Always on My Mind Read Free Page A

pretty she was as he studied her earnest expression.
    Crap. It looked like she was. Which meant that instead of only wasting five minutes of his day, it was likely going to take him a good half hour to get her out of here.
    “Is Grayson around somewhere?” She looked around him for someone else.
    “I’m Grayson.”
    Her eyes widened. “Why aren’t you older?”
    He had no idea how to respond to that. Not, of course, that he’d had much of an idea how to respond to any of the conversation he’d had thus far with the stunning woman who had blown into his life without even the slightest hint of warning.
    Instead of answering her strange question, he told her, “My ad wasn’t a joke.”
    “I’m not joking,” she said with a stubborn tilt of her chin.
    His heart raced again from nothing more than seeing the flush in her cheeks while she stood her ground in front of him.
    “Look, I’ve got a lot of work to take care of today before the sun sets.” He gave a pointed look at the fence post. “Like fixing the post you smashed into, for one.”
    Anyone else would have left by then, given the way he was snarling at her, but did this beautiful girl get the hint and get back in her car to leave him the hell alone?
    No.
    Instead of leaving, she took another step toward him on the most gorgeous pair of legs he’d ever seen in his life. “I can help you.”
    He made himself sweep a hard, unimpressed look over her, even though in his previous life he would have drunk her in with extreme pleasure.
    “What experience do you have working on a farm?”
    When she bit her lower lip, his blood pressure shot so high he could actually hear it rushing in his ears over the ongoing complaints of his chickens, who were still in high excitement over the car, the crash, and the very unexpected visitor in her glittering outfit.
    “Well,” she said slowly, “none yet. But I’m very determined.”
    He laughed out loud at that, a rusty sound that held absolutely no pleasure in it.
    “Determination isn’t going to get the new coop finished or the fence post replaced. I need someone who can actually do the work I need them to do.” Jesus, he couldn’t believe he was actually standing here debating her qualifications with her. “You can’t be my new farmhand.”
    She looked momentarily distraught as she stared at him and then back down at his want ad clutched in her fist. He could almost hear the gears churning in her pretty head, before she nodded as if she’d made a decision.
    “Tell me something you need done and I’ll do it. Right now, in front of you, so you can see that I’m serious.” She faced him squarely. “I want this job, Grayson.”
    The sound of his name on her lips, her slightly husky voice playing out the vowels a little longer than the other letters, made his gut clench tight. He didn’t like the way he was reacting to her.
    Didn’t like the fact that he was reacting at all.
    He looked down pointedly at her shoes. “You’re telling me that you’re going to get to work on my farm in those?”
    She glanced down at her sparkly high heels as if she’d forgotten she was wearing them. How, he wondered, could she have possibly forgotten when her feet had to be killing her?
    She shrugged. “Sure. So what do you want me to do?”
    He scowled as he scanned his property for something she could try to do without hurting herself, since he couldn’t waste the time it would take to get her to the doctor. Still, it looked like the thirty-minute delay had just turned into an hour. At least.
     
    * * *
     
    First chance she got, Lori was going to give that kid at the General Store a piece of her mind. Why hadn’t he told her that Grayson was not only young, but also one of the most ridiculously good looking and virile men she’d ever set eyes on?
    Not, of course, that she’d asked, but she could guarantee that if the sandwich maker had been a teenage girl, she wouldn’t have forgotten to mention those very important