Always on My Mind (The Sullivans #8)

Chapter Sixteen

Applause rang out in the barn at the end of the line dance that had gone on for a good fifteen minutes straight. Lori loved how the little kids didn't think twice about wrapping their arms around her waist to hug her.

"You're so pretty, ma'am. What's your name?"

Lori smiled down at the little girl with the big brown eyes and bright pink cheeks, the same one who had wanted to touch her dress earlier. She couldn't have been more than four years old, but she'd been out there dancing up a storm, following the moves even better than most of the bigger kids and adults.

"Lori. What's yours?"

"LuLu." She barely paused for breath before saying, "You'll be here for the next barn dance to teach us some more, won't you, Ms. Lori?"

Lori felt a lump descend into the bottom of her stomach. Could she stay here forever? Could she hide out beneath the beautiful blue sky and have dirt under her fingernails every day? Could she dream about more of Grayson's kisses?

Still feeling the rush of the dance floor beneath her feet, the thrill of moving her body to the music, instead of answering the little girl's questions, Lori smiled down at her and asked, "Do you want to fly?"

The girl's pigtails bounced as she nodded. "Oh yes!"

Lori held out her hands and when the little girl took them she winked and said, "Hold on tight." And then she started swinging them both around in a circle, a perfect pirouette with a giggling partner's sweaty little hands grasped tightly in hers. Again and again they spun until she thought the little girl must be getting dizzy, and finally put her down.

"Mama, Mama, did you see me?" the girl said to her mother as soon as her little cowboy boots hit the floor. "I was flying."

LuLu's mother no longer looked frosty as she stroked her daughter's cheek. "Like a beautiful bird, baby." As she hoisted her daughter up into her arms, the woman finally smiled at Lori. "You're a wonderful dancer. Thank you for teaching all of us how to do the line dance tonight."

Couples quickly paired up all around Lori as she stood and watched the mother and daughter walk away with a longing that frankly stunned her. When she'd been line dancing, she'd felt like she belonged, that she wasn't just some city girl playing around on a farm.

But now that aloneness came back to hit her smack dab in the center of her chest with a hard thud.

The lump in her throat grew bigger as she caught sight of Eric grinning at her from across the barn. She smiled back and when he started to move toward her with the clear intention of asking her to dance, she fought to keep her smile in place. Eric was sweet. He was good looking. He was a gentleman. He was everything she should want, especially in the wake of the snake her ex had turned out to be.

But, stupid her, who did she wish was coming for her on the dance floor, instead? Grayson, who was more deeply wounded than any man she'd ever met before.

When Eric was less than a dozen feet away and she was just about to make herself move toward him, a large hand suddenly took hers and she was spun into a hard chest.

The very hard chest she'd been so foolishly dreaming of.

Lori was so stunned - and so pleased to be close to Grayson again as he led her in a country waltz - that she simply laid her head against his shoulder and moved with him.

Just one dance. That was all it was.

One perfect, beautiful, impossibly romantic dance with a man who made her heart pound like crazy and her brain turn to mush.

There were a million reasons why she shouldn't be here in his arms, moving to the music. And yet she was so dazed by the sure way he led her across the floor, so wrapped up in the dance, in the feel of his body against hers, his muscles contracting against her, that there was no room for thinking, no space to do anything but be putty in his talented hands.

Second by second he'd taken over more of her thoughts, her dreams, until she had begun to forget what her life had been like before he was in it. All she knew now was that it couldn't have been as full of sparks, emotion...or desire.

Even the waltz, a dance she'd done a thousand times before, both on stage and off, had never been this wonderful. This special.

When the song finally came to an end, Grayson drew her tightly into his arms and held her there for a long moment. The band had started to play yet another waltz but she knew she couldn't survive another dance with him.

Not if she wanted even one small piece of her heart to remain intact when she finally left his farm to go back to her real life.

She tried to move away, but he wouldn't let go of her hand. "You've been dancing for a while now with no break. You need lemonade."

He didn't ask her if she wanted one, just took her to the table on the side of the room where the two teenagers she'd been line dancing with were flirting now. He got her a cup and he was right - she was thirsty, so she drank it.

Lori told herself she shouldn't feel so weird around him now. Not when it had just been one little dance. But, oh, what a dance it had been. And when she closed her eyes, she'd be returning to it in her daydreams for a very long time.

Trying desperately to act like it was no big deal, she said, "You're a good dancer." Knowing that compliment was far too grudging for just how talented he was on his feet, she amended it to say, "Actually, you're a fantastic dancer."

The last thing she expected him to do was say, "Thank you," then reach out to brush a strand of hair from her cheek and push it behind her ear.

She shivered at his touch. Didn't he know just how dangerous this territory was that he was heading into with her? First the dance, and now a touch so gentle, so sweet, that it tore at her already weak heart. She knew how to deal with rough, rude Grayson. But this? She had no idea what to do now...especially not when she coupled his sudden tenderness with the way he'd touched her - as if she was precious.

"Where - " she began, but the way he was gazing down at her with such dark eyes had her losing her train of thought. Oh God, this was such a bad idea. She needed to keep on track. He was her boss. She was his farmhand. He was country. She was city. When they weren't kissing, they were both driving each other crazy. "Where did you learn to dance like that?"

"Years of ballroom dancing lessons."

For a moment she thought he was kidding, but then she remembered what he'd told her about where he'd come from. It was just that he was such a part of the land, such a cowboy at heart, had such a love for the farm, that she kept forgetting about his previous life in New York City.

What he'd created all by himself out here in the wilds of Pescadero was truly amazing. Maybe at first she hadn't appreciated just how much hard work went into taking care of his animals, his crops, his crew, the customers who depended on the food he grew for them, but after a week of working with him, she did now.

"Dance with me again, Lori."

She should say no. All she needed to do was put her lips into the right position and breathe out the word. Lord knew she'd had enough practice saying the word, not only as a child, but also during the past week to Grayson whenever he'd been acting unreasonable and she'd been a brat for the sheer pleasure of annoying him.

But now, when it felt like her entire future, along with the safety of her heart, rested on a little two-letter word, she just couldn't say it. She couldn't get her feet to work, either, to walk her out of the barn, so that she could leave Grayson and his cowboy hat and boots and pigs and Sweetpea-the-cat behind.

And maybe, she found herself thinking as the waltz continued, he had some sort of previously agreed-upon arrangement going with the band, because when he drew her back into his arms in front of the lemonade table and the wide-eyed teenagers, she couldn't seem to catch her breath.

Being with Grayson was so simple and yet so complicated all at the same time. He made her want to stomp and yell...but he'd also just given dancing back to her when she'd thought that dream, that love, might be gone forever.

Apart from her twin sister, she'd never met anyone whom she hated and loved in the same breath.

Love.

Oh God, she was falling in love with him.

No! She couldn't.

Not him.

Not here.

And not when she knew he was not only still grieving his loss, but also that he might very well choose to grieve forever.

All the strength Lori hadn't been able to find a few moments earlier flooded her as panic took hold. She was out of his arms like a shot, moving so quickly toward the big, open barn doors that she skidded in her heels and barely caught herself on the wall before she went down on her butt in front of everyone. Kicking off her heels and leaving them on the barn floor, she didn't notice whether anyone was watching her flee, couldn't feel anything but the pressure of that love she could no longer deny coming down over her chest to wrap tightly around her heart.

No. No. No.

What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she love someone who would love her back? Why couldn't she have what her brothers and twin had? Why couldn't she find a lover, a friend, someone who would always have her back, someone who would give up absolutely everything for her...and someone for whom she would give up absolutely everything? Why couldn't she be one half of two people who didn't need anything but each other?

That was all she wanted. It was all she'd ever wanted.

Instead, she was wild.

She didn't think before acting.

She talked too much.

And she fell too fast.

Lori was running away from the barn dance, sprinting for home, when it hit her midstride that what had started to feel like her home wasn't hers at all.

It was Grayson's. Everything was his. This land. The animals.

Oh God, even her heart was his.

And still she ran, barely feeling the dirt, the grass, the sticks beneath her bare feet. The firm muscles in her legs, the power of her lungs, had always made her strong. But Grayson, she found out a breath later when his arms came around her and he lifted her off the ground and against his chest, was at least as strong.

"You can't run from me," he told her in the middle of the field beneath a dark purple sky as he held onto her.

Lori had always given herself entirely over to love. She'd believed it would make everything okay, make everything work out in the end. But it didn't. It hadn't. And she knew she shouldn't be stupid enough to make that mistake again.

"Yes, I can," she said as she fought his hold, as she tried to get back on solid ground where she only had herself to rely on, where she could do whatever it took to keep herself safe.

"Not tonight, Lori." His lungs were pumping just as hard as hers were from the run and from the struggle to keep her with him. "I know you're not going to stay, but please don't run from me tonight." She made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. "Please," he begged again, "just give me tonight."

Maybe it was the fact that, for the second time in one night, he'd actually asked for something rather than just demanding it from her. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her, like he'd be lost without her. Maybe it was the fact that their dances together had solidified something that couldn't possibly be put into words: a connection between two people who were, whether they wanted to be or not, a perfect fit. At least for a little while - while their lives collided.

Maybe it was simply that falling in love wasn't something Lori would ever be able to turn away from, regardless of just how much pain she knew would be coming down the pike. And maybe, just maybe, as long as she never actually confessed to him how she felt, that would make it okay to give in to what she felt for Grayson for one night, beneath the moon, with the smell of wild grass and the ocean all around them...