Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)(64)

“All this time you’ve been looking for a way to make me leave,” she said, clearly trying to tease him, but sounding more sad than anything else. “But just as you couldn’t get rid of Sweetpea, you’re not getting rid of me this easily, either.” She looked deeply into his eyes, as if to make sure he really saw the truth of what she was saying to him.

I’m coming back to you.

He kissed her then, long and sweet and soft, before saying all the things he should already have said to her a thousand times over. “I’ve never had food as good as what you make, the chickens don’t want to eat scraps from anyone but you, the crops have been growing twice as fast since they first felt your green thumbs...and Mo and the pigs and I have never loved anyone more than we love you.”

“Oh, Grayson.” Her face finally crumbled, her beautiful mouth wobbling, tears running down her cheeks. “It would be so much easier if you’d just be cranky and bossy right now.”

God, the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life was giving up what he wanted so that the woman he loved could get what she needed. “Now that you’ve whipped my farm into shape and taught everyone in Pescadero how to line dance just like they do it in Nashville, it’s time to go show that idiot in Chicago what you’re made of.”

She sniffled, nodded, hugged him close and held on tight. They stood together in her hallway, two people who should never have been together...but who couldn’t ever have found what they’d found with anyone else.

When she suddenly pulled back, her eyes were dry and filled with the resolve and determination that he’d seen on the farm every time he’d challenged her—and she’d challenged him right back. “Before I head off for Chicago and you go back to your farm to feed your chickens, I think that I should teach you a new dance.”

“What’s the dance called?” he asked as she led him into her bedroom.

She was already pulling him down over her on the bed as she answered, “The tangle.”

Chapter Twenty-four

“Lori!” The minute she walked into the Chicago dance hall, her friend Alicia ran over and threw her arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re back.” Alicia pulled away and did a quick once-over. “You’re gorgeous and glowing. I hope that means you’ve found someone to replace the scumbag.”

Scumbag? “What do you know?”

Alicia scowled. “That Victor is a pathetic excuse for a man and a dancer.”

“Who else knows?”

“Everyone.” Her friend’s scowl deepened.

“But—” Lori didn’t get it. How, after nearly two years of hiding the truth about Victor from everyone, did they all suddenly know the score? “How’d you find out?”

“Didn’t your sister tell you?”

Lori raised an eyebrow, at once filled with love for her meddling twin and annoyance that she’d felt she had to step in to deal with Lori’s mess. “My sister didn’t tell me anything. What did she do?”

Alicia looked a little worried now that maybe she’d stepped into something she shouldn’t have. “Just made a couple of calls, I think...”

“And?”

“And, uh, some people came by to talk to Victor. Some big people. With lots of tattoos.”

Perhaps it wasn’t nice of her to laugh at the picture of her ex having to deal with Jake McCann’s Irish-pub-owning friends, but she couldn’t help it.

“Besides,” Alicia added, “when you walked out like that, we guessed something had to be up. The only reason anyone ever put up with Victor was because of you. We love you, Lori. But him?” Her friend made a face. “It’s been horrible since you’ve been gone.”

Lori had done a lot of thinking in the past two weeks, not only about what Victor had done, but about what she’d done, too. It wasn’t her fault that he was an ass**le, but hadn’t she shielded her friends and family from his true personality? Because if they had known what he was really like—that he was selfish, and demanding, and unfaithful—then she would look like an idiot for sticking with him.

“Thank God you’re back to take over for the last week of the show.”

Lori hadn’t planned to stay, tried to form the words to explain to her friend that there was somewhere else she needed to be...but she couldn’t. Not when she felt terrible about leaving her dancers in a bad situation like this in the first place.

And not when she knew that staying to shepherd her dancers through to the end was the right thing to do.

“I’m sorry I left you with Victor.”

“None of us blame you for going. And trust me, no one has any plans to work with Victor or Gloria again. Please say you’re going to chew him to pieces.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Lori assured her friend, “I’ve learned a lot these past couple of weeks about dealing with animals.”

* * *

Victor couldn’t hide his surprise when Lori walked into the small office upstairs.

“Get out of my seat. I have a show to fix.”

At the clear command in her voice, he immediately stood, before realizing he should have stayed right where he was. Holding on to the back of the chair as if to keep his claim on her show intact, he gave her a hurt look.