Always on My Mind (2 page)

She grabbed a bag of chips and walked up to the register. The teenage boy behind the deli counter turned bright red. “Wh-what can I get y—” He swallowed hard and reached up to loosen the neck of his T-shirt. “—you.”

Even as it occurred to her that maybe she should have gone back to the car for her scarf to wrap around her dance outfit, she enjoyed the appreciation in his eyes. Just because she was done with men didn’t mean she didn’t still want to be
wanted
by them. That way she could have the pleasure of kicking them all to the curb—except for sweet teenage boys, of course.

“What’s the best sandwich you’ve got?”

His eyes went wide at her question, as if she’d asked him for the answer to how the earth rotated on its axis rather than just about cold cuts and bread. And boy, was he working hard to keep his eyes on her face rather than letting them drop to her breasts, which were pretty much on full display in her outfit. It was so cute that she wanted to leap across the counter to hug him for making her feel pretty again, at least for a few seconds of adolescent adoration.

“Um, I don’t know.” He swallowed hard again before turning to scan the list of sandwiches handwritten on the board behind him. “Maybe the Muffuletta?”

“Sounds good.” She put down the chips on the counter as he started to ring her up. “I’ll also take the strongest cup of coffee you can brew.”

Who knew how much longer she’d be out driving these farm roads before she found a place to stay for the night? She did have the rental car for an entire month, after all.

He took her money from her with a shaking hand, and when she said, “Could you tell me where the bathroom is?” he dropped it all on the floor, then hit his head on the open register drawer when he went to pick it up.

Clearly not trusting himself to speak this time, he simply knelt on the floor and pointed toward the back of the building with a shaky hand. Lori figured it was a good idea to give him a break while he made her sandwich; she’d hate for him to slice off the tip of a finger with the meat cutter just because she was standing too close in barely-there spandex and glitter.

After quickly taking care of business, she looked at herself in the mirror and would have laughed if she hadn’t been so horrified by the mess she found in the reflection. With quick and efficient professionalism she fixed her hair and makeup. She’d always subscribed to the idea that if you looked good, you felt good, but today she had a feeling mascara and lip gloss weren’t going to fix much of anything.

After leaving the bathroom, she took a few moments to look around a little bit. On second glance, the General Store was pretty cute inside, a little farm “superstore” with groceries and clothes and chicken feed, clearly all of equal importance to the people who lived here. One table had a
Local Authors
sign on it and she stopped to scan the books of poetry, novels, and a couple of nonfiction tomes on farming techniques. The books gave her a sense of the community that this store supported, likely made up of farmers and their families who had been here for generations.

She’d been part of the dancing community for so long she hadn’t ever looked for any other world to belong to. Especially not when Sullivan family events with her mother and seven siblings were frequent enough to take up any free time she had.

But now, even the thought of dancing made her sick to her stomach. Her ex had wooed her with dancing...and then betrayed her with it. Once upon a time, she’d danced for herself, for the pure joy it had given her. Until these past few months, when she’d been little more than Victor’s puppet, dancing to try to please him. By the time she realized that nothing pleased him, she’d forgotten how to dance for any other reason. And now, it felt like there was a dead, numb zone inside her where her heart used to be.

She supposed she’d find another community to belong to in time.

Lori was just about to head back to the deli counter to pick up her sandwich, when she noticed a large board filled with flyers. She’d always been interested in strangers’ lives and devoured biographies as fast as her librarian sister Sophie could give them to her. Looking at a community posting board was such a perfect window into other lives she’d never live. And the truth was that as she’d driven the short Main Street, she’d been surprised by how cute the town was. The storefronts dripped with old western charm and she’d even passed a farm stand that looked like a picture out of a magazine.

In the middle of the board was a white piece of paper with the words
Farmhand Needed
in a strong, clearly masculine hand. Not for one second of her life had she ever thought about living or working on a farm. For her entire life, she’d known exactly what she was and what she would be: a dancer.

Only, since she wasn’t going to dance anymore, why not try something completely different, something that could very well turn out to be her second calling?

Maybe if she had gotten more than a dozen hours of sleep all week, she might have taken a clearer, more cool-headed look at the decision she was making.

Because she wasn’t looking for trouble. She swore she wasn’t.

The thing was, for the first time in a very long time, Lori felt a stirring of excitement. Of anticipation.

And a thrill that felt a little bit like fear.

She’d always liked the scary rides at the amusement park, and had been the one to drag her siblings to horror movies. But what could possibly be scary about working as a farmhand?

Especially when she’d already decided she was going to be the best damn farmhand the world had ever seen. Not to try to please anyone else, but to please
herself
, and to know that at the end of a long day on the farm, she’d done good work that she could be proud of.

Lori ripped the ad off the board and put it down in front of the deli boy. She was impulsive, but she wasn’t stupid, so she asked him, “Do you know the guy who posted this? Is he a nice man?”

The boy nodded. “Sure, Grayson is nice.”

Lori liked the sound of that name.
Grayson.
Probably some old farmer like the grandfather she’d seen on the sidewalk who’d been married for fifty years and needed some extra help with his chickens and cows. She had no idea what that help would entail, but she’d always been a fast learner.

She grinned and asked, “Can you tell me how to get to his farm?”

* * *

This was just the kind of day Grayson Tyler liked best—quiet and filled with backbreaking work from sunup to sundown as he made his way across his thousand acres.

When he’d bought this Pescadero farm three years ago, the barn had been on the verge of becoming firewood and the farmhouse had been a mice-infested shell. A hundred and fifty years ago the first farmer had started to work this land and it’d had a good run for a while, but the latest generation had been more interested in their fancy cars and IPOs than the farm their grandfather had spent his life cultivating.

Grayson had spent seven days a week for the past three years bringing the farm back to life. His family had thought he was out of his mind when he’d moved from New York City to what they called “the middle of nowhere,” even though San Francisco was only an hour away. Not that he’d been to the city, though. He knew too many people who flew between New York and San Francisco on a regular basis. There were too many potential opportunities to meet someone from his past.

That was one of the great things about a farm: the past didn’t matter. All that mattered was the animals that were hungry now, and the future you could build one plowed field, one well-fed cow, at a time. In fact, he was busy rebuilding the chicken coop this morning, so his chickens were in the field at the front of his house.

He was hammering in one of the final two-by-sixes for a new roost in the chicken coop when he heard the sound of an engine. His house and the coop were far enough from the road that he wouldn’t be able to hear a car heading through Pescadero, which meant it was coming up his drive.

Grayson gritted his teeth at the unexpected interruption. People in town knew by now not to drop by without letting him know ahead of time. Only once in a blue moon would a delivery truck come by with a package from New York.

He put down his hammer and turned to deal with whoever had come uninvited, although he didn’t recognize the car. The sun was shining on the windshield so he couldn’t see the driver’s face, but through the open driver’s side window he saw a lock of long, dark hair blow out.

A woman? What was a woman doing at his farm?

Damn it, this was the last thing he wanted to deal with—some tourist who must have gotten lost on the way to the only bed and breakfast in town and was coming to get directions.

His chickens weren’t used to being out around cars and the stranger was coming up the long dirt drive so fast that one of his prize Buff Orpington hens squawked and opened her wings to get away from the vehicle. Unfortunately, the chicken was nearly fileted under the spinning tires when the driver swerved to the left to avoid hitting her...and then crashed her car into one of his brand-new fence posts.

Chapter Two

The door flew open and the driver got out. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! That chicken came out of nowhere. I’ll fix your fence.”

Grayson heard what she said, but couldn’t manage a response. Not when he couldn’t believe his eyes.

He’d never seen a woman this beautiful in all his life. Long, dark hair spilled down over her nearly bare shoulders to her waist, and her big eyes, high cheekbones, and full, red mouth were every man’s wet dream. She was wearing something tight and soft looking and in the sunlight it was almost as if she were naked with every one of her spectacular curves on display.

And those legs...even though she wasn’t particularly tall they went on forever, ending in spike heels that had no place whatsoever on a farm.

Shit.
What the hell was wrong with him? Even if it had been a while since he’d taken a woman to bed, he’d never had any problems controlling his reaction to one.

“Who are you?”

She blinked up at him and simply stared for a few moments, before her gorgeous lips finally curved up into a smile.

Grayson silently instructed his heart to keep beating, his chest to keep pumping air. He just needed to survive the next few minutes, send her on her way, and then his life could go back to the way it needed to be.

Quiet.

Simple.

Completely devoid of gorgeous women with smiles that knocked him flat.

She was clutching a piece of paper in her hand and she uncrumpled it before answering, “The new farmhand, I hope.”

Another man might have laughed at her ridiculous statement.

He didn’t.

“Who put you up to this?”

She frowned. “No one.” She took a step toward him and he nearly took a step backward in response to all those luscious curves coming nearer. “I’m here to apply for the job.” She smiled again. “My name is Lori. Lori Sullivan.”

Was she really serious? He schooled himself to forget how pretty she was as he studied her earnest expression.

Crap. It looked like she was. Which meant that instead of only wasting five minutes of his day, it was likely going to take him a good half hour to get her out of here.

“Is Grayson around somewhere?” She looked around him for someone else.

“I’m Grayson.”

Her eyes widened. “Why aren’t you older?”

He had no idea how to respond to that. Not, of course, that he’d had much of an idea how to respond to any of the conversation he’d had thus far with the stunning woman who had blown into his life without even the slightest hint of warning.

Instead of answering her strange question, he told her, “My ad wasn’t a joke.”

“I’m not joking,” she said with a stubborn tilt of her chin.

His heart raced again from nothing more than seeing the flush in her cheeks while she stood her ground in front of him.

“Look, I’ve got a lot of work to take care of today before the sun sets.” He gave a pointed look at the fence post. “Like fixing the post you smashed into, for one.”

Anyone else would have left by then, given the way he was snarling at her, but did this beautiful girl get the hint and get back in her car to leave him the hell alone?

No.

Instead of leaving, she took another step toward him on the most gorgeous pair of legs he’d ever seen in his life. “I can help you.”

He made himself sweep a hard, unimpressed look over her, even though in his previous life he would have drunk her in with extreme pleasure.

“What experience do you have working on a farm?”

When she bit her lower lip, his blood pressure shot so high he could actually hear it rushing in his ears over the ongoing complaints of his chickens, who were still in high excitement over the car, the crash, and the very unexpected visitor in her glittering outfit.

“Well,” she said slowly, “none yet. But I’m very determined.”

He laughed out loud at that, a rusty sound that held absolutely no pleasure in it.

“Determination isn’t going to get the new coop finished or the fence post replaced. I need someone who can actually do the work I need them to do.” Jesus, he couldn’t believe he was actually standing here debating her qualifications with her. “You can’t be my new farmhand.”

She looked momentarily distraught as she stared at him and then back down at his want ad clutched in her fist. He could almost hear the gears churning in her pretty head, before she nodded as if she’d made a decision.

“Tell me something you need done and I’ll do it. Right now, in front of you, so you can see that I’m serious.” She faced him squarely. “I want this job, Grayson.”

The sound of his name on her lips, her slightly husky voice playing out the vowels a little longer than the other letters, made his gut clench tight. He didn’t like the way he was reacting to her.

Didn’t like the fact that he was reacting at all.

He looked down pointedly at her shoes. “You’re telling me that you’re going to get to work on my farm in those?”