Cate really needed to stop watching Owen from across the damn bar. The place had been packed, as usual, for a Saturday night, and even though she had help from the manager, Brett, and the crowd was beginning to thin out, she had to be on her toes. She didn’t have time to be sneaking covert glances at Owen, his biceps, or the overly sexy stubble he’d let grow over the last few days.

Which was kind of ironic, seeing as how she’d unlocked expert-level Owen-scoping skills over the past three hours.

Her sneakers squeaked over the thick black mats behind the bar as she turned to grab a box of straws she couldn’t justify needing. Okay, fine. So Owen was attractive, and he’d done an unexpected thing that had made the last two days of her life exponentially easier. This was still Millhaven, and he was still her boss, whose birthright was an entire farm. A family-run farm. No matter how much a dark and dirty part of her wanted to throw caution out the window and discover all the dark and dirty parts of him, Cate needed to keep herself in check.

A man like Owen Cross wasn’t for her. Even if he was right there in front of her with an empty glass and she was the only person behind the bar while Brett closed down the kitchen.

Tucking a strand of wayward hair behind her ear, she pulled together a smile and covered the few steps to the spot where Owen stood next to Lane, one of them looking a whole lot happier than the other.

And here Cate had thought Owen’s scowl was sexy. “What can I get you, boys?” she asked, trying to think of something—God, anything—that would erase the heat on her face at the very unusual sight of his smile.

“Owen needs a glass of water and a slap upside the head,” Lane groused, which turned Owen’s smile into a laugh and Cate’s panties into a hot zone.

“I’ll have another beer, actually. And Lane needs a shot of courage. Or tequila.”

“They’re not the same thing?” Cate asked, pouring both a glass of water and a beer for Owen and another Coke for Lane, since that’s what he’d been drinking all night.

“No.” Lane nodded in thanks as she passed his drink over the bar. “And I have plenty of courage, thank you very much.”

Owen snorted. “He’s trying to work up the nerve to ask Daisy Halstead to dance,” he said.

Lane’s hand connected with Owen’s bicep in a solid thump that wasn’t at all shocking since Lane was built like a Sherman tank and Owen’s reflexes were probably a little rusty from the four shots of Jack Daniels she’d watched him chase with just as many beers over the last few hours. Smack to the arm notwithstanding, no wonder Owen was full of smiles.

“I already told you,” Lane bit out. “I don’t need any courage to ask Daisy to dance.”

Before she could think better of it, Cate said, “Actually, I’m going to side with you on this one. You probably don’t.”

Both men blinked at her in a nonverbal equivalent of “huh?”, and she tucked her smile between her lips before continuing. “Look, you’re a nice guy, Lane, so I’m going to give it to you straight. Daisy’s been sneaking looks at you all night. If you don’t ask her to dance, then Billy Masterson’s going to, because he’s been sneaking looks at her all night. Daisy will probably say yes, since she knows Billy and he’s a decent enough guy and all. But then she might actually have fun with him. In fact, she might even let him walk her to her car and kiss her goodnight.”

Cate paused to let the words sink in, but only for a beat of the song filtering down from the overhead sound system. “And since that’s really what you want to be doing and what I’d also guess she wants you to be doing, since she just looked over at you again—don’t look, Owen,” she warned, stopping him mid-swivel before capping the whole thing off with, “maybe you should just cut to the chase and ask her to dance before Billy does. Courage optional, of course.”

After a pause, during which Cate was certain she’d overstepped her bounds in pretty much every direction, Lane pushed back from the bar with a nod. “Fine. But now I’m not just going to ask her to dance.”

“Okay,” Owen said, his brows lifting up to his tousled hairline. “What else did you have in mind?”

“Now, I’m going to ask her to dance and go out to dinner with me next week.”

For a guy who rarely smiled, Owen was doing a bang-up job making up for lost time. Thank you, Jack Daniels. “Are you sure? Because you’ve only been talking about her for like, six weeks straight, and—”

“Owen?” Cate interrupted, making certain her smile was as sweet as possible before she added, “Shut up and let Lane have his moment.”

“Thanks, Cate. I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Lane replied, tipping his chin at her and turning toward the jukebox, where Daisy stood next to Emerson and Hunter. He blew out a breath. “Here goes nothing.”

Owen waited until Lane was out of earshot before appraising her with a warm gray stare. “Okay. I’ve been harassing that big baby to ask Daisy out forever. How did you just manage to get him to do it in less than two minutes?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Billy Masterson’s harmless, but he’s kind of a tool. I’d way rather see Daisy end up with Lane, especially since she really has been making eyes at him all night—and by all night, I really mean for the past six months. So I guess all I did was tell Lane the truth.”

Owen huffed out a soft laugh and took a sip of his beer. “You’re good at that. Being honest,” he clarified.

“Turns out, honesty can get you into as much trouble as the alternative sometimes,” Cate said, her heart smacking against her sternum for letting the omission slip out loud.

Of course, even with his beer buzz, Owen caught it. And, of course, because he had said beer buzz, he got bold enough to ask, “Yeah? How do you figure?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to dodge the question with some smart remark. But the truth was, beer buzz or not, Owen’s kindness deserved more than a baked-goods thank you. No matter how vulnerable the words would make her feel.

“You did a really nice thing for me the other day,” she said, and he coughed into his pint glass.

“Shit. You really do dive right in, don’t you?”

His candid reaction scattered the tension that had been building in her shoulders, and she forked over the truth. “Yep. Why did you send Mike to fix my oven?”

“Because.”

Owen waited out the minute it took Cate to replace a pair of beers for Greyson Whittaker and Billy Masterson, and pour a round of Chardonnays for Michelle Martin and her usual crew for girls’ night out.

“Because?” Cate prompted upon her return, but Owen just lifted one leanly muscled shoulder in reply. Anyone else would’ve taken the cue to let it go, she knew. But she so wasn’t anyone else, and, what’s more, she really wanted to know. “Come on, Owen. We got this far in the conversation. You’re not really going to go tight-lipped on me now, are you?”

The edges of his mouth curved just enough to form the hint of a smile, and ha! Gotcha. “You fixed my books. It only seemed fair.”

“You’re paying me to fix your books,” she pointed out, handing over a couple of checks to people waiting to settle up and head home for the night.

“Okay, fine,” Owen said when she was done, this time without prodding. “How about this? I sent Mike to fix your oven because you needed it. And I…get that.”

“You do.”

Cate’s breath hitched behind her navy blue top. No one knew how much baking meant to her—she’d certainly never told anyone how she felt when she was in the kitchen, how she craved the ease and calm that baking provided. She couldn’t. But something about the glint in Owen’s eyes told her that not only did he see how much she’d needed her kitchen, but he wasn’t bluffing or bullshitting about understanding that need, and when he nodded, she said the only thing she could think of.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He lowered his stare to the half-empty beer in front of him. “I wanted you to know I appreciate your hard work, but I’m not always so great at knowing what to say. In fact, I kind of suck at it.” A self-deprecating laugh punctuated the admission, and God, did Cate know the feeling.

“Then you could just say that. Look, I’m not great at expressing myself, either,” she said, and Owen arched a brow.

“What? You? I never would’ve guessed.”

Cate’s laughter snuck up on her, but, oh, it tasted dangerously good. “Ha-ha. Did you want to be the pot or the kettle, there, Casanova?”

Funny, his corresponding laugh sounded even better than hers felt. “Fair enough.”

“Why don’t we call it a draw and agree to stick with honesty from now on?” she asked. “Deal?”

“Yeah. Deal.”

A pause opened up between them, but before either one of them could fill it, Lane reappeared at the bar, an oddly concerned look on his face as he looked at Owen.

“Hey, so, ah, here’s the thing.” Lane shifted his weight from one foot to the other, running a palm over the back of his tightly cropped crew cut. “Daisy caught a ride here with Hunter and Emerson, and they’re ready to call it a night. She and I are kind of having a good time, though. So I told her if she wanted to stay and hang out for a little while longer, I could give her a ride home instead, but…uh…”

“Oh. Oh.” Owen straightened in realization. The look on his face said the second-last thing he wanted to do was cock block his buddy after the guy had finally made a move that—from the sound of things—was working. But it also said the very last thing he could do was safely drive himself home, and, oh, screw it.

“Go,” Cate said. “Take Daisy home. I’ve got Owen.”

Both men turned toward her with surprise that would’ve been amusing if she wasn’t also feeling it with equal measure.

“You do?” Owen asked, and Cate served up a no-nonsense stare.

“I do. Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

He shook his head, dropping his voice as he leaned toward her. “I was out of those two beers ago.”

“Then I guess it’s settled.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t know where he lived, or Cross Creek was more than five minutes out of her way. She could give Owen a ride home, no harm, no foul.

Lane’s goofy smile was pretty at odds with his tough demeanor and his linebacker-esque physique, but Cate had to admit, it still looked good on him. “Thanks, Cate. I really owe you one.”

She laughed, shooing him from the bar. “I’m going to make Owen help me clean up before I drop him off. Believe me, we’re square.”

“Greeeeat.” Owen tried—unsuccessfully—to hide the smile that canceled out his sarcasm in his pint glass, then focused his attention back on her. “So, what should we talk about now that you’re stuck with me and we’ve got this honesty policy in place?”

“Work?” Boring, maybe, but at least it was something they had in common.

Or not. “Nope.” Owen shook his head. “I came out tonight to forget work.” At her doubt-filled frown, he amended, “At least ’til tomorrow. Try again.”

“The weather?” Cate asked, and, ugh, she had no small-talk game whatsoever. She was totally and completely game-fucking-free.

Thank God Owen seemed to have enough of a beer buzz not to notice. Of course, he didn’t do her any favors, either. “No on that, too. I’m a farmer, which makes the topic of the weather awfully close to work.”

“You have a point.” Cate paused for a quick scan of the bar, picking up a handful of empty glasses from the noticeably less-populated stretch of mahogany on either side of them. “Got any non-work-related ideas, then?”

“What’s your middle name?”

If he’d asked her to jump up on the bar and dance a jig, it might’ve surprised her less. “That’s what you want to talk about?”

“Seems as good a thing as any,” he said, relaxing against the ladder back of his bar stool, and for the love of God, couldn’t the man own a single T-shirt that didn’t make his biceps look like pure arm porn? “Here, if it makes you feel any better, I’ll go first. My middle name is Nicholas.”

Cate snuffed out the heat between her legs before it made her say something stupid. Or, worse yet, vault over the glossy wood and glassware separating them so she could get a firsthand feel of those corded, sexy, arm muscles. “Owen Nicholas,” she managed. “That suits you.”

After she didn’t fill the ensuing pause with anything other than a smile, he said, “Come on, I told you mine. Are you really going to leave me hanging?”

There were no less than ten reasons—good, solid, sound reasons—why flirting with Owen was a bad idea. But, funny, not a single damned one of them could keep her from doing it.

“I’m thinking about it, yeah.” Before he could loosen the protest that he was clearly working up, Cate gave in. Sort of. “Okay, okay! Guess.”

“Are you going to give me any hints?”

“It’s not Nicholas,” she offered. Although he arched a brow at her in reply, that tiny half-smile still played on his lips, and, she had to admit, this bolder version of him was even more attractive than the broody side that she already didn’t hate.

“Okay. Let’s see.” Owen tapped his index finger against his bottom lip. “Cate is short for Catelyn, so…”

Shock worked its way through her veins. “You remember that?”

Nobody ever called her by her full name, largely because she’d never answered to it. Catelyn had always felt so frilly to her, especially with how her parents had decided to spell it. Cate was far more to the point.

“We were in the same class every year from kindergarten to graduation. Of course, I remember it,” Owen said, and small town: 1. Cate: goose egg.

Assessing her with an up and down look that sent a shiver up her spine despite the warmth of the bar around them, he continued, “How about Ann?”

She laughed. “Nice try, going generic. But no.”

“I suppose that means Mary and Elizabeth are out, too, then.”

“Not even close.”

He held up his hands. “You can’t blame a guy for trying. I should’ve figured this wouldn’t be easy.”

Cate took a turn with the brow-raise they’d been trading all night. “Careful, Casanova, or I’ll think you just called me a pain in the ass.”

“A challenge,” he countered, his forehead creasing in thought. “It’s not anything totally off the wall, like Esmerelda, is it?”

More than anything, she wanted to hang on to her stick-straight stare and make him panic. But the peal of laughter in her chest refused to let her. “No. It’s not Esmerelda. And, yes, it’s something I’m sure you’ve heard before.”

“Grace.”

“No.”

“Melissa.”

“Nope.”

“Ah!” He snapped his fingers in triumph. “Abigail.”

“Still no,” she said with a laugh.

“You’re killing me here, you know.”

The words were simple. But Owen’s eyes flashed, storm-gray and intense as he delivered them, and, suddenly, inexplicably, those seven little syllables went right into Cate’s center.

“It’s Sophia.”

Owen’s blink lasted for less than a second before his smile took over. “Sophia,” he repeated, testing it out on his tongue. “I don’t think I would have guessed that.”

“Mmm.” Her heart beat faster, whooshing against her eardrums in a rapid thump-thump-thump as she pressed her hands over the bar and leaned forward. “There are probably a lot of things about me that you’d never guess. But I don’t go sharing my middle name with just anybody, so you’d better take that one to the grave, Owen Nicholas.”

He leaned in, too, close enough for Cate to be able to smell the crisp, clean scent of his soap, see the sweep of his coal-colored lashes even though his stare never budged. “Your secret’s safe with me, Catelyn Sophia.”

And wasn’t that just what she was afraid of?