He needed this kiss so badly that he barely registered how stiff she was in his arms, until she wasn’t anymore and the hands that had been pushing him away were trying to pull him in closer instead.

God, she was soft.

And so damned sweet he could barely believe it.

Soon he had her backed up against the door. In the log cabin, he’d been desperate to touch her, to find out if she felt as good against him as she looked. But now that he knew exactly what waited for him beneath the thin fabric of her dress—skin so warm and pretty that he’d be stunned every time his mouth or hands made contact with it—it only made him crazier for her. And then there were the little sounds she’d make as he rained kisses over her, little gasps, soft moans, that would take hold of his sanity and yank it completely away.

Only this time, instead of him being the one to put the brakes on when he was on the verge of heading for the point of no return, Lori was the one dragging her mouth from his.

“How can you kiss me like this,” she asked him in a voice that shook slightly, “when you won’t even talk to me about what happened to you?”

She didn’t say “Stop.” She didn’t tell him, “We shouldn’t do this.” Just, “You won’t even talk to me about what happened to you.”

But it was enough. Because she was right—he had no business kissing her like that, or even thinking of going further, when he could still barely think about his past, let alone share the details of it with someone else. With her.

She was still trying to catch her breath, her breasts rising up in the slinky dress as she gasped for air. “I wasn’t trying to make you hurt worse by asking you questions about your past, Grayson. That’s the last thing I would ever want to do and I’m so sorry if anything I said in the stables hurt you. I swear I was only trying to help.”

God, he’d nearly yanked her dress up to her waist and taken her against the front door, and she was the one apologizing.

“I know,” he said. And he did. Because for all of Lori’s faults—and he felt as if he’d gotten to discover each and every one of them over the past week—she was a good person. Maybe if they’d met in a different time, years ago, when he was still in the city...

No. He couldn’t go there, couldn’t wish that things had been different. Because if he were going to turn back time, wasn’t there only one thing he would ever be allowed to wish for? His wife, alive and healthy. And if Leslie were still alive, then Lori Sullivan would have no part of his life at all.

His gut twisted twice as hard at that thought.

Grayson already knew that there was no way to win, that the grip his past had on him was too strong ever to get away from. Because while he simply couldn’t imagine his world anymore without Lori in it, he also couldn’t move beyond the loss he’d suffered before her.

“I’m still so damned sorry for grabbing you the way I did in the stables, and I never should have pushed you up against the door just now.” It took every ounce of self-control he had left to step away from her. “I understand if you don’t want to go to the barn dance with me now, Lori.”

He felt awkward and too formal, as though he couldn’t get anything right with her. He didn’t deserve to have her on his arm, didn’t deserve any more of her smiles, or the sound of her laughter as it floated through the air.

Lori stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. “Are you actually asking me what I want to do?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Lori. You know that.”

Her smile came so suddenly he actually felt the wind knocked out of him at the beautiful force of it. “Of course I know that, but it’s so fun to see if I can make you lose it,” she teased, and amazingly, his gut untwisted a little. “Plus, it keeps Sweetpea entertained when you stomp around and smoke starts coming out of your ears—doesn’t it, baby?” she said to the cat, who was watching the two of them from the bed of pillows and blankets Lori had made for her on the floor by a heating vent.

“Don’t let her pull you into this discussion, Mo,” he warned the cat.

Lori laughed out aloud, a sweet waterfall of joy that untwisted his gut even further. “Aha! You finally talked to her like she’s a person.” She clapped her hands. “Just because of that, I’ll go with you to the barn thing.”

She wasn’t pushing him anymore on his wife’s crash, so he wouldn’t push her on the fact that she couldn’t even say the word dance.

But he wanted to. And that was what worried him most—even more than the desire over which he had no control whatsoever. It was why he was taking her to the barn dance, after all—because he’d heard her on the phone with her sister and knew how badly she missed dancing, how important it really was to her.

For three years he’d been so careful to keep himself from getting close to anyone, but Lori had barged into his life and refused to take no for an answer when he’d told her he didn’t have time to train a farmhand who had no experience and was worse than useless.

Somehow she’d gotten under his skin.

And he didn’t know how to get her out again.

He was frowning when the soft, oh-so-sweet touch of her hand on his jaw finally made him stop and look down at her beautiful face again. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said to me in the stables,” she said in a soft voice. “It turns out you were right about it being easier for me to focus on helping you rather than looking at my own life.”

“Don’t.” He covered her hand with his. “Please don’t let me off the hook like that. I fucked up, Lori. And you shouldn’t forgive me.”

The last thing he expected her to do was smile up at him. “You just said it yourself—you can’t keep me from doing whatever I want.” She lightly stroked his cheek. “And I want to forgive you. But only for what happened in the stables. Because what just happened here against the door...” Her eyes flashed with heat. “Well, I can’t think of any part of your kisses that you have to be sorry about.”

With that, she turned and walked out the door toward his truck. Still reeling from everything that had just been said between them, it was a hell of a job for Grayson to try to keep his eyes from wandering to her hips as he followed her, especially when he had a bad feeling that she wasn’t wearing anything at all beneath the form-fitting dress.

Sweet Lord, what he’d give to touch her naked skin again, to press not only his hands, but also his mouth, to her. To all of her.

Before she could reach for the door handle of his truck, he opened it for her, then offered a hand to help her up. She looked surprised, but she placed her hand in his.

He forgot to let go as he looked down at her fingernails. “You’ve put on nail polish.” And she smelled like vanilla and spice, so sweet and sultry that he was barely able to tamp down the overpowering urge to bury his face in the curve of her neck and breathe her in.

“Mascara, too,” she said as she fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I didn’t want people to think you couldn’t do any better than a girl who didn’t know how to take care of herself.”

God, he was so mesmerized by the flick of her tongue against her glossy upper lip that he could barely remember why he’d taken her hand. Finally, he realized they were standing beside his truck and the door was open.

“Can you climb in okay with those heels on?”

She shot him a sassy look. A look that owned every last letter of her naughty nickname.

“I can do absolutely anything in these heels.”

As he closed her door and walked around the back of the truck, he had to adjust himself in his jeans to try to hide his hard-on. The vision of making love to Lori while she was wearing nothing but those red spike heels wouldn’t go away as they drove from his farm to his neighbor’s property fifteen minutes away.

Grayson parked in a dark corner behind a large grouping of shrubs at the very edge of the parking area. When Lori got out of his truck, it was so dark that she asked, “Are you sure there’s a party here tonight?” Before he could answer, she walked around the thick shrubs and finally saw the brightly lit barn, and the colored lanterns that were placed along the path from the parking area.

“Look at all these lights and the lanterns and the decorations! I swear, it looks like the moon has been hung above the barn just for tonight. Why didn’t you tell me it would be like this?”

Because he’d never appreciated any of this until right this very second when he could see it through her eyes—eyes that saw the beauty in absolutely everything. But instead of telling her that, he simply held out a hand. “Sounds like the band is already playing. Ready to head in?”

She looked uncertain for a moment before nodding. When she put her hand in his, he realized that holding her that way was shockingly right, as though she really was his girl and he was taking her out for a night of dancing, country style.

Chapter Fifteen

Lori loved how it felt to hold Grayson’s hand. He wasn’t giving her his trust, wasn’t baring his soul to her and letting her try to help him, but even though holding hands was something small, it wasn’t nothing.

Yes, she knew it would be smarter to keep her walls completely up with him. Especially since he’d already proved he knew how to cut her to the quick, that all it took was a few well-placed words and a disgusted expression to rip her heart to shreds.

But now that she had some insight into what he’d suffered, how could she just turn away from him?

Just then, she stumbled over a rock in the dark and Grayson caught her in his arms. And when she looked into the barn over his shoulder, she realized everyone was gawking at them.

“I don’t think you’ll have any problem convincing the neighbors that you’re off the market,” she murmured as she drew back from him.

“Good,” was all he said as he brought her fully inside the barn.

The barn was just as beautifully lit up inside as it was outside. She saw the hay bales lining the large space, the country band playing up on the stage at the far end of the building, the dance floor that had been cleared in front of them, and the drink and food stations positioned all throughout the rest of the barn.

She was the only person in satin and heels, although there were plenty of sequins on display, so at least she’d gotten one thing right. She’d intended to make Grayson look ridiculous...only now she was the one who had to get through the night looking like she should be at the Oscars rather than at a community dance. Whereas Grayson looked exactly right in his dark jeans, denim shirt, cowboy boots, and hat.

“Grayson, glad you could make it.” A man in Wranglers and a big black cowboy hat that matched his shiny black boots patted Grayson on the shoulder hard enough that she could feel it vibrate through her.

“Place looks great, Joe,” Grayson responded. “I’d like you to meet Lori.”

The man tipped his hat to her. “Pretty girls are always welcome in my barn.” He winked at her. “Just don’t tell my wife I said that.”

“What are you not supposed to tell me?” asked an attractive middle-aged woman with honey-blonde hair wearing a jean skirt that fell to her knees and a leather vest over a fitted white shirt. She smiled at Grayson, but her eyes chilled a bit as she took in Lori’s outfit.

“That I’ve never been to a barn dance before,” Lori said with a smile that she hoped didn’t betray how out of place she felt. She hadn’t met this woman at the CSA pick-up, but everyone else had been so nice there she had no reason to think this woman wouldn’t be nice, too. “Everything looks amazing.”

“Thank you,” the other woman said with perfect politeness, before turning back to Grayson and saying, “I’m so pleased you finally decided to come to one of our dances. You’ll have to tell me what changed your mind.”