I'm wiping the sweat from my forehead when Josie pulls into the driveway mid-afternoon. Buck left a few minutes ago, wanting to make sure I was doing what I said I’d do. I appreciate that they checked in on me. After all, I am just a stranger and this is their town, their community. And hell, I told him I’d just got out of the slammer. The fact they trust me means a helluva lot.

Josie is in a little SUV and when she steps out, her face lights up.

"You're here."

I stand, setting down the nail gun and nod slowly, not trusting myself to say anything, because what I'd say would wipe that sweet smile straight off her face. My thoughts are dirty, devious. After spending the last few hours here, outside her home, all I've been thinking about is carrying her up to her bedroom, untying her little apron, and telling her it was high time I placed another order.

"So Jax trusted you with this job?" She saunters toward me and I'm disappointed for a second to see the apron has already come off. But then I realize it is just one less thing to get rid of before I have my way with her.

I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but damn, this woman has consumed me from the moment we met. I know what I want.

"Do you like what you see?" I ask, watching as she inspects the progress. I have a saw set up on a plank of wood that rests on a pair of sawhorses. The green grass is covered in sawdust, and a pile of rotten wood has been tossed aside after I ripped up the old flooring.

"This is amazing," she says peering over the edge of the porch. I removed the steps, so she can’t get up to inspect my work. "You ready for a break? Looks like you could use a beer."

I run a rag over my neck, wiping the sweat there and nod, my cock tightening at the prospect of spending some time with her, alone, and I follow her around the house to the back door.

"The house is really old," she says. "But my Granddad loved this place. And I loved him. I'm a sucker for nostalgia. He died this year and left the place to me." She opens the door and I follow her into the kitchen. "Oh, I bet Jax told you all that."

"He filled me in," I say looking around the vintage kitchen. "Sorry about your granddad."

"Thanks. He was sick for a long time, and I know he was in a lot of pain. Still, I miss him of course. And this spring I'll miss the sound of his old tv blaring the baseball scores. Or the giant zucchini from his garden that he never picks soon enough. I'll miss the way he always had a pitcher of sun tea in the fridge, always ready to pour me a glass." Josie bites her bottom lip, shaking her head. "Sorry," she says. "Guess I'm a sucker for good memories, too."

"Don't apologize," I tell her. "I can't recall ever meeting my grandparents, so I think you're really lucky, Josie."

"Thanks," she says. "But this place he left me is due for a massive overhaul. I want a classic farmhouse kitchen with an apron sink, the hardwood floors refinished, the claw foot bathtub re-enameled. I want it to look straight out of a 1940’s photograph."

I look around, trying to see what she sees. "This house has tons of character, but I can see why you want it renovated."

The appliances look thirty years old, the linoleum floor is broken in places, and the Formica countertops are peeling.

"Yeah, it’s a big project. Do you see this wallpaper?" she asks smiling. The walls are covered in 70's mushrooms and orange and yellow leaves.

"What else did Jaxon say when he showed you around?"

"He said not to do anything stupid when it came to you."

"He's always trying to act like my big brother." She reaches in the fridge and grabs two beers. I take them from her and pop off the bottle tops with my hand, giving her one back. We raise our beers, then take a sip, as we head back outside.

"Have you known him long?" I ask as she leads me to a side garden where there are a few chairs set up around a fire pit.

"Oh, just a little over a year or so." She tells me how she moved here to help with her granddad but fell in love with the town and the people. How everyone here seems to have a half a dozen babies and how she helps the women out as often as she can, because, according to her, babies are the cutest things ever.

Her words, not mine.

We sit, drinking our beer, and she cocks her head to the side. "Sorry. Do I sound baby crazy?"

I laugh. "Naw. Sounds like you found a pretty perfect place to settle down though."

She laughs too, the sound of her voice filling the blue sky. Looking at her makes me wonder how I ended up here at all. She is fresh air and sun rises and the last five years of my life have been nothing but concrete and restrictions. She is the breath of life I need; the oxygen my body craves.

"What about you?" she says, leaning back in the chair. "Why are you out here on your own?"

"It's a sad story."

"Yeah?" Josie leans in, waiting for me to say more.

"Yeah," I take another sip of beer. I already told Jax, Buck, and Hawk most of my story before they agreed to take me on and with good reason. They need to make sure I wasn't a fucking whatever and since Hawk had been to jail himself, he gave the other guys his perspective.

Every man needs a second chance.

And I don't exactly want to hash it out again, so soon.

Especially when I know it would scare a woman like Josie. Hell, it would scare any woman. "I never had much family," I tell her. "Left South Carolina when I was eighteen, a buddy from school had a relative in Idaho who needed some guys for his construction crew, so we moved out together. Building houses and learning the trade."

"And you've been here ever since?"

"Yeah. It's a good place, lots of trees, lots of land. Good people." I smile, running a hand over my beard. "I grew up in a small mountain town, and it's where I feel most at home."

"But I bet you miss shrimp and grits," Josie says with her eyebrows raised.

I give her a slow smile. "What do you know about grits, girl?"

She shrugs. "Not much, to be honest. Went to visit a second cousin once in the south though, and they were crazy about their grits."

"And what are you crazy about, Josie? Besides babies?"

She finishes her beer and sets it down in the gravel. "I'm pretty simple, Beau. I like the diner, making people smile.” She twists her lips, thinking. “And my granddad’s house, I guess you could say I'm pretty crazy about it."

"A big house for one woman."

She swallows. "Yeah, my dad thinks I should sell it. That I should move back to Boise."

"But you don't wanna?"

She shakes her head. "I don't. I went to Boise State for college. Got a degree in finance, of all things. But I don't know, a job at a bank seems like my entire existence would be about paying bills and getting by. I'd like to think life could be about more than that."

I nod. This girl and I may come from different places, but somehow, we both ended up here, right now.

In this moment.

And maybe we aren't that different when you look at what matters.

"It's not the worst thing to want a life that not everyone understands, is it?" I ask her.

"No, no it's not." She tilts her head to the side as if gauging me. "And what about you Beau? Do people understand you?"

"Not usually."

"What do they usually think?"

"That I'm the sum of my past mistakes instead of a man who wants to fight for his future."

Her eyes soften, and she looks at me with a tenderness I didn't realize I needed so damn badly. "And your future, you're ready for it?"

"For the last five years, I've been aching to chase whatever life has for me."

She pushes she lips forward, suppressing a smile.

"What?" I ask.

"And all that fighting, it brought you here?"

I nod, standing, and reaching for her hands. We are standing but a foot apart, and I take both her hands in my own and damn, her skin is smooth, and her eyes are bright. She is the sunrise, the dawn I need. A fresh start, a clean slate.

She is a new beginning.

"It did, Josie. It brought me right here."

I look down at her, wanting to risk it all with a kiss, wondering if she's as ready for this as I am.

But I don't have to take any chances because she pulls up on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around my neck.

She does need this as badly as I do.

Whispering she asks, "Are you hungry for a Josie Special?"

My cock is stiff at her words, at her proximity, with the knowledge that this is going to happen exactly as I dreamed the entire afternoon as I was hammering away on her front porch, picturing her sweet body grinding against me.

"Girl," I groan. "With you in my arms, it's like I've been starving my whole damn life."

Then I kiss her.