Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)(8)
Author: Bella Andre

Grayson’s jaw was tense as he shifted his gaze from her bare legs to her face. He hadn’t ogled her, clearly didn’t even want to be looking at her bare skin, and yet with nothing but that one quick glance, she felt as if she’d stripped away all of her clothes rather than just her tights.

“Don’t you have other clothes with you?”

“In my car,” she told him, “but I didn’t want to waste any time changing into them.”

At her honest answer, he sighed, looking momentarily worn out. And more than a little pained. She also refused to drop her gaze any lower than his face. That was gorgeous enough for her teeter-tottering peace of mind. If she let herself appreciate his broad shoulders, or his large hands, or his well-muscled hips and thighs—

Ugh, she needed to stop letting her hormones run away with her. Why couldn’t he have been a grizzled old farmer?

Because if there was one thing that Lori had never excelled at, it was self-control.

She thought he muttered a curse—one she agreed with heartily—before he said, “Show me what you’ve done.”

Working to fight her awareness of him as she took him through the house, room by room—especially in the bedrooms, where she couldn’t believe she actually started blushing—she knew he couldn’t fault her on one single aspect of the job she’d done.

Then again, Victor shouldn’t have been able to fault her dancing or choreography, either, but somehow he’d managed to do it anyway, hadn’t he?

When they made it back to the kitchen and Grayson was just closing the oven after running his finger along the inside walls and having it come up clean, rather than covered in grease, she said, “I did a good job.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

He turned back to her, his expression utterly unreadable. “You did.”

“So, where are my quarters going to be? That cottage I saw out back?” She tried not to sigh as she said, “I’m guessing I’ll need to clean that, too, won’t I?”

He looked surprised by her questions. “You don’t have anywhere to stay?”

She gave him a surprised look of her own. “Of course I don’t. I figured a farmhand would need to live onsite to help with all the—” She had no idea at all, really, about what the list of chores would be, apart from cleaning and dealing with chickens. “—farming.” When her comment fell into a weighted silence, she said, “If you don’t need anything else right now, I’ll go get my things out of my car and take them to the cottage.”

“You can’t stay in the cottage.”

She stopped halfway to the door. “You can’t kick me out. We had an agreement. If I did a good job with the chores, then I could have the job.” She lifted her chin. “And we both know that I did a kick-ass cleaning job.”

He ran his hand through his hair, leaving the dark strands standing on edge. Darn it, even that was sexy. Clearly she sucked at being immune to gorgeous men, even when it was imperative for her mental and emotional health.

“The reason you can’t stay in the cottage,” he gritted out one tense word a time, “is because it doesn’t have a roof on it.”

It only took a second for alarm to hit her. “I can’t stay here. In this house.” She swallowed hard. “With you.”

Without saying another word to her, he picked up the phone and made a quick call to what sounded like a local bed and breakfast. He was polite enough to the person he was speaking to, but when he hung up a minute later, the phone slammed so hard into its cradle that the whole thing vibrated.

When all she could do was shake her head at the idea of sleeping here with Grayson, he said, “If you can’t stand the thought of staying here with me, you’re welcome to the barn. Mo used to like it just fine.”

God, what had happened to her life? All afternoon, he had been trying to get her to give up on her farmhand goal, but she was far too stubborn to give in. Only, she hadn’t counted on sleeping only one wall away from a man she knew next to nothing about besides the fact that he was grumpy, and gorgeous, and didn’t much seem to like her.

But she’d already walked away from one job this week. She couldn’t stomach leaving another one so soon. Besides, she was the one in charge of her life, damn it, and right now she was hellbent on trying her hand at farming.

So she was going to stay.

And didn’t people always say that everything looked better in the morning?

“While the barn sounds simply lovely, I’ll bring my bags into the guest room.”

At least she knew the sheets were clean, because she’d had the privilege of changing them herself. And even though any man with a hint of manners would have insisted on carrying in her heavy suitcase, Grayson let her drag it from her car and up the porch steps all by herself.

Chapter Five

Grayson couldn’t believe the way things had turned out. Not only had Lori dealt well with the chickens, but she’d also cleaned his house as if she’d been working as a maid at a five-star hotel her entire life. He’d searched every corner for dust, had prayed for so much as a pillow to be out of place, but he hadn’t been able to find one single thing to complain about.

And now, based on that stupid deal he’d made with her, he had to let her stay.

He hadn’t shared a house with a woman in three years, had been perfectly happy to have the farmhouse to himself, until today, when a beautiful stranger had blown into his life like a hurricane. And now he was going to have to put her up until she found another place…or until she gave up on her ridiculous farmhand dream. Frankly, at this point, he wasn’t sure which was going to come first. Hell, he hadn’t thought she’d last this long.

He silently cursed as he watched her struggle with her bags and had to forcefully push away the urge to help her. The last thing he needed to do was to make things easy for her. Or, God forbid, let her think he actually wanted her here.

Just because she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, didn’t mean that he was softening toward her. The exact opposite, in fact. All that beauty made him wary, made him remember another beautiful woman…

He couldn’t go there, couldn’t fall back into memories of his wife. Not tonight. Not when he needed to stay completely on his toes to make sure Lori didn’t get under his skin any deeper.

The best thing would be to keep his distance from her. Completely. But after the work she’d done all day, he knew he had to at least feed her. Which was going to mean sharing a meal together on top of everything else, damn it.