Part 18 (1/2)
”Oh, hey!” Emerson looked up, her blue eyes crinkling at the edges as her smile became a grin, and dammit, if Hunter couldn't manage an inhale soon, he was liable to keel over like a f.u.c.king idiot. ”I was just showing your father how Twitter works.”
Eli barked out a laugh from where he stood at the kitchen sink. ”Seriously?”
”Yes, seriously.” She arched a brow with just enough and-I-mean-it to make Eli lift his soapy hands in concession, and her smile returned in full force. ”He's a natural.”
Their father's sandpaper laugh was more amus.e.m.e.nt than argument, but still, he said, ”And you, darlin', have a way of spinning the truth to make it look pretty.”
”No matter how I spin it, it's still the truth,” Emerson said, squeezing the old man's shoulder. ”But the four of you must be starving after working in all that heat today. Can I help with dinner?”
”Nope.” Finally, Hunter found his wits. ”In fact, if you two want to keep your tutorial going for a little while longer, you can go ahead and take a load off at the table there. Then I can just help Owen and Eli get the rest of the meal set.”
Emerson opened her mouth, presumably to argue, but then her eyes flickered over the spot where his father stood beside her, and she nodded slowly. ”Looks like you're not off the hook with hashtags and retweets quite yet, Mr. Cross.”
”Well, then, by all means, let's get to it,” his father said, moving toward the table and hooking a weathered hand beneath one of the ladder-back chairs to hold it out for her.
Hunter sent up a silent prayer of thanks that neither one of them had pushed back. After a quick wash and chop of the salad greens and a trip through the broiler for the loaf of garlic bread he'd grabbed that morning when he and Owen had manned Cross Creek's tent at the farmers' market, dinner was as ready as it was going to get, and after setting the table and gathering around it for grace, they were as ready as they were going to get to dig in.
Emerson smoothed a napkin over her lap, giving her stomach an appreciative rub over her dark-blue T-s.h.i.+rt. ”Dinner smells fantastic, Owen. Spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s are my favorite,” she said, prompting a pair of grins from Hunter's brothers that told him he'd never hear the end of making the special request.
”Oh really?” Owen asked, pa.s.sing her the oversized serving bowl full of pasta. ”I didn't know that.”
”Mmhmm,” she said, smiling as she filled her plate. ”I was just telling Hunter how I haven't had really good Italian food in ages. Kind of a lucky coincidence that you made it for dinner, actually.”
”That is lucky,” Eli said, covering his laughter with a poorly constructed cough, and truly, Hunter didn't know whether to laugh along with his brothers or murder the both of them in their sleep.
Thankfully, Emerson took their obvious back and forth in stride. ”Well, thanks for letting me crash your dinner again.”
Hunter's father handed over the salad, his smile easy despite the grueling week Hunter knew he'd had. ”Ah, I told you last week, darlin'. You're always welcome at Cross Creek.”
Unable to help himself, Hunter slid a covert wink in her direction, loving every second of the soft-pink flush the gesture sent over her cheeks.
”You do pretty the place up,” Eli agreed, and Owen added his two cents with a nod.
”That's for sure. Plus, you're part of the crew now.”
Hunter lifted a square of b.u.t.ter-gold garlic bread off the serving plate in front of him, a thread of excitement sparking in his belly at the mention of the work Emerson had done for Cross Creek. ”Speaking of which, the four of us got fairly well caught up on operations when we were out in the south fields earlier today, so why don't you bring everyone up to speed on some of the marketing particulars you've turned up this week?”
”Okay, sure,” she said. ”The good news is, you've got a lot of free or low-cost options available that have virtually limitless reach. My friend turned me on to a couple of online webinars detailing the basics on how to use social media to make your business stand out, and she also suggested starting a monthly e-mail newsletter to let people know what's in season and what sort of on-site events you'll be offering, like pick-your-own crops in the summer or the corn maze in the fall.”
Eli paused, a huge forkful of spaghetti halfway to his lips. ”Hey, that's pretty smart. Like a regular reminder that we're out here.”
”Exactly.” Emerson nodded for emphasis, her hair s.h.i.+ning red-gold in the evening sunlight still streaming in through the windows behind her. ”There are services you can use to manage your lists and distribute the newsletters each month.”
”The services are well within our marketing budget. I already checked,” Hunter said, and Owen closed his halfway-open mouth in favor of a wry smile.
”Okay, then,” he replied. ”How about the webinar stuff?”
Emerson took the salad bowl from Eli, murmuring a soft ”thank you” before tackling Owen's question. ”The cla.s.s gave some great basics on advertising. Hunter and I have already put some generic posts on Cross Creek's social media accounts, and there was an increase in the number of both hits to your website and CSA orders this week. The ins and outs of each social media site differ, but they sure seem to get the word out once you tailor things to your target audience, and they're not too difficult to navigate once you get the hang of them.”
”I'm livin' proof of that,” Hunter's father said with a rusty chuckle, and d.a.m.n, it was good to see the worry in his old man's eyes replaced by something a h.e.l.l of a lot lighter.
”Another cool thing Emerson showed me was that there are ways to schedule posts in advance,” Hunter added, taking a second to dig into the mountain of spaghetti on his plate. G.o.d d.a.m.n, Owen's recipe really should be declared a national treasure.
Said brother lifted his darkly stubbled chin, blinking at Emerson in obvious surprise. ”So we don't have to stop during the middle of our day to go online or make the posts at weird hours?”
Emerson dipped the tines of her fork into her pasta, twirling up a small bite. ”Nope. In fact, I already scheduled prime-time posts for Monday and Tuesday to advertise the pick-your-own blueberries. Now that all the kids are out of school, you might see some more people coming in from Camden Valley to take advantage of the chance to keep their little ones busy.”
”d.a.m.n, you've thought of everything,” Eli said, and even though Hunter agreed one hundred percent, Emerson shook her head to the contrary.
”Not everything, I'm afraid. While regular social media posts are a good start, they're really only the tip of the iceberg. I don't mind trying to come up with some catchy taglines and scheduling all the posts, but I'm not a writer or a photographer. Unfortunately, you might have to hire someone for both if you really want to impress folks enough to draw big crowds.”
Hunter leaned back in his chair, his mind turning. ”We might have enough wiggle room in the budget if we can snag more CSA shares. The freelancer who did all the copy for our website was reasonable. You know her, right, Eli?”
Eli lasered his focus on his plate. ”Uh-huh.”
”I don't mind reaching out to her if you want,” Emerson offered. ”I know you're really busy with day-to-day operations.”
”Nah, it's cool. You've got a lot going on, too. I can do it.”
Owen's eyes narrowed just enough to send Hunter's warning bells into a full clamor. ”What's her name again?”
”Who?” Eli asked, and what was with his weird duck and cover all of a sudden?
”Your freelancer,” Owen said, his tone making it crystal clear that Hunter wasn't the only one who'd noticed Eli's verbal evasion.
”Alex something or other.” Eli sank the side of his fork into a meatball, the metal sounding off in a hard clink as it hit the plate beneath. ”I'm sure I've got her card back at my place.”
Rather than taking the information at face value, though, Owen dug in even harder. ”And how do you know her, exactly?”
”Owen,” their father started, worry lines creasing over his forehead, but Eli set his shoulders into a rigid line and dug right back.
”I met her at a thing in Camden Valley.”
”A thing.” Owen shook his head, and the chances that he and Eli would dial their s.h.i.+t back started circling the drain. ”Brilliant. That explains so much. Did you even ask for this woman's qualifications?”
”If Hunter had found her, would you be asking him the same question?” Eli shot back. ”She did a decent job when we hired her before-Hunter even said so. Jesus, Owen, I'm not some screw up. I'm trying to help, just like you. Do you have to crawl down my throat every single time I turn around?”
Owen's knuckles went white over the fork in his grasp. ”When you act all dodgy about something that impacts the farm? In a word, yes.”
Hunter's pulse sent a steady rhythm of get this under control to his brain, but before he could intervene like usual, Emerson shocked the h.e.l.l out of him by quietly saying, ”I don't mean to interfere, and if you'd prefer, I can b.u.t.t out. But you're both kind of right.”
After a whole lot of raised brows and dropped jaws, Eli recovered first. ”How's that?”
”Well, it's true that your freelance writer did a great job with the copy that's on your website,” Emerson started, earning an aha! smile from Eli. ”But,” she continued, turning a glance toward Owen, ”even though lots of freelancers work online with people they've never even met, it's still crucial to know who you're trusting your business to. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask about her credentials.”
”We're paying her for a service, Eli,” Owen said, although his voice had lost a lot of its edge. ”We need to make sure she's legit.”
Frustration resurfaced on Eli's face, sending another pang of unease through Hunter's gut. ”I said she was. How come that's not good enough?”
Rather than shy away from his brothers' renewed bickering, Emerson dove right back in, swinging a look at Eli. ”You know her, right? Personally?”