Crossing the Line by Kimberly Kincaid

2017

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Author:	Kimberly Kincaid
Genre:	Contemporary Romance
File Name:	crossing-the-line-by-kimberly-kincaid.epub
Original Title:	Crossing the Line (The Cross Creek Series Book 2)
Creator:	Kimberly Kincaid
Language:	en
Identifier:	MOBI-ASIN:B06WGR5J5F
Publisher:	Montlake Romance
Date:	1502121600
File Size:	544520.192

Cocky farmer Eli Cross plays twice as hard as he works. When his latest stunt drums up a heap of negative PR for the family farm, he grudgingly agrees to play host to an ambitious New York City photographer. Her feature on Cross Creek could be just the ticket to show the country what the Cross brothers do best…which is more problem than solution for Eli.

Scarlett Edwards-Stewart has photographed everything from end zones to war zones. She’s confident she can ace this one little story to help her best friend’s failing magazine. At least, she would be if her super-sexy host wasn’t so tight lipped. But the more Scarlett works with Eli, the more she discovers that he’s not who he seems. Can his secret bring them closer together? Or will it be the very thing that tears them apart?

Table of Content

1. Unnamed
2. PREVIOUS TITLES BY KIMBERLY KINCAID The Cross Creek Series Crossing Hearts
3. Unnamed
4. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2017 Kimberly Kincaid All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781542046503 ISBN-10: 1542046505 Cover design by Jason Blackburn Cover photography by Regina Wamba of MaeIDesign.com
5. This book is dedicated to my three daughters, who never say no when I ask if they want to go to the farmers’ market and (almost!) always eat their veggies.
6. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN CHAPTER SEVENTEEN CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CHAPTER NINETEEN CHAPTER TWENTY CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR
7. CHAPTER ONE Eli Cross was about to be in a shit-ton of trouble. But since he wasn’t exactly pioneering new territory by landing himself in hot water, he might as well take it like he usually did—with a shrug and a smile and great big steaming mug of here we go again. “Have you seriously not loaded any of these crates for tomorrow’s farmers’ market yet?” His brother Owen pinned him with a steely stare as he gestured to the six dozen wood-slatted crates stacked in neat columns against the barn wall. Kind of hard to believe Owen was only five years older than him, what with the whole thirty-two-going-on-grumpy-old-man thing the guy was rocking. For Chrissake, Owen bossed Eli over every last one of their 750 acres even more than their father did, and Tobias Cross had run the farm since his own father had left it to him more than three decades ago. Not that Eli actually listened to his brother much. He rolled a slow glance over the obviously empty crates, inhaling a lungful of humid, late-s
8. CHAPTER TWO Scarlett Edwards-Stewart needed a shower. No, check that. What she really needed was a steamy, two-hour bubble bath followed by an equally long massage and enough sleep to make people wonder whether she was still breathing. She might love her job the way most people loved spouses or sports teams or anything else that could be invested in with a sheer ton of energy, sweat, and devotion, but even she had physical limits. Spending her day trekking through three different international airports and twice as many time zones with thirty pounds of photo gear slung over each shoulder after three weeks of nonstop of work? Apparently her ticket to finding them. At least temporarily. She lowered the duffel bag she’d been living out of for the better part of the month to the threshold of her Upper East Side apartment, following it with the gear case holding her lenses, rechargeable batteries, and portable tripods. Keeping the well-padded, bright-red bag holding her primary camera (aka
9. CHAPTER THREE Eli walked down the aisle in the horse barn with an apple in one hand and a plastic gallon jug of water in the other. Compared with yesterday evening’s near brawl with his brother and mouthy throwdown with Greyson freaking Whittaker, today had been pretty quiet, although a large part of that was probably owed to the fact that Owen, their old man, and two of their farmhands had left for the farmers’ market in Camden Valley at the whip-crack of dawn. The Cross men usually rotated farmers’ market duty between among the four of them, but Owen had been so gung ho about specialty produce lately that he’d been taking Eli’s turn more often than not. I just want to keep my finger on the pulse of the competition and make sure we’re offering the very best of the best, had been the excuse du jour. Of course, while Eli might be a lot of things, a dumbass wasn’t one of them. He heard the translation as loud and clear as the Fourth of July fireworks over Willow Park. I don’t trust you t
10. CHAPTER FOUR Several thoughts whizzed through Scarlett’s brain upon pulling to a stop in front of the homey-looking white clapboard house at Cross Creek Farm, the first of which was that if there was a bright, bustling heart of civilization, she was as far from it as a girl could possibly get. Second of all, she sure hoped Mallory wanted a lot of pictures of corn, because Scarlett had just found the goddamn mother lode. Thirdly . . . whoa. Where was the funeral? Scarlett eyeballed the group of people gaping at her from the walkway in front of the farmhouse, grateful as hell for the Dolce & Gabbana aviator sunglasses covering half her face. An educated guess said the redheaded—and only—woman in the group was the business manager who Mallory had been trying to get ahold of this morning when Scarlett had packed the last of her camera equipment into the adorable convertible she’d grabbed from the car rental agency. The four men varied in age, one of them clearly the patriarch who ran the p
11. CHAPTER FIVE Eli took the slowest possible path to the compost bin behind the main house after dinner, wishing like hell he was anywhere other than Cross Creek even though he’d never been anywhere other than Cross Creek in his entire twenty-eight years. But between the familial fallout from that dumbass bet and the smart-mouthed, sharp-eyed photographer he’d been saddled with as a result, Eli would take a one-way ticket to Timbuktu over his current situation. Even if, with her wild, platinum-and-dark-blond-streaked hair and her olive-green eyes and her petite-yet-still-plenty-curvy frame, said photographer was hotter than homemade sin. Turning the corner toward the three-sided alcove that housed the trash cans, the blue plastic recycling tubs, and the compost bin, Eli lifted the lid to the latter, the rough-hewn wood scraping across his palm as he dumped the contents of his bucket in with a thunk. After his showdown with Scarlett in front of the henhouse a few hours ago, he’d gone the
12. CHAPTER SIX For as stubborn as she was, Scarlett royally sucked at the silent treatment. The whole thing drove her apeshit, really—stewing on your feelings only made it impossible to move on to the next ones. So the last twelve minutes of her life, sitting literal feet but theoretical leagues away from Eli Cross in total screaming silence? Yeeeeeeah. Pretty much her definition of hell on earth. Not that Eli had been wrong about work being their number one priority, because truly, Scarlett wouldn’t have spent more than half a day out here in BFE unless she was shooting a magazine spread that would help save her best friend’s business. But she couldn’t exactly do that if her entire daily agenda consisted of following him around like a puppy until quitting time, and she definitely couldn’t do it if they didn’t speak to each other. Unfortunately, calling him a cocky, swagger-happy jackass probably didn’t count. “Oh,” Scarlett said, her surprise getting the best of her and breaking the stal
13. CHAPTER SEVEN Although Scarlett would rather be raked across a mile-long bed of coals than admit it, farm life was kicking her ever-loving ass. Running a hand over her lower back—which was a lovely shade of tomato, thanks to the fact that she’d missed it with the sunscreen three days ago—she tossed her keys onto the counter in her borrowed kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge before dragging herself to the couch in the living room. “Ahhh. Home sweet home for now.” The muscles in her legs let loose with a hallelujah chorus as she flopped back against the cushions, allowing herself a few seconds’ worth of oh-hell-yes relief before reaching for the camera bag at her side. Carefully unearthing Baby from its heavily padded resting spot, Scarlett clicked the camera to life, sharpening her gaze over the display screen on the back as she scrolled through today’s pictures, one by one. Thoroughly meh. Again. “Dammit,” she muttered, her gut sliding south. She’d been here in the boo
14. CHAPTER EIGHT “Scarlett!” Eli’s pulse hammered the word from his throat, and he moved out of pure, undiluted instinct. Stabbing his boots into the soft, uneven grass beneath the apple tree, he surged forward, his arms shooting out just in time for Scarlett to crash into them in a tangle of jerky motions and top-shelf curse words. The force made him stagger despite the crush of adrenaline sending his muscles into lockdown, and he squeezed his arms even more tightly around Scarlett’s body as he fought to regain his balance. “Camera,” she gasped, her body curled in over the equipment still hanging by a miracle around her neck. “Screw the camera,” Eli bit out, but she struggled hard enough in search of the damned thing that he had to either relent or lose the footing he’d just fucking gained. “Okay, okay. Let’s get clear of the tree so we can take a look.” That he’d be looking at her just as closely as she’d surely look at the camera was beside the point. But shit, she had to have been stu
15. CHAPTER NINE Thankfully, Scarlett’s second trip to Cross Creek’s apple grove was less eventful than her first—at least in terms of bodily harm. Her back might not have stopped throbbing out a steady beat of ow-ow-ow on the drive back up the lane, and yeah, her pride was still riding shotgun right there next to it. But she’d finally gotten somewhere with Eli. No way was she going to scale back for a little thing like pain now. Although holy hell in a handbasket, yellow jacket stings hurt. “So, a couple of things about shooting video,” Scarlett said, chasing the prickle on her cheeks with an all-business smile as her shoes shushed through the grass. “Baby here is a multitasker, so we don’t need a different camera for recording.” Eli squinted through the sunlight, ambling to a stop in front of a row of apple trees, which—Scarlett fought the urge to do a full-on fist pump as she sight-measured the ratio of shadows to natural light—provided just as perfect of a backdrop now as they had half
16. CHAPTER TEN As much as it chapped his ass to admit it, Eli was having fun. Which was really saying something, considering there was a not-small amount of cow manure in his immediate future. But ever since he and Scarlett had shot that video segment this morning in the apple grove, then laughed and joked their way through the rest of his enormous to-do list and her even bigger to-shoot list afterward, he’d felt oddly at ease. Granted, the spotlight still wasn’t his happy place, but being in front of the camera hadn’t been the worst thing going—at least not after his defenses had impulsively dared him to dare Scarlett into the frame. Their back-and-forth had made it just easy enough to slide into his cocky comfort zone and relax in front of the camera, and while he was never going to forget that the thing was rolling, at least maybe the segments would make up for the Whittakers’ stroke of good luck this week. Stupid fucking peaches. “Okay,” Scarlett said, her smile ushering Eli back to r
17. CHAPTER ELEVEN Two thoughts filled Eli’s brain as he slanted his mouth over Scarlett’s. The first was that kissing her should feel impulsive and reckless and crazy. The second? Was that the first thought could take the direct path to hell, because Scarlett felt fucking flawless in his arms. Their lips touched for only a second, two at the most, before Scarlett pulled back slightly to stare at him. Dread trickled into his belly on a reality chaser, and Jesus, Mary, and all the saints, had he seriously just kissed her? “God, Scarlett, I apologize.” Eli blinked. “I was out of line. I—” Before he could speak or react or even form a scrap of thought, she pressed up to kiss him back. For a sliver of a second, Eli stood stock-still, locked into place. Although the connection of their mouths was the same as it had been only seconds ago—just lips on lips, barely moving—this kiss was different. It wasn’t born of shock or excitement or impulse. It stemmed from want. Hot and pure. And he wasn’t ho
18. CHAPTER TWELVE Scarlett leaned back against the side panel of Cross Creek’s box truck, 99 percent certain her leg muscles had been replaced by old rubber bands and even older glue. But since the crack of dawn boasted practically nonexistent natural light, she hadn’t been able to snap any useable shots since she and Eli had pulled into Camden Valley’s pavilion nearly an hour ago. Pitching in to help the Crosses set up for the farmers’ market until she could get to work on her own stuff had been a no-brainer. Of course, right now her calves were tag-teaming with her lower back to give her no-brainer a whole lot of grief, to the point that Scarlett had no choice but to admit the truth. Working on a farm definitely wasn’t the tranquil cakewalk she’d expected it to be. Now that she finally had a bit of daylight on her side, Scarlett took advantage of her brief respite on the sidelines to check out her surroundings. The pavilion was part of a larger park area, with ball fields and playground
19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Eli knew that after the last four hours of nonstop movement, he should be happy. No, scratch that. He should be ecstatic. Less than two minutes after the front gates for the farmers’ market had swung open, they’d seen a steady stream of customers at Cross Creek’s tent, asking for and buying everything from asparagus to zucchini. Between him and Owen and their old man, they’d sold every last Jonagold they’d been able to spare from the trees—including the ones he and Hunter had picked by the light of his F-150’s headlights at eight thirty last night—and more than half their other produce had practically flown out of the crates. Eli had chatted up dozens of folks who had seen yesterday’s video online, and paused for as many selfies with Scarlett, who had stayed true to her promise of keeping up with social media along with taking what looked to be a ton of new pictures for FoodE. Hunter had even called in to say that Cross Creek’s Internet traffic still looked as great as
20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Scarlett sat back against the well-cushioned love seat in her apartment, her eyes on her laptop screen and her mouth curving up into the world’s most gigantic smile. But as goofy as it was, the expression was warranted. Five days had passed since the farmers’ market, and each had been better and busier than the one before. The second video clip she and Eli had filmed—along with the accompanying articles on FoodE and the extra content the Crosses had put on the farm’s website—had garnered even more reach than the first. Both FoodE and Cross Creek had seen so much increased business after the segment had gone live that Mallory had needed to reinforce her skeleton crew with a temporary assistant and Hunter had needed to literally run to the cornfields to pick whatever he could by hand in order to restock yesterday’s roadside stand. Scarlett had taken hundreds of new photos to go with this week’s articles, along with pitching in at the farm stand to help Eli with customers
21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN Two beers and one hour later, Eli’s resistance to Scarlett’s miniskirt (and her laugh . . . and the stories about her travels . . . and he didn’t even want to get started on how good she’d smelled when they’d hugged hello) was pretty much toast. But they’d had a great time hanging out and celebrating Cross Creek’s great week, along with FoodE’s success. He could handle sitting next to her without making a complete ass of himself. Scarlett leaned in from her seat next to him to put her empty pint glass on the table, and Christ on a cracker, how could any woman smell like fresh-cut flowers in the middle of a goddamn country bar? “Hey, you guys.” The distinctly female voice brought Eli back to reality with a snap, and he turned to look at the dark-haired waitress to whom it belonged. “Sorry you’ve had to self-serve up till now, but my shift just started. Can I grab anyone a refill or something from the kitchen?” “Cate?” Owen’s beer bottle hit the table with a graceless thu
22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN Thankfully, Eli was excellent at both making excuses and driving really, really fast. They didn’t talk much on the way back to the Twin Pines, which was okay with Scarlett. She’d already said the thing that had been front and center in her brain—and all her other parts—ever since she’d seen Eli walk into The Bar tonight. She wanted him. And she was done waiting. The headlights of Eli’s truck threw shadows over the faded pavement of the parking lot as he pulled into his usual spot in front of his apartment. Quiet filtered into the truck, punctuated by the creak and sigh of the now-still engine and the soft rustle of denim and cotton against leather as they both shifted against the front seats of the truck to look at each other. “Hey,” Eli whispered, a curl of pure want unraveling in Scarlett’s belly as he dropped his eyes to her mouth for a beat before raising them back up to meet her stare. “Hey.” “Are you sure—” She pressed forward to cover his mouth with hers before h
23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Eli woke up in slow stages. Which wasn’t anything groundbreaking or even beyond the realm of completely normal. But the soft, warm body next to him definitely was out of the ordinary. The fact that said body belonged to Scarlett, who—oh by the way—was not only next to him but also as naked as the day she was born and holding his leather-bound, special-edition copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in her bed-sheet-covered lap? Screw out of the ordinary. This was downright fucking insane. And judging by the curiosity in her shrewd, gorgeous stare, all his ugly truths were about to be right in the middle of it. “Uh,” Eli grunted, his heart pinballing off every last one of his ribs, even as he tried to cover his expression with a whole lot of nothing-doing. “Morning. It is morning, right?” “Oh hey.” Scarlett smiled through the soft glow of the hallway light, which she must’ve turned on at some point between when he’d finally drifted off a handful of hours ago
24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN “Hey, bumblebee. How do you feel about a field trip?” The question caught Scarlett so off guard that she nearly dropped the crate of butter lettuce balanced between her palms. “I’ve been in Millhaven for three weeks now,” she pointed out with a sassy smile. “I’m pretty sure you’ve shown me everything the town has to offer.” “Everything, huh? It’s only been a week since we branched out from the farm and started exploring Millhaven, proper. And in today’s case, beyond,” Eli pointed out, leaning one hip against the tailgate of Cross Creek’s box truck and tipping his head at the pavilion in front of them, where the famers’ market was in full swing. “You sure you’ve seen it all?” She laughed and bit back the urge to remind him that she usually changed locations the way most people changed their pants. “Well, let’s see. We’ve covered Town Street from stem to stern. I took some incredible shots of the preparations for Fall Fling on the afternoon we spent in Willow Park.” “If
25. CHAPTER NINETEEN The only thing Eli had ever done on sheer, undiluted instinct was write. Everything else came with varying degrees of dodge and deflect, of cautious moves and cocky cover-ups. But in that moment, with Scarlett looking so wide open and beautiful that she knocked the breath right out of him, Eli didn’t speak or think or hold back. He brought his mouth down on hers in one swift move. For a time-stopping second, she stilled beneath his touch, a noise of shock riding out on her exhale. Then her arms shot around his shoulders, her lips opening readily as she deepened the kiss. She felt so vibrant, so right, and so fucking good in his arms that all Eli could do was pull her in tighter. More. More. More. The blunt edges of Scarlett’s fingers dug into his shoulder blades in response. The sound drifting up from her chest was part moan, part sigh, part something primal that shot straight to his cock, and he kissed her even harder just to make her do it again. “Ohhh.” Her tongue d
26. CHAPTER TWENTY “Okay, cowboy. You win.” Eli looked up from his spot in front of the fireplace in the bedroom, unable to crank down on his surprise. “Can I get that in writing? Notarized would be cool, too. Or hey, maybe a nice plaque—” “Eli.” Funny how it only took the single word of warning for him to fold like last week’s laundry. But come on. Not only had Scarlett delivered the word in question with a sexy smile tipping her lips, but she was stretched across the bed in the cabin’s master suite in nothing more than a gauzy white tank top and a pair of short-short-style panties that made arguing with her an act of pure fucking idiocy. “Alright, no plaque. But can I at least ask to what I owe the honor?” Eli crossed the room—although admittedly, the act only took three steps—stopping to bend down and brush a kiss over Scarlett’s mouth before parking himself on the floorboards beside the bed. “Slowing down to really look at the landscape and trails out here gave me perspective I wouldn’
27. 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’r
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Eli stood at the entrance to Willow Park and pondered the merits of getting drunk off his rocker. But even though it was technically after five o’clock, he still had a whole lot of evening in front of him, including an annual harvest celebration after which he had to tell his family he was leaving the country and a $5,000 bet he had a decent chance of losing in front of the entire town. On second thought, getting drunk sounded like an outstanding fucking plan. “Dude.” Hunter looked at him through the waning daylight filtering down through the trees, his arms crossed over the front of his crisply ironed button-down shirt. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like someone just took a serious piss in your Post Toasties.” Owen nodded his agreement from the spot where he stood on Eli’s other side, and Eli laughed, but only because right now, it was either that or cry. Or, apparently, get sauced. “Seriously, Hunt? There cannot possibly be a right way to take that.
29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Scarlett laid back against the passenger seat of Eli’s truck and wondered how on earth a night sky could get so ridiculously clear. Even through the window, the velvety-black canvas stretched infinitely overhead, littered with stars ranging from faint smudges to brilliant bursts of light. Her wanderlust kicked with the reminder that there were hundreds of places to see, thousands of places to explore beneath the sprawl of the night sky, and that she’d shelved all of them for an entire month now. She sighed. Cross Creek was beautiful in ways she’d never expected. The things she’d uncovered there, even more so. But she didn’t belong in one place—she never had. It was past time for Scarlett to follow her passion to the next thing. And Eli was going with her. “You okay over there?” His voice rumbled through the interior of the truck in a living embodiment of speak of the devil. Not that she should be surprised Eli had guessed how deep in thought she was. Or that the lo
30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Eli stood on the front porch of Cross Creek’s main house with his keys in his hand and his heart in his windpipe. The sun, which should have been smack in the center of the sky at this point in the day, hid behind a bank of thick gray clouds that finally matched the cooler October weather. He sank a little deeper into his blue-and-green flannel shirt, fiddling with the bottom button as he stared at the whitewashed porch boards extending out from beneath the welcome mat. Both Hunter’s and Owen’s trucks were lined up in the drive beside the house, which meant everyone was already here. The irony of being last in yet again sure as hell wasn’t lost on him. “Eli.” Scarlett turned from the spot where she’d stood next to him for the last five minutes. Her tone didn’t push, although he heard the unspoken “it’s time” in her voice, and he blew out a rickety breath. “I know,” he said quietly, because Christ, he really did. “Telling them is the right thing to do, and now is the
31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE No less than a thousand thoughts and feelings went on an immediate rampage in Eli’s brain, each one pushed faster by the rush of blood against his ears, turning his heartbeat so fast that he was momentarily dizzy. “Uh.” Not eloquent, but it was the only word he could shove past his lips. He needed to tell the woman—Marley—she was wrong. He couldn’t possibly have a sister, much less one he didn’t know existed. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.” “Nope. Well, not about this,” she clarified, and although her expression might qualify as a smile, it was really more of a baring of teeth. “My mother’s name is Lorraine Rallston.” “Miss Lorraine?” The name slid out from a rusty, unused corner of Eli’s mind. He hadn’t heard it in ages, decades really, and despite the woman having been best friends with his mother, Eli only knew of her from secondhand anecdotes and ancient, small-town gossip. “She used to live here in Millhaven, but she moved away.” Marley’s laugh was
32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Eli sat at the kitchen table in Cross Creek’s main house, completely and utterly poleaxed. Scarlett and Emerson had left a little while ago, and despite several hundred variations of “What the hell is going on?” from both of Eli’s brothers, their old man had simply sat at one of the four compass points of the farmhouse table, his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that had gone otherwise untouched. Eli had a sister. His father had been with another woman. Gotten her pregnant. Kept his daughter hidden from Eli and his brothers for twenty-three years. How were they supposed to process this? And more importantly, how the fuck were they supposed to recover as a family? Finally, their old man spoke. “I have a lot to tell you boys, and most of it won’t be easy to hear. I reckon you’ll be angry. Hurt, even.” He paused for a slow breath. “All I ask is that you hear me out till I’ve said my piece.” “Pop, seriously.” Owen took the lead, which under the circumstances wasn’t s
33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN At four fifty-six the next morning, Eli turned off his alarm clock. Of course, he hadn’t slept, so the feat was actually rather easy. The getting-out-of-bed-to-face-his-locomotive-wreck-of-a-life part? Yeah, not so fucking much. Eli stared into the shadows, a heavy ache centered right in the middle of his chest. His family had been pulled in a thousand directions last night, his old man worst of all. But that family had stood by him, through screwups and brash, mouthy decisions and everything else Eli had ever lobbed at them. He owed it to them to stay here at Cross Creek. Not to leave and become something else. And definitely not to impulsively get on a plane to Brazil and spend a month writing his head off with Scarlett. Scarlett, who’d believed in him, too. The only difference was, she’d been wrong. Cursing, Eli tossed the covers from his legs and plodded toward the bathroom. He was going to have to get back to normal sooner or later. Might as well rip off the B
34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Scarlett shouldered her camera bag, taking one last look around the fun-sized apartment she’d borrowed from Emerson. Somewhere right around two a.m., the concept of sleep became one of those things that was great in theory but impossible in practice, so she’d thrown in the towel and tidied the place from top to bottom as she’d packed. Everything had fit in the Volkswagen just as it had on the day she’d arrived, and funny how it seemed like it had been forever and five minutes ago all at the same time. You might want to make that never, sweetheart. Scarlett ran a hand over her breastbone, trying to cover the ache there. But she knew it wouldn’t work—shit, she’d tried it nearly nonstop for the last twelve hours. The only thing that would work was punching her passport and getting back behind her camera, where she belonged. Crossing the threshold, she locked the door and slid the key under the mat. It was a move she’d never dream of in New York, but then again, she’d
35. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Like all books, Crossing the Line is a collaborative effort, and I wouldn’t have been able to write more than five words of it without the encouragement and dedication of many, many people. I owe endless thanks to my wonder-agent, Nalini Akolekar, who is as patient as she is fierce. Chris Werner and Melody Guy, truly, there are no finer editors than you. I’m so blessed to work with you both. To the entire team at Montlake Publishing, thank you for making me look so good and for being cheerleaders for this series. Also, an extra-special thank-you to Jessica Poore for showing me that carnitas and pancakes are a thing. (Trust me—they’re a thing and they’re fabulous!) This book would not have had a heroine (specifically, this heroine) were it not for the fantastic Robin Gansle saying to me once upon a time, “You know what you should write one day? A photographer heroine!” I owe Scarlett all to you, and I promise never to Photoshop a nose onto your seat. As an author, I’m fo
36. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Photo © 2013 Robin Gansle Crossing the Line is the second book in The Cross Creek Series by Kimberly Kincaid, a USA Today bestselling author and a 2016 and 2015 RITA Award finalist who lives (and writes!) by the mantra “Food is love.” When she’s not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair that she calls the “Pleather Bomber,” she can be found practicing crazy amounts of yoga, whipping up everything from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her nose in a book. Kimberly, who writes contemporary romance that splits the difference between sexy and sweet, resides in Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters. Visit her at www.kimberlykincaid.com or on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.