Of course Lori would know where he’d been today without his saying a word. It was one of the many reasons why they were so perfect together. He was a man who didn’t say much, and she was a woman who knew how to listen to a look, a touch, a glance. A kiss. And, tonight, he knew exactly what she was doing, talking and teasing and eating as though his being here with her in the city that held all of his personal demons was perfectly normal. He’d never met anyone who was so openly emotional, or so willing to share her heart.
He could see how much every one of her dancers, and the show’s producer, adored her. And for good reason. Lori was completely adorable, even with grease dripping from the corner of her greedy mouth.
He wiped it away with the tip of his finger before saying, “She asked if you were pretty.”
Lori looked absolutely delighted with that, even as her eyes grew soft and a little misty with emotion. “You really do have great taste in women, you know.”
Grayson knew he hadn’t done everything he needed to do yet. He still needed to sit down and talk with Leslie’s parents, and his parents were in Europe, so he couldn’t introduce Lori to them. But while talking to Leslie at her grave hadn’t been easy, it hadn’t destroyed him, either. He’d come back, soon, to say the rest of what he should have said so many years ago, to everyone he should have said it to.
But this time, he’d have Lori by his side every step of the way, along with an angel watching over both of them.
He reached for his pizza, but his plate was empty. Of course, he knew just where to look for it: in Lori’s mouth.
“You weren’t eating it,” she said with her mouth full.
Even as he growled at her to give up his slice or else, he knew she was right.
He really did have great taste in women.
Chapter Twenty-six
Grayson didn’t know if he’d ever get used to being with a woman so beautiful that she turned heads everywhere they went, and so friendly that half the people on the plane home from New York now had an invitation to come visit the farm. But even though there was no question that life with Lori would be a hell of a lot to handle, he did know one thing for sure: Just as her mother had told him, she was worth all the struggles and frustrations that came with loving her.
Smart woman, that Mary Sullivan. No wonder she’d raised eight great kids. Grayson looked forward to spending time with her over the coming years.
He’d figured Lori would want to go by her apartment to pick up some of her favorite things, but when she said she was too antsy to get back to the farm—and that moving their sister’s stuff was what big brothers were for—they headed straight to Pescadero from the airport. Although they did make one quick stop at the airport’s rental-car office, where she smacked a kiss straight on the lips of the very surprised woman behind the counter.
“You were right. Pescadero was amazing!” Lori had gestured to Grayson, and he would have kissed her to shut her up again, but she’d been having such a good time that he let her say, “Look what I found there.”
The woman looked from Lori to him in confusion for a moment, before her lips curved up into a big smile. “And to think, all I ever came home with from Pescadero was a sack of organic carrots and some pretty pictures of the coast.”
In his truck, Lori had turned on the local country station way too loud and was singing along in an equally loud, off-key voice, when she suddenly cried, “Stop the truck!”
The dire tone of her voice had him slamming his foot on the brake. Before he knew it, she was scrambling out of her seat and running across the road after what looked to be a white plastic bag.
He leapt out of the car and hollered, “Get out of the road!” Of course, she didn’t listen, not until she’d finally caught the tumbling bag in her hands.
When she turned back to him, her expression broke his heart. “It’s a kitten.” She tore open the bag all the way and scooped out a little ball of fur, telling it, “You’re safe now.”
Grayson kept an eye out for oncoming traffic on the two-lane farm road as he went to her. Lori was already sneezing, but he knew that wasn’t why her eyes were wet.
“Sweetpea sent her to us.” She kissed the fluff between its ears. “She looks like a Millie, don’t you think?”
“Actually, I was thinking he looks like a Bob.”
She grinned at him and nodded, and for a moment he thought maybe she was going to agree with him. That is, until she said, “Come on, Milliebob, let’s go home.”
For the rest of the drive, she chattered to the kitten—whom he swore he’d never, ever call Milliebob, even as he knew he’d be breaking the vow by week’s end—telling the little cat all about the farm and the other animals and how much she was going to love it there. As soon as he pulled up, Lori jumped out of the truck to take the kitten to meet the pigs she’d named after her brothers and sisters.
Later that evening as they walked outside, hand in hand, to be together in the cool, dark silence that you could only get on a thousand acres, Lori told him, “I really missed it here.”
Her voice was full of awe at the beauty all around them. An hour ago, she’d been covered in mud and had been as happy as a pig in it. Now she was fresh from the shower he’d given her out by the barn, one that had started with soap and ended with pleasure.
Lori stopped short as they passed the large grove of oak trees and she saw the new foundation he’d been putting in. “What’s this?”
He’d missed her like crazy every second she’d been in Chicago and New York City, so much that he’d thrown himself into this huge new project, praying with every board he’d cut for the forms, every nail he’d hammered, that she’d actually come back to him.
“A studio. For you. And your dancers.”
She threw her arms and legs around him and was about to kiss him when the night sky suddenly lit up so much that they both turned to look up at it.
“A shooting star!” Her eyes shone with excitement and happiness as she gazed down at him. “What did you wish for?”
Standing in the middle of wildflowers and blades of dark green grass beneath the stars, Grayson pulled a ring out of his pocket. “I wished for you to be mine. Always.”
And as Lori told him she’d always been his, and promised that she always would be, the two of them danced together on a thousand-acre stage beneath the spotlight of the moon.
* * *
Three months later...