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...
Chapter Seventeen
Grayson had never wanted anyone the way he wanted Lori, but it wasn’t just physical anymore, even though her beauty while she’d led the entire community in her line dancing choreography had simply stunned him all over again, as though he was seeing her for the very first time.
He wanted to hear her laugh.
He wanted to feel her breathing softly as she fell asleep against him, her head on his shoulder.
And he wanted to see her spin a little dark-haired girl around and around in circles, a girl who looked like both of them, a spitfire who would yell “No” at them just as loudly as she would declare her love before falling asleep in the home they’d made for her and her brothers and sisters.
They were all crazy dreams—especially the last one. Dreams that would never be anything more than pure fantasy...but he already knew those fantasies were what would keep him going long after she left. He also knew that keeping her hidden away on his farm for more than a stolen week or two would unfairly deprive the world of her truly special gifts.
Lori made everything finally seem real, gave meaning to what had only seemed like routine before. It was why he was afraid to put her down, to let her toes touch the ground again. If she changed her mind about tonight, then all the brilliant colors she’d painted for him since she’d blown into his life like a hurricane would turn back to gray.
Even after watching her dance, he’d been trying to keep his distance, had been telling himself he needed to do whatever it took to resist her. But then, from across the barn Eric had come for her, to dance with her, to hold her in his arms...and Grayson had simply broken. He’d had to pull her into his arms, had to give in to how good he knew it would be to waltz with her, to put his arms around her and feel her lay her cheek against his shoulder.
He knew exactly why Lori had run from the barn dance—he wasn’t the only one who had tripped and fallen into the last person on earth he should ever want to hold on to. But all the good reasons to stay away from her were lost in the visions of her laughing with men and women who never usually took to outsiders, the way every little boy and girl in the barn had fallen head over heels in love with her as she danced with them.