Crossing the Line (The Cross Creek Series Book 2)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  Christ, he wanted to change it.

  “Hey.” Scarlett’s voice cut through his churning emotions, bringing him back to the orange-and-gold firelight in the room. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” he said, because old habits and all that crap. Dodge. Deflect. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

  She pushed off the mattress to slide into the space beside him on the floorboards, pinning him with a wide-open stare that took a chunk out of his defenses. “Because you look like someone just kicked your puppy. Or I guess in your case, it would be your cow. Either way, the last thing you look is fine.”

  Her honesty tagged him in the chest, prompting his own truth right out. “Today was the best day I’ve had in . . . I don’t know how long.”

  “Okay,” Scarlett said, her brow furrowing softly in confusion. “Me, too, but I’m not sure why today being so good is a bad thing.”

  “That’s exactly the point. Today wasn’t a bad thing. Today was a fucking great thing.”

  The words hung between them for a beat, then two, before Scarlett’s breath kicked out on an audible exhale. “Except you weren’t at Cross Creek.”

  Eli laughed, but God, he couldn’t stick any humor to the sound. “Not even for a minute. Hunter, Owen, my dad—it would never even occur to them that a perfect day could happen without the farm. But not me.” Guilt flashed through him, sharp and hot. “I actually had to leave the place in order to have one.”

  For a minute, the only thing that passed between them was the crackle and hiss of the fire. An ache, stronger than usual, but not unfamiliar, centered in Eli’s chest, and ah hell, he never should have opened his mouth in the first place.

  A fact that was grand-slammed home when Scarlett broke the silence in the room with, “Have you given any more thought to putting your writing out there?”

  “Of course I have,” Eli said, surprising himself with the admission even though it was the unvarnished truth. But Scarlett knew the score—shit, she was the only one who did. And anyway, trying to pretty up the reality of his situation was like putting lipstick on a three-hundred-pound hog. No matter what he did, it was still a big, fat problem he couldn’t get around. “I think about putting my writing out there every damned day, Scarlett. But there’s no way I can actually do it.”

  “Technically, you already have,” she pointed out. “There are dozens of stories and in-depth articles archived on Cross Creek’s website, and you wrote every one of them. So if the work is already online for the whole world to potentially read, why is it such a big deal to send a few of the articles to editors who might be looking for a freelance writer?”

  Even though her tone painted the question as genuine, frustration still swelled in his chest, fueled by the push-pull of his reality. “Because even though they’re extended pieces, writing all those articles for Cross Creek was easy—I was already on the farm. I didn’t have to leave to do the work. But I can’t go halfway on writing about anyplace else. You know better than anyone that freelance journalism almost always requires travel.”

  Some emotion Eli couldn’t identify whisked through her dark-green stare, there and gone in nearly the same instant. “I do know that. But it’s close to the end of September, which means things will slow down for a while at the farm, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly, his shoulders tightening against the hand-sewn quilt draped over the bed’s side rail. The truth was, with the exception of the cattle farm and the work they (okay, Owen) did in the greenhouse, Cross Creek was pretty quiet from November through March. “After the harvest, the work load changes some.”

  “Which makes right now the perfect time to try and pick up a couple of small freelance jobs.”

  Even though Eli knew Scarlett’s intentions were pure—not to mention that she wasn’t wrong about the timing—the implication of her words still sliced through him like razor wire.

  You are extra. Cross Creek can do without you.

  Leaving the farm to write, even temporarily, would prove just how much of an outlier he’d always been. And fuck, he owed his father and brothers better than ditching out on them.

  Eli’s pulse hammered faster in his veins, and he searched desperately for a cocky enough comeback to cover up this conversation. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s also not that difficult. You have a degree, Eli, and your work speaks for itself. You’re qualified to be a writer, and it’s what’s in your heart. You can do this.”

  She slid her hand over his, her eyes glittering green and gold in the firelight, and his chin snapped up with the force of his realization.

  The words weren’t a bossy demand. They were an affirmation. A promise.

  Scarlett saw him. And she believed in him.

  Eli’s heart pounded, so hard he was certain the damned thing would spring free and end him right there on the floorboards. “I already told you,” he said, his voice sounding as ragged as he felt. “My family can’t know about my writing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He blinked, the two syllables rattling through his brain like pennies in a glass jar. “Beg pardon?”

  But rather than stand down, Scarlett stepped up. “Bullshit,” she repeated with conviction even though her tone carried all the gentleness of a whisper. “Look, I don’t have any siblings—hell, for ten years, I didn’t even have any parents—so I may not be the best judge of family dynamics, but I know what I see. Yes, you and Owen have had your differences, but your family loves you, and you love to write. I’m trying to understand your hesitation”—her fingers squeezed over his as proof of her support, and God, how could such a small movement make him want to tell her everything? “I really am. But you have a chance here. Why won’t you take it?”

  In that second, with Scarlett’s hands on him and her belief in him both so strong, Eli’s finely tuned defenses turned to dust, and the answer rushed out of him before his brain even realized he wouldn’t push it away or cover it up.

  “Because when I said my father and brothers can’t know I write, it had nothing to do with the fact that I don’t think they’ll support me, Scarlett. I can’t tell them because then they’ll know I don’t belong where they do. At the farm. Where I’m supposed to.”

  Scarlett sat glued to the floor next to Eli, her stomach between her knees and her heart wedged in her throat. This whole time, she’d assumed he’d stayed at Cross Creek out of a sense of duty to his family’s business, and clearly, that was part of the equation. But what he’d just said—the raw emotion on his face as he’d said it—had stunned her into place. Eli hadn’t just kept his passion for writing hidden all this time because of obligation to his family’s farm.

  He’d done it because he felt guilty that his passion was for something else.

  “Oh, Eli,” she started, but God, she had no idea how to finish. So Scarlett did the only thing she could think of.

  She kept her grip on his hand steady and listened.

  “I love Cross Creek, I really do. But I’ve known since high school that I don’t belong there. I thought I could live with it—I mean, to see the way my old man looks at something as simple as the sun coming up over the east field . . . Christ, it’s as if nothing else exists but him and the land. My brothers get that same look. But I never felt it. Not for the farm, anyway.”

  There—there in the glimmer of those ocean-blue eyes—was the wild confidence Scarlett had come to find so captivating. “You do feel that way for something, though. Just like your father and brothers do. Surely they’d understand.”

  Eli’s laugh was soft and joyless as it slipped into the gold-and-gray shadows between them. “I have no doubt they would.”

  Scarlett’s surprise knocked into her, an almost palpable push to her chest. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

  “We might be four men who don’t exactly go the hot-chocolate-and-hugs route very often”—he paused here to lift one bare shoulder—“or, you know, pretty much ever. But I’m not brainless. I know my family lov
es me . . . even though Owen has a funny way of showing it sometimes,” he added. “If I told them I’m a writer, I think they’d be okay with that. Once they got over the shock, anyway.”

  “So why not take the plunge if writing is what makes you happy?”

  “Because I’m already the fuck-up.” Eli jabbed a hand over his crew cut, hard enough that if his hair had been longer, his fingers would’ve tangled there. “I’m the one Cross who doesn’t want the legacy our entire family has been built on for three generations, and I owe Hunter and Owen and my old man better than to leave.”

  Scarlett’s heart clattered against her rib cage, and she dropped his hand to slide into the space in front of him. “You are not a fuck-up.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “No.” She wanted to give him room to air out whatever he needed to, she really did. But no way was she letting that stand. “You have a different passion, and a different way of looking at Cross Creek than your father or brothers. But you are not a fuck-up, Eli Cross. You’re still good enough to be part of your family, even if you love something else.”

  “When I said I was the black sheep of my family, I meant it,” he argued, his voice suddenly brittle enough to shatter. “I don’t belong on the farm. I don’t have a specific set of responsibilities there like everyone else. I don’t love the work. I don’t live on the property. Christ, Scarlett, I don’t even remember my own damn mother!”

  The words arrowed all the way through her, squeezing her heart and stealing the air from her lungs. “What?”

  “I don’t have a single memory of my mother. Not one. Hunter remembers. Owen sure as shit remembers. And, of course, my old man remembers every detail.” Eli broke off, his eyes darkening to a near navy-blue with emotion as he whispered, “They tell stories of her with me. How she’d bandage my banged-up knees and how she’d sing me to sleep at night. And I just nod and say I remember, but the truth is, no matter how hard I try, no matter how badly I fucking want to, I don’t. How can I possibly be good enough to belong in my family if I can’t even remember the woman who put me there?”

  Scarlett’s throat knotted over the sound that wanted to leave it at the raw, ragged emotion in his words. She was out of her depth, she knew. She had no mother, no barometer whatsoever for this sort of family dynamic. But she did have something more powerful. Something she believed in beyond the shadow of a doubt.

  She had the truth Eli had showed her over the better part of the last month.

  “You were a little boy when your mother died, Eli. But just because you don’t remember her doesn’t mean you didn’t love her, and it doesn’t mean you’re not a good man, with a good heart.”

  He tried to look away, just the smallest drop of his chin, but Scarlett cupped his face between her palms, steady and sure. “And just because you want something different than farming doesn’t mean you’re not part of your family. It simply means the part that belongs to you doesn’t look like anyone else’s. Your part belongs to you.”

  Her pulse pressed a hard beat against her throat. But scaling back now simply wasn’t an option, not when Eli so clearly needed to know what she knew.

  So she said, “Your part is cocky and confident, but it’s also kind and smart as hell. It might not belong at Cross Creek, but your part in your family has been waiting for a long time. The only thing left to ask yourself is if you’re ready to take it.”

  “I want to.” Eli blinked, as if he’d been as shocked as Scarlett to hear his answer. “But I’ve spent so long covering up who I am, I don’t even know where I’d start.”

  “I’m going to Brazil.” Scarlett’s cheeks burned, and God, just once, she’d love for her brain to function ahead of her mouth.

  “What? When?” Eli asked, the muscles in his jaw flexing beneath her fingers.

  She lowered her hands, taking a breath in an effort to make her thoughts fall in line. “In a few weeks. I have a good friend who runs a newspaper there.” She paused, but screw it. Watering down her tenacity when she needed it the most was just plain stupid. “A good friend who just so happens to be looking for a freelance reporter to work the story with me.”

  For a second, confusion settled between Eli’s brows. But then . . . “Holy shit.” His shoulders smacked against the quilt-covered side of the mattress behind him. “You’re not seriously suggesting—”

  “That you come with me to Brazil,” Scarlett confirmed, and finally, finally, her brain caught up to her mouth. “Look, I know it sounds crazy—”

  “Scarlett, please. My throwing a dozen resumes out to editors in Richmond or Washington, DC, is crazy. Me going to Brazil with you is—”

  “A really good idea,” she interrupted back. Okay, it might be a tiny bit crazy, too, but it wasn’t as if that had ever stopped her before. Especially when the crazy idea had merit. “Look, Rafael needs a reporter to cover the local part of a traveling festival, and you’d be perfect for the job; plus, it’s a short-term assignment, so you’d be gone for a week, tops, including travel time. This is a win-win, Eli. It’s one story, no big deal, and we’d cover it together, just like we’ve been doing at Cross Creek.”

  “Except that we’d be in South America,” Eli said, and although his tone could’ve easily swapped “the dark side of the moon” for “South America,” Scarlett couldn’t help but notice he hadn’t punctuated the fact with a great, big no.

  She proceeded with care. “Yes, we’d be in South America. But São Paulo is beautiful, we’d have a local contact with us who speaks Portuguese, and more importantly, you’d be doing what you love.”

  “I appreciate the thought here, but . . .” He paused, his expression unreadable in the low light. At least until he said, “My family stuff aside, I don’t want a freelance job unless I’ve earned it aboveboard.”

  “Well good, because that’s the only way you’re going to get this assignment,” Scarlett told him “Raff and I might be friends, and, of course, I’ll give you a great reference. But my rec will only go so far. He’s a savvy businessman, and he’s not going to hire anyone whose work doesn’t stand up.”

  “And you think mine will.”

  Reaching out to skim her fingertips down Eli’s forearm, she let her touch linger on the wild rhythm at his wrist before pressing her palm against his. “I do. I’ve read the pieces on Cross Creek’s website, and they’re not just fluff. I believe you deserve the chance to see what a good writer you are, and that you’re an even better man. But as great as I think the idea of giving Rafael your work is, you have to want to take the leap. I can’t make the decision for you, and I don’t want you to make it for me.”

  He looked at her, hope and fear and about sixty other emotions swirling through his stare. Although it twisted her heart and nearly drove her bat-shit bonkers in the process, she waited out each one, watching Eli as he watched the firelight over her shoulder, until finally, he shifted his gaze back to her.

  “I don’t know if I’m a good enough writer to cover the Cook County Fair, let alone a festival on another continent,” he said quietly. “Even if I am, I don’t know how the hell I’d tell my family I’m putting in a rush job for a passport and hopping a flight to Brazil, and I don’t have any idea how they’d react on the off chance I’d find a way to say it. But there’s one thing I do know.”

  Scarlett swallowed past dry lips. “And that is?”

  “It’s time for me to figure it out. Go ahead and tell Rafael I’ll send him whatever he needs to consider me for the job. If he’s game, you and I are going to Brazil.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Three days later, Eli was still vacillating between feeling like he’d won a Nobel Prize and wondering whether he’d lost every last shred of his already dubious sanity. But as soon as Scarlett had reached out to her friend Rafael the other night from the cabin, the guy had asked to see a portfolio of Eli’s work, then followed up with both a phone interview and some back and forth via e-mail. Rafael had seemed impressed with Scarlett’
s recommendation, not to mention really impressed with the writing, and had promised to be in touch as soon as possible.

  Which meant that life as Eli knew it had the potential to go ass over teakettle any frigging second now.

  The creak and bang of the screen door on the back of Cross Creek’s main house brought him crash-landing back to reality. Despite all the nerves doing the jump and jangle in his gut, the sight of Scarlett with her camera around her neck and a wooden bucket in each hand knocked a laugh right out of him.

  “I take it you’re ready to feed the chickens,” Eli said, nodding down in a wordless may I? before slipping one of the buckets from her grasp and falling into step beside her.

  She grinned, albeit sheepishly, and Christ, she was beautiful. “I am. Sorry I’m running so late today. I got caught up in a project while you and Owen were out in the greenhouse getting things ready for today’s farm stand. God, it’s got to be, what . . .”

  Scarlett fumbled for her cell phone, but before she could even get her hand to the back pocket of her jeans, Eli had already eyeballed the position of the sun where it hung, low and fat over the east field.

  “Eight-thirty. Give or take.”

  Her laugh was just as pretty as the grin that had paved the way for it. “Right. I forgot about that magic trick you do with the time.”

  He was tempted—not a little—to let her be impressed. But in the end, the smoke and mirrors just didn’t seem right. “As much as I’d love to take credit for working magic, sight-measuring the sun to tell the time is really just a learned skill.”

  “So it’s kind of like instinct,” Scarlett said.

  Eli nodded. “Yeah. I suppose that’s as good a way to think of it as any.”

  “Mmm.” Their boots—hers a pair of rubber Wellies with bright-pink-and-blue koi fish printed all over them—crunched over the gravel path for a few seconds’ worth of paces before she continued. “You know, you’re going to get a chance to add to that arsenal of instincts when we go to São Paulo.”