The Sullivans: Always On My Mind Part 9

Why did he have to choose that moment to be kind? If he'd been gruff like he usually was, she could have stopped any tears from falling...but now all she could do was take the blanket from him and turn away to move closer to the fire as she wrapped it around herself, hoping he hadn't seen them. Her years of dance training were what made it possible for her to hold her proud, straight stance even as another tear fell.

"Lori-"

She could hear the regret in the way he said her name and she hated it. Hated that he felt sorry for her for wanting him the way she did.

"Don't." The word came out sharply. "We don't need to talk about what happened. We can just chalk it up to an accident."

She a.s.sumed he was silent because he agreed with her. But she could feel his gaze on her, feel the heat of it burning even hotter than the fire.

Lori Sullivan had always known exactly what she wanted, and she'd trusted herself to follow her heart every day of her life. But now that she'd had to face up to the mistakes she'd made in trusting her ex when she definitely shouldn't have, she hated that she couldn't trust what she felt with Grayson, either.

She stared into the fire and watched the flames leap in no pattern whatsoever. But she'd followed the same pattern her entire adult life: She'd fallen for men who promised everything, then after she'd given herself to them, no holds barred, each and every one of them had taken their promises back.

She told herself it shouldn't matter that Grayson had just hurt her, too.

But it did.

He moved to her side, but instead of looking at the fire, he stared directly at her profile. "It wasn't an accident."

She was shocked enough that she turned her tear-streaked face to him without remembering to wipe it clean first.

A surprising tenderness-along with obvious regret-flashed in his eyes at the sight of her tears, and she might have been able to write it off as just another accident on his part if he hadn't followed it up by brushing one thumb across her cheek to wipe the wetness away.

"No," she finally agreed, "it wasn't." But that didn't change anything. "So," she said in an effort to change the subject as she turned her face away to swipe at her damp cheeks with the back of her hand, "do you have any board games in here that we could play while we wait out the storm?"

"Why are you here, Lori?"

What was he doing? Why wasn't he letting them move into shallow waters again? Didn't he realize how much easier it would be?

Luckily for him, she was a master at acting like everything was okay when it wasn't.

Lori started to move away from him as she asked, "Or maybe a deck of cards?"

But he was quicker than she was, and his hand came around her wrist before she could get far enough away from him to take a full breath. "I want to know why you came here with the want ad in your fist when you'd clearly never set foot on a farm a day in your life."

She couldn't think straight when he was touching her. All she could do was crave the feeling of those rough, calloused fingers moving across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s again, over her hips, between her legs. Her breath was already coming faster when he dropped her wrist as though she'd turned into one of the flames in the fireplace.

"I told you already. It looked like fun."

"Bulls.h.i.t."

When his gaze didn't waver from her face, she felt herself begin to crumble. "The past few weeks..." G.o.d, was her voice really breaking? She took a deep breath that shook far more than she wanted it to. She hated feeling sorry for herself so much that she forced the corners of her lips up into what she hoped looked at least a little like a smile. "They weren't good."

He didn't smile back. "Why?"

"Seriously?" The anger she felt wasn't entirely directed at Grayson. Yes, he'd hurt her by pushing her away a few minutes ago, but it was Victor she was thinking of as she said, "You've made me come and now you suddenly think I owe you my life story?"

He ran one hand through his wet hair, looking as though he was at war with himself. Well, she knew exactly how that felt. Finally, he said, "I know this isn't your world, Lori. What is?"

He was right-endless pastures and cows and pigs weren't any part of her world. And yet, she was falling for it all the same.

Just as she was falling for him.

"I'm a dancer."

Grayson's dark gaze ran the length of her covered in her blanket, then back up to her face. "Of course you are. I had already guessed it from the way you move."

She should have been surprised to hear him admit that he'd watched her move, that he'd paid any attention to her at all.

But she wasn't.

"Why aren't you dancing?"

She turned away from him, then, and this time he let her go. It hurt to think of dancing. Of not dancing. Her whole life, it had been her cornerstone. The one thing she could count on.

Lost.

She was utterly lost without dance at her center. If she could have done anything else, she wouldn't have walked away from it. But her lifelong, soul-deep love for dancing had left her without a word of warning. Leaving a big, black hole inside of her that she couldn't figure out how to fill back up.

"I don't want to dance anymore."

"You lie as badly as you drive."

G.o.d, he was like a dog with a bone, and she spun around to face him. "Why do you care if I'm telling the truth about wanting to dance again, or not? You don't want me on your farm. You don't want to have s.e.x with me. Nothing would make you happier than my packing up my things after the storm breaks and getting the h.e.l.l out of your hair."

He didn't contradict her. She didn't expect him to. Rejoicing was closer to what he'd do the day she threw her suitcase into the trunk of her rental car and drove down his long driveway back to the city.

"You can't leave Mo." She couldn't read his expression as he said, "Not yet."

"Sweetpea?" She was trying to figure out where that had come from. "Why are you talking about your cat?"

"You've made her depend on you. You feed her from your hand, for G.o.d's sake."

It was a ridiculous reason for her to stay, especially when he could easily feed his cat by hand if she left.

Was it his way of saying he wanted her to stay? She tucked the blanket more tightly around her and picked up her wet clothes, hanging them over the back of a chair near the fire. Whatever his reason, between the gentleness of his touch on her cheek as he'd wiped away her tears and his obvious concern for his cat, she suddenly felt safe enough to finally tell him a little bit of what had happened to her in Chicago.

"I was in a relationship for the past couple of years. A rotten one that everyone I knew kept telling me to get out of, but I didn't listen until I found him in bed with a dancer I had personally hired." She sighed at her own stupidity. "Well, it's over now, and I needed a break from everything. From dancing. From my life." She couldn't stop herself from adding, "And especially from men." Because how could she have known that when she grabbed the want ad at the General Store she was going to be applying to work for a modern-day cowboy who ran a fabulous CSA and could have made serious dough modeling for a high-end underwear ad?

Grayson didn't reply for a long while, and when she finally looked at him, she expected to see disinterest. Or pity, maybe.

But not disdain. And disgust.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You broke up with your boyfriend? That's what sent you running away from your real life? That's why you stopped dancing?"

Whoa. What was going on here?

And why did having him look at her like that hurt so badly? Even worse now that she'd-stupidly-let him touch her.

"He told me he loved me, he said he couldn't live without me, but I found out he was only using me to dance his way up the ladder. I also found out, too late, that he stole jobs that should have been mine, and did whatever he could to undermine the ones he couldn't get. He told lies to my face, then lied about me behind my back." It exhausted her to say it all out loud. And made her furious all over again. "How can I keep dancing when I can't even remember anymore why I love it?"

She hated what a fool she'd been, that she'd been so blind to what was happening when everyone else had seen it. How desperately she'd wanted to be loved, so desperate that she hadn't put a stop to Victor's emotional abuse until it had sucked the will to dance-and to love-from her.

But she could see that nothing she said made any difference to Grayson. "You think I'm a big crybaby, don't you? That I'm just here to hide from everything and lick my wounds?" She took a step toward him and poked him in the chest. "So what if I am? What makes you the judge and jury for what counts as real pain?"

He grabbed her hand hard enough that she would have cried out if the fury on his face hadn't stolen her breath away before she could make a sound.

"My wife died in a car crash. Three years ago. It was our tenth wedding anniversary."

"Grayson."

He let her hand go and cursed. "The storm is letting up. We need to get back to the farm to make sure the rest of the animals are okay."

Her own pain instantly forgotten in the wake of Grayson's confession, Lori desperately wanted to go to him. She wanted to put her arms around him and console him for the pain he'd suffered. And, most of all, she wanted him to trust her enough to bare his soul to her and let her help him finally heal.

"I'm sorry," she told him over the sound of the crackling fire. "So sorry for what you've been through. And for what I just said."

His face was granite when he turned back to her. "It was three years ago. I'm over it now." His lie was a thousand times worse than her earlier one had been, about thinking that being a farmhand would be fun. "I'll go get the horse ready to take us back."

He was gone before she could reach for him, before she could say anything else. But so much was clear now. The way he'd pushed her away at every turn. The solitude he'd chosen despite the great community.

He was right, his pain was so much worse than hers-and yet, whether he wanted to see it or not, they were kindred spirits despite themselves. Because she'd made the very same vow not to love again and risk another painful loss.

But that didn't mean she couldn't find a way to help him...

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 ch.o.r.es 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 d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.ned 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 c.r.a.p, 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 sc.r.a.p of clothes right here, right now, and I wouldn't be stupid enough to make that mistake again."

No, d.a.m.n 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 h.e.l.l you're doing hiding on my farm. Because we both know this isn't where you belong, Naughty."

G.o.d, 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?