Page 6
Author: Bella Andre
Somewhere in there, his perfect wife had begun to drink. Of course, she’d hidden it from him. From everyone. Yes, she’d have the requisite bubbly in her hand at her parties, but to the naked eye, it would look like she’d barely sipped it all night.
A thousand times over, Grayson wished he’d had the balls to make Leslie sit down and talk with him before things got that bad. But she’d been just as good at hiding from the mess of their marriage—and their lives—as he was.
The day the call had come in from the police was forever imprinted in his mind. There had been a crash, just her car on a lonely road. Leslie had been drinking. She’d died on impact. He’d seen a picture of the scene in the paper the next day. . . and the same bile that had risen in his throat then rose now.
He’d grieved for her, deeply. He was pretty sure they hadn’t been in love anymore by the time she’d died. But they’d always been friends, and he’d cared about her happiness, had wished that she’d been able to find some.
Only, so much worse than his grief was the guilt that lingered. Guilt that had never—and would never—go away. If only he’d loved her better, if only he’d been the husband he’d pledged to be, then maybe he would have known about her drinking.
And maybe he could have saved her.
An invisible fist was clenching his gut tightly inside of it, when Lori hollered, “Dinner’s on!”
Grayson’s memories were a grim weight deep in his chest as he headed out to the kitchen. His stomach growled again, this time at the incredible smell of the stir-fry Lori had put together. She’d set the small white table by the kitchen window, as well, with his simple white plates and some colorful napkins he’d forgotten he had. Now, as he looked at the bright flowers stitched on the napkins, he remembered that they were a farm-warming gift from the family whose property adjoined his. The teenage daughter had stitched them by hand, she’d informed him with pride. But he’d been too dead inside to appreciate her workmanship.
The table—hell, the entire kitchen—felt too small as Lori served them both. Her scent, her beauty, they were everywhere. Even his bad memories didn’t seem to be enough to drown them out.
And when he took the first bite of the stir-fry with rice that she’d put on his plate, it was all he could do to stifle a groan of pleasure. For three years he’d been a bachelor, cooking for himself. He was pretty good with a grill, and during the summer he had an endless supply of fruit and vegetables to fill up on, but everything else was simply fuel. It had been years since he’d eaten anything this good.
They both ate in silence and he was more than a little surprised to watch Lori mow through a plate of food that was nearly as big as his own. Then again, she’d worked her perfect little ass off today, hadn’t she?
He was reaching for seconds when she finally broke the silence. “Is your stir-fry okay?” Her question had an edge to it, one that clearly said, A thank-you wouldn’t kill you, bastard.
But he hadn’t asked her to come to his farm. He sure as hell hadn’t wanted her to stay. And making dinner hadn’t been on her list of chores. So even though her stir-fry was so good that he wanted to drop to his knees and worship at her spatula, all he said was, “It’s fine. ”
She glared at him. “It’s not fine. It’s great!”
He couldn’t help but be struck by how different this dinner was from the ones he’d shared with Leslie. His wife had been a master of small talk, of filling silences with chatter about weather and gossip and the garden. And she hadn’t been able to cook, not in the slightest, so they’d had a personal chef supply them with fresh meals.
He was just about to finish his second helping when Lori stood, took her plate over to the sink, and started washing it. Knowing he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her for much longer, Grayson said, “You cooked. I’ll deal with the plates. ”
Instead of taking the hint and going to her bedroom, she shook her head. “I work for you now. It’s my job to cook and clean. ”
God, she was stubborn. But if she wanted to add to her list of chores, he wasn’t going to stop her. Of course, he needed to remember not to get too used to meals this good, since he was sure she’d be gone and heading back to her pampered real life by lunchtime tomorrow.
But just then, the plate went slipping from her hands and crashed to the floor. She cursed as she quickly bent down to clean up the shards.
Grayson moved to help her, but not quickly enough to stop her from cutting herself on one of the sharp edges of the broken plate. He grabbed her hand as it began to bleed.
“Damn it, Lori, I said I would deal with cleaning up. ”
She tried to yank her hand back, saying, “It’s just a little cut,” but he was already pulling her up and running her finger beneath the faucet.
He didn’t care how little the cut was, he didn’t like to see her hurt, or to know that she’d done it to try to prove a point to him about how hard she could work. “You need to be more careful,” he growled as he wrapped a clean dishtowel around her little finger and applied pressure to it, “especially when you’re tired. ”
They were standing close enough now that he finally saw the dark smudges beneath her eyes. And given the fact that, for the very first time, she hadn’t come back with a quick retort, he knew she had to be exhausted.
“Go to bed, Lori. I’ll deal with this mess. ”
“I’m fine. ”
The urge to stroke his hand over her cheek to find out if her skin was as soft there as it was on her hands made his voice more gruff than it needed to be as he told her, “The day starts early here on the farm. You need the sleep. ”
Her full mouth tightened down, before she shrugged and said, “You’re the boss. ”
She looked at their hands and he belatedly realized he was still holding hers. He took a step back and let her go. Of course, she couldn’t just head to her bedroom, she had to make a pit stop to make a fuss over the cat again, with a promise of making her some “yummy treats” soon. It wasn’t until she started sneezing uncontrollably that she finally wished Mo good night with a kiss to the patchy fur on the cat’s forehead.
He purposely kept his mind blank as he cleaned up the floor, then did the dishes and headed into his bedroom to hit the sack. He could hear Lori banging around in her room, knew she was pissed off at him, and tried not to feel guilty about his behavior. Hell, if she’d have been the male college-aged kid he’d planned to hire, he wouldn’t have been worrying about being nice or trying not to touch his new farmhand. And he sure wouldn’t be practically tiptoeing around in his own bedroom because he was worried about waking her up when she’d obviously been hard hit with the need for rest.
What the hell was wrong with him? How could he have considered letting her stay even for one night? Tomorrow, he decided, one way or another she had to go.
Grayson was just pulling back the covers when he heard something that had him stilling.
Crying.
She was crying, damn it.
Grayson clenched the covers tightly in his fist as his heart—the one he swore he didn’t have anymore—broke for her.
He had no idea what, or who, had hurt Lori Sullivan. But given how strong she’d proved herself to be all day long, he knew it had to be bad if it could force her to the point where she couldn’t hold back her sobs.
Especially since he knew the last thing she’d want would be for him to hear them.
It took every ounce of his self-control not to go to her, and in the end, the only thing that kept him from leaving his room for hers was the absolute certainty that she would hate for him to see her with her walls down, vulnerable and hurting.
And by the time her bedroom finally fell silent a short while later, Grayson knew he wasn’t going to make good on his promise to himself, come tomorrow.
He was going to let her stay.
Chapter Six
 
; So much for everything looking better in the morning.
Because even though Grayson had let her sleep in past sunrise, when Lori got out of bed to deal with the call of nature she was shocked by how much everything hurt. She’d danced for hours every day for nearly her entire life, yet she still ached from the cleaning and stooping and kneeling on the floor. All for someone who didn’t appreciate any of it, and who clearly had never uttered the words “thank you” before.
Why had she ever thought it was a good idea to start over in Pescadero? Instead of renting a car at the airport and driving into the boonies, she could have hopped onto another plane and headed off to Hawaii. She could be lying on the beach right now sipping drinks under an umbrella with the sound of soothing waves lulling away her sadness.
Only, she’d always hated lying around on the beach. Besides, she would have gone absolutely crazy in Hawaii with all of those happy couples on their honeymoons and anniversaries walking hand in hand and kissing in the moonlight.
She hadn’t bothered to blow-dry her hair last night after her bath. She could jump into another quick bath and blow-dry, but why should she when she was just going to get all dirty and sweaty again cleaning and cooking and dealing with chickens? It was much easier just to run a brush through her hair and pull it back into a ponytail. She gave another thought to pulling her makeup bag out of her suitcase, but what was the point of that, either? The farm animals wouldn’t care what she looked like.
And she certainly wasn’t trying to attract Grayson. In fact, it would be better if she didn’t look pretty. That way, he wouldn’t get the wrong idea about her and actually start looking at her as a woman, rather than a farmhand.
Still, it was weird to forgo makeup, considering that even when her brothers had dragged her out camping a couple of times, she’d brought the basics with her. But as Lori studied herself in the mirror, she was surprised to realize that she didn’t look half bad with a perfectly clean face, apart from the fact that her eyes were still a little puffy and red around the edges.
She still couldn’t believe she’d cried last night—that she’d actually lain in the guest bed and sobbed into the pillow to make sure the sound didn’t carry to the rest of the house. Her twin sister Sophie had always been the crier—over sad books or when someone got hurt or even when one of their brothers did something really great like win the World Series or an Oscar—but never Lori.
She’d rather hug or kiss or dance. Anything but cry.
She tried to tell herself that they had been angry tears. Frustrated tears. Exhausted tears. But it was no use, not when she knew there had been plenty of self-pitying tears mixed in, too. And those were the ones that she absolutely wouldn’t stand for.
Lori Sullivan wasn’t someone who felt sorry for herself. She didn’t have time for that nonsense.
Moving quickly, she pulled on her jeans and T-shirt from last night and looked through the shoes in her bags. Mostly heels. The closest she had to farm-appropriate shoes was a pair of ballet flats. She sighed at the thought of just how quickly they were sure to get ruined in the dirt and mud and grass, but slipped them on anyway. Just then, she finally looked out her bedroom window and her breath caught at the view of Grayson’s land in the morning light.
My God, it was beautiful here. She’d noticed the beauty yesterday, of course, but every moment since she’d gotten on the plane in Chicago had felt like such a battle, and she’d been so tired that she hadn’t really seen Pescadero clearly.
With wonder, she drank in the open sky, grass so green it almost hurt her eyes, and—
Oh my. Grayson was working without his shirt on, sweat gleaming on his incredible muscles as he chopped wood like a man possessed.
The natural beauty of his farm was breathtaking, but once she caught sight of him, she couldn’t pull her gaze away. Not when he had to be the most perfectly built man she’d ever seen. Which was saying a lot, considering that as a choreographer and dancer she worked with amazingly chiseled men on a daily basis.