprise lifted her brows. Greyson had never been particularly out of line with her, but, then again, pouring a man’s Budweiser every Saturday night for the better part of a year could turn even the surliest son of a bitch into a lapdog. Cate didn’t have any love lost for the guy, though. Especially not with the way he was sneering at Owen right now.

Unsurprisingly, Owen sneered right back. “If by ‘busy’ you mean ‘working hard and enjoying strong crops this spring’, then yep. We’ve been downright swamped.”

“Sure,” Greyson said, his laugh containing all the humor of a prize fight. “Let’s go with that. Cate.” He had the courtesy to tip his baseball hat at her, and, God, when he wasn’t acting a fool (which, granted, was ninety-eight percent of the time), he was actually a good-looking guy. Not that the smirk that accompanied his greeting seemed to make Owen want to pummel him any less. “I see you’ve been busy this season, too.”

Ooookay, that was enough. Owen might have a metric ton of composure, but she didn’t want to find the boundaries of his asshole tolerance. Not in the middle of the farmers’ market, anyway.

“Yep! I sure have. Cookie?” Cate asked, waiting until Greyson had taken one from the plate she held out before adding some teeth to her smile. “Looks like you could use a little sweetening.”

Owen failed to stifle his laugh as Greyson’s dark eyes widened in surprise.

“This is great,” he said, chewing deliberately and sending a stare over the packages of cookies and biscuits and quick bread. “You sure you don’t want to come on over to my side of the market and see how the better half farms? Whatever Cross Creek is doing for you, I’m sure Whittaker Hollow could do better.”

She edged closer to Owen, turning her smile up to maximum wattage. “I’m all set on the better half, thanks. And after last year’s Fall Fling, it might be just a little too soon for you to be getting so cocky.”

At the mention of the bet he’d lost to Owen’s brother, Eli, over which farm could earn more money before the harvest, Greyson’s smirk flattened into a thin line. “Suit yourself, then. Y’all have a nice day.”

“Mmm,” Cate said, keeping her smile in place like she’d just won the Miss King County pageant. “You, too.”

Owen let out a soft laugh in Greyson’s wake. “Damn, I wish I had a camera. The look on his face was freaking priceless.”

“Guess that rivalry of yours is still alive and kicking,” she said, pausing to offer up some samples to a few folks passing by.

“You could say that,” he replied after all the potential customers were out of earshot. “But I’m not sure it’s so much farm versus farm as it is Greyson just being a dick.”

Surprise streaked a path through her veins. “So, whatever it is between you guys isn’t some Capulets versus Montagues feud-type thing?”

“If I’m being entirely honest, I’m not sure exactly how the friction started all those years ago. But I do know this. I’d love to see someone knock that guy on his arrogant ass.”

“Greyson’s full of himself, I’ll give you that,” Cate said. All that cocky, tattooed bravado might be somebody’s cuppa, but she’d stick with slightly broody and totally handsome, thanks. “I’m sure he’ll get what’s coming to him someday.”

One shadowy brow lifted. “You don’t strike me as the type of person to believe in karma.”

“Oh, I don’t.” Lord knew she was far too practical to buy in to the universe and all its signs and signals. Give her reality any day. “But I do believe in payback, and I have a feeling Greyson’s is going to be a bitch.”

Cate stood next to Owen for a minute, quietly watching the milling crowd move over the thoroughfare. Finally, she gave voice to a question she’d been thinking about ever since he had asked her to work the farmers’ market with him again. “So, do you work here every Saturday during the growing season?”

If he was taken aback by the change in subject, he didn’t show it. “Pretty much, yeah. We used to swap farmers’ market duty between me and Hunter and Eli. Sometimes my old man will get a wild hair and come like he did last week, too.”

“Obviously,” Cate teased, although she’d definitely noticed Mr. Cross’s absence today.

The corners of Owen’s mouth kicked upward in response. “For big-deal occasions like the Watermelon Festival, we all attend to represent the farm. But now Eli’s gone, and after that scare my old man had last year with heat exhaustion, he’s got to be more careful about putting in a lot of hours, too.”

“He looks well,” Cate said, and Owen surprised her by chuffing out a laugh.

“Oh, he’s as tough as the day is long. Doc Sanders has him on a pretty decent regimen, although he drew the line at the high-fiber granola and kale chips she tried to work into his diet.”

“Ugh.” Cate wrinkled her nose. “Truth? Those are a hard no for me, too.”

Owen’s expression said that despite being a champion of the real deal, he wasn’t a fan of turning kale into chips, either. “Hunter and I try to juggle the lion’s share of the long hours and harder labor to make sure he doesn’t get too worn out. But with Emerson’s MS, it’s more important for Hunter to stay close to home in case she needs help. He’d never say it in so many words; hell, he loves Cross Creek as much as I do. He loves Emerson, too, though. Family and farm. So I take most of the trips here on Saturdays now.”

“Wow,” Cate mused after Owen did a quick eyeball check-in with Lucas that consisted of one brows-up glance and a corresponding head shake from the guy that said he didn’t need any help with the flow of customers wandering in and out of their tent. “Your family really is close-knit.”

“Yeah.” Owen’s smile faltered slightly. “Well, except for Marley, but that’s her choice, not ours.”

Cate hadn’t seen hide nor bedhead of Owen’s sister since an early morning exchange at the coffeepot the other day that had consisted of a sum total of six syllables, five of them spoken by Cate. “I’m just guessing here, but I think Marley might be used to a bit of a different family dynamic.”

“I don’t know about that. She and her mother were close,” Owen said, and Cate nodded, because even though Marley hadn’t confided in her much since that day they’d talked about baking, she could still tell how strongly the girl had felt for her mother.

“Yes, but it was just the two of them, right?”

When Owen nodded, she continued. “Marley’s not used to having siblings, or a father, and you guys are all really close. She might just need time to adjust to her new normal so she can figure out where she fits in to all of that.”

A muscle ticked in Owen’s jaw, his eyes going from blue to gray in a flash. “She’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want us to be her new anything.”

Ah, right. The old I’m-not-staying-for-long line. Cate laughed. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Owen said slowly, reaching out to fiddle with the edge of the cheery red and white tablecloth. “Not really. I mean, I don’t know where else she’d go, but she’s pretty convincing with that attitude of hers.”

“I get that her don’t-touch vibe is pretty strong, Owen.” Cate’s chest constricted, thinking of all the walls she’d put up right after Brian and Lily had died. “But she’s hurting.”

Owen, however, didn’t budge. “That doesn’t give her the right to say whatever she wants. Especially to my—” He caught himself, re-setting with a deep breath. “Our father.”

“You’re right. It doesn’t,” Cate agreed. “All I’m saying is she’s probably not being difficult for the sake of being difficult.”

“Okay, but we’re all trying,” Owen said, his frustration on full display. “I even invited her to come to our weekly family dinner tonight. But she pretty much shut me down. That was on Tuesday, and I haven’t talked to her since.”

Cate thought about Marley, with all her prickly armor and the pain she thought she’d hidden in her eyes. “She barely spoke to me the first few times I saw her in the kitchen. It might take a couple of tries to get her to come to dinner.”

“Maybe not if you’re there.”

Annnnd cue up the very last thing she’d expected Owen to say. “You want me to come to your family dinner? Tonight?” Cate asked, stepping back on the pavement.

This was exactly the sort of thing that should send her warning flags whipping in the wind. Family dinners, especially with families like the Crosses, were the sort of thing girlfriends attended. The sort of thing she needed to studiously avoid.

Funny, Owen looked as sure as Cate was surprised. “Why not? It’s not as if we don’t all know you, and, believe me, our family dinners are nothing fancy. Just the three of us and Emerson, kicking around the table on most Saturday evenings. But if you’re there, maybe Marley might come, too. She seems to really like you.”

“Like me? Why?” Cate blurted.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’d guess it’s because you’re not one of us,” Owen said with a shrug. “Maybe if she sees you there and realizes the dinner is no big deal, she’ll feel more comfortable joining in. Or, at least, not running away.”

Cate’s defenses squalled despite the yes forming in her chest. “I don’t know,” she said, reaching out to straighten the already-tidy rows of quick bread on the table in front of her. “I don’t want to intrude on a family thing.”

“That’s just the point,” Owen said, his voice both serious and soft. “It’s not intruding, for you or for Marley. Come on, Cate. It’s just dinner.” He reached out to brush a hand over her wrist, and, God, how could one barely-there touch feel so comforting and good? “You work with all of us, and it’s no secret we like you.”

“I like all of you, too,” she admitted. Even Marley, with all her barbed-wire edges. To be honest, the girl wasn’t too unlike Owen, if Cate thought about it. And she definitely deserved to know her family, or, at the very least, give them a chance. If Cate could help with that, what would one little dinner hurt?

“Okay, then.” Owen looked at her, his stare wide-open and his stance completely relaxed. “What do you say about joining us for dinner tonight?”

Her pulse tapped a rapid beat against her throat. The sudden rush wasn’t fueled by the sort of unease she’d thoroughly expected, though. No, this felt different. Exciting, like standing on the edge of something brand-new and comfortable all at the same time.

It felt like hope.

“Okay,” Cate said with a smile. “But you know the drill.”

Owen threw his head back and laughed. “Let me guess. Only if I let you bring dessert.”