I don't even know what to say. I am completely blown away with the response to the first chapter and I'm hoping every chapter from now on doesn't disappoint. Thank you so much for reading and all of the reviews, favorites and alerts! This story is going to alternate POVs with each chapter so next one will be Beth's again.

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Chapter Two.

He had no idea where she came from.

One night, he left the garage after a day's work and she wasn't there and the next morning, she was – sitting behind the desk in the front office in a yellow dress that matched her hair and laughing lightly over something Dale was saying to her that he could hear all the way from his bay. Zach, the annoying kid who worked beside him and always wanted to chat, let out a whistle when he caught his first glimpse of her. And he wasn't the only one. The other mechanics immediately took note of the pretty blonde and all were staring as if they had never seen a woman before.

Daryl felt himself only scowl though. Who was she and what the hell was a girl like that doing here? Dale came out a few minutes later into the garage with her following behind and he introduced her as Beth Greene, telling them that she was their new receptionist. Zach let out another whistle and Beth's cheeks flushed as Dale set a stern glare in the kid's direction.

For the most part, Daryl had very little interaction with her. It wasn't as if he was the only mechanic at Dale's. There were three other guys and she was in charge of setting up all of their appointments – not just his. The most he had to do was after he was finished with a customer, he had to go take the paperwork to her in the office so would be able to run the invoice.

"Thanks, Daryl," she would smile at him and Daryl would just turn and leave again.

Her smile made him too damn nervous. It was too sweet and warm and he didn't get why she would be smiling at him like that. She didn't even know him. Why was she always so damn nice to him? He began to notice though that she smiled at everyone like that. It was just who she was. Everyone got a taste of the sun when she was near. He wasn't anything special – not that he was looking to be.

Girls like that always had boyfriends or at least plenty of boys always tripping over themselves and willing to do anything for her and he could just imagine the trail of saps following after Beth, begging for a scrap of attention. And hell, the other mechanics seemed to be the biggest suckers of all for her.

But deep down, he knew she wasn't like that at all. He saw the way she always looked down to the ground or hurried away when one of the guys gave a whistle or a wink and asked her to go out with them. She always politely declined and excused herself and it was surprising to him to see a girl who looked like her being so shy.

He saw the way she tidied the office after each work day and the fresh flowers she brought in to brighten her desk or the way she was always gently lecturing Dale on taking his medicine for his heart condition. There was a refrigerator in the break room and since Dale hired her, all of the guys found their favorite beverages stocked. Zach and his bottled water because he was some hippie kid who couldn't drink from the water fountain like the rest of them. Martinez liked his Coke and Axel liked his Cherry Coke and Daryl – and he had no idea how she had found out – had always preferred Ginger Ale.

The first time he had opened the refrigerator and saw the green cans on the top shelf with a post-it with his name on it, he had just stared at them for a minute as if he had never seen anything like it before. And for the first few days, he hadn't taken any of them as if they were some sort of trick and the instant he took one of those cans and drank from it, he would instantly be under her spell like every other guy here.

"I can get something else if you'd like," she said to him in that soft, gentle voice of hers one afternoon when he came into the office to hand her his paperwork.

"What?" He grunted at her and he realized he had asked a bit too roughly because she flinched ever so slightly.

"The Ginger Ale… Dale told me you like to drink it but I can get you something else," she offered. She wasn't meeting his eyes and she stood there, looking down at the paperwork in her hands instead.

She was wearing a blue dress that day with a white sweater and her hair was down and long and always in these waves. The sleeves of her sweater were pushed up and he saw that was always wore a bundle of bracelets on her left wrist. She was always so damn pale, too, and he wondered if the Georgia sun had ever touched her skin. He always found himself outside as much as he could manage it and his skin was rough and dark from the exposure. He found himself wondering how soft her skin was.

He shook his head at himself for that asinine thought. "'Ginger Ale's fine," he said, already heading back out of the office, not looking at her again.

When the garage closed for lunch that day, he stayed – as he always did – and took his lunch from the refrigerator so he could go out in the back and eat – as he always did – but this time, and he had no idea why, he took a can of the Ginger Ale with him. And he felt like an idiot – both for having stubbornly refusing a simple can of soda and for finally giving into it.

She always stayed during the lunch hour, too, eating at her desk. Most days, she would be playing music and it was different every day and if he left the heavy back door propped open, he was able to hear her singing along to whatever she was listening to that day. He found himself leaving the door propped open more and more because there was something about her voice. It was the same when she sang as when she talked. It was one of the sweetest sounds he had ever heard.

He ate his sandwich – usually always bologna – and sat there with his head resting against the brick wall behind him and he allowed his mind to go empty as he listened to her sing. They were always songs he had never heard before and he found himself wondering more than once why she was working at some small garage in a small town instead of being in Atlanta or Nashville, singing for a bigger audience than just some mechanic she didn't even know was listening.

He never asked her though because it was none of his business and he didn't really care either because the fact was, she was here and not in one of those big cities and everyone had their reasons for doing what they did.

The garage was open Tuesday through Saturday and closed on Sundays and Mondays and she was almost always one of the last to leave. As soon as Dale closed for the night, Axel and Martinez were always the first gone. Zach lingered just enough to ask Beth if she wanted to go to some party with him – seemed like that kid had a party to go to every single night and every single night, he asked Beth if she wanted to come – but she just smiled and told him she had to get home.

"One of these days, Ms. Greene," he said with a smile and wink and then was gone, leaving her with a stain of pink on her cheeks.

"Alright. Do I have everything?" Dale asked, stepping from his office, patting all of his pockets to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything though they had all noticed that since Beth had started working there, Dale had stopped coming back after already having gotten home because he left his glasses or his keys or one of his pill bottles.

"Here," Beth smiled at him and tonight, she handed him his hat.

He slapped the tattered fisherman's hat on his head and smiled at her. "My angel," he said and she even blushed to what Dale said though the old man probably didn't even know how to flirt with a woman anymore.

And then it was just the two of them. Why was it always the two of them?

Daryl was meticulous in cleaning up his work station and never rushed through it and Beth seemed to be the same way with her desk. During the day, it was covered in papers but every night, she took her time in cleaning it all for the next day's mess.

He heard footsteps and lifted his head from his toolbox, flicking his head to get the hair from his eyes to see her approaching him. The lights in the office were off and her purse was slung on her shoulder.

"I'm heading out now," she said with a small smile. He nodded and didn't say anything. "Good night, Daryl."

She hesitated for another moment, he noticed, but he wasn't looking at her, his eyes back to his tools and he heard her footsteps walk away and the squeak of the door and the slam of it shutting behind her and everything was silent again except for the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears.

He didn't know why he was like that around her. Not the silent part. He was damn near silent around everyone. His older brother, Merle, was the loud one – always talking too loud and laughing too loud and demanding to be the center of attention but Daryl had never been like that. Even when he was a little kid and was just learning to talk, he hadn't liked to do it that much. He liked being quiet; liked observing everyone and everything around him because that was the only to learn. To survive.

So never talking to Beth wasn't something out of the ordinary. It was the way he actually had to consciously make the effort not to talk to her. She would ask him questions and he found himself actually ready to answer them and he didn't get it nor did he like it. He didn't know what it was about her that made him want to talk.

He barely even talked to the customers who came in here to tell him about their car troubles. He didn't really need to talk to them. He had always been good with engines – a damn gift, as Merle often said while clapping him too hard on the back – and he didn't need the idiot to tell him that they had been driving on an engine that had gone too long without an oil change. He got engines. He understood them. Every problem was different and yet, every engine was the same. May have been in a different type of machine but every engine worked in the same sort of way and he could be blindfolded and still be able to work on it.

People were completely different. No matter how much he watched them, he was never able to fully figure them out. And Beth Greene was the biggest damn mystery of them all because why the hell would a pretty girl like her be shy and quiet and yet, shining like the damn sun on a clear day?

He could admit to himself that she was a pretty girl. Probably the prettiest girl he had ever seen. When he went to a bar with Merle, she was never the girl he saw there. The women there had too much make-up and their clothes were too tight and they smelled of smoke and hairspray and were always looking for someone to take care of them while making it clear that they could cut a man's dick off in a second. They were as rough as any man there – on the inside and out.

But Beth, with her blonde hair and dresses and soft smiles and soft songs, was as bright as the sun and as soft-looking as any cloud and he shook his head at himself and wanted to hit himself over the head with a wrench for such stupid thoughts because while Beth was all of those things, he was the dirty older mechanic who belonged in the bar with women completely opposite of her.

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