“New shoes?”

Her eyes were wide with surprise and when he nodded, she smiled up at him. Even covered nearly head to toe in mud, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever been near.

Her smile grew even bigger as she told him, “You’re forgiven.”

And that was when Grayson realized he was sunk.

Because if he wasn’t really, really careful, Lori Sullivan was just going to keep stealing his heart one sentence, one meal, one smile at time.

“There’s an outdoor shower on the other side of the barn. Go use it.”

With that he turned his focus to fixing the gate of the pigpen...and not on what Lori must look like naked and soapy in the outdoor shower on the other side of the barn.

Chapter Eight

It was amazing what a hot shower and some soap could do for a person. Lori felt like a new woman in clean skinny black pants and a red shirt. Knowing they were actually going into town, she’d pulled her makeup bag out and swiped on some mascara, blush, and lip gloss. The only clean shoes she had left were heels, so she picked a red and black pair with three-inch heels, slung her purse over her arm, and headed back out the porch to see if Grayson was ready to go.

He took one look at her and his scowl deepened. She would have scowled back, but she guessed it would irritate him more if she smiled instead.

She might have forgiven him for being a total jerk out there with the pigs, but it still smarted that he’d immediately jumped to conclusions and treated her as if she were a few brain cells short of a full set and couldn’t even manage her way around the simplest thing. She’d gone to dance school in California, but she’d turned down several Ivy League schools to do it.

Without saying a word to her, he headed for his truck. She shot an evil grin at his broad back. The trip to the General Store from his farm took about fifteen minutes, and she figured a quarter hour was easily long enough to get a little revenge for the way he’d acted in the pigpen.

As they headed down his long drive, she let herself study his profile. His cowboy hat was pulled down over his slightly long, dark hair and with the dark stubble already growing back in across his tanned jaw, he looked more gorgeous than ever.

Not to mention extremely unhappy to be stuck with her as his passenger.

Facing him rather than the beautiful view of the sweeping green fields outside, she asked, “Were you related to the people you bought the farm from?”

His jaw tightened, but he must have realized he was well and truly trapped with her in his truck because he said, “No.”

“Did you own a different farm somewhere else before you got this one?”

“No.”

She was tempted to pull a piece of paper and pen out of her bag to keep track of how many words he answered with during the next fifteen minutes. So far, she’d have a grand total of two.

“But you grew up in Pescadero, right?”

“No.”

Didn’t he realize he was only making her more curious with his purposely terse—and very mysterious—answers?

“Where did you grow up, then?”

He scowled. “It’s a good four miles to either my farm or the General Store from here.” He looked at her shoes. “Gonna make your feet pretty damned sore to have to walk all that way in those ridiculous shoes if I dump you out right here.”

She shrugged as if the thought didn’t bother her in the least. “Someone’s bound to pick me up and give me a ride.”

“Lori.”

Her name was little more than an irritated growl from his throat. One that got her way too hot, considering that Grayson was the last guy on earth she should be interested in. He was so grumpy, and bossy, and domineering...and super, crazy, wicked hot.

Her ex had always been so full of sweet, sexy words, had known how to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, but all those words had turned out to be nothing but lies. Whereas when rough, gruff Grayson growled at her, she could only too easily imagine how it would sound if he also growled her name when they were making love and he was moving his big, strong hands over every inch of her naked skin.

Fortunately, she was smarter now. And completely off men. Which was why she would turn her libido off and very carefully stay on task. There was still the very important matter of getting her revenge for the pigpen incident, after all.

And since she knew exactly how much Grayson hated the sound of her voice—and that sharing personal details clearly felt to him like being gutted with a knife—the best thing she could possibly do was keep on asking him questions.

“You were about to tell me where you grew up,” she said, pleased to see a muscle now jumping in his jaw.

“New York.”

“What part?”

“The city.”

Okay, now they were getting somewhere with his new, fancy two-word answers. “I love New York City. I almost went to Columbia,” she told him, “but in the end I couldn’t imagine being that far away from my family.” And dance training had taken precedence over everything else. Maybe, she wondered now that she was giving up her dance career, it might have been a good idea to get a broader education. Although the truth was that no matter what her future held, she wouldn’t have given up all those years of dancing from morning until late into the night for anything.

Grayson had stopped at a stop sign now and was staring at her, his dark, haunted eyes full of surprise. “Columbia is my alma mater.”

“You went to Columbia?” Realizing how her question sounded, she said, “Not that I don’t think it takes a lot of brains to run a big farm like yours. I’m sure it does. I’ve just never met anyone who graduated from an Ivy League and became a farmer. What was your degree in?”

“Finance.”

Both of her eyebrows went up. “So if you have a degree in finance from one of the best universities in the country and only bought your farm three years ago, what were you doing for all the time in between?”

By now she honestly wasn’t trying to irritate him—she was simply curious about him.

“I get it,” he said, instead of answering her last question. “You’re not happy with the way I dealt with the pig getting out, so you’re going to torture me with endless questions.”

“My ears are still ringing from your yelling.”

“Would it make you happier if I apologized?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “You? Apologize?” She made a clear sound of disbelief. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to see one of your pigs fly first.”