“Please don’t be mad at me.” Dina Bautista tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “I’ve taken care of a problem for you.”

Natalie Brooks removed her apron and tossed it on the counter. Accepting her former mother-in-law’s help always came with sparkly strings attached. During the past six months she’d worked at the dinky bakery in Suarez, Texas, Dina had bossed her around always with the excuse of “helping.” Natalie drew in a breath and crossed her arms. What could Dina have done this time? If I didn’t need the money I’d be so out of here. “What happened?”

“I asked Vincent to come help you with your house,” Dina said, and the way she fixed her short bob hinted at that even she knew she’d overstepped.

“What the heck?” During the years she’d been married to Clint, she’d met her forty-year-old father-in-law a handful of times. After divorcing Dina a couple of decades ago, he’d moved to upstate New York where he ran a contractor company. “Why would you do that?” The last time she’d seen Vincent had been four years ago at Clint’s funeral.

“Face it Natalie, your house is falling apart. It’s way too big for you to maintain and you don’t have the funds to hire anyone to fix it.” Dina leaned her slim body against the counter. At forty-six, she had a tighter body than a lot of women in their twenties. “So I called Vincent and reminded him you stood by our son when he needed you most and it wasn’t fair for him to just walk out on you after Clint died.”

Natalie washed her hands and wished she could splash some cold water on Dina’s face to pull her out of that madness. Sure, the house she’d bought while married had fallen into disrepair, but she’d planned to fix it. That’s why she’d abandoned the idea of making pottery and ended up fine-tuning cupcakes and the like at Dina’s Delicious Cakes, the black and pink polka dot shop on Main Street. “Well, tell him I’m just fine. When’s he supposed to arrive?” She didn’t need Vincent’s help. Especially since during the few occasions she’d met him, he made her feel strange. Aware. Prickly. She shook her head, willing those thoughts away.

Dina cleared her throat. “He’s already in town.”

Dang it. “As in Suarez?” Natalie entered the office and picked up her purse. She squeezed her car keys in her palm, wishing she could do the same with Dina’s neck.

“As in your house, mija.” Dina followed her.

“Come again?” Natalie swallowed the razors in her throat. How the hell did he even get the key? Oh. Dina had asked for a spare in the case of an emergency. And she, dumb ass she that she was, had given in to her. She didn’t hate her mother-in-law/boss/stalker but she certainly didn’t welcome that level of intrusion. “You can’t invite someone to my house when I’m not even there.”

Dina stopped in her tracks, narrowing her brown eyes. “Honey, I’m forty-six. When you get to be my age, you cut the bullshit. If I had told you, you would have said no. You’re too proud. And he wants to do this… for not having been there for his son, hell, for us,” Dina said, her voice softening. “I offered to let him stay at my house but he declined You know, because of our history.”

Dina and Vincent had gotten together when he’d been seventeen, and she six years older. From what Natalie knew, Dina had gotten accidentally pregnant. They married when he turned eighteen just before their son Clint was born.

“Whoa. Wait a second. He’s staying with me?” she said, and a shiver zapped down her spine like a cold draft had invaded the room. The image of that disturbingly handsome man snuck up on her, and she had to blink to will away the memories of his rugged face and striking dark hazel eyes. He was probably forty, and from how she remembered the clothes clinging to his muscles, had a body that put a lot of twenty-something guys to shame.

“Yes. This way he can get through the remodeling projects faster,” Dina said nonchalantly. “He doesn’t have a lot of time off from his work and Sally’s Motel isn’t necessarily the Ritz,” she said, referencing to the only motel within the next fifty miles.

The door chime announced a customer’s arrival.

“Listen, it’ll be free labor. You won’t even know he’s there,” Dina said.

The image of the broody, large man formed again in Natalie’s head. She doubted she wouldn’t notice Vincent while he stayed at her house.

* * *

Natalie slammed the door of her old Silverado and kicked gravel out of her way. A brand new shiny truck was parked in her driveway, the evidence of Vincent’s arrival. Her stomach clenched.

In the few times she’d been around Vincent, he’d unsettled her. While Clint had been a man-child pampered by his overbearing mother, Vincent seemed like he a real man through and through. And now said real man was going to live under the same roof with her for weeks. How weird is this going to be?

She opened her door, tossed her keys into the wooden bowl by the entrance and walked in. Muggy heat welcomed her as it had for the past two weeks when the AC failed for the tenth time.

Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she swiped at it with the back of her hand. She walked into the kitchen to grab some cold water, leaned down and reached into the refrigerator for the jug of filtered water in the back. She welcomed the freezing waves touching her face, and breathed in the cold clean scent.

“You’re home,” said a deep baritone behind her.

She startled, and some water splashed out of the jug she held. Crap. Shaking her head, she stood upright, and grabbed the jug, closing the refrigerator door behind her.

In the past four years, Vincent hadn’t changed much. Maybe there were one or two more creases around his gorgeous hazel eyes but her father-in-law remained disturbingly handsome. His dirty blonde hair was pushed back. The bits of lighter shades peeking through the brown hinted he worked under the sun.

He dwarfed her with his well over six-foot-two muscly frame. Vincent was forty though he didn’t look a day older than thirty-four. A fine ass thirty-four year old. She cleared her throat. “Hi.”

He offered her a half-smile and gave nothing away. “Looks like you’re surprised to see me. Hasn’t Dina spoken to you?”

“She did.” Like ten minutes ago. A heat wave spread across her cheeks, and when she sat the water jug on the countertop, more water splashed out. “It’s just been a long day.” And she doubted she’d be able to get a good night’s sleep knowing he stayed under the same roof as her—as far as she was concerned, he was little more than a stranger. A sexy, ridiculously manly… stranger.

“I understand,” he said, then glanced at her. “Listen, I’m here to help. Dina was right about the disrepair in this house… we need to get things fixed,” he said, twirling his fingers in a circular motion.

She rubbed the back of her neck. Did he think she was blind? After Clint’s death, she had to work hard to maintain the house they’d bought together. Nothing too fancy, but bills piled up and making it on one income proved hard. She’d considered selling the place, although how could she put it on the market without fixing some major problems like a leaky roof, old paint and a few other issues? She lifted her chin. “I have no money,” she said with the pride of someone who bragged about a million-dollar home.

A flicker of concern gleamed in his eyes, and he gave her a slow nod that had her heart beating faster. “I’ll pay for everything. I’ll also pay for the rooms we’re getting tonight at the nearest motel. There ain’t no way we can sleep here… there’s no AC.”

“I’ve been staying here with no AC for two weeks.” She’d lost four pounds in those days due to sweating. The two fans she brought to her crummy room just didn’t do the job and the place felt like a furnace all night long. On her days off, she’d preferred to stay as far from home as possible, sometimes browsing the Walmart aisles despite not buying anything.

“I’m sorry, but we need a good night’s sleep.”

We? Since when were they a we? Hell, she hadn’t been a “we” with Clint. She’d wanted to… but a few months into their marriage he started showing signs of alcoholism—an addiction that never faded away and ended up claiming his life. She should have read the signs, but she’d been a naïve nineteen-year-old. Who got married at nineteen these days? “Why… are you being so nice to me?” Not that he hadn’t in the past, but here he stood in front of her offering to pay her way out of her problems.

He angled closer, his eyes darkening with sadness. “You were good to my son and damn it, I never did anything in return. When he died I was so heartbroken and frustrated over my loss I never stopped to think if you needed anything.”

“Then Dina called you because she found out I have no AC and I wouldn’t take her money?” she said in a lighter tone, swallowing the emotion clogging her throat. Did he know the kind of crappy marriage she’d had with his son? How many times she’d tried to leave but ended up submitting to Clint’s manipulations and staying?

Vincent offered her his hand like they were about to close on a business deal. “She opened my eyes. Will you let me help you so I can move on and not feel like I’ve never done anything nice for my son’s wife?”

* * *

“Two rooms, please.” Vincent asked the clerk who sported an overgrown beard and had an eagle tattooed on his neck.

The clerk nodded, and typed something in the computer. Vincent gave Natalie a quick glance behind his shoulder. She had picked up a brochure to read. His gut clenched—he’d felt awful when he’d entered her place with the key Dina had provided. He’d also assumed his ex-wife had everything under control, but Natalie’s surprised look when she saw him confirmed she’d probably just learned of his imposing visit.

Paying for a room while he fixed the AC was the very least he could do.

The clerk coughed. “Huh… we don’t have two, sir. Just the one.”

Vincent leaned onto the counter. Maybe he heard him wrong. “Come again?”

The clerk, whose nametag said Ted, rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s a Monster Truck meeting. Place is full. The only reason we still have one available is due to a cancellation thirty minutes ago.”

Shit. Vincent ran his fingers in his hair. He didn’t want to drive another hour to get back into town. He rubbed the back of his neck then exhaled. “Does it have two beds?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Fine.” He handed Ted his credit card. When the clerk gave him the old-fashioned key; he clenched it like it opened the doorway to a different world. An actual key, and not a keycard. No wonder he didn’t visit Suarez much. That border town, where he’d grown up, hadn’t changed a whole lot since his last visit.

Tension stretched his shoulders as he walked up to her. “Natalie?” he said.

Her name suited her. She was beautiful, delicate yet there was a veneer of strength about her. She got things done and didn’t complain.

She looked up from the brochure. “Yeah?”

Guess what? He cleared his throat. Judging by the size of the guilt trip Dina had sent him on, he could have traveled to Mars and back. Instead he was in Suarez, after all that time, trying to make things right for the one person he knew next to nothing about. “They only have one room, but with two beds. I’m sorry. That’s not what I had in mind. Look,” he sighed. “If you want to go back we will, but I can’t physically drive anymore.”

She shrugged. “Nah, it’s okay. It’s late and I’m tired too.”

“Thanks.” He led her through the hallway until they reached the room at the end of the ground floor.

When they entered the room, she flicked on the light. Holy crap.

Marriott this was not. He skimmed the popcorn ceiling, tired furniture and stained carpet. At least clean pastel pink bedspreads covered the full-size beds. She turned around and, thank God, amusement gleamed in her forest green eyes. Striking eyes, truth be told—much like the rest of her.

Taller than the average woman in town but certainly shorter than him. Her hair was still in a bun he guessed because of her work, but he’d seen it before and remembered her tresses were unruly, curls blending with straighter strands framing her face. How long was it now? His groin stirred, and he blinked.

Buck up. You’re here to make things better, not worse. A woman like her probably had been through enough, and didn’t need any more complications. That’s why he wouldn’t get involved with her in any way other than what was appropriate.

She turned to him, and a glint lit her eyes. “Think you can you get us something to drink?”

He drew in a breath. What harm could a beer or two cause?