Crossing Hope (Cross Creek Series Book 4) Read online

  She exhaled in relief. “You got it. What’s on the agenda for tonight?”

  Louis went over their tasks for the evening, and although she and Greyson would be busy, no doubt, nothing was unfamiliar or sounded too terribly taxing.

  “Okay,” Greyson said after Louis had finished his rundown of clean-walk-organize. “Anything else?”

  “No.” Louis resumed his eyes-narrowed, arms-crossed stance. “But—”

  “I know, I know.” Greyson rolled his eyes, his voice loaded with come-at-me attitude. “Don’t mess with the dog in the corner cage.”

  Louis lifted a finger for an air-jab. “I mean it,” he said, huffing one last time before turning to walk back to the front room.

  “I know you do, you judgmental jackass,” Greyson muttered, just barely under his breath, and oooookay. No way could Marley leave that alone.

  “Whoa. What’s with you?” she asked.

  Greyson’s frown intensified. “Nothing,” he snapped, then seemed to think better of it, running a hand over his stubbled jaw as if he could erase the tension there. “Truth be told, I had a shit day.”

  “Ah. I’m familiar.” Marley gestured to her outfit. “Exhibit A. I’m pretty sure these shoes are from Satan’s signature line.”

  He surprised her with a laugh, and judging by the look that followed on his face, she wasn’t the only one. “Guess there must be something in the water. You want to walk the dogs tonight?”

  She’d gotten a little more comfortable with the animals last week—occupational hazard, and all—but still…get the work done, get out of Dodge. “Nah, you can.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Greyson said, looking at her thoughtfully. “Since we could both use something good, why don’t we both do it?”

  Marley’s brows shot up. “You want to go together?”

  “Well, you’ll have to ditch your shoes, which I know will disappoint you something terrible.” The heat of his smirk chased Marley’s shock away in less than a breath. “But, sure. Why not?”

  “Because it’s nice?”

  Marley heard the words only after they’d crash-coursed past her apparently non-existent brain to mouth filter. “Sorry. That just kind of flew out. But…” Oh, she needed to just say it. “We kind of parted on bad terms on Sunday. I didn’t expect you to want to do any jobs where you had to spend time with me.”

  Greyson paused, sinking a thumb through the belt loop on his jeans and blowing out a breath. “Yeah. About Sunday. I…kind of acted like an ass.”

  “I wasn’t exactly the nicest, either,” Marley pointed out, once she’d gotten past her surprise at his candor. Yeah, he’d thrown her for a loop, but it took two to have an argument. She hadn’t failed to rise to the occasion.

  As if he’d read her mind, he nodded. “Truce?”

  Unable to help it, she arched a brow. “You make it sound like we’re at battle.”

  “Our families sort of are,” he said wryly. But she was tired of the labels, of him being a Whittaker and her being tagged as the Cross that she wasn’t.

  So she said, “I guess it’s a good thing we’re not our families, then. Truce.”

  Marley went into the bathroom to change, nearly groaning out loud at the shoegasm of kicking off those infernal heels that Noémie had insisted were an absolute “must-have”. She was so much more comfortable in her cutoffs and Converse. Not that she’d ever find a job to support that sort of dress code.

  “Okay,” Marley said, stowing her bag on a shelf by the door. “Which dogs do you want to take first?”

  Greyson tilted his head at the cages along the back wall in assessment. “We could probably manage three at once, if you take Gypsy and I take Boomer and Snickers.”

  Her laughter flew out in a quick burst. “You named them?” she asked, and he looked at her as if she was the crazy one.

  “All dogs need names. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot easier than saying, ‘that brown one’ or ‘the spotted one’, don’t you think?”

  Marley had to admit, he did have a point. “Fair enough. But Snickers?”

  “What can I say?” Greyson shrugged, gesturing to the cage holding a medium-sized dark brown and caramel-colored mutt. “I was hungry, and come on. She looks like a Snickers, doesn’t she?”

  Huh. He kind of had a point, and hell if the dog hadn’t responded to her name, her ears perking up and her eyes going bright. “I wonder why Louis didn’t name them himself,” Marley mused. “According to the records, some of them have been here for a while.”

  She’d started organizing all the records the other day, and it was going to be a crazy-big task. Louis swore he knew where everything was, but that made exactly one of them. Whatever system he’d conjured in his head seemed to be unacquainted with both rhyme and reason. Also, any technology from this century. Every single record the man kept was by hand.

  “Maybe he didn’t name them because he’s an unfeeling ass?” Greyson ventured, and oh for the love of God.

  “You let him get to you.” Marley pointed the clasp-end of the leash she’d taken from a hook on the wall at him, her heart tapping faster against her breastbone when he actually stopped short of the cage he’d been heading toward to look at her.

  “Aside from the fact that he’s a crusty old bastard, he doesn’t do a very good job around here. It took us forever to get that yard right, and that storage closet was a disaster zone.”

  She couldn’t deny that he had a point. At least, about the state of the shelter. “Yeah, but the animals are really well cared for. Their vet records are all up-to-date and meticulously kept. Even if I did have to dig around quite a bit to find all of them.”

  Greyson leveled her with a look as if to say see?, and Marley let out an exhale. “What I mean is, I think all Louis needs is some help managing the place. He’s doing the important stuff, but everything else…not so much. And you do let him get to you.”

  “He’s mean.”

  “Only if you push. And for the record, I thought you were mean when I first met you.”

  Hah! That got him. But Marley saw the shock on Greyson’s face turn to a smirk just a beat too late, and damn it, damn it, damn it, she needed to build some sort of immunity against that thing before it turned lethal.

  “And what do you think of me now?” he asked, pinning her with a stare that made her want to surrender her panties like a white flag.

  “I think”—so many things. So many dirty, delicious, inappropriate things. A prickle of heat rippled down her spine—“that we should get to walking these dogs.”

  To her surprise, Greyson let her get away with dodging the question. Turning toward the cages along the far wall, he bent to unlatch the one where a sweet, older, Basset hound-looking dog (Marley was betting she was Gypsy) had been housed. But then he bypassed the latch, stepping all the way to the corner cage that Louis had forbidden them from.

  “Greyson,” she warned—had they not just had the conversation about him pushing too hard?—but he looked at her over one broad shoulder, not budging.

  “What? I’m just looking.”

  She scoffed her disagreement, because while he might be just looking right now in this exact moment, chances were extremely high he wouldn’t stay that way. “Louis said not to mess with him. What if he’s rabid or something?”

  Greyson scoffed right back. “Then he wouldn’t be here, that’s for damn sure. Anyway, I’ve seen rabid animals before, and they don’t act like this.”

  Marley tilted her head in a nonverbal that makes sense. Still. “Louis wouldn’t have told us not to mess with him if he didn’t have a good reason, and he’s never negligent when it comes to the animals.”

  “Louis might have a reason for telling us not to mess with him,” Greyson agreed, leaning down to look in the cage more closely. “But I’m not sure it’s a good one.”

  Huffing out a sigh, Marley moved forward to look over Greyson’s shoulder, peering into the cage that was two-removed from the other animals in either directi
on. The dog inside was on the small side, with the too-big paws and ears of a puppy. But that was where the resemblance ended. Instead of eagerly seeking attention or food or even curiously sniffing around the way puppies tended to, this dog had wedged itself into the farthest corner of the pen from the latch and curled itself inward like a sleek, black question mark.

  “Hey, buddy,” Greyson said, and even though he’d taken caution not to advance any closer and to keep his voice low and even, the dog whimpered, shrinking back against the already tight corner of the pen.

  Marley’s heart lurched in her rib cage. “I mean it, Greyson. I don’t think—”

  “Wait.”

  The dog’s whimpering had gone silent, its small head lifting just slightly so that one dark eye was visible from the mass of matted black fur.

  And it was looking right at her.

  “Keep talking,” Greyson said, wincing as the dog shrank back at the sound of his voice.

  “What?” she asked.

  But Greyson was already taking a step back, waving a hand to encourage her into the space he’d just vacated in front of the cage. “I think he likes your voice. Or, at least, he’s not as scared of it as he is everything else.”

  “That’s crazy.” Could dogs even have a preference for that sort of thing?

  “Maybe,” Greyson agreed, prompting a frown to tug at the edges of Marley’s mouth. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “So, what? You want me to have a conversation with a dog?”

  Greyson shook his head. “No. You can have the conversation with me. Just let the dog hear you.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” she asked with a laugh of disbelief. They had a ton of work to do, and he wanted to go all Animal Planet with a dog that had been clearly labeled off-limits to them.

  “Could you just humor me, here? See, he’s looking at you.” Greyson said, killing the argument she’d been working up by tacking on, “We can switch up our game plan and clean the cats’ cages first so the dog can hear your voice while we work. These guys can wait another half an hour for their walks”—he gestured to the section of pens in front of him, where all of the dogs looked traitorously content—“and we’ll have lost nothing. Come on. All you have to do is talk.”

  Marley eyed the cage where the black dog had once again become little more than a shadow in the corner. “You like to push, don’t you?”

  “Right. Because you don’t.”

  Greyson had delivered the reply with enough easy teasing in his voice that she answered without brass. “Sometimes. But not always.”

  She hung enough like some people I know in her tone that after a beat or two, Greyson lifted his hands in concession.

  “Fine. Yes. I like to push.”

  “Why?” she asked, turning toward the nearest pen, which just so happened to be where that friendly gray cat with the ragged ear had been snoozing. Switching up their schedule wouldn’t hurt anything, and it would keep Greyson in check—at least, a little. All in all, humoring him was a win-win.

  He gave up a triumphant grin before beginning to work. “Why not?”

  “It kind of makes you an ass sometimes,” Marley said, and he laughed.

  “Fair enough. But that’s the point.”

  “You like being an ass?” Surprise pushed her pulse just a little faster in her veins.

  Greyson’s response came slowly. “It’s what people expect.”

  “That doesn’t really answer the question.”

  He paused for a second, scratching the orange tabby behind its ears. “Like I told you the other day, my family has a reputation around Millhaven, and we come by a lot of it honestly. My father is…not an easy man. He’s never been particularly open, but his brother, my uncle Steve, was killed nine years ago. After that, things got a lot worse.”

  “Oh.” A wave of sadness laddered up Marley’s spine. She knew all too well what loss felt like when it was expected. Something sudden like that? Must have been devastating. “I’m really sorry about your uncle.”

  “Thanks,” Greyson said with a nod. “He was visiting Washington, DC—he was a huge history buff, and wanted to see all the monuments. The Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, the Vietnam War Memorial. The works. He was mugged a few blocks away from the Capitol building the night before he was supposed to come back to Millhaven. The guy shot him for forty-six dollars and an old Timex. My uncle never even made it to the hospital. He died right there at the scene.”

  Greyson told the story quietly, each fact stacked upon the one that had come before it, and the sadness that had traveled over Marley’s spine became a chill.

  “That’s awful.”

  “The crazy part is, he’d never even left home before that, and he didn’t plan to again once he came home. It was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip for his birthday. The only one he’d ever wanted to take.”

  Marley’s heart squeezed. She knew all the platitudes, was so well-versed in you-poor-thing sympathy lingo that she could probably write a hundred greeting cards in her sleep. But the only words that weren’t completely useless were the ones that were the truth.

  “That must’ve been really hard for you,” she said, and he nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, surprising her by following up with a laugh, sharp and quick. “I was twenty at the time, though. Young and stupid. My uncle and I were close, definitely, but my old man…I think he took it really hard.”

  “You think?” Marley’s hand stilled on the latch of the cage she’d just cleaned out. “You were both here, in Millhaven, running your farm together, right? How could you not know?”

  Greyson paused. “Like I said, he’s not exactly an easy man. He’s always been tight with words. Even tighter with emotions. Well, other than anger, anyway,” he amended. “He got real good at that one after my uncle was killed, and he’s been that way ever since. Angry. Ornery. Always ready to pick a fight. Nobody even questions it anymore. They just expect it, from him and from me.”

  Marley thought for a minute, tumbling his words and what they meant around in her head over and over, letting them slowly click together with their bigger meaning. “Okay, so people expect you to act all cocky and brash. But have you ever tried not pushing?”

  “Other than right now, you mean?” he asked, brows arched, and the seriousness of the conversation lifted enough for her to smile.

  “Yeah. Like with Louis, for example.” Marley held up a hand to staunch the argument she knew he’d work up, and God, his open-mouthed, rigid-shouldered stance kept him true to form. “I get that he’s cranky, and that he pisses you off by making assumptions about who you are and how you’ll act. But have you ever considered proving him wrong with your actions, rather than just butting heads all the time?”

  Greyson opened his mouth to answer. Closed it. Then, finally, went with, “I’ve tried to prove everyone wrong before, but…well, I may not be mean by nature, but I’m not exactly sporting wings and a halo, either. I meant what I said when I told you this cocky thing ain’t always for show.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” Marley said. His bravado certainly seemed to fit him like the pair of impeccably broken-in Levi’s that she couldn’t seem to erase from her mind’s eye. “But what’s the old adage about actions speaking louder than words? If you show people you’re more than they assume, I bet a lot of them will start to get it eventually, just like I did.”

  “Ah. So you don’t think I’m just that arrogant jackass your brothers warned you about now?” he asked, so quietly that she didn’t think. Just answered.

  “No, I don’t. I think sometimes you act like an arrogant jackass,” she said, because as harsh as it might sound, it was also the undeniable truth, and sugar-coating? So not her thing. “But I also think people would believe you if you eased up a little and showed them that even if you are cocky, you’re also not mean like your father. You might be a Whittaker like him, and you might run your family farm with him, but you don’t have to fulfill eve
ry part of that legacy. Not if you don’t want to. You can just be you without all the pushing.”

  “Maybe.” Greyson tilted his head at her, his dark stare telling her that while his hands still moved from cage to cat to cleaner, then back again, his mind was fully focused on what she’d said. “But pushing isn’t always a bad thing, you know.”

  “Oh, really?” God, it was just like him to argue, even if he was doing it with a smile on his ruggedly handsome face.

  “Yeah, really,” he said. “Sometimes people need a good nudge.”

  Marley laughed. “Like who?”

  She realized, too late, that Greyson had stopped cleaning the cage in front of him, choosing instead to step toward her until less than an arm’s length remained.

  “Like you. The whole point of this conversation was for that little guy to hear your voice”—he pointed to the corner cage—“and I just did all the yappin’. So what’s it going to be, Marley? Put up, or shut up?”

  14

  One of these days, Greyson was going to learn not to tempt fate. His conversation with Marley had been cruising along like a Sunday drive, with just the right amount of sexy back-and-forth to temper the deeper subject matter. They’d even managed a painless mutual apology for the attitude they’d traded along with that kiss three days ago, for Chrissake. He’d shared a little (fine. A lot) more about his family than he’d expected to, but that’d been oddly okay. Everything that had popped past his lips had felt natural, as if he’d somehow known Marley wouldn’t judge or—worse yet—give him a raft of overdone sympathy about his uncle’s murder and the way his father had grown colder and more distant over time. The more Greyson had told her, the more he’d wanted to know about her in return, to find out if she’d meant what she’d said about trusting him. He hadn’t been bullshitting her about that dog seeming to be calmed by her voice, either, and you know what? Screw that.

  Greyson was glad he’d pushed a little. Maybe fate shouldn’t tempt him.

  Marley dropped her gaze, but stood her ground in front of him. “I don’t know what you want me to talk about. I’m not exactly well-versed in anything other than what sort of shoes you should avoid if you like not hobbling around in pain.”