Chapter Four
Lori had never thought she'd need to call on her dance training to clean a toilet or make a bed, but in order to clean Grayson's house perfectly she'd needed every ounce of the precision and focus that she used in her choreography, rehearsals, and performances.
She washed her hands, then took a step back to the doorway to survey her work. The sink, tub, and shower sparkled the way they would have in a TV ad; the mirror didn't have a single smudge or speck of dust on it; and she'd folded the fresh towels she'd found in the linen closet like those in a high-end hotel. Grayson, fortunately, wasn't a particularly messy man, which was surprising, considering how much dirt there was all around him on his farm. And while the farmhouse hadn't been changed from what she guessed was turn-of-the century architecture, the bathrooms were gorgeous and completely luxurious.
What she wouldn't give for a soak in the clawfoot tub, she thought as she stretched out her back and legs. But she could only imagine what Grayson would do if he found her in one of the tubs. Then again, he'd been so grumpy from the moment she showed up on his farm that it was more than a little tempting to mess with him like that.
Only, it would end up messing with her, too. Because if the way her body was heating up at just the thought of Grayson finding her taking a bath was anything to go by, she had a bad feeling that being na**d in one of his tubs would lead to na**dness in other places...like his bed.
And that she'd like it too much for a woman who had sworn off men and relationships.
Forcefully pushing the heady vision of the two of them na**d together away, she walked out into his bedroom and ran her hand over the dark-blue bed cover. Everything in his room was simple. Clean. And purely masculine.
Lori left the master bedroom and slowly made her way through the rest of the house to verify that her work had been top-notch. She'd not only swept and mopped the floors, cleaned both bathrooms, and made both the master and the guest beds, she'd wiped down the refrigerator inside and out and cleaned the oven, too, for sheer shock value. Lord knew, she had been shocked by just how toxic the oven cleaner smelled. Fortunately, she'd been wearing thick yellow gloves at the time, so she hadn't seared the skin off her hands.
Cleaning a farmhouse wasn't the most enjoyable job she'd ever had, but at least she felt the satisfaction of a job well done. Sure, it wasn't a job she'd ever planned on doing, but she'd always figured that if she was going to do something, she should take the time to do it right.
She'd kept her shoes off and had taken her tights off as well when they'd started to shred at the knees, so that she was left wearing only the stretchy pink top that came to the middle of her thighs like a miniskirt. It was just as well, considering what sweaty work cleaning was. She was just stretching the bodice away from her skin to fan herself when Grayson walked into the kitchen through the back door.
He stopped dead in his tracks as he stared at her in her barely-there outfit, the top pulled halfway down the swell of her breasts. She dropped the fabric like it was on fire, but the damage had already been done. It wasn't as bad as if he'd found her in the bathtub, she supposed. But that was little comfort when he was looking at her with such intense heat that she couldn't believe she wasn't spontaneously combusting right where she stood.
It was only natural in a tense situation like this that she'd fall back on years of being a motormouth. "I was just about to come get you so that you could take a look at what I've done. I cleaned the whole house, and I can take you back to look at the bathrooms or you could just stick your head into the oven to see how I even clean - "
"What happened to your pants?" His words sounded like the gravel she'd driven over to get to his farmhouse.
"My tights," she corrected as she swiped her tongue across her suddenly dry lips, "were a mess after the chickens, so I took them off."
She realized now that maybe that hadn't been her best decision of the day as she looked down and saw how much bare skin she was showing Grayson. As a dancer, she'd long ago gotten over feeling self-conscious about showing off her body. It was not only a part of her job, but frankly, it was also a large part of her identity as a pretty, desirable woman.
Only, she wasn't dancing here in Grayson's kitchen...and she didn't want to make him want her.
At least, she silently corrected, she shouldn't want him to want her.
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 h*ps 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.