I tossed my hard hat into the truck’s rear cab and fell into the waiting driver’s seat. The day had been nonstop action, our construction crew on the go every minute since my arrival to the development site. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we’d fallen behind schedule two weeks ago. Anything wrong that could happen had happened, the series of unfortunate events ranging from family illnesses to injuries off site.

Damn. I wondered if we were cursed or something. What deity did we piss off? Why did God have to choose now to piss in my Cheerios like I’d done something? Maybe my mother was right and I’d skipped out on too many of the religious services she always begged me to join.

Whether it was divine intervention or just plain bad luck, we were cutting it close to not meeting the next project milestone, and I had no choice but to hire additional hands, pay outrageous overtime rates, and work on the crew alongside my guys instead of handling the administrative details.

Not that I minded leaving the office behind and returning to the field. I enjoyed the warm sun and the cool breeze whistling beneath my hard hat.

We’d recently expanded our business into Houston and taken on an enormous contract from a wealthy entrepreneur with some eccentric ideas about making “affordable” luxury housing in the suburbs. Julien Edward Dupont the Third, Esquire—as he introduced himself—had bought up a bunch of land and looked for a reliable, family-owned business to hire.

Through sheer luck and good fortune, Mr. Dupont had noticed my status as a USMC veteran and selected us, choosing Castillo Construction over a big-time company spreading its hooks across Texas. We’d lost jobs to the Medrano family in the past. They always outbid us on contracts, preyed on immigrants desperate to earn two dollars an hour, and bribed officials who should have busted them for shady practices.

The amount of money on the line for our current deal was more than we’d ever taken in before, and made up for a light year of business. We’d been contracted to build thirty-six brand new houses and a community recreation center with a massive pool and athletics center.

While I enjoyed working on developments like this, my true love belonged to jobs that placed me on beams a hundred feet or more above ground with only a safety harness between me and certain death. I hadn’t had a job like that in forever, but that was how I’d gotten my start with the Marines.

Dragging in a few breaths and shaking off the stress of the day, I kneaded the tension knot rippling from my nape to the small of my back. Little sparks of agony flared down my spine like the kiss of a knife blade between each vertebra.

I never minded working alongside my crew, because a true leader did more than issue orders. What did bother me was that the company’s sterling reputation would take a hit if we surpassed the strict schedule set by the developer.

Two of the guys walked side by side toward a battered Honda parked on the street. Sergio, my little brother, would drive that damned thing until it fell to pieces. He paused at my driver’s door and glanced through the window.

“See you at dinner, hermano?”

“Like I’d risk Mamá’s fury.”

“She’d come and find you if you did. Probably drag you to the table.”

I grinned. “I might be a little late completing some errands, but I’ll be there. Let her know?”

“Sure.”

Errands covered everything from refilling my tank for the morning commute to fetching an order from the hardware store for a long-term personal project at home. I’d decided to build a deck and fence in the property, exhausted with a neighbor’s dog harassing my fosters. If not for Samuel helping out for a few dollars in his pocket or Sergio spending the occasional afternoon alongside me to drop posts, I would have given up and hired a fence builder.

Pride wouldn’t let me do that though. Now that I’d started the job, I’d finish this shit. I just hoped someone shot me the next time I had a bright idea to fence in twenty-two acres of forest. In the meantime, I’d completed a much smaller boundary securing just the immediate backyard. It was enough room for them to roam a couple hours and handle their business, but no true space for running.

With the window cracked and the autumn air whistling through my sweat-dampened hair, I sang along to the classic rock station filling my cab with the energetic tunes of Aerosmith.

Before I could butcher “Dream On” any further with my rendition of Steven Tyler’s wail, the phone I’d tossed into the beverage compartment lit up with an incoming call from an old friend. I tapped a button on the steering wheel to accept Nadir’s call, filtering his voice through a Bluetooth connection and out the car speakers.

“Sup, man?” he asked.

“Na’much. Driving home from work. What’s up?”

“Just calling to see if you’re still coming over tomorrow?”

“To be your manual labor after a week of hard work? Since you promised beer and your mom’s cooking, yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ve got a whole side of rib eye to cut up into steaks, too.”

“Sounds good.”

I’d agreed over a week ago to help Nadir move into his new home, but that had been before the shit hit the fan at work.

Damn, sleeping in on a Saturday would have been euphoric.

“See you tomorrow.”

We ended the call as I entered the little community five minutes east of The Woodlands. My parents had lived on the peaceful lane for as long as I could remember, the house built while I was a toddler and my parents newly married. Today, most of my extended family lived within a few miles of each other.

As a wedding gift to my younger brother ten years ago, Pops had built Sergio a house of his own down the road. A few months ago, we did the same for Mariana and her new husband.

Other families gave newlyweds microwave ovens and can openers. Our family gave the entire deal from top to bottom to show our love. Maybe that was the advantage of having our own construction company.

Or maybe it was Mamá’s way of keeping all her children together. Since we all lived within two square miles of each other, we held family dinner on the first Friday of every month. Rain or shine, she expected all her children to be present and had been holding the tradition since I’d moved out on my own. God help whoever decided to skip Mamá’s dinner, because weathering that storm of guilt was more trouble than it was worth.

That included illnesses. I’d learned about ten years ago to bring my sniffles to the table, because if my ass wasn’t sitting in that chair to drink Abuelita’s manzanilla tea, Mamá would come and get me.

By the time I arrived home, took out the pups I was fostering, showered, and trimmed my beard—before my mother could comment on the length—I was already running behind by a half hour. Instead of walking as usual, I drove the half mile down the road and parked in the drive. My mother met me on the porch with her hands on her hips and a deep crease between her brows.

A few tenacious pink blossoms still clung to the immense double rose of Sharon bushes flanking the porch steps, and the late-blooming summer honeysuckle beneath the windows released a sweet fragrance into the air. I don’t know how she did it, but Mamá knew how to make them flower all year long. Her ability to coax flowers out of dry soil was damned near supernatural. So was her glower.

“Sorry. Work ran late, and I hit traffic.” One kiss to her cheek smoothed away the disapproving lines.

“You work too hard. Sergio managed to come home on time.”

“Sergio isn’t in charge.”

“You’re losing weight. Look at you, Esteban. You’re skinnier and skinnier each time I see you.”

“I’m not skinnier than I was last week.”

She fussed over me in Spanish and guided me ahead of her into the dining room. Pops had already taken his seat at the head of the long table he and I had built together when I was a teen. Our original nine had grown into fifteen, not counting the abundance of cousins who lived in the area. We’d since built another table for the youngest members of the family and visiting relatives, but with Mariana and her new husband on their honeymoon and Eduardo out of town for the weekend on business, only a few of us were around and only the main table was in use.

My youngest brother glowered at me. “About time you showed up. Can we eat now?” He looked at our parents with a hopeful expression. At seventeen, a senior in high school, Samuel was the last of us waiting to leave the nest.

“After we say grace,” Mamá admonished.

Once I took my seat, she led us in prayer. Then she raised the cover from the dish and the savory smell of her arroz con pollo wafted into the air, releasing the aroma of onion, garlic, tomato, sweet peppers, chicken, and rice seasoned with fresh herbs grown in the backyard.

My stomach cramped with hunger until I had the first heavenly bite.

Damn. If I could survive Mamá digging into my personal life, I’d show up for dinner more often.

“When are you going to bring home a nice woman to introduce to us?”

And she’d now set a brand-new record. Less than two minutes into the meal. I withheld a groan and cut into my chicken. “Ma, we discussed this.”

“We discussed nothing. When are you going to take time away from the job to have a social life and to do things other young men do?”

“I’m forty-three. Far from being a young man.”

“You’re young to me, and you’ll always be my baby,” she disagreed. “Tell him he’s too young to spend all of his life behind a desk, Ernesto.”

My father groaned. The matter of my personal life had been an issue of contention between them, with Pops taking a hands-off approach. “He’s old enough to make his own decisions, although I wonder if I retired and left the business to him too early.”

“Pops—”

“No. It’s a big responsibility, son. You’re doing an amazing job, but there’s more to life than work.”

While Castillo Construction Co. was a family business, only a few of us had taken any interest. I’d worked alongside Pops from the time I returned from the Marines. Sergio had been with our dad the longest, but he hadn’t wanted a top leadership position. Hadn’t wanted to be the boss of all the bosses, and he’d deferred the role to me.

Mariana handled the administrative office for us, but with her away on a luxury cruise, I’d had the stupid idea to absorb her duties into mine. Should have trained Selene when we had the chance, but my youngest sister would laugh at me now if I asked for her help. Besides, she’d just begun her final year of college. It was too late to burden her with my problems.

“What are you doing this weekend?” Mamá asked. “Sylvia’s daughter Rochelle will be in from San Antonio, and I’m sure she would appreciate someone to show her around The Woodlands. Perhaps even Houston.”

“I’m busy helping a friend tomorrow.”

Her expression deflated, lips pursed into a thin line and eyes staring into my soul. “The entire day?”

“Old Marine pal, Mamá. He’s got twenty years of stuff to move across Houston. It’ll be an all-day thing.”

“Oh.”

The calculating look in her eyes didn’t fade, and I knew from that moment that she wouldn’t let the discussion end there.

An hour later, Selene came to fetch me from the kitchen at our mother’s behest. I’d been loading plates, cutlery, and silverware into the washer while Samuel scrubbed the pots and platters in the sink.

“Dammit. Can’t he help me first?”

Selene rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to bitch about a few dishes, I’ll help you.”

Leaving my younger siblings behind to wash up and clean after dinner, I sought out our mother in her knitting room. She had a room for her sewing projects, needlework, and anything else involving yarn or fabric. She’d made Mariana’s wedding dress with her own hands, toiling in that room for days until my sister had a dress worth more than any designer gown.

When I entered the room, Mamá was sitting at the table cutting fabric and humming to herself.

“Is that the fabric Selene chose for her graduation dress?”

“It is. So proud of our girl.”

My little sister would be graduating in the spring with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics after sacrificing multiple summers of her free time and taking enormous course loads. She was a machine, preparing to undertake the path of becoming a teacher. After that, she planned to return for her master’s in education.

“You needed me, Mamá?”

“Come in and sit. You and I, we haven’t talked much lately.”

“We talk all the time,” I said, taking a seat nearby but out of her way.

“Not about important things. I worry about you, mijo. When are you going to date again? You haven’t been the same since Gabriela left.” When I didn’t answer, she carried on. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”

“What?” Startled by the absurd question, I barked out a laugh and shook my head while waving both hands in denial. “No. Far from it. I’ve been over Gabriela since we signed the papers and ended our marriage.” And I’d been on a couple dates.

“Good. That lying pu—”

“Mamá.”

“Esteban, she lied to you. She lied and told you things that were not true.”

“She never lied to me. She changed her mind, and that’s okay. Everyone changes their minds sometimes, and I’m glad she was able to tell me she didn’t want kids.”

“Only after eleven years of stringing you along. It wasn’t right. You don’t lie to a man and tell him you want children then hold him in a marriage so many years. It just isn’t right.” Mamá shook her head. “It’s okay to not want kids, I understand, but what she did to you was not right.”

I sighed.

Gabriela had been my childhood crush, my high school sweetheart, my first wife, and the expected mother of my children. I’d proposed to her two weeks prior to enlisting in the Marines, and three years later once I had some stability, we married. But she was never happy. The life of a military wife didn’t appeal to her, and while we’d discussed having children, she’d always promised once we settled somewhere permanently, she’d be ready.

When I discharged to help Pops with the business, Gabriela had more excuses. I’d understood. I’d listened. Whenever she placed new stipulations upon building our family, I busted my ass to make it work.

We separated one month before moving into the brand-new home I’d built because she’d claimed we needed a house large enough for kids. The divorce came not long after that. When I’d served the papers, she signed without any complaints or requests to make it work.

And that was the end of eleven years of marriage.

“You deserve someone much better than Gabriela, and you won’t find that someone if you bury yourself beneath work. Why don’t you let your father return to the business?”

“You wanted Pops to retire, remember?”

“I did, but now I see the strain it places on you. Besides, now he sits around spending money. He shops all day at Amazon, finding things to buy that we don’t need.”

I smiled. “I’ll tell him to get a hobby.”

She harrumphed. “At least let him work in the office.”

“You know he won’t stay in there. Besides, it’s still his business. If he really wanted to come back to work, he would. Let him find something else to do to occupy his time at home.”

“He has a hobby. He wants to raise a steer. A steer! He bought this four-thousand-dollar meat grinder and all of this equipment for processing our own meat.”

“About time. I’m tired of paying the butcher to process these deer.”

“That isn’t the point! He is looking for things to buy now. Who needs five deep freezers? According to him, five still isn’t enough.”

Somehow, I managed to keep from laughing at her horrified outrage. “It’ll pay for itself eventually. He can even set up a stall at the farmer’s market to sell some of our excess meat. That’ll get him out of your hair for a while too.”

Mamá narrowed her eyes at me. “But that means more money. He would need a food handler’s license.”

Damn. I couldn’t sneak anything past her. “It’s inexpensive. He’d need a temporary food establishment permit, and I’ll help him get it. You worry so much about money. Pops won’t overspend.”

“That’s what you say, but you don’t have to live with him and that damned device always making purchases. He speaks to it now more than he talks to me.” She sulked. “Tells it what he wants to buy, and two days later the mailman brings it.”

“I’ll have a talk with him about the dangers of Internet shopping. All right?”

“Fine.”

Mamá twisted around to resume her work. And I hurried the hell away before she remembered to delve into my love life again.

---

Nadir’s family lived in an upscale community on the suburban outskirts of Houston. I arrived at nine as promised and drove him to pick up a U-Haul. Then it was back to the house for the hard work.

How did one man acquire so much crap while in the Marines? Better yet, how did his family find the room to store it all? Was there a single item in the attic that didn’t belong to my buddy? Sweat poured down my brow and stung my eyes, trickling down my back in rivulets. I used my shirt to dry my face.

“Esteban, would you like a glass of sweet tea?” Roksana called.

Fuck yes. “Yes, ma’am. Just a moment.” With dust and cobwebs in my hair, I emerged from the hatch and accepted a cool glass of sweet tea from Nadir’s mother.

She smiled. “Thank you for coming to help Nadir with this. Are you sure you boys don’t want us to help?”

Guzzling the entire glass didn’t quench my thirst. Their attic could have substituted as a medieval torture device. Or a sauna for someone on a budget. The contractors who built the house had cut corners with ventilation.

“Thanks, but we’ve got it. I think you did enough work getting it all up there to begin with.”

She laughed and wiped my face with the dishtowel in her hands, cleaning a few cobwebs from my beard. “You’re a good friend. Always have been. Nadir was on the phone a moment ago and says backup should arrive shortly. He asked a few others to help out.”

“Sounds good. I think I’ll step out for some fresh air and see how much room is left in the truck.”

When we’d rented the midsize truck, I hadn’t anticipated the sheer amount of bullshit this dude had collected. While the rest of us had spent our money on drinks during deployments, or hoarded our earnings away, Nadir used his income to amass an impressive collection of silk rugs, brass and copper knickknacks, unique furniture, and handmade suits.

Tall, narrow windows with panels of stained glass framed the front door, giving me a good look outside. As I reached for the knob, I stopped, struck dumb by the sight only a few yards away.

The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen exited the driver’s side of a cherry red Corvette convertible parked in the circle drive. The satin finish of the paint job glistened beneath the sun and faded to gold around the hood and fenders. As much as I wanted to fawn over the car, I wanted the owner more. She moved with the easy, long-legged gait of a woman confident in her looks, her languid stride reminding me of a panther on a stroll.

And she was heading this way.

Holy hell.

I opened the door, eager to get a better look. Her sleeveless pink top revealed toned arms, thin fabric clinging around a slim waist, and high, full breasts. A matching set of leggings hugged the most perfect thighs I’d ever wanted wrapped around my waist.

Goddamn.