Always on My Mind

Chapter Twenty-two

Two days later, Lori still couldn't believe Grayson had agreed to come to Sunday lunch with her. They'd dropped her rental car off first, and now, as she sat in the front seat of his truck, she couldn't sit still. Taking him to meet her family was a really big next step for her. All the men she'd thought she'd been in love with before - now she knew none of them had ever meant anything to her because she'd never once been tempted to bring them home to meet her family.

When Grayson put his hand on her knee, she told him, "You don't have to worry with my family," even though he hadn't said anything about being worried. "They're amazing."

"From everything you've told me, I'm sure they will be," he said, but the muscle jumping in his cheek betrayed his obvious reservations.

"They're going to love you," she insisted.

"They're going to take one look at me and instantly see that I'm not good enough for you," he countered. "And six older brothers means I'm going to have to let each of them get at least one punch in." He rubbed his jaw as if he could already feel the pain. "But don't worry," he said as he squeezed her knee and gave her a lopsided grin, "I won't let them damage any of the good parts."

She knew it was his way of telling her everything was going to be okay, but for the first time, she didn't feel like teasing him back.

"They're all good parts, Grayson." She covered his hand with hers. "And I would never let anyone hurt you."

* * *

Grayson couldn't imagine actually wanting to have lunch with one's family once a month. His father had always been busy with his career, his mother equally so with her charities. As a kid he'd learned not to count on them being there for much more than the requisite recitals and graduations. And the formal meals they did have together had been full of long silences and awkward questions about school and girls.

But evidently Lori and her ridiculously famous and successful siblings willingly met up all the time. Grayson had been a cynical bastard before she'd barged into his life and now that cynical voice inside him was telling him that there had to be some family dysfunction Lori hadn't mentioned. Like jealousy. Or competitiveness.

Only, whenever Lori talked about her family, she was always happy. Laughing. And full of nothing but love.

Still, that didn't explain why she hadn't gone home to them when her world had fallen apart, rather than driving out into the middle of nowhere and insisting that a grumpy stranger put her up.

Lori directed him to a ranch house on a suburban street in Palo Alto. He could feel her excitement growing with every mile they got closer to her mother's house.

"I can't wait to see how big the babies are." She'd told him all about one niece from her brother Chase and a niece and nephew from her sister Sophie. "They're so cute, it's crazy. And Summer is the perfect older cousin for them. She even changes diapers," Lori added with a scrunch of her nose at the thought of it. "The three dogs take it up to the perfect level of craziness, just like when we were kids." Her smile faltered slightly as she said, "I wish Sweetpea could have come with us today. She would have loved being in the middle it all."

He reached up to stroke a hand over her hair. "I wish Mo was here too, because then I could have used her as a big furry shield."

She smacked his hand away in mock irritation, but she was laughing again as they got out of the truck. Walking hand in hand down the sidewalk, he could hear the laughter and conversation coming from her mother's yard. Lori sped up and pulled him toward the front door. She didn't ring the doorbell, just walked in. The living room was empty and the French doors out to the back were open wide.

Of course, the second they walked into the backyard, every eye in the place turned to them - the babies and animals sensing something big was up, too - and Grayson was glad for those stressful years on Wall Street where he'd learned not to let anyone see him sweat, no matter how bad the pressure.

Crap, he thought as he saw just how big each of her brothers was in person. He was screwed.

"Everyone," Lori said, "this is Grayson." She rattled off the names of her siblings and their other halves and children one after the other.

He hadn't been expecting a warm welcome from her brothers, and he wasn't disappointed when they all scowled at him. In perfect contrast, a beautiful, gray-haired woman came forward with open arms and a ready smile.

"Grayson," she said in a warm voice that sounded so much like Lori's as she reached for his hand with the same elegant fingers, "I'm Mary, Lori's mother. I'm so glad that you could come today."

He stared at her, stunned as he realized he was looking at a picture of Lori in forty or so years...and that she would be even more beautiful than she was today.

In that moment, he wanted to tell Mary that he was in love with her daughter. But as he looked into Mary's eyes and said, "Thank you," something told him she already knew exactly what he felt.

Lori, of course, immediately ran off to lift one baby after another into her arms. Grayson stood with Mary and watched her shower them with love.

"She missed them," he said to Mary in a low voice. "She missed all of you. I tried to get her to go back home, but she wouldn't leave my farm."

"Of all my children, Lori's always been the most stubborn, even when she's wrong about something." He felt Mary's eyes on him, wise and surprisingly calm, considering the chaos all around her. "She isn't always the easiest personality for everyone to like," Mary admitted, "but she's impossible not to love."

A baby reached for Grandma Sullivan and as she moved to pick her up, Grayson remained apart from everyone for a moment to better take in the scene in front of him. Everyone in Mary's backyard was paired off. Some had children, some had pets, some were engaged, some were pregnant, but all of them were clearly happy.

But even crazier was that, instead of making him uneasy, he realized why Lori had been so irresistible from the start. Love - pure, unconditional love - was all she'd ever known.

And that same love was what she'd given him, even when he hadn't deserved it, and hadn't believed he'd ever be capable of giving it back to her.

But he did love her. So much that even though there was nothing more he wanted than to keep her holed up with him on his farm until they were old and gray, he knew he had to set her free.

Grayson didn't have one single doubt that she was right for him...but he couldn't ignore the question of whether he was right for her.

When it was just the two of them, working to mix oil and water was a challenge they both relished, and it meant that they'd certainly never lack for spark. But they couldn't hide out on his farm forever. Lori would need to dance in cities with crowds and strangers, and she deserved to have a partner who could support her, she deserved to be in a relationship with a man who could be there for her. Not a man who, since his wife's death, hadn't been able to go back to New York, and had completely avoided San Francisco as well, since the people from his old world shuttled easily between the two.

The women were now chattering and playing with the babies, while her brothers were silently glaring at him.

Fuck.

If these guys had been anyone else, he would have just waited out the silence. Only for Lori would he have moved toward the group and said, "Lori talks a lot about all of you."

Smith spoke first. "She hasn't told any of us about you." The movie star's expression was glacial. "Why do you think that is? Our sister isn't exactly the silent type."

Grayson shook his head and agreed, "No, she's not."

"Then what the hell has gone on the past two weeks?"

He understood her brother's anger, their frustration. If Lori had been his sister, he would have felt exactly the same way. "I can't tell you what your sister is thinking or feeling. I can only tell you what I feel." For years he hadn't spoken of feelings, even when he was married and life had still been rolling forward normally. It wasn't until Lori came and kept poking him with her sharp stick of a tongue that the floodgates had burst open. "I love her." Clearly, her brothers were stunned by what he'd just told them. "I want what's best for her, just like you do."

Just then, Lori's twin came over to save him. Grayson had always pictured himself with women like Sophie - quiet, sweet, soft. Much like his wife had been, in fact. Whereas Lori laughed too loudly, talked too much, moved too fast...and yet, he couldn't imagine himself with anyone but her.

"You look like you could use a beer." Sophie took his arm and gently led him away from her brothers. "Ignore them. They're just upset that Lori didn't confide in them, and they've always thought it was their duty to play mean-and-scary with our boyfriends." She reached into the ice chest and handed him a bottle. "But you should know that if you hurt one hair on my sister's head, they won't get a chance to take you down - because I'll have already done it myself."

Despite how elegantly pretty and soft Sophie looked, Grayson had no doubt at all that she would tear him to shreds if he messed with her sister. "She's lucky to have you."

He was surprised when she sighed. "I don't know if she'll agree with that, especially once she finds out that Jake and I made a couple of calls to Chicago and pulled in some favors to deal with her ex before she could do it herself."

"What are you two whispering about over here?" Lori asked, suddenly appearing beside them without making even the slightest sound.

Her twin jumped. "How many times have I told you," Sophie said, her hand over her heart, "don't do that!"

Just then, Mary called out, "Lunch is ready," and everyone went to take a seat. But the second everyone's plates were filled, Lori's brothers started in again. Only, this time, Lori was their target.

"Where have you been for two weeks, Lori?" Ryan asked her, point blank. On the pitcher's mound, he was as easygoing - and lethal - as they came. Now he was just lethal. "What the hell happened to make you pull out of your show in Chicago like that and not tell any of us?"

Grayson's first instinct was to protect her. He put his arm around her waist and pulled both her and her chair as close to him as they could get. Instead of answering her brother's question, she turned to Grayson and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth.

"It's okay," she reassured him, before finally turning to her brother. "All of you warned me for almost two years about what a scumbag Victor was. Now's your chance to say I told you so."

"None of us wants to say that, Lor," the brother with the radio turned down low on his belt said. Just a little bigger than the others, he had to be the firefighter. "What we want to do is kill him."

Grayson agreed wholeheartedly with her brother, but Lori shook her head. "Victor wasn't worth my time, and he definitely isn't worth any of yours." Grayson caught the look that passed between Sophie and her husband. He owed them big time for avenging Lori. "And, honestly, it wasn't even what he did that was the last straw," she admitted. "It was realizing I didn't want to dance anymore, because all the fun had been squeezed out of it. So I walked out - not just on the show, but on all of it."

"You? Not dance?" Judging by the baby girl happily rattling her soft toy on his lap, Grayson guessed this came from Chase, the photographer. "That's crazy, Naughty."

"Don't worry," she told him, before turning back to Grayson with a smile. "I'm not quitting after all, because Grayson helped me realize that I do love it - while I've spent the last couple of weeks on his farm being a farmhand."

He hated the way she was being put on the spot, but when she looked at him like that, with such trust and love, how could he do anything but forget that they weren't the only two people in the world, and smile back?

"You have been working as a farmhand?"

Grayson didn't like the note of disbelief in her brother Zach's voice, even if it was exactly the same reaction he'd had when she showed up that first day in her rental car. "My CSA customers love her, and so do the chickens and the pigs."

Lori looked adorably smug. "They really do, don't they?"

"Yes, they really do," he said with a quick kiss to the tip of her nose. He knew her family was watching them closely, but he didn't care what anyone else thought. Either they'd like him or they wouldn't. But her family wouldn't be the reason he and Lori didn't work out.

No, the two of them had plenty of other reasons already stacked up against them.

Leaning into his chest, she contentedly laid her head against his shoulder as she told them, "The country community is really cool and it's so incredibly beautiful out there. You should see the stars and the moon at night."

He stroked his hand over her hair and upper arm as she spoke and as the conversation slowly turned from Lori's last two weeks to baby milestones and budding vines and movie sets and concert tours, Grayson was surprised to realize that he was enjoying being part of the large group, even if it was only temporary. The women, for the most part, were far more welcoming as they asked him questions about his farm, while her brothers continued to treat him as though he was on probation.

He couldn't blame them for that. Not when he completely agreed that their sister was precious beyond measure.

And that she deserved nothing but the very best.

* * *

Lori was trying not to be frustrated with her brothers. It was just that they were being so unreasonable! Especially her oldest brother, Marcus, who hadn't yet said a word to Grayson. If anyone should have something in common, it was the two of them, since they both earned their livelihoods from working with the land, and she and Nicola both had very public careers as a singer and a dancer.

She'd been glaring at Marcus all throughout lunch, trying to make it clear that she expected him to bend a little and accept the man she was in love with. But when all he did was ignore her in the most irritatingly big-brother-like way, she shoved out her chair and said, "Marcus, we need to talk."

Grayson pushed his chair back as if he planned to come with her, but her mother quickly held out her arm and said, "Grayson, could you take a look at my vegetable bed? I'm having some trouble with my artichokes."

Lori and Marcus had always been especially close, and she loved and respected him for all he'd done to help raise her when their father had died, but she refused to let him act like he knew what was best for her.

"I love Grayson," she said to Marcus as soon as he walked into her childhood bedroom and closed the door. The room that had held the contents of her and Sophie's entire world as little girls now seemed so small. And yet, it was still comforting. "You're not even trying to get to know him."

"You met the guy on the rebound, Lori, and you've only known him two weeks. Less than that. How can you actually believe you're in love with the guy?"

"His name is Grayson," she growled, "not the guy. And are you seriously saying that to me?" She raised an eyebrow. "Isn't what you just described exactly what happened with you and Nicola in way less than two weeks? You didn't tell any of us about her, either, not until you showed up at Sunday lunch and declared your love to her in front of everyone." Lori was a foot smaller than Marcus, but that didn't stop her from facing him down, toe to toe. "We all accepted her. We all made her feel welcome. Why can't you do that with Grayson?"

"Because I love you and I can't stand to see you make another mistake!" His booming voice cut through her frustration like a foghorn.

She could easily read between the lines of what he was saying: He was not only worried about her heart being broken, he was also worried about her giving up her own career and dreams for the man she'd fallen in love with.

"You and Nicola have made it work, being on the road for her music and also having to take care of the vines and your winery. Don't you think Grayson and I can, too?"

"Even if he loves you and you love him, it's obvious that he's damaged, Lori. Badly. We can all see it." He drew her into his arms. "I know how softhearted you are, that you want to take care of everyone and shower them with love. But sometimes love isn't enough to heal a person. I don't want to see you get hurt again."

"I love you, too, big brother," she told him as she wrapped her arms around him, "but I wouldn't walk away from Grayson when he was hellbent on trying to make me leave, and I won't walk away from him now, not even for you." She drew back to give him a stern look. "So when we go back outside, I expect you to be nice."

Of course, Marcus was just as stubborn as she was, so instead of agreeing, he said, "Tell me more about the farm."

It wasn't much, but it was something, so she grabbed it with both hands as she told him all about her first time in the pigpen.

* * *

Her siblings were all used to the way Lori blew and in and out of a room so fast that if you blinked you might miss it, but what they weren't used to was seeing her with someone she was obviously very much in love with.

Especially when it was the kind of guy none of them would ever have thought to pair her up with.

After she and Grayson headed out, Smith looked around the table. "So?"

Sophie immediately jumped in with, "I like him." Though she and Lori had had a slightly rocky couple of years, no one was surprised to see Sophie stick up for her sister. Not when they'd always been especially close to each other. "She's never been with a guy like him before, but somehow he's perfect for her."

Gabe nodded grudgingly. "They did seem to be a good fit."

But Zach was shaking his head. "Okay, so maybe he's a good guy. And maybe he does really care about her." All of them had been able to see that in every look, every touch, the way he'd instinctively wanted to protect her when they'd been grilling her on what had happened to her in Chicago and why she'd disappeared on them all. "But he lives on a thousand-acre farm and runs a CSA that supports an entire community. He can't walk away from that for her."

"Who says she's asking him to walk away from it?" Sophie shot back, no longer the quiet little sister they'd nicknamed Nice when she was a little girl.

"Can you really see Lori living on a farm?" Ryan asked.

Marcus had stepped up to take care of all of them after their father died, but they all knew he and Lori had a special bond. "Actually," he said, "she has always loved to help me in the vineyards."

But Ryan was holding firm. "I'm sure being out on a farm is fun for a week or two - something different, especially after what happened in Chicago. But she's Naughty," he reminded them all.

"You're right, Ryan," Chase said. "It's Lori we're talking about here." He gave them all a considering look. "She's not like other people and never has been. So why are we all thinking her love life needs to make sense?"

Only one person hadn't spoken up yet: their mother. They all turned to her now to see what she thought about the man her daughter had brought home today, as they had turned to her so many times before for answers.

Mary Sullivan smiled at her children and at the men and women and children who had also become a part of her family during the past two years. "Lori loves Grayson. And he loves her."

With a few simple words and that calm smile they knew she was right: There wasn't anything else they needed to know about Lori and Grayson's situation. Because there was nothing they could trust in more than love.

"Now," Mary said as she stood up, "who's hungry for dessert?"

Summer ran back to the kitchen to help bring out the chocolate cake with extra rainbow sprinkles they'd made together. Each of the couples squeezed each other's hands just a little tighter. They'd all been where Lori was right now, in a place that didn't necessarily make sense, but at the same time was more right than anything else had ever been.

And love, as Mary had gently reminded them, had prevailed each and every time.