Chapter 2

"I just walked out." I answered my best friend's call as I punched the clock, finishing another week at the grind. "I have to go home and shower. Try to get the grease off my hands and look presentable."

I couldn't stop the laugh that rang through the phone. Beau didn't give a shit if I had black outlines around my nails, but I knew his fiancée sure as hell did.

"Are you going to make it to the church on time?" Beau's apprehension could've been nerves or Felicity riding his ass.

I'd never let him down and I wasn't going to start today. "I'll be there."

"Sounds good. See you in a couple of hours."

I ended the call as I continued through the parking lot of the machine shop I'd worked at since graduating from high school. Beau had gone off to college-where he'd met Felicity-but most of our graduating class had stayed in this one-horse town our parents brought us into.

"Lee!" Masyn hollered from her car.

I turned toward her and kept walking backward.

"My car won't start. Can you take me home and then pick me up for Beau's rehearsal thing?"

Masyn was like one of the guys, and she had been since we were kids. Her hands matched my own, and so did her work ethic-she hung with the toughest of men with grace. I didn't have time to drop her off across town and then pick her up later. "I'll take you home to grab your shit. You can shower and get ready at my house. I don't have time to make two trips. Come on."

She huffed, resigned to my solution. "Fine." Her head disappeared from sight when she ducked into her car and then quickly reappeared and shut the door.

I turned toward my truck when I saw her jogging in my direction with her Dickie work shirt tied around her waist. Regardless of whether she was one of the guys, she was still a chick and deserved to be treated like a lady, so I opened her door and helped her into the truck, trying not to take notice of her ass in the process. She situated herself on the bench seat, and I paused, captivated by how small her hands looked while she buckled her seatbelt, and how dainty they appeared covered in grease. She was oblivious to my interest. It wasn't until I realized she was staring at me the way I was staring at her fingers that I snapped out of my trance and closed her door. The instant I cranked the engine, Masyn had her hand on the dashboard, finger-fucking the radio.

"Just because we live in Podunk, USA, doesn't mean we have to listen to the same type of music." Her smile melted hearts, even though she wouldn't let anyone have hers.

"There's nothing wrong with country."

"There's nothing right about it, either." She slid her fingers into her hair and unwound the tie that had held it in a knot all day. When she let it down, an urge to reach over and grab hold of it swept through me, and damn, was that impulse ever a force to be reckoned with. I wanted nothing more than to sink my hands into those heavy strands and take control. It was the color of motor oil-black when you looked at it straight on-and streaked with golds and browns when the sun hit it, and when she let it down, it was my wet dream come true-long, thick, and perfect to grab on to.

It was easier to let her have her way than to fight with her. She'd win regardless. Masyn Porter didn't know it, but she'd owned me since tenth grade. Right about the same time that Alex Hartford had demolished her in front of the entire student body-that day, that very event, had cut her off to the male population. It hadn't opened her up to female relationships, it just shut her out of relationships entirely.

Six years hadn't dulled that memory; I could recite every word that bastard spouted in the lunchroom about her body, and what he had claimed he'd done to it. She probably could, too. Every word had been lies. I knew it. Yet I hadn't stood up for her. I sat there silently while Alex, the quarterback for our high school team-King Shit on Turd Hill-took her down because she'd refused him. When she'd put the brakes on, the rejection sent him to the top of his mountain to reclaim his manhood and destroy her in the process. Alex was a dick.

Masyn forgave me, but she hadn't dated since-not really. There'd been a handful of nights out here and there, just nothing that stuck. One bad apple had ruined her for the rest of us. And to my knowledge, she was still just as pure as the day he'd painted a scarlet A on her chest. She would have had to be super secretive to hook up with anyone for me not to know about it.

After Beau left for school, the two of us remained and took jobs at Farley's Machine Shop right after graduation. I think Old Man Farley gave her a job as a joke...turned out, the joke was on him. Masyn had three brothers who all tinkered with cars, and she had a mechanical mind. She took to machining like a fish to water. I'd give my left nut to be able to do what she could with a lathe or mill. I refused to admit the kind of hard-on I got watching her write programs for CNCs or turning a piece of metal.

"Is that AC/DC?" I grimaced when we stopped at a light-one of four in town.

She squinted and gave me a shit-eating grin. "I'm surprised you recognize it. You know, since it's not Willy, Waylon, or Garth." Her smug look only enticed me more.

"Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart."

She punched me in the arm with brute force. Her pint size was deceiving. At five-foot-nothing and a crisp hundred-dollar bill soaking wet, she could still take me down even though I was a solid foot taller and had every bit of a hundred pounds on her. With one hand on the steering wheel, I used the other to rub the spot she'd nailed.

"What the hell was that for?"

She arched one brow with a curt stare. "Sweetheart?"

I rolled my eyes. Masyn believed I called every female sweetheart, and it drove her insane to think she was one of the masses. But that wasn't the case; I called every female darlin' or hon-sweetheart was reserved solely for her.

Thankfully, she didn't live more than about five minutes from the shop-just in the opposite direction of the five minutes I lived. I hated the crap part of town she rented a house in-mill hill. When we were younger and the textile mills were still in full swing, this was a solid, working-class neighborhood. Those industries died out and the mills shut down; the people moved out and found work in other cities. Now they're low rent and not terribly safe-I didn't even want to speculate about the illegal activity that took place on the streets when the sun went down.

I acted like Harden, Georgia, was a hotbed of drug smuggling and gun running. The reality was, the biggest scandal to take place in this town was the mayor's wife being caught on the sidewalk with an open container...in broad daylight. Nothing bad happened in this nook of the world, mainly because no one knew it existed. Truth be told, I was overprotective and the idea of something happening to Masyn drove me batty.

"Give me ten minutes." She hopped out of the truck before it even stopped moving in her driveway.

The moment the door closed, I changed the radio station back to something that didn't make my ears bleed. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the seat to wait for her. Neither of us were terribly excited about the wedding of the year, much less participating in it.