Owen stirred the pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove top, unable to keep his ear-to-ear grin at bay. They’d had another incredible day at the farmers’ market, bringing in such a steady stream of sales that there had barely been much to pack up and take home at the end. He and Cate had been on their toes from the minute she’d agreed to come to dinner until the powers that be had closed the gates leading into the pavilion, selling everything from radishes to rutabagas and a whole lot of cakes and cookies in between.

Business was booming. He was spending every night with a woman who was as smart and savvy as she was beautiful. Eli and Scarlett would be back in Millhaven in one measly week, putting his entire family back together for the first time in nearly five months.

Yeah. Owen couldn’t deny it. Life was fucking fantastic.

“Ooooooh, spaghetti and meatballs,” Emerson crooned, making her way from the back door to the middle of the kitchen with an armload of freshly cut wildflowers and the family dog, Lucy, at the hem of her skirt. “What’s the occasion?”

Owen’s pulse tripped, but still, his grin refused to budge. “I can’t make spaghetti and meatballs for any old Saturday dinner?”

Hunter laughed, looking up from the spot where he’d been emptying the dishwasher. “Dude. Not only are you making spaghetti and meatballs for the second time this month, but you’re smiling. A lot. So in a word? No.”

“I can frown if you want,” Owen said, dropping his voice to keep his next words brother-to-brother before adding, “While I’m kicking your ass.” He dodged Hunter’s attempt at a laughter-filled potshot to his shoulder, adjusting back to normal volume. “And I only made it last time because you asked me to,” he pointed out.

“Uh-huh. What about tonight?” Hunter asked with an arch of his brows, and damn it, now even their old man had looked up from his newspaper with interest.

“Tonight I just felt like making it. Plus, uh, Cate’s joining us for dinner.”

“Really?” Emerson drew the word out with interest, her blue eyes sparkling in a way that meant nothing good for Owen. “So, you two are a thing?”

Hunter shook his head, filling a glass with ice and water and passing it over to Emerson as he took the flowers from her and placed a kiss on her cheek. “They are. Just don’t ask him about it,” he said, giving up a wink and a nod that answered her question. “He gets snippy.”

“I don’t get snippy,” Owen—shit—snipped. He stirred the pot of sauce, although it was mostly to smooth out his nerves. This whole conversation was stupid. It was just a meal. So what if he really liked her?

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I asked Cate to dinner because I thought it might make Marley more comfortable.” It wasn’t the only reason, of course. But for now, it’d do.

His father looked up in earnest now, the paper rustling to the pine tabletop. “Marley’s coming to dinner?”

Ah, there was enough hope in the old man’s eyes to make Owen’s throat tighten. “She told me she’d think about it,” he said.

Actually, his sister’s words had been more along the lines of “I’ll think about it, maybe, if I’m hungry, or whatever,” but since she hadn’t hit him with an unequivocal “hell no” when he’d gone upstairs a couple hours ago to ask her if she wanted to join them, Owen had decided to go with the “maybe” part and call it a win.

“I see.” His father nodded slowly, running his fingers over the brim of his Stetson. “Well, it’ll be right nice to see Cate at the table.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Hunter’s grin lasted only long enough for him to catch the warning look from his bride-to-be, and clearly Owen hadn’t thought this through a lick before he’d opened his great, big mouth and invited Cate to join them.

“I’ll get it,” he said, grateful to be out from under the Cross family microscope. Setting the sauce-coated wooden spoon in the spoon-rest beside the stove, he turned toward the entryway to the kitchen, covertly checking his button-down shirt and jeans for any errant splatters as he made his way to the front door. Cate stood on the porch boards, looking pretty enough to steal his breath in a flowery sundress and her dark curls all soft around her face, and oh, hell.

He was in deep. Deep. Trouble.

“Hi,” she said, her wide-open smile putting another nail in his I’m-stupid-for-you coffin. Jesus, he needed to get himself together before Hunter clapped eyes on him and gave him shit for this until he was ninety.

“You rang the bell,” Owen blurted, and, right, so much for getting himself together.

Fortunately, Cate laughed. “Yeah. I know I usually walk right in for work, but it didn’t quite feel proper for tonight. If you want, you can shut the door and I can barge in on a do-over, though. Your call.”

The ease of her words and the sassy smile with which she delivered them turned Owen’s nerves into dust. “Nah. It doesn’t seem right to shut the door on a pretty girl. Especially one who comes bearing gifts.”

He gestured to the plate balanced between her palms, which she lifted with a smile. “Apple pie,” she said.

“Now I’m definitely not shutting the door on you,” Owen said, gesturing her over the threshold with a flourish. He took the pie plate from Cate’s hands, brushing a quick kiss over her mouth as he ushered her all the way into the house. They made their way to the kitchen, where Hunter was still grinning like an idiot, Emerson was trying her best to look like she hadn’t just been eavesdropping, and Owen’s old man was wearing a smile that flat-out busted them both for eavesdropping.

“Oh, hey, Cate!” Emerson said, subtly placing her elbow into Hunter’s rib cage before crossing the kitchen to give Cate a friendly hug. “It’s so nice that you could join us tonight.”

Hunter nodded in agreement, and for all of his ribbing, Owen had to admit being grateful for his brother’s genuinely easygoing nature right now. “Ooooh, pie. Why don’t I take that off your hands for you, O?”

“Not a chance, little brother,” Owen said, neatly sidestepping him and turning to put the pie in a safe place, a.k.a. the sideboard, where Hunter wouldn’t get his mitts on it because it would be in plain view.

“Thanks for having me over for dinner,” Cate said. “It’s really kind of you all.”

Owen’s gut squeezed at the sight of his father’s genuine smile. God, it had been far too long since the old man had given one of those up. “It’s our pleasure, darlin’. And the least we could do for our newest business partner. Owen tells us y’all had quite a day today at the farmers’ market.”

Cate nodded, her smile brightening. “We did. The specialty produce was flying out of the tent, and I even ran out of pound cake there at the end.”

“Well, bein’ a big fan of your pound cake, I can’t say I’m too surprised about that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cross. That’s high praise, for sure.”

She slipped into the kitchen to wash her hands, continuing to chat with his father about the farmers’ market and helping Hunter chop vegetables for the salad while Owen got the spaghetti on to boil. Emerson joined the back and forth about the farmers’ market, asking questions about Cate’s baking schedule and her signature recipes, and, damn, it felt better than Owen wanted to admit to have a house full of good food and happy conversation.

“So, Cate, I’ve been meaning to come by the office and talk to you,” Emerson said, and, wait…what was that weird look she’d just exchanged with Hunter?

“Oh?” Cate asked, pausing with her hands chock-full of sliced cherry tomatoes. “I got your notes on the farm’s ad placements for this month. All the accounts should be up to date in the system.”

Emerson smiled. “Thank you, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Okay.” Cate’s tone painted the word as way more question than statement, but Emerson—thankfully—got right to the point.

“Actually, Hunter and I were wondering if you would consider making our wedding cake.”

Surprise filled Owen’s chest at the same time Cate’s brows shot upward. “You…I’m sorry, what?” she asked.

But Emerson’s expression remained absolutely certain. “I know two weeks is really short notice. But the wedding is going to be small, only fifty people or so, and all the bakeries we’ve tried in Camden Valley and Lockridge are just okay.”

“They’re definitely nothing special,” Hunter chimed in, and the implication that Cate’s baking was very special put a pretty, pink tint on Cate’s cheeks.

“That pound cake you made a couple of weeks ago was to die for, and Owen told us all about that decadent chocolate lava cake you made last weekend, and, well…Hunter and I thought we’d take a flyer and ask if you’d be willing to make a wedding cake for us.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Cate replied slowly, the tomatoes now on the butcher block, clearly forgotten. “I’ve never made anything even close to a wedding cake before, although I guess I have worked with fondant a bunch.”

The fact that she hadn’t dismissed the request with an outright “no” made Owen’s pulse hitch. Emerson must have noticed it, too, because she pressed onward, albeit with care.

“We really don’t want anything terribly fancy,” she said, and Hunter nodded in agreement.

“It’s just us.”

“It’s your wedding cake,” Cate said, doubt flickering through her stare. “Even if it’s not fancy, it should still be perfect.”

Owen opened his mouth before his brain fully got the command from his instincts to speak. “If anyone can make a perfect cake, it’s you. Plus, you have a little time to try a few things out to be sure you get them exactly the way you want them.”

“I’d happily volunteer to be your taste tester,” Hunter said, and their old man tipped his head with a smile.

“It does seem like a right smart plan to have the best baker in the county whip up your wedding cake,” he agreed.

The doubt in Cate’s eyes turned into something else, something softer that sent a twist through Owen’s rib cage. “I’d have to see photos of what you have in mind before I could commit.”

Emerson didn’t hesitate. “As it turns out, I have a bunch of ideas saved to a Pinterest board. I could show you right now, if you want.”

“I’m sure Owen and I can manage to get dinner finished up while you two take a look,” Hunter said, and Owen made a mental note to buy his brother an extra beer next weekend at The Bar.

That beer became the entire tab at the sight of Cate’s smile. “Okay, then. Let’s go through some cake ideas and see what we can put together.”

After a quick rinse of her hands, Cate joined Emerson at the table. There wasn’t much left to do for dinner, save grabbing the plates and cutlery from the cupboard and putting some finishing touches on the salad and the pasta, which he and Hunter easily handled. The conversation kept flowing after everyone had filled their plates, and Owen didn’t even mind Hunter’s poorly hidden snort when Cate commented how much she loved the signature dinner dish that—okay, fine—he only made on special occasions. They sat at the table, talking and laughing and having a raging debate about raspberry jam filling versus amaretto buttercream, and, God, this felt good.

With Cate right beside him and his family all around, this felt right.

“Hi.” Marley’s voice sounded off from the entryway to the kitchen, causing the conversation to thud to an abrupt and awkward halt and her face to flush at the ensuing silence. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Just like that, her expression snapped closed like a pair of old storm shutters. She pivoted on her thick black boot heels, but before she could bolt or Owen could open his graceless mouth to stop her, Cate stood up.

“You’re not interrupting,” she said. “We were just having dinner.”

Marley chewed on her thumb nail, her gaze flicking over the table. “Yeah. I got that.”

Owen’s shoulders stiffened. Yes, he’d wanted Marley to join them, but he wasn’t about to let her get chippy with Cate.

But then Cate’s hand slid to his shoulder, stopping his protest in its tracks. “Emerson and Hunter asked me to make their wedding cake. We were talking about some of the options.”

“Oh,” Marley said, her voice lifting with just enough interest to make Owen hopeful that this whole thing wasn’t a crash and burn just yet. “That’s cool, I guess.”

She looked from the stovetop to the table, and Owen finally made his mouth work properly. “There’s plenty of spaghetti in the pot if you’re hungry.”

“I suppose I could eat,” she said slowly.

Hunter was on his feet in less than a breath. “I’ll go grab a chair from the dining room.”

They shuffled their plates around the table to make room for Marley, who put a minimal amount of spaghetti and salad on her plate before sitting down next to Cate. She chose the spot farthest away from their father yet again, Owen noticed, but he guessed all the wins couldn’t come in a day. The conversation picked up where it had left off, with Emerson and Cate trading ideas about cakes and him and Hunter chiming in here and there. Marley ate without contributing, and Owen’s gut did a little free fall of disappointment as she cleared her plate and excused herself as soon as she finished.

“Let her go for now,” Cate whispered, softly enough to keep the words private between them. His old man remained quiet, but the flash of emotion whisking through his stare was enough to give Owen hope.

“Okay,” he whispered back, the hope in his chest tripling when Cate reached for his hand beneath the table and squeezed.