Always on My Mind Page 0,89

They need you." And she needed them just as much. It was something he'd never doubted for a minute.

It wasn't until she was finally silent for a long moment that he knew something else was up.

"I want so badly to come back to you and the farm the second the show is over, but..."

Another pause came and he had to grab a kitchen chair and sit down to brace himself for it.

"A friend of mine needs me to go to New York City to be a last-minute replacement for the lead in his show, which means I'll need to fly from Chicago to New York to perform at the International Dance Exhibition the following weekend before I can catch a red-eye to come back to you."

Grayson wanted to beg, even wanted for a minute to be bitter that she'd chosen dancing over him. But how could he do either of those things when he knew she was making all the right choices?

Of course she had to do both shows. And of course she'd have to do all the other shows that would come next, opportunities she couldn't possibly turn down. Not only because so many people in her industry depended on her, but also because she was meant to dance, and to keep dancing.

But she was also meant to be with him, damn it.

Grayson wanted to see her dance. And he wanted to be as brave for her as she'd been for him. Not only in the way she'd insisted on loving him after he'd tried so hard to push her away, but by confronting the man who had hurt her so that she could love again with a whole heart.

Lori had been brave enough to face down her past.

It was long past time for him to do the same.

Chapter Twenty-five

Grayson stepped off the plane in New York and found the driver waiting for him by the luggage carousels. For a moment, it felt as though the past three years hadn't happened. As though this were just another business trip, and he was simply heading home to Westchester to shower and change and have a pre-dinner drink with Leslie, where both of them tried to act interested in things they didn't actually care about at all.

When he gave the address to the driver, to the man's credit, he barely betrayed a response. In the backseat of the town car, Grayson took out the picture of Lori as a little girl that Mary Sullivan had given to him at Sunday lunch. He'd kept it with him every second since she'd been gone, and it never failed to bring a smile to his face, even now.

Both of her front teeth were missing, she was wearing ripped boys' jeans and a T-shirt that were both at least two sizes too big, and she was hands down the prettiest thing he'd ever seen in his life as she leapt through the air, dancing in the middle of her crowded backyard. He could see the way, even at eight, that she'd blossom into such a striking beauty. He could also see that she was too determined, too stubborn, to ever allow anything or anyone to take away her joy, her love for life.

Grayson wanted to be worthy of sharing that life with her, but he wanted something else, too. He wanted, one day, to take pictures of his own little girl as she danced and laughed and loved just like her beautiful mother.

At the entrance was a flower stand and Grayson asked the driver to stop, tucking the picture into the pocket above his heart as he opened the door and stepped out of the car. He didn't buy the biggest, flashiest bouquet. Instead, he bought a small bouquet of bright tulips, Leslie's favorite flower.

"I'll walk from here," he said to the driver, who nodded and pulled over to the curb to wait.

The cemetery looked the same as it had three years ago during his wife's funeral, the last time he'd ever been here. The grass was perfectly green and meticulously mowed. The sky was full of dark clouds that looked as if they would burst with rain at any moment, the gray, cold sky so different from the clear blue over his farm.

As he approached Leslie's gravestone, he could see that it was polished clean and bright, with an enormous bouquet of flowers in a vase beside it that he knew had to be from her parents.

The last time he'd been here, he'd