Read an Excerpt

Why the River Runs

The Riverview Series

Y&R Enterprises, LLC

Bo's foot tapped the floor as he waited for Mr. Foster to read over his resume. The writing on the paper was sparse, seeing how there wasn't much to report for the last four years. This job meant a lot. It was a fresh start, a new beginning, a clean slate. Coming home to Riverview and working at Foster's represented all these things and more. Foster Construction could be his ticket to redemption.

Okay, maybe that was putting too much pressure on one interview. But it would be ideal if he could get in with one of the biggest companies in the county. Especially since his grandmother knew someone, who knew someone, who was friends with Duane Foster and they might skip the background check based on the recommendation.

"You've done construction?" Duane's thick gray brows rose as he read the resume over the top of his readers.

"Y'sir." Bo answered in. Even years in California couldn't beat his country accent out of him.

"Carpentry, huh?"

"Y'sir."

"Where did you learn?"

Jail. "On the job experience."

"With who?"

"The State."

"And who can I contact as a reference over there?"

Bo paused. His parole officer? Sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He wasn't prepared for the stare-down, even the Border Collie sitting beside the desk gawked.

Duane let out a long breath and swiped a hand down his face. He leaned over his beat-up metal desk and braced himself on his elbows. "All right son, let's cut the bull, shall we?"

Dang it. Here it came. The I'm sorry we don't hire criminals speech. It would be the third one he'd received since he got out. Bo looked down at his work boots. His grandmother had bought them brand new just for this interview. She lived on social security and selling produce from her own garden but she'd spent all her extra money that month for the steel-toed boots. All he wanted to do was pay her back with a little good news.

"I talked to your grandmother already, Bo." There was a hint of affection in his voice. "Sweet lady, right there."

He nodded, glanced at his boots. "Y' sir." As hard as it was, he kept his chin up.

Duane steepled his fingers. "Said you just got out. How long you been home, son?"

"Two weeks, sir."

Duane nodded. "Welcome back to civilization. Have a probation officer?"

"Parole, sir. Got out three years early. Have to check in monthly and prove I'm working, sir."

"She said you did four years. What for?"

Shit. Bo met Duane's gaze. He'd paid his time for a crime he wasn't too terribly sorry for. "Found my step-dad hitting my mother. I returned the gesture. Judge decided since I was a black belt, and I didn't exactly hold my punches, it qualified as assault with a deadly weapon. That's a felony in California."

Duane nodded his head and pursed his lips. "What brings you to Texas?"

"A promise I made to my grandmother and a fresh start."

Duane leaned in, narrowed his gaze. "Do you consider yourself a violent man, Bo?"

How many times had people asked him that question? At least half a dozen. The parole board, his anger management councilor, the judge. This was the first time he looked the person across the table square in the eyes and answered bluntly. "Only when a woman is confused with a punching bag, sir."

"Can't blame you there." Duane's astute eyes narrowed as he leaned back and rested his chin in his hand. He pursed his lips again, studying Bo like he might sprout horns. The dog barked when a door opened and closed down the hall, making Bo flinch. "You have to meet my foreman. Then we'll see."

"Be happy to, sir." Hope lit in his chest. As far as men went, Bo considered himself friendly enough and he knew how to work hard.

Duane's lips stretched into a grin and he huffed. He lifted his chin and hollered, "T, come here. Got some fresh blood for ya."

Bo stood up to greet the other man, uncomfortable with someone approaching the office door from behind him. He turned and locked his gaze with a pair of blue eyes so light and airy they stole the breath from his lungs.

"Bo, meet my foreman ... Tina."

Tina was a good six inches shorter than his six-foot frame, but her presence loudly stated that she had the upper hand. Sun-streaked blonde hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun with strands escaping. The whole twisted mess was held together with a pencil and a band. He had the sudden — and stupid — urge to pluck it from her hair and watch the mass fall. She wore no makeup, but her thick, black lashes almost looked painted on. From many days in the sun, her skin was a golden brown. The great tan was accentuated by the dirty white tank top. Even her brown carpenter pants were stained at the knees and had sawdust on them. Unlike his, her boots were scuffed and marred, painted with a dozen different colors and substances.

Bo couldn't help himself, he studied her head to toe ... twice. This was a woman who knew a hard day's labor. She was also the most angelic woman he'd ever seen. Her high cheek bones and heart-shaped face were dusted with bronze, thin but tempting lips pursed as she looked him up and down.

Bo stirred, his blood heating, his body instantly reacting to her attention.

After an awkward moment of him standing there with his jaw on the floor, Tina held out her hand. "Tina Foster. Who are you?" Her gaze darted from Bo to Duane and back.

It took him a moment to remember anything but how beautiful she was. Shit. "Uh, I, um, I'm Bo Galloway. Nice to meet you, ma'am."

"Likewise. Daddy, we need to deal with a certain painter that's about to burn my biscuits."

Daddy? Of course, this was Duane's daughter. Double shit.

"Great," Duane huffed. "Fill me in later."

"You know I will." Tina crouched and rubbed the dog's head, allowing it to lick her cheek. "There's my Dixie girl."

Duane cleared his throat. "Mr. Galloway is Nancy Brewer's grandson. He's returning after far too many years in California."

"The lady who sells the produce, right?" Tina deferred to Duane, who nodded. "Yeah, I thought you looked familiar." She ran her eyes over him once again, her poker face in perfect form. "I didn't realize we were hiring, Dad." She tilted her head at her father.

"We can always use a good hand, you know that."

Tina's lips curled downward. "Everything look tight on paper?"

Duane's eyes met Bo's. For a moment, Bo's heart stopped and he held his breath. One word from Duane and this beautiful, hardworking woman wouldn't give him the time of day — much less a job. Bo pleaded internally. He needed this break.

Duane slid the resume into his desk drawer and glanced at a spot on the wall. "Yup. Looks good on the paperwork end."

Thank God.

"Now you can see if he's worth a darn in the field."

"All right." Tina nodded once, put her hands on her hips and scowled at him, giving the same contemplating look as her father. "Two things before I let you on my job site."

"Here we go," Duane muttered, turning his attention back to his laptop.

Tina held up one finger. "First off, if you've got issues taking orders from someone with a vagina," she pointed said finger to the door of the office, "there's the door, don't waste my time. I don't have patience for chauvinistic BS. Two, if you don't like country music, I suggest you invest in noise canceling ear plugs. You'll work on my site until I see what you can do, then you might be transferred to one of our other crews. When can you start?"

"How fast can you write the address?" Bo said.

"Slow down, son. We have to fill out paperwork." Duane laughed and waved Bo to come sit back down.

Maybe there was a God after all. If so, He was smiling down on Bo at that moment. Bo called his grandmother to tell her he would be busy at lunch.

* * *

The country music comment was understood immediately. Bo parked his late grandfather's rusted Ford on the construction site and exited the truck to the local country music station blaring from a radio. He traded his button down for a company tee-shirt and searched for Tina.

"You the new guy?" A tall man with salt and pepper hair and matching beard gave him a speculative glance. "Duane called me a minute ago."

Bo swallowed and looked upwards. "Yes, sir."

He thrust out a hand. "Great. T's upstairs. She's hanging the sheetrock in the bedrooms. Take this." Terry handed him a box of screws. "I'm gonna get the next boards ready."

Bo nodded, accepted the screws.

"I'm Terry Hicks. Her right-hand man. Word of advice, don't argue with her and don't hit on her. You're likely to get your nuts shot off with a nail gun either way."

Instinctually, Bo covered himself, cringing. What the hell did he just walk in to? "You give that speech often?"

Terry grinned, his age apparent in every wrinkle on his face. "Every chance I get. I'm her uncle."

Bo nodded and headed inside the gutted two-story ranch house, stepping over tools and wires. Each room was in various stages of renovation. He found Tina and two other guys in an upstairs bedroom.

"Crapballs." Tina let out a guttural growl as she snapped the battery back on her cordless drill. "These things don't last more than five freaking minutes." Tina glanced up and back down once she saw him. "Where's Terry?"

"Down there." Bo held out the box of screws. He didn't know what to think of Tina yet. She walked a thin line being a total bitch or a total badass. Based on the way she gave him the cold shoulder, he was leaning towards the former.

"You know how to hang?" She didn't meet his eyes as she opened the box of screws and poured them into the pocket of her utility belt.

Bo swallowed hard. His experience working construction in high school only lasted a short while. "A little."

Tina sighed and squinted her eyes at the floor. The two seconds she hesitated felt like two hours. "No time like the present." She checked her watch. "Clocking in at ten-twenty. Jason, Bill, this is Bo. Let's teach him how to hang wall, m'kay?"

The two other men nodded and smiled. Not overly friendly, but not indifferent, either. Tina turned her back to him and finished up the piece of drywall she was working on. Bill was older, at least in his forties, and had thinning hair and a pot belly. Jason looked closer to Bo's age, mid-twenties, and wore his baseball cap backwards. He had tats on his forearms and the back of his neck. He at least gave Bo a cordial fist bump.

Bo observed them place a few boards and became momentarily stunned at the quickness with which Tina worked. It took her spare minutes to screw the whole thing to the studs. Terry came in with her next piece. She situated it on the wall and Bo jumped in to hold it steady so she could anchor it.

She crouched down, giving him a great view of her back and ass. "Damn it, Terry. Get your glasses out, old man." Tina examined where the electrical outlet cut out should've been.

"What?" he said, bending over to look. "Aw, hell."

"If you don't start wearing your glasses on the job, I'm going to staple them to your stubborn head." Tina straightened.

"I got it." This was one thing he could do. Bo grabbed the measuring tape from her belt and measured for the outlet, using Terry's pencil to mark it on the drywall. He tossed the tape back to Tina and grabbed the mechanical hand-saw on the ground behind them all. He made a precise and even cut, perfectly framing the blue outlet casing.

"Thanks." Tina pointed a finger at him. "But don't touch my belt again."

"Yes, ma'am."

Terry shook his head and laughed. "I'll get him a tool belt. We don't need another lawsuit." He went back downstairs.

"Another one?" Bo stared off after Terry. Jason chuckled, Bill shivered.

Tina merely shrugged and rolled her eyes, returning to her task like it was no big deal. What the hell kind of woman was he dealing with? Lawsuits over tools, nailing testicles, stapling glasses to heads. Dear God. He definitely wasn't in California anymore.

Damn, it was nice to be back in the South. He'd almost forgotten what country girls were like.

For the rest of the morning he trod carefully around Tina Foster. She had no problems telling him exactly what she wanted him to do and how she wanted it done. Every move she made was calculated and skillful. The woman was all business, except for when certain songs came on the radio. Then the whole crew tried to out sing one another. The only time she stopped working was when she danced over to pick up a tool or twirled around in place to the beat.

The crazy thing was, the chick had a good set of pipes on her. She kept up with the radio singers without breaking her working stride. The guys on the crew couldn't carry a tune in a five-gallon bucket, but that didn't stop them from loudly following along, creating a painful racket.

If there was one thing Bo learned by working construction years ago, it was that men would relate everything to their penises. Everything could be turned into a sexual innuendo, and filters worked best on machinery, not mouths. Cussing was not only standard conversation, it was practically a requirement of the job.

He wondered how having Tina in the mix affected that atmosphere. Throwing a woman in the ring didn't faze them a bit. Hell, Tina didn't hold her tongue, either. She gave those guys a hard time every chance she was given. They teased, laughed, cursed, and pranked each other like ... well, like one big happy family. Everyone knew their places, knew their roles, and did their jobs efficiently.

He could only hope to carve out a place for himself in this well-oiled machine of a crew.

At the end of the day, Bo was tired and completely satisfied. Just before they'd called it quits, Tina walked him to his truck.

"Not bad, Galloway. See you back here tomorrow at six."

"Six?" He leaned his head in as if he didn't hear her. On the job at six in the morning, he could handle that. He was used to breakfast call at 5:30.

"The earlier we get started, the earlier we can call it a day. Summer in Texas is brutal, Galloway. It's no fun working in the afternoon heat. Get to bed early, bring lots of water." She spun on her heel and gave him a view of her round backside. He nearly dropped his keys.

As she walked away, a song came to his mind. To see her smile, he'd do anything. He didn't care for country music, but if it meant being around Tina Foster all day, he'd learn to love it.

* * *

That evening, he pulled up to his grandmother's old farm house. Besides the flowers, it hadn't changed since he was a child. The same swing hung on the porch, the screen door still had a hole in it from when his mother kicked it. The paint needed refreshing and the gravel driveway was losing the war with the grass, but the house had never looked better to him.

For three weeks, since his grandmother had driven all the way to southern California to pick him up, she had sat at the dinner table and prayed every night that he would find a job. Tonight, he had good news for her.

Nan came out the front door, her arms up in the air in triumph, a huge smile on her face.

Bo's face matched hers as he climbed the stairs and hugged her.

"See, I told you praying helps. I'm so proud, Bo."

"Thanks, Nan. Now all I have to do is keep it."

She waved a boney arm, dismissing his pessimism. "Nonsense. You're going to excel, I just know it."

Bo held open the door for her.

"You've never been lazy, Bo Allen. You just put that determination of yours to good use and the Fosters are going to be sending me a fruit basket. Just wait and see."

He treasured the confidence she had in him. When it felt like all the world had abandoned him, Nan had stood like a lighthouse in the storm. He had promised his grandfather he would take care of her and he would make good on it.

"I made your favorite, chicken fried steak. There's sweet tea in the fridge and," she bent to pull a cake out of the oven, "I made you a pineapple cream cake." Her face glowed, truly glowed, with happiness for him.

"Dang, Nan. I need to get a job every day."

"Son, we are going to celebrate every little victory we can." She kissed his cheek and immediately spit like she'd licked a lemon. "Ugh, you're dirty. I think I just ate sawdust. Go get cleaned up, working man."

Bo laughed. "Yes, ma'am." If he gave her a million dollars a day for the rest of his life, it would never be enough to repay her for everything she'd given him. Maybe he could start by working on her house.

* * *

Tina fell into her father's office chair with a cloud of dust rising into the air. She was tired to the bones, a good feeling. It hurt to rub Dixie's head, but she couldn't withhold love from her favorite girl.

---

Excerpted from Why the River Runs by JoAnna Grace. Copyright © 2016 JoAnna Grace. Excerpted by permission of Y&R Enterprises, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---