Okay, this confirms it.

I’m a masochist. A goddamn motherfucking masochist.

Not unless you want me to.

Why the fuck would I say that?

Yeah, okay so I momentarily forgot I was back in Blue Bay, walking the straight and narrow, and this girl has trouble written all over her. I should stay away from Summer Wheeler—or rather Jenna Garridy—if that’s who she’s pretending to be.

Jenna Garridy, the kid who’d accompanied Summer here a time or two. No way am I getting them mixed up, which begs the question: why is Summer lying to me?

Does she think for one minute that I’d forgotten about the time I pulled her from the water, gave her mouth-to-mouth down by the shore? Her lips were so firm and sweet: spun candy, sugar, and honey all wrapped up into one tasty package. After that incident, she followed me around, and I dodged her at every turn. But fuck, no way could I ever forget about the girl who starred in my first wet dream—and continues to star in them today.

I breathe in her floral scent, take in her freshly scrubbed face, free of makeup, as she squares her shoulders, trying to pull off tough girl. But the act is wasted on me. I know who she really is, and I know underneath her put together appearance and bravado, she’s quaking like a goddamn leaf in a windstorm.

Unable to help myself I sway closer, my body reliving last night. I’d been a little rough, a little greedy with her, but having her in my bed was far too many years in the making. The noises she made, Jesus, they’re still buzzing through my brain, chugging along like a freight train and stirring the need inside me. The moans, the sexy little whimpers, and the way her mouth opened but no sound came when she climaxed.

Fucking perfect.

As my dick swells, she lifts her chin. “If you want to stop by in an hour or so to give me an estimate on the damages, I’d appreciate it.”

My gaze drops to the mouth I ache to ravage again, to lips that are still swollen from my hard kisses. She’s even more beautiful in the afternoon sun, her pretty features no longer masked in the dim light of a grimy hotel. She gathers her bag and makes her way to the door.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, and stare at her jean-clad backside as she exits the store, drops her groceries into the back of her big ass truck, and makes her way across the street to Sugar’s. I give myself a lecture. Run the other way, dude. But I can’t seem to tear my gaze away. Since we’ve already established that I’m a masochist, I step outside and wait for her to emerge so I can watch her lick that ice cream cone the same way I want her to lick my cock.

Motherfucker.

I shove my hands into my pockets, anything to prevent me from whipping out my dick and stroking it. Fuck, why the hell did I agree to work on her place? By rights I should ask one of my brothers, or one of my cousins. I’d do just that, except I’m the only Owens boy who’s made it home so far. Soon enough the guys will all trickle in, just not soon enough for me.

I pace and wipe the moisture from my brow as I bake in the hot afternoon sun. Why did I push for the job?

Because this is Summer Wheeler and she’s walking around with a goddamn lost look on her face. I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a guy to turn his back on girl who’s running—from someone or something.

A few people on the streets pass by me, slowing as recognition hits. I nod, and a couple nod back. Most don’t. Guess they’re not too happy to see one of the problematic Owens boys back in town. But they don’t need to worry. I have no intentions of causing trouble, even though it seems to have found me in the name of Summer.

Or rather Jenna.

Speaking of Jenna, she exits the ice cream shop, and her steps slow to a crawl when she finds me watching. I lean against the brick building and cross my legs, in no hurry to go anywhere. I stare. Transfixed. She pulls her gaze away and scurries down the street, to disappear into one of the boutiques. I want to go after her, demand she tell me what the fuck is going on, but every muscle in my body tenses when a black-and-white pulls up to the curb in front of me.

Fuck. Just what I need. I’ve been in town all of a few hours and I’m already getting hassled by the cops. I push off the wall and straighten to my full height.

“Walker,” I say, as he climbs from the driver’s seat. In the ten years I’ve been gone he hadn’t changed much, just a little rounder around the gut, but still as mean and spiteful as a hairpin turn on a rainy fucking day.

“Sean.” He saunters around his car, his right hand on his hip, near his gun, a gesture meant to intimidate, I suppose. Some would say I have a death wish when out on the open road with my bike. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. Either way, it’s been a long time since I’ve been afraid of anyone or anything. “Heard you were back in town.”

“Miss me?”

He chuckles but it holds no humor. He steps up to me, invades my personal space, close enough that I can smell stale coffee and a cream puff on his breath. I want to push back, it’s a primal reaction, but Grandma Nellie is waiting for her groceries and I’m not interested in finding myself locked up for the night. I have too much shit to do. Plus I’m the oldest Owens, home to put things in order and lead my brothers and cousins by becoming a model citizen.

You need to set an example for the others.

As my father’s words ping around inside my brain, Walker’s nostrils flare. “Listen, pal. Don’t think for one minute I’m going to tolerate you, or any one of your fucking crew tearing up these streets. This is a nice respectable place now and I expect it to stay that way. Understand?”

“Not looking for trouble,” I bite back through clenched teeth. “Just back home to take care of Dad’s funeral arrangements.” I don’t bother to tell him that I’m actually here for good. That will be a nice surprise for later.

At the mention of my dad, he stiffens. The two have a history, which is why Walker has been riding our asses for as long as I can remember. Then again, our rivalry could have less to do with my dad stealing his girl and marrying her back in the day, and more to do with me tearing up the streets on my bike and roughing up the dickless rich boys who summered here and thought they were better than the locals from the other side of the tracks.

He tips his hat. “Yeah, sorry to hear about his passing,” he says, and he looks genuinely apologetic. “Give my blessings to Grandma Nellie.”

I nod and stand over him a moment longer, then his radio goes off and he backs up. I exhale slowly to get rid of my pent-up energy, but it doesn’t work. In times like these I either need a good race or a hard fuck with someone I won’t ever lay eyes on again. Both of which I’ve given up. I give another sweep of the streets before stepping back into Benny’s. The fresh scent of apple pie reaches my nostrils. My olfactory senses kick in, and take me back ten years.

“Hey Benny, how have you been?” I ask, shaking off my encounter with Officer Asshole as I glance at the row of pies cooling on the rack. “I see Judy is still making her fabulous apple pies.”

The old man comes out from around the corner and opens his arms. “Sean,” he says. “So good to see you.” He inches back and his cloudy eyes that see all look me over. “And in one piece.”

“Mostly,” I say, my shoulder taking that moment to pain, a reminder of the break that failed to heal properly. Probably because I’d hopped back on my bike before giving it a chance to. But I had a race to win, something to prove.

He frowns. “Sorry about your dad. He was a good man.”

“Thanks.” I look past his shoulder, unable to take in the deep sadness on his face. If I do, I might fucking sob.

“I see you met the new owner of the Wheeler cottage,” he says, changing the subject, clearly picking up on the shit storm going on inside me. I should have been here. Fuck, I should have been a better son. “I heard you were all coming home, so I gave one of your dad’s cards to her,” he adds, his voice pulling me back.

“Thanks for that. We can use the work.”

“Are you taking the job?” Benny’s eyes narrow, and I get the distinct impression that he’s asking something else entirely. The man is sharp, has been around for years, and I take it he, too, knows Summer is pretending to be someone else. But most probably wouldn’t know her. She’s changed a lot over the years.

“Yeah, I’ll help her,” I say, answering the question he’s really asking.

He puts his hand on my shoulder. “You’re a good boy, Sean.”

I scratch the back of my head. “So, uh, Grandma sent me here to pick up her order.”

He nods. “It’s a big one. I guess she’s preparing for the return of all her grandsons.” He waves toward the row of brown bags piled behind the cash register.

“Looks like she’s cooking for an army.” Then again, I guess, in a way she is. When the Owens brothers and cousins convene, we do form an army, and impenetrable force. Fuck with one Owens, you fuck with them all. It’s always been that way, and we grew even closer with our cousins, Ryan, Carter and Jace when their parents, my aunt and uncle, died in a car crash when they were young. All three moved into the old homestead with us and Dad treated them like they were his own, and yeah, he was just as hard on them, too. “Good thing I brought the truck.”

Benny shuffles his way back to the counter, his leather loafers scratching against the scuffed floor. “Let me help you.”

“No I got this,” I say and follow him to load up the bags. I steal a glance around the mom-and-pop store. Other than the jars of candy he used to keep on the counter, not much has changed in the years I’ve been gone. Back in the day Benny used to slip me a candy whenever I came in. In return, I’d help him with his deliveries. I always liked the old man, but Jesus he should be retired by now.

I finish loading the last bag, and wave. “Talk to you soon, Benny. Give Judy a hug for me.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” he says, and the bell overhead rings as I shut the door and climb into my truck. I turn the ignition over, and pass Summer’s truck when I spin around in the middle of the street and head back to the old homestead.

How the hell am I going to do a walk-through of her place without wanting to put my hands all over her again? My dick throbs in anticipation, and I work to marshal it. I crack my window and suck in a breath of humid air. I really should wait until one of the guys come home and give him the job. Getting tangled up in her mess, whatever it might be, isn’t conducive to walking the straight and narrow. But how the fuck am I supposed to walk away? My late mother and Grandma Nellie raised me better than that.

I drive for a few more miles and my heart squeezes when I pull into the lane leading to the big house built by my great-grandfather when Blue Bay was a whaling village, long before the tourists began flocking here. I slow my speed, and look past my motocross bike in the driveway, to the big house rising up behind it.

Dad was the best carpenter in all of Connecticut but his own place is in need of repair. A wooden swing moves in the summer breeze, and I study the front porch, the sagging roof over it. My gaze slowly moves to the room he added on when I was away.

His office.

My office now, I suppose, now that the old man is gone. Bile punches into my throat as his loss crashes over me, and a blind fist hammers my gut, fierce and punishing.

I can’t believe he’s gone.

Nellie steps outside and hurries to the truck, and I harden myself. I don’t want her to see my pain. “Did you get my shortening?” She begins to peek into all the bags.

“I don’t know. Didn’t look through.”

She gives me that look—the one that could scare the head off a chicken and helped keep us boys in line after we lost our mother during our rebellious teen years. “I can’t bake your favorite pie if you didn’t get my shortening.”

“I’m sure it’s all in there, Gram.”

She picks up two bags and carries them into the house. I shake my head. No matter what she’s been through, she’s still as tough as a tractor. I follow with an armload and she’s already unloading her bags by the time I reach her. I begin to help her, but she swats at me like I’m a nuisance fly.

“Get. You know I don’t like anyone fussing in the kitchen with me.”

I shake my head again. Some things never change. I turn to leave her to her baking, but when I do I feel the heavy emptiness of the place. Hollow silence. Ghosts in every corner. I swallow. Maybe some things do change.

The last time I was home this house was filled with my brothers and cousins, laughing around the table, fighting on the living room floor, or helping dad with one chore or another. I cough down the lump climbing into my throat.

“I’ll be in Dad’s office. Have some paperwork to look over,” I say, trying to inject a lightness in my voice I don’t feel. But right now, if Gram turns to hug me, or console me in any sort of way, I might fucking lose it.

The screen door squeals as I push through it, and I make a mental note to oil it. The heat of the day closes around me as I make my way to Dad’s office. I try the door and it’s open. Of course. I walk in, and my father’s presence slams through me like a physical blow. A spill on my bike followed by full-force trauma to the head would have been less painful. Grief presses down on me, heavy, suffocating, weaving its way around me and sucking the air from my lungs. I try to breathe past it when all I want to do is to lie down and curl around it, let it consume me. I squeeze my eyes shut and work to keep my shit together. When I open them again, I catalog the room. I need to go over the books, but where the hell do I start?

Files and papers are strewn everywhere. Oak bookshelves lining one wall, Dad’s handiwork, overflows with balled-up permits and forms and invoices, some marked paid, others still owing. He was a carpenter, for Christ’s sakes, not an accountant. Why the hell didn’t he hire someone to help?

Because he was waiting for one of his boys to step up and be the man he needed them to be.

Unable to breathe, I sink into the chair. The same one he’d died in. Wide open and vulnerable, I choke back the tears burning behind my eyes, ears, and throat. I pinch my lids shut, and work diligently to refill my lungs. A rumble catches in my throat as my fingers curl around the arms of the chair and squeeze until my knuckles turn white.

I pray to fucking God he didn’t suffer too much, that his life passed quickly and he didn’t have time to think about his dick-ass sons who’d abandoned the Owens homestead the first chance they could. I lean forward and drop my head onto his desk. In the balled-up letter still stuffed in my back pocket, Nellie wrote that the heart attack was quick and painless, but I call bullshit. My guess is she only said that for my benefit. She always was one to protect her grandsons, especially when the old man was tearing us a new one. We never could live up to the expectations he had of us.

As betrayal eats at me, rakes my insides raw and leaves me bleeding, the office door opens. I straighten, half expecting it to be Dad, storming in to yell at me for lying down on the job. My gaze meets eyes identical to mine and I jump from my seat.

“Look what the fucking cat dragged in.”

Tyler, my tough-ass baby brother, gives me a once-over. The devil’s grin spreads across his pretty boy face—his innocence long gone. Much like the rest of us. “You’re one to talk.”

I circle the desk and step up to him. He might be the baby of the family, but he has a few inches on me. I grab his chin, turn his head from left to right. “What happened to that pretty face of yours?” I ask, rattling his cage.

“Got prettier,” he says, jerking from my hold.

I smirk. “You must be punch-drunk, little brother. Looks to me like someone’s mistaken your face for a punching bag.”

“Don’t be so jealous that I got all the looks in the family, bro.”

I throw my arms around him and drag him to me. “I’m glad you’re home.” We hug and it feels good. Actually it feels like a long fucking time coming. “Missed you, kid.”

He fists my shirt. “Don’t be going and getting all sentimental on me,” he says, even though he’s holding me to him instead of pushing me way. “Or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

I inch back, and he pins me with a scowl, but I don’t miss the moisture in his eyes. He sniffs and tries to hide it. My heart seizes as reality hits. I’d left Tyler, too. Jesus fucking Christ. I’d climb straight into hell for this kid, no questions asked, but I’d been so goddamn selfish, out for my own pleasures, and to prove some bullshit worthiness to the world—my father—that it hadn’t occurred to me that when I turned my back on Dad, I walked away from a fourteen-year-old boy who needed his big brother. I’d set an example, which is probably why he left first chance, too. Jesus, we’ve all been through so much, it’s been away too long. It’s time I do right by this family. I owe them that much and I never want to let my father down again.

I make a fist and nudge his chin. “If I didn’t have so much to do, I’d meet you in the ring, and prove I’m still your big brother.”

He laughs, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “We don’t have rings where I fight, brother.” He looks past me, takes stock of the office, and the air grows heavier as silence beats down on us. His eyes meet mine again, and he swallows. His way of fighting off the rawness? Probably.

“When’s the funeral?” he asks, addressing the big elephant in the room, one that’s taking up space. Hollowing us out inside.

I walk back to Dad’s desk and plunk down into his old chair. I can almost feel him in the room, looking at us with disgrace for abandoning the family, the business. But fuck man, he was a hard-ass son of a bitch. Unbearable. Intolerable. Set in his ways, and a motherfucking nightmare to work with.

I miss him so fucking much.

All I ever wanted was his approval, for him to just once tell me I was doing a good job—that he was proud of me. I suspect the same of Tyler, and every other Owens offspring. I grab a pen and tap it against the file on the desk. “He’s been cremated. Those were his wishes. We’ll bury him next to Mom at the cemetery as soon as everyone gets back.”

He plunks himself down into the hard wooden chair across from me and swallows uneasily. “Where do we start?”

I glance around the room. “I need to go over the books and see what kind of shape the company is in. From what Grandma Nellie said, Dad hadn’t been taking on too many jobs over the last few years and bills were piling up.” I plan to put all the money I won on the circuit into getting the business booming again. I’ll need to pay outstanding bills, have money for supplies and outlay of expenditures, as well as pay the guys. I can’t expect them to work for nothing after dragging them all back here. It’s going to eat up all my savings, but Ty doesn’t need to know that.

“How’s Grandma?”

I scoff. “Tough as ever, and in the kitchen cooking up a feast.”

Ty rubs his stomach. “I miss her cooking. Hope she’s making meatloaf.”

I take in his muscled body. Hard as granite. Unbreakable steel. “Doesn’t look like that stopped you from getting a meal,” I say, implying he’s gotten a little soft around the middle.

“Stop with the jealousy, bro,” he teases. I laugh, and it eases the tension inside me. To look at Tyler, a tough-as-nails underground brawler, you’d never know that beneath it all he’s funny, charming, soft as fuck. We all are.

“What the fuck is wrong with Walker anyway?” Tyler asks.

I stiffen. “He’s riding you, too?”

He pulls something from his back pocket and slams it on the desk. “Speeding ticket.”

“Bastard.”

Tyler scoffs. “I was going five miles over the limit. What the fuck is still up his ass anyway?”

“Call your brothers and cousins. Warn them Walker is looking to make his mark on us and prove he runs this town.”

Ty nods, and pushes his hair from his face. “Yeah, all right. I’d better go see Gram.”

He stands, and turns to leave. “Ty,” I say to stop him. I hadn’t expected him back so soon, and now that he’s here I can give him our first renovation job, the Wheeler cottage.

“Yeah.” He turns back, and scrubs his hand over his chin, his knuckles beaten and tattooed, but it’s his scars we can’t see that worry me.

I open my mouth, but instead of putting him straight to work, I say, “Good to have you back.”

Fuck me hard.