Always on My Mind Page 0,75

she'd stormed into his life and turned everything upside down before he ever had a chance to stop her.

Maybe it wasn't fair to lay this on her now, to combine love and death into one moment. But if there was one thing Grayson had learned during the past three years, it was that life wasn't fair. The weather could take out his crops overnight. A healthy animal could fall sick so suddenly that there was no time to call the vet.

And a beautiful girl could show up on his doorstep and change his life with no warning at all, leaving him no time to figure out how to guard his heart from her.

"I love you."

She was still sobbing, her tears soaking his shirt, as she lifted her head to face him. Her eyes were red and her nose was running...and she'd never looked more beautiful to him.

"What did you just say?"

It figured that when he finally lost his heart again, it would be like this. To a woman who had driven him crazy from the moment he set eyes on her.

"I said..." He paused so that she wouldn't miss it this time. "I. Love. You."

Her sobs receded as she blinked at him in shock. "You love me?"

She said it as though it was the craziest idea in the world. As though there was no way he could possibly love her.

Frustration - the familiar frustration he'd felt since that first day, when she'd told him she was going to be the best farmhand he'd ever had - started to eat at him.

"Yes." He tried not to growl the words at her. "I love you."

He waited for her to smile. To throw her arms around him. To declare her love right back to him.

Instead, she said, "Are you sure you're not just saying it because of Sweetpea? Because if this is some crazy idea you have to make me feel better..."

Damn it. Couldn't a guy declare his love to a girl without getting twenty questions thrown back at him, not to mention heaps of disbelief?

Not trusting himself to speak this time - he'd yell at her and then she'd yell back and then the next thing you knew, there'd be doors slamming, and none of that would be fair when she was still sad about the cat - he picked her up and headed toward the bedroom.

"Where are you going? What are you doing?"

"I'm going to prove to you that I love you, damn it," he said between gritted teeth.

He tossed her onto the bed. Hard enough that she caught air.

"I just bounced." She looked utterly amazed by it.

He ripped his clothes off and then came at her. "You're going to bounce again if you're not careful."

Damn it, this wasn't the sweet, careful wooing that he should be doing to prove that he loved her. But she drove him so crazy he couldn't think straight, couldn't stop himself from yanking her shirt and jeans and boots off, too.

"I love you," he said as he threw her boots across the room, where they hit the wall and fell with a satisfying thud to the floor. "So that means you're going to have to love something again. I know you hate doing anything I say, but this time you're going to have to. Because you're going to love me back. I'm going to make sure of it."

She only had on her bra and panties now, but suddenly it was irrelevant that he was naked and she was nearly there when she said yet one more time, "You really love me?" as if it couldn't possibly be true. But behind the disbelief, he heard something else.

Fear.

She'd always acted so sure about everything, even when she wasn't. His chest clenched at the thought of his proud, brave girl ever being afraid again. He wouldn't stand for it, wouldn't let her be scared of anything just because she'd made some crappy choices about men before she met him.

Lori Sullivan had been born to face life down, to laugh, and to dance.

And to be his.

"I'd say it again if I thought you were finally going to believe me," he said as he pounced on her. He threaded his hands into her incredibly soft hair. "Now be quiet so I can prove to you that I love you. And that you love me, too."

Of course she opened her mouth to say something, so he covered it with his and kissed the words away.

No more words. He wasn't any good