“There’s a good place to start,” he said. It was as decent as any, he supposed. “How come you hate your job? Shoes aside, of course.”
“A couple of reasons, really,” Marley said slowly. “The commute is hell and my co-workers are shallow, stiletto-wearing mean-girls. But the biggest reason I hate it is because, honestly? It’s mindless. My boss is in charge of all the good stuff, like arranging the window displays and doing the inventory and organizing the schedules. All I do is fold midriff-baring sweaters and ninety-dollar skinny jeans and unlock fitting rooms for spoiled teenagers looking to spend money like they have an endless supply of the stuff.”
An image of Marley, wearing a sweater that showed off her bare, tapered waist and jeans made to illustrate the flare of her hips barged through Greyson’s mind, and shit, he needed to focus. Fast, before his dick got the message and decided to pop up for a hi-how-are-ya.
“Okay”—he cleared his throat and scrubbed the cage in front of him for a breath cycle—“that does sound pretty boring. What would you rather be doing instead?”
“Leaving town.”
Marley’s answer was so swift and decisive that Greyson couldn’t help but ask, “Then why don’t you? Not that I don’t think you’re crazy for wanting to leave,” he qualified. “As far as I’m concerned, Millhaven’s fucking perfect. But you clearly don’t like your job, and you’ve made it plain that you don’t want to be part of your family.” No one made that much of a fuss about their heritage if they wanted to own it. “So, why stick around?”
“Truth?” Her pause was measurable only by the tiny hitch of her fingers on the water bowl she’d just emptied, but oh, Greyson had seen it.
“No,” he teased, partly to put her at ease and partly to see her blush, because that was the sort of bastard he was. “Lie to me.”
She paired an eye-roll with her soft laugh, and oh, mission accomplished. “I’m sure my brothers think it’s because I’m still grieving for my mom and that I need to find myself, or figure out my path, or some crazy, cosmic crap like that. Like I’m in limbo, or whatever.”
“But you’re not,” he said, and she shook her head.
“No, I’m not. I’m just in debt.”
Curveball, meet catcher’s mitt. “You’re in debt?” he repeated, unable to curb his surprise.
She gave up a rueful smile. “Up to my elbows, actually. My mom had health insurance, but not everything was covered, and she…”
Here, Marley paused again, but something in her eyes warned Greyson not to tease her this time. He heeded it even though he was tempted to push his luck, or at least say something—Christ, the sadness that had suddenly torn over her face was making his instincts howl to get her to unload some of it so her burden would ease.
But then she shrugged, and the sadness was gone as fast as it had appeared. “Anyway. Even with the insurance and everything she left me, there’s still enough debt left behind to keep me stuck here in Millhaven while I pay it off. My job at the boutique isn’t ideal.” Marley made a face that suggested this was a gross understatement, and from the sound of things, Greyson would agree. “But it was the first thing I could find, and the pay isn’t terrible. I mapped everything out—what I owe, how many hours I have to work per week to pay things off every month. And as soon as that debt is settled, I’m out of here.”
Ah. Well, that explained her willingness to do a job she hated with the heat and intensity of ten-thousand white-hot suns. Greyson remained quiet for a minute and turned the rest of it over in his mind. He knew his next words weren’t going to win him any favor, but really, when had he ever let that stop him before?
“Look, I’m not breaking out my pom poms to do the Cross family cheer over here. God knows there’s no love lost between us. But your brothers and old man won’t help you out? I know you’re a Rallston,” he emphasized, not only because it was true, but also so she wouldn’t put a kill switch to the conversation by way of telling him to fuck straight off. “But you can’t deny that y’all are family. Blood is blood, and we tend to stand for our own ’round here.”
“They probably would offer to help me pay off the debt,” she said. “If I told them I owed it.”
Greyson’s heart beat faster in surprise. “You haven’t told them?”
“The debt isn’t theirs. I mean, technically, yes, they’re my family,” Marley said, her displeasure on full display as she turned toward the last cage in the row. “And Tobias is my biological father. But he made it really clear that he didn’t want anything to do with me from the start. The only reason I came to Millhaven to meet him in the first place was because my mother asked me to. Just because I had the shitty luck of getting stuck here when the bills came rolling in doesn’t mean I want a handout from anyone, though. Least of all Tobias.”
“It’d get you where you want to be,” Greyson pointed out, and wasn’t he just the devil’s advocate right now?
Not that it would win him any arguments, judging by the look on Marley’s face. “I don’t need pity money from him, or a handout from my brothers. It’s not why I came here. Anyway, she was my mother. This debt is my responsibility. If I have to stay in Millhaven while I pay it off, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Once again, Greyson wanted to push, or at the very least to point out that her mother probably wouldn’t have made her promise to come meet the old man if she didn’t think he’d do right by her. Trouble was, not only did he understand what Marley was saying, but he got it. As tempting as it might be on the surface to take the money and run, he wouldn’t want a handout, either. A debt was a debt, plain and simple. How she paid hers off was up to her.
So he said, “Well, all things considered, I don’t think this is the worst place you could get stuck while you make good on your finances.”
“You don’t have a lot of other places to compare it to,” she said after a beat of surprise widened her sky-blue stare.
Well, hell. Of course, she kind of had him there. “True. But I think if you gave Millhaven a chance, you might change your tune about it being so backwards. In fact, you might even start to like it here.”
“Doubtful.” The sound that crossed her lips punctuated the claim, but Greyson ignored her lack of conviction. Here, he knew he could push, because here, he knew he was right.
“You just need the right person to show you what’s what, is all.”
“Oh, and you think you’re that person?” Marley asked. She’d probably meant to stay tough, or at the very least, non-committal. But a fragment of a smile had made its way to both her face and her tone, and Greyson matched it with his very best smirk.
“Yes, ma’am, I do. Look, I’m not trying to convince you to stay.” There was, after all, the old adage about leading a horse to water, and while he wasn’t really a platitudes kind of guy, that one made sense. “You’ve got greener pastures and other places to be. I get that, even if I think it’s crazy. But you might as well try to enjoy Millhaven while you’re here. I mean, what else are you doing with your free time? Watching Netflix and sitting around that big ol’ house, avoiding your old man?”
“No.” The flush crawling over her cheeks belied the claim—a fact she must have felt, because then she said, “Only sometimes.”
Pausing, Marley knelt down to peer into the corner cage, where the black dog had been watching her about as closely as Greyson had. The dog was still far from friendly, curled in a cautious knot along the back wall of its pen. He wasn’t whimpering or shaking anymore, though, and hadn’t been since Marley had taken hold of the conversation.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt anything to prove you wrong,” she finally said. Whether it was the fact that she’d agreed or the thrill of the challenge itself, Greyson couldn’t be sure, but he laughed all the same.
“Remind me to have some salt and pepper handy.”
“What? Why?”
The anticipation riding through his veins was dangerous, he knew. But he liked it too much to care.
�
�For when you eat those words, darlin’. I don’t throw down challenges I intend to lose.”
Marley sat in the cheery, sunlit kitchen of the main house at Cross Creek Farm and cursed viciously under her breath. Slumping against her ladder-back chair, she scooped the cell phone she could barely afford off the table in front of her and re-read the message on the screen for the thousandth time since it had arrived in her inbox a handful of hours ago.
Hey chérie. Sry I had to cut ur hours. Here’s ur schedule for this week.
Marley didn’t bother recalculating the number of hours she’d been assigned at the boutique. She already knew achingly well that they added up to far too few, just as she knew Noémie wouldn’t budge on changing them. Marley had called her the second she’d seen the text, explaining through gritted teeth that she really, really needed double the hours for which she’d been slated, and wasn’t there anything Noémie could do. Her boss (the witch) had sighed heavily as if Marley were a kindergartener asking for a cupcake and said, “Well, you did ask me for a very specific schedule, and we can’t all get the hours we want. If you’re not willing to be flexible, I can’t guarantee what you’ll get, and the hours you asked for are primo.” She’d paused here to no doubt allow Marley a second to be wildly impressed with her worldliness. Italian and French. Ooo la fucking la. “Anyway, you know how retail is,” Noémie had chirped. “C’est la vie!”
It had taken all of Marley’s restraint not to tell the woman where she could stick her haughty airs and poorly pronounced adages. Okay, yes, she’d known she might take a small hit to her schedule because she needed to dance around her community service hours. But while she and Noémie weren’t exactly BFFs, Marley had thought that maybe her boss would at least try to help her out as much as possible. The schedule Marley had received had reduced her to more of an afterthought than even a part-timer at this point, and God, couldn’t she find one place—just one place—where she actually felt like she belonged?
Like the animal shelter, you mean?
The thought winged into her from out of nowhere, tightening her fingers on her phone case and halting her breath in her lungs. She hadn’t hated her hours at the shelter this week, having found a solid groove of work/banter/rinse/repeat with Greyson both Wednesday and yesterday. They’d stuck to lighter topics of conversation over the past couple of days, like favorite types of music (country for him, rock for her), the best shows to binge watch (how he could think The Walking Dead was better than Jessica Jones was seriously beyond her), and how to properly order a cheeseburger (there, at least, they’d been in perfect agreement. Medium-rare, with the works, steak fries, not shoestring potatoes. There was hope for him yet). Greyson had even helped her stealth her way into Sierra’s yard, bringing his own stash of groceries to add to hers every time, and she couldn’t deny the truth.
He might argue with her and nudge her and make her generally crazy, and yeah, he might be cocky (so cocky), but Marley liked him.
And yeah again, sometimes, even if it was only for a split second at a time here and there, she didn’t feel like such an outsider around him.
Whiiiiiiich was ridiculous, she thought, her head snapping up and her shoulders going along for the ride. It was mandatory community service, emphasis on mandatory. It wasn’t supposed to be fun. She wasn’t supposed to like it, no matter how warm Greyson made her feel between her thighs when he smirked, and she definitely wasn’t supposed to feel as if she belonged there. With him. Kissing him. Letting him kiss her back in all the right places until she were hot and sweaty and desperate to come.
Oh, God, this was beyond ridiculous.
So why did she want it anyway?
“Whoa, are you okay?” Owen’s voice hit her like a bucket of ice water—which, in this particular case, wasn’t a bad thing.
Marley straightened, forcing a nothing-to-see-here look over her face as she glanced across the kitchen at her brother, who—blessedly—seemed completely oblivious to the naughty-factor of the thoughts she’d been having when he’d walked through the mudroom door. “Yep, I’m great. I was just about to make the filling for some extra blueberry pies. Cate mentioned you guys were way low on them at the storefront, and I have time to kill today.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea,” Owen said, his smile brightening over the bottle of water he’d grabbed from the fridge. “Those blueberry pies are my favorite.”
Marley managed to laugh. Not that she minded, because Cate was cool, but her brother was such a dork when it came to his girlfriend. “You say that about everything Cate makes.”
“It’s not my fault it’s all amazing,” he pointed out. “Or that you two make such a good team.”
Marley’s laugh became surprise in an instant. “I don’t know about team. She’s the one who comes up with all the flavor profiles and recipes, and then she teaches me how to make stuff. All the really hard stuff falls on her.”
“Yeah, but she said you’re really good at keeping things organized, and that you always do whatever it takes to get a recipe right.”
Marley pushed up from the table and moved toward the coffeepot with a shrug. “A) being organized is just a good idea. I mean, who doesn’t want to know what they’ve got and where it is? Secondly, there isn’t much point in not doing whatever it takes to get something right. Why even bother in the first place if you’re only going to half-ass things, you know?”
“Hmm. Actually, I do,” Owen said. “Speaking of which, have you given any more thought to working at the storefront? We could really use someone like you running the place.”
Damn it! Marley must be really off her game not to have seen that one coming. Owen had never exactly been suave or subtle.
“No,” she said automatically. The argument rang hollow in her ears, though, as if it was growing threadbare from overuse. “What do you mean, someone like me?”
Surprise flickered over Owen’s face, but he didn’t waste any time answering. “You don’t take any crap, for starters, and you don’t pull any punches. I had to learn that the hard way.”
Ah, right. Their big Come To Jesus talk after he and Cate had had that big blowout argument last spring.
“That was your own fault for being thick-headed,” Marley said, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Anyway, you figured things out fast enough.” All she’d done was point out the truth, really. Cate and Owen were so obviously perfect for each other.
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t set me straight,” Owen said, his argument growing steam. “You’re also pretty smart.”
Shock rippled behind Marley’s breastbone. She knew she wasn’t a dumbass or anything, but no one had ever gone out of their way to call her smart, especially when other adjectives like stubborn and sarcastic were so readily available. “You think so?”
He nodded. “It’s in the genes.”
“God, now you sound like Eli.”
Owen laughed, lifting his water bottle at her in salute. “I can’t help it if it’s true.” His expression slipped into the seriousness she was used to from him, making her heart work faster in her chest. “You really are smart, Marley, and I’ve watched you work with Cate when she fills orders for the storefront and the farmers’ market. I wouldn’t tell you I think you’d be good at this just to blow smoke. You know that’s not my style.”
Okay, so that was probably true. Owen had never been one to go the bullshit route. In fact, sometimes he was a little too honest. It was why, of all her brothers, she got along with him best. Not that she’d confided the big stuff in him—he was, after all, their father’s son. He’d been raised by Tobias, the only living parent either of them had.
Stop, her brain whispered quietly, cutting the train of thought to the quick, her defenses rerouting her to a safer topic. “Alright, so I’m not brainless. That still doesn’t mean I’d be any good at running a storefront.”
“Why don’t we do a test run at the farmers’ market tomorrow?” Owen asked. When Marley didn’t offer an
immediate protest—stupid, stupid delayed reaction—he continued excitedly. “It’s the Fourth of July, and with the parade in Camden Valley, the market is bound to be packed. We’ll need all the hands we can get. Hunter and Eli and I can show you the ropes, and Cate and Scarlett and Emerson will be there, too. We’ll even pay you for your time.”
Behold, the magic words. “You’ll pay me just for trying it out?”
“Of course. I mean, don’t get me wrong. You’re gonna earn every penny if you say yes.” Both his tone and his wry smile backed up the words in spades. “But the rest of us get paid for time put in. You should, too.”
“How much, exactly?”
Owen rattled off an hourly wage that made her chest fill with butterflies. “Just for working at the farmers’ market?” Marley asked. It was more than she made at the mall, and, bonus, no shoes that stunt doubled as instruments of torture.
Owen, however, shook his head. “No, for helping manage the farm stand. Like I said, it’s a lot of work, and you’ll need to start with stuff like inventory and helping to pack up the truck today. There’s a learning curve to making a day at the market a success.” His gray eyes shifted to meet hers, his gaze fastening tight. “But I really mean it when I say I think this is a great idea. So, what do you say?”
“How soon could you pay me?” Marley asked carefully, and after a beat of surprise, Owen replied.
“Payday’s every other Friday, and this is our off week, so…Cate can cut you a check for whatever hours you work in seven days.”
Marley leaned back against the counter and weighed all of the variables. No, she didn’t want any part of the family business (one check for the no column), but this was temporary (one for yes), and she was desperate (more yes). Anyway, it wasn’t as if she’d have to actually work with Tobias, or be anywhere near him for that matter. After his scare with heat exhaustion last year, her brothers made sure he took both Saturdays and Sundays off. The fact of the matter was that, unlike her hours at the boutique, her bills weren’t going anywhere, and she had thirteen days before the hospital’s billing department was going to make an electronic withdrawal that would overdraw her account if she didn’t feed the damned thing.
Crossing Hope (Cross Creek Series Book 4) Page 14
