Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
BECKETT
This goddamn day, I swear.
First, I skipped out on a command performance at an Axford family birthday breakfast, which means I’m not only missing my mom’s sausage casserole and homemade donuts, but I’ll also be catching shit from every one of my siblings for not going to my parents’ place to celebrate my dad.
Then Mikey—the newest, most promising guy on my crew—calls five minutes before the start of his shift to quit, and Freddy tells me with a guilty shrug that he heard Mikey signed on with my biggest rival because “Mike’s got a baby on the way, boss, and Derek Sullivan’s offered him a bonus.”
Cue me mentally rearranging the crew assignments for the week, figuring which jobs can be delayed without losing contracts and which will need overtime to keep on track.
Then, after calling Rocky in on his day off, we finally get underway an hour late…
only to find a shiny little SUV with New York plates parked diagonally across the Grange Cut, ass-end kissing the drainage ditch and nose-end cocked toward the woods, comprehensively blocking our path.
There’s no way to ease around it with our giant brush-clearing equipment.
This isn’t the first time an out-of-towner has decided someone’s private land would make a good driveway for their impromptu hike, so I do what I usually do.
I scan the ditch, the shoulder, and the tree line in three quick passes, automatically calculating if I can winch the SUV into the clearing without damaging it, and realize it’s faster to haul it straight back.
So I’m hooking up the bumper to do just that when the car’s owner scurries out of Jim’s house half-naked, brandishing a racket at me like he’s gonna serve me a Wimbledon-style beatdown.
Worst of all, my own brain’s decided to go on strike at the sight of the guy. It hiccups and stutters, focusing in on the jut of the man’s hip bones beneath his tiny underwear with Terminator-like intensity despite the fact that I’m on the clock… which is so unlike me I can’t even tell you.
I don’t ogle strangers. I don’t ogle anyone when I have work to do.
And as if I wasn’t already hangry, horny, and pissed off enough, the sexy tourist lifts his chin and throws my own words back in my face. “Move your big-ass trucks off my property. And if you shake a leg, maybe I won’t call the authorities and tell them you’re trespassing.”
Despite my immediate, overwhelming annoyance, part of me wants to laugh.
I know some folks in Winsome find me intimidating.
I assume that’s because I’m not exactly the friendliest person in town.
I hate gossip, which is Winsome’s favorite pastime, and I’m not a happy joiner when it comes to town activities.
I also have no patience for the outsiders who blow through Winsome, leaving a trail of car accidents, missing-hiker searches, and broken hearts in their wake.
And… yeah, okay, it’s probably also because I’m built on the larger side of “big” and don’t smile a lot, which gives me what my youngest brother calls “Resting Intimidation Face.” It’s a real thing.
Whatever the reason, I don’t go out of my way to change this impression because it means people in town—at least those who aren’t named Axford—tend to leave me alone, and I like it that way.
I already have plenty of shit to deal with from the fuckers who share my DNA.
But the fact that this guy doesn’t seem intimidated in the slightest? It’s… let’s say, unusual.
He’s squaring up to me, clutching that damn racket, like he doesn’t realize he’s practically naked, several inches shorter than me, and built lean—like a dancer, my wayward brain supplies, which is a thought it’s never had about anyone before, even actual dancers.
I reluctantly admit this guy has balls. But if a man won’t back down when he’s outmuscled, either he’s bluffing or he has a plan, and I need to know which it is.
Also, those balls of his are practically on display in his skimpy underwear, and I’m fighting the urge to pull off my own shirt and cover him up, which is all kinds of wrong.
“Once again, who the hell are you?” I demand.
The guy raises his chin so high it’s practically pointed at the sky. “Who wants to know?” he taunts in a distinct New York accent, like we’re kids on the playground and he is rubber, I am glue.
Behind me, Freddy clears his throat and steps forward.
He’s bigger in circumference than I am, and I’ve seen him literally throw a man through a wall for mouthing off to his sister, but right now, he’s all sheepish smiles for Mr. New York.
“We’re from Axford Lumber. I’m Fred Munson. That’s Hussein, Rocky, Carlos, Bunsen—”
“Adam,” Bunsen corrects, stepping forward, wiping his big hands on his jeans, and giving the guy—I shit you not—a chipper little wave, like we’re at a goddamn tea party. “Adam Berner. But since middle school, everyone’s called me Bun—”
I shoot Bunsen a furious look, and he finishes with a strangled “Um. Never mind.”
“And that’s the boss, Beckett Axford,” Freddy finishes in a rush, pointing at me. “His great-something-grandfather started the company, and—”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “Anything else you’d like to share with the guy who’s fucked up our morning and made himself at home on Jim’s land?” I turn in place and eye each member of my crew. “Social security numbers? Mother’s maiden names? Astrological signs?”
“Virgo,” Carlos says, raising his hand. “But I don’t really know what that means. If it means virgin, then it’s bullshit, and you can ask Bebe Jones if you don’t believe me.”
I exhale like I’m breathing fire and decide Carlos will be doing all chainsaw maintenance for a month.
Mr. New York gives a startled, genuine laugh that changes his whole face, and suddenly, I’m looking at him again. Really looking this time, at the bits of him above his underwear.
He’s—fuck, okay, I admit it—he’s beautiful.
His skin is milk-pale all over and dusted with golden hair, and his face belongs on magazine covers.
But his perfection is skewed just a little.
The hair on the left side of his head is sticking straight up, like half of him was electrocuted.
And between the blue shadows under his eyes, the glint of a blond beard growing in, and the red creases on his cheek, it looks like Mr. New York’s had a rough night.
Possibly marauding through town, holding innocent Winsomefolk at racket-point.
But it’s his eyes that sock me in the gut. They’re so clear and light I can see them from a foot away—green with a sunburst of amber in the middle—and surrounded by thick, down-tilted eyelashes that make him look like a baby deer. And when he smiles—
Dear god. I blink and shake myself all over, like my parents’ old Labrador retriever when she’s taken a dunk in the river. What the fuck is happening right now?
I change my mind. Carlos is doing chainsaw maintenance permanently. And so is anyone else who makes this guy smile. His smile is way more dangerous than his stupid tennis racket.
“Hey. I’m Griffin Mercer,” the guy says, with five friendly nods for each suddenly smitten member of my crew and a glare for me.
“Oh, goody,” I say with exaggerated excitement. “Now I’ll know whose name to put in my diary tonight when I write all about the special boy I met.” I roll my eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here, Griffin? Why are you blocking the road to my land?”
His face and neck go red. “It’s my road now,” he proclaims, which is utterly ridiculous.
I consider the possibility for point-two seconds and shake my head. “No way. Jim Grange loves this place. He’d never sell.”
But even as I say it, there’s a niggling thought in the back of my head.
Fucking fuck, what if he did?
Jim Grange has owned this patch of Winsome for twenty-ish years, give or take, since he won it in a poker game from my idiot uncle.
He’s a good guy and an easy neighbor. He was happy to win the land so he could build his wacky little treehouse.
But once he won it, Jim had no problem letting Axford Lumber cut through his property to get to our forest. When I took over running the company and wanted a formal easement agreement—a legal document that would guarantee me the right to use this road—Jim agreed.
But god knows Jim wouldn’t be the first person to sell off land without warning. My own father did the same, just last year, which was a whole other clusterfuck. And my dad’s a trustworthy, responsible, steady sort of person.
Jim’s… not.
He used to leave on long road trips, like the one where he met my uncle, without telling a soul, and the only way we’d know he was gone was when the postman would alert my mom that his mailbox was full, so one of us kids could run over to collect his mail.
We’d only know he was back when the Magic Mushroom Mobile was parked in the driveway—or, on one horrifying occasion a few years ago, when I went to collect the mail and found Jim sunning his asshole on his roof.
Now that his traveling days are mostly behind him, Jim likes to take “herbal supplements” and “stroll around the forest” to “let his mind wander”…
which has necessitated at least three search and rescue calls that I know of because he’s wandered himself into trouble.
He agreed to the easement months ago, so I got a lawyer to write the damn thing up.
But he still hasn’t filed it with the town, and I’d bet money those papers accidentally ended up in his compost heap despite his best intentions.
And Jesus, don’t get me started on Jim’s mushroom thing.
All of which is to say, it’s not a total surprise when the hot tourist—Griffin, his name is Griffin—opens his mouth and tells me Jim has pulled the ultimate unexpected move.
“You’re right. Jim didn’t sell it,” he says. But before I can feel smug, he adds, “I inherited it.” A flicker of sadness passes over his too-pretty face. “Jim died.”