Always on My Mind

Chapter Thirteen

Lori understood what Grayson wanted her to do. He wanted her to leave him alone. He wanted to pretend that he'd never told her anything about his past. She hadn't seen him since the previous day when he'd taken her to his log cabin in the storm, wasn't sure when he'd finally come into the farmhouse to go to bed, or if he'd simply slept somewhere else instead so that he wouldn't have to talk to her.

But even though she understood what he wanted from her, she just didn't see how it could be healthy for him to keep all his pain inside for so long. Maybe, she'd been thinking for the past twenty-four hours straight, if he finally let some of it out, then he could start moving forward again. Not necessarily off the farm - she could see how much he truly loved his home here and what he did for a living with the animals and his CSA - but she hadn't seen him interact with anyone other than herself and Eric.

These should be the best years of Grayson's life. He should be making the most of them. All the things that didn't add up - why a gorgeous, thriving man in the prime of his life had chosen to live in the middle of nowhere with only animals for company - made so much more sense now.

But just because it made sense didn't mean it was right.

Lori was a much better farmhand now than she'd been at first, but she still knew she hadn't been much help to him so far. Maybe if she could help him with his grief, then coming here would have been worth it.

And she would know she'd done at least one truly worthwhile thing in her life.

Filled with purpose, as soon as she'd finished her most important chores and the sun was just starting to set as a bright red and orange ball falling over the rolling green hills, she went to look for him. It didn't take her long to find him in the stables.

He didn't look up when she walked in, but she could see his shoulders tense slightly. It was tempting to turn around and walk out again, to hide from a conversation that she knew wasn't going to be at all easy. But she owed him this - the chance to finally unburden himself of the weight he'd been carrying around for so long.

Only, she couldn't quite figure out where to start, so she moved closer to admire the horse he was grooming. "You really do have the most beautiful horses." He didn't say anything, but she hadn't expected him to. Not yet, anyway. "How long have you been riding?"

Of course, instead of answering her simple question, he stayed right where he was behind the horse's flanks. "Do you need something, Lori? Is the farmhouse on fire? Or have you 'accidentally' let a fox into the henhouse?"

His sarcasm stung, but she refused to let him push her away that easily. Not when she guessed that was how he'd dealt with the world ever since his wife died, just by pushing and pushing and pushing until no one dared come close anymore.

Feeling much bolder around his horse since she'd survived the ride the day before, she gently ran her hand down the soft hair on his muzzle and took strength from the big brown eyes staring back at her. Funny, she'd never realized just how much she loved animals until this past week. If only she didn't travel so much, she would want at least one dog and cat when she went back home.

Although, if she wasn't going to dance again...

Wait, she hadn't come into the stable today to work out her own mess of a life. She was here to help Grayson. To get him to see that he could trust her enough to finally open up.

She moved around the side of the horse so that she could see Grayson's face. "My father died when I was two. He was forty-eight and my mother was left with all eight of us to raise. I would climb into her bed to cuddle with her some nights and her pillow would be all wet and she would just hold me until we both fell asleep." She could guess without Grayson's telling her that he hadn't had anyone to hold after his wife died. Or if he had, he'd turned away from them before they could get too close. "I know how hard it is to lose someone - "

"You don't know a damn thing about how hard it is!"

His outburst was so loud the previously calm horse spooked and began to rear up. Grayson yanked Lori out of the stall before a hoof could connect with her head.

His expression was so fierce, his grip on her arm so hard, that she had to steel herself not to shrink back from him. He needed her, she knew he did.

Surely it was why he'd worked so hard to keep her at arm's length.

"I know you must still be in terrible pain over what happened. Have you talked to anyone about your wife? Have you tried to work through any of your grief? Because if you haven't, then maybe if you talked to me about it, I could help you - "

"Help?" He spit the word out as he released his grip on her so quickly she almost spun into the opposite stall. "Helping is all you've been trying to do since you got here. Trying so damned hard."

"I have been trying, Grayson, and I've been doing a pretty good job with everything," she interjected. "But I think the reason I ended up here, on your farm, wasn't because I needed to learn to be a farmhand. Maybe - " She forced herself to continue despite the fury on his face. "Maybe I had to come here because you needed me."

He laughed, but instead of joy, the sound was harsh and brittle, as far from true laughter as anything she'd ever heard.

"All you've done since you showed up is ruin things. Break things. Push your way in where you shouldn't be." His eyes were black as night, hard as coal. "All you've done is go where you're not wanted."

Holy crap, he was mean. Even meaner than her ex had been when she'd finally told him what she thought of him and his dancing and his endless career-climbing. Even meaner than he'd been when she'd accidentally let the pig she'd nicknamed Sophie decimate his strawberries.

But when pushed hard enough she could be mean, too, cruel enough to remind him, "You wanted me plenty last night."

"Then that makes both of us idiots." His glare was hot enough to spark a fire in the loose hay they were standing on. He raked his eyes down the length of her body and she actually felt dirty by the time he looked back up at her face. "You could take off every scrap of clothes right here, right now, and I wouldn't be stupid enough to make that mistake again."

No, damn it, she wouldn't let another man tell her she wasn't good enough. She wouldn't let anyone else chip away at her until her insides curled up into a tight little ball of misery.

"Don't worry," she told him in an equally hard tone, "I won't make the mistake of trying to help you again, either. If you want to wither away in your grief and let it eat up your entire life and your future, go right ahead. I thought you were worth helping, that maybe there was a real human being - a man with a beating heart - beneath all the fury and nastiness. But now you've helped me see that you aren't worth anything at all."

She turned to walk out on him, but before she could leave him to stew in his own misery until kingdom come, he said, "Instead of pestering me with your questions, you should be asking yourself what the hell you're doing hiding on my farm. Because we both know this isn't where you belong, Naughty."

God, it hurt to hear him say that, and then to fling the family nickname at her, one she now knew she never should have shared with him, as if every last part of her was tainted. Unlovable.

Because if she didn't belong here with the animals and the land and the bright blue sky - and if she no longer belonged in the dance world - then where did she belong?

Lori knew she just needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep on walking out of the barn and out of his life. But even as she tried to get away, he kept coming at her with more words aimed where they could do as much damage as possible.

"How would you like it if I turned my focus to fixing you, because it was easier than fixing myself?"

His accusation stopped her cold, even when she knew she should be running from him as fast as she could, before he could do deeper damage than he'd already done. He'd already hurt her with his complete dismissal of her feelings in the cottage during the storm. Badly. And he'd made her doubt her own feelings, made her ask herself if she was really nothing more than the self-absorbed person he'd made her out to be.

"Do you know what I saw that day when you drove into my fence and sent my chickens running down the road?" He didn't wait for her to answer, didn't stop to notice that she was crumbling apart one word at a time. Or if he did see it, he clearly didn't care just how badly he was hurting her. "I saw a scared little girl who's had everything she ever wanted, everything she's ever needed, handed to her on a platter. And then, when she hit one little bump in the road, she was so spoiled that the only option she saw was to give up." He put his hands on her shoulders and spun her around to face him. "If you're a dancer, then you should be dancing, damn it."

She couldn't stop the tears from falling down her cheeks, and not just because he was gripping he shoulders nearly hard enough to leave bruises. "I'm not a dancer anymore."

He stared at her for a long moment, the sparks of heat and anger and a still undeniable connection going off between them, before he dropped his hands from her shoulders. "No, you obviously never were a real dancer if you're able to give up this easily."

She didn't have to stay here and listen to his insults. She could go work on someone else's farm. She could clean someone else's toilets until they sparkled and keep their chickens and pigs fed and weed their rows of vegetables. Not, of course, that she needed the money, considering she had plenty socked away from some of her higher-profile gigs. It was just that she couldn't imagine not having something to do, being left with her thoughts all day long. Even cleaning a stranger's bathrooms would be better than that.

Without saying another word, she made a beeline for the farmhouse, kicking her dirty shoes off on the porch before going inside. Just because she wouldn't be cleaning Grayson's house anymore didn't mean she needed to make it harder for the poor person he tricked into replacing her.

Only, just as she walked into her bedroom and yanked her suitcase out from under the bed, she heard a sound that had her chest clenching tight. She ran out to the living room, where Sweetpea was coughing and shivering on top of her blanket.

No, not now. She couldn't deal with this, too, not when her heart was already torn to pieces.

Lori scooped the cat up into her arms, pressing her lips to the soft, hairless spot between its ears. "Poor baby," she said as she rocked it in her arms. "Poor, poor baby. You feel rotten, don't you?" She kissed it again. "It's been that kind of day for me, too."

Grayson walked in, but she was so concerned about the cat who had been her one true friend for the past week, that his presence barely registered. While Grayson had been God-knew-where avoiding her the past few days, Lori had spent many hours with Sweetpea sleeping warm and purring on her lap, stroking the cat's bony back as she tried to get her to eat the food and drink the milk she brought her every few hours. She'd been about to leave to save what was left of her heart, but now she knew that, no matter how much it hurt to be near Grayson, she needed to stay for the one true friend she'd made on his farm.

"Don't worry, Sweetpea," she told her furry friend. "I'm not going to leave. Not as long as you need me."

* * *

When Grayson stepped into the house and saw Lori with his cat in her arms and heard her make the promise to stay no matter what, the relief that flooded him was so strong it nearly buckled his knees.

Before the storm, before they'd ended up in the cabin, he'd wanted her. But now that he'd touched her, tasted her, he realized that earlier wanting amounted to little more than the buzzing of a fly around his ears. He'd known that he'd pay for those moments of weakness in the cabin, and boy, was he. Because how could he possibly ever regret knowing how soft, how sweet Lori had felt in his arms, how shockingly sweet the sound of her moans, her gasps of pleasure, had been as she came?

And how could he ever forgive himself for the way he'd just lashed out at her, when he knew all she was trying to do was help him? Especially when she'd told him that she'd come to his farm to take a break not only from dancing, but also from men.

He knew he couldn't be what she needed, but he shouldn't have to hurt her to prove that.

"Lori," he said in a low voice as he approached her, "I promised I wouldn't do that to you again. I broke my promise." He felt like he was swallowing fire as he said, "I'm sorry."

God, he would have given up every one of his thousand acres just to see her smile up at him, just to hear her say, "You're forgiven," again like she had the day he'd lost it over the pigs and had offered to take her to buy cowboy boots.

Of course, he knew that wasn't going to happen, not when he'd crossed over the line - way the hell over it - with her just now.

"We both know you meant every word you said to me," she replied in an even voice, though her eyes flashed with fire. "And I meant every word I said to you. But don't worry." She stroked a gentle hand over Mo's patchy fur and the cat gave a soft purr of joy at being showered with such pure, sweet love. "As soon as Sweetpea doesn't need me anymore, I'll be out of your hair." Lori sneezed before adding, "And until then, we can just stay out of each other's way as much as possible."

She turned her full attention back to the cat, then, and he knew he'd been dismissed. So completely that he might never have been there at all.

Leave. He should leave, go back to his room, take a shower, and hit the sack to make up for all the sleep he hadn't been able to get with Lori only a wall away at night - with visions of her na**d and beautiful beneath her sheets running through his head on repeat until sunrise.

But he knew she had to be hungry after the long day she'd put in, so instead of leaving, he started to pull together dinner. Thirty minutes later, after having listened to Lori sneeze practically the entire time, he had two plates of spaghetti ready for both of them.

"Dinner's ready," he told her.

"I'm not hungry."

"I know how hard you've worked today," he said in a soft voice. "And I've seen you eat. You've got to be starved." He put the plate down on the coffee table in front of her. "Please eat dinner, Lori."

She looked from the plate to him, her brow furrowed with confusion. For another moment, he thought she'd refuse his peace offering, but then she said, "I really don't understand you, Grayson."

He wanted to tell her she understood him better than anyone else ever had, that everything she'd said to him had been right.

He wanted to tell her how wrong he'd been for lashing out at her when it wasn't her fault that his wife had died.

He wanted to confess that he didn't know how to get over his guilt for the way his marriage had crumbled and turned into tragedy.

He wanted to make up to her every harsh thing he'd said and done.

He wanted to hear the beautiful sound of her laughter and know that he'd pleased her, rather than constantly being the source of her tears.

But three years of near-constant silence made the words stutter to a halt inside his head long before they reached his lips. Grayson brought his plate over from the kitchen, sat down in the living room, and ate in silence with Lori and his cat.