Cami entered Rogers Plumbing a week after the Christmas parade. And she thought the lights had been magical the first time she’d seen them. But nothing was the same when she was with Dylan. He made everything better, brighter, beautiful.

“Hey,” she said when Dana looked up. “I have all the paperwork for you.” She handed Dana the folder she’d taken everywhere with her for about two weeks now. “I’ve been over it all, and I think I’ve signed everywhere I need to.”

She collapsed into the chair across from Dana, bone tired from the day’s jobs. She hadn’t even been up to the build since she finished the last house last weekend, but she’d need to get up there soon and pick up the specs for the next phase. Just the thought of looking at new specs made her eyes burn.

“Thanks,” Dana said, and Cami gave her a weak smile. “I’ll have Abraham go over it with the lawyer, but I think we’re all set for the purchase come January first.”

Cami was too, but a flutter of nerves hit her. Dana wouldn’t be working the desk anymore, and Cami suddenly realized she’d have to hire someone to run the office. Do the books. Make the appointments. Collect and deposit the money. Pay the bills.

And that meant someone she trusted and could work well with. She knew a lot of people in Three Rivers by face, but hardly any by name.

Her phone rang, interrupting her mounting panic, and she swiped on a call from Dylan with a quick wave to Dana. Her muscles protested as she stood, but she hobbled toward the front door anyway, saying, “Hey.”

“Hey, pretty girl. Where you at?”

“Just leaving Rogers,” she said, stepping onto the sidewalk and freezing. “Do you think I’ll need to change the name?” There were so many things she hadn’t thought of, and she felt like a fool.

“Not unless you want to. It’s been Rogers Plumbing for something like forty years. People will still call it that anyway.”

And she wouldn’t have to pay to get a new sign made, repaint Penny, get new shirts, any of it.

“I’m calling because I’ve decided to get a dog,” he said, his voice a bit louder than normal, like he was making an announcement.

“That’s great,” she said, because she knew he loved dogs and had wanted one for a while. “But I thought you weren’t moving until January eighth.” He’d bought the fixer upper a couple of blocks away from her house, and while it was nowhere near move-in ready, he claimed he could live there while he did some work.

She’d put him through the grinder with questions about the roof and what he’d do if it rained. He’d waved her away with, “It hardly ever rains here,” and she’d asked him about new, energy-efficient windows, and hey, maybe a floor your foot didn’t fall through would be nice.

“I’m not,” he said. ‘That’s where you come in.”

“Oh, I see where this is going already,” she said, employing her professional tone, though he already knew she’d let him keep whatever pup he picked at her place until he moved. “And I don’t like it.”

“Please, Cami?” he asked. “Boone says they just got in a new litter of pups, and if I don’t get one tonight, they’ll be gone.” His voice pitched up, but he cleared his throat. “All the moms will come take them for Christmas presents.”

“So am I your mom?” she asked.

“No way,” he said. “You’re my girlfriend, who happens to have a great backyard for a dog. It’s just a couple of weeks.”

“It’s like a month,” she said. “And this is a puppy? It won’t be potty trained?”

“It’ll sleep outside.”

“You’re nothing but trouble, Dylan Walker.”

He laughed, and she did too, and she finally got her feet moving toward Penny around the side of the shop. “I’m on my way over now, if you want to meet me there.”

“I’m sitting in your driveway,” he said. “Why don’t you come home first, and then we’ll go? I’ll take you to dinner afterward.”

She shook her head, though he couldn’t see her, and said, “Sure. See you in a few.”

He was indeed waiting in her driveway, so she pulled up to the curb and got out of the van. When she opened the passenger door and climbed into his truck, she said, “You realize you can’t leave a puppy in here unattended while we go to dinner.”

He blinked a couple of times, which made her laugh and shake her head again. “I don’t think you’ve thought pet ownership all the way through.”

“I have,” he said. “Boone works all the time and he has two dogs.”

“They probably go to work with him,” she said. “And they’re not puppies, and you babysit them all the time when he has to leave town.” She slid across the seat and kissed him. “But come on, cowboy. You want a dog? Let’s go get a dog.”

The animal shelter wasn’t too far from Cami’s house, and Dylan parked toward the back entrance to the shelter. There were no other cars in the lot, and only the one window with any light.

“Are you sure they’re open?” she asked, peering out of the windshield at the old building.

“Boone said he’d meet me here.” He got out, and Cami followed him. The door was open, and sure enough, when they went in, Boone turned from the counter where he stood.

“Hey, guys.” He flashed a smile at them and came closer. “You must be Dylan’s Cami. I’m Boone Carver.”

Dylan’s Cami.

She liked the sound of that, and she instantly liked Boone too. He had a soothing way about him, from the huge cowboy hat on his head to the shiny shoes on his feet.

“Hey, man.” He shoulder-clapped Dylan and added, “Puppies are over here.” He led them to an enclosure where six dogs were living. Three or four of them got up and came over to the fence closest to Dylan and Boone, and Cami stayed back to watch.

“You want one who’s interested in you,” Boone said. “But not a barker. That big blackish one in the front, he’s the pack leader. I’d go for one of the browner ones.”

Dylan picked up the pack leader and cradled the dog against his chest. “German shepherds,” he said to Cami as if she couldn’t tell the most popular breed of dog just by looking.

She smiled but didn’t crowd into the limited space. Dylan put the bigger, blacker dog down and picked up a brown one. The pup licked his face, and he laughed. Cami liked hearing his happiness, seeing the joy in his eyes, and she told herself it was worth having an un-potty trained dog in her yard for a month if Dylan wanted it.

And she knew, once again, that she was in love with him.

The real question now was: When could she tell him?

He hadn’t told her again that he loved her, and she’d sort of been waiting for him to do that. Then she’d have an easy way to get her feelings out without having to bring it up.

“This one,” Dylan said. “I want this one.”

“What are you going to name him?” Boone asked, retreating to the spot where he’d left his clipboard on the counter.

Dylan looked at Cami, but she shrugged. “I’m not naming your dog.”

“I don’t know,” Dylan said. “Let me think about it.” He put the dog back in the enclosure with his siblings. “When will they be ready?”

“Next Friday,” Boone said.

Dylan slung his arm around Cami’s shoulders. “See? It really will only be a couple of weeks by the time we get to take him.”

Cami went out to Rivers Merge the next morning, bright-eyed and fresh from her kick-boxing workout. Her first job for Rogers wasn’t until ten, and she figured the gym was closer to the build than her house, and she could get the phase two specs, and then head home to shower.

She found several trucks parked in front of the trailer, which was a bit odd for how early she was. But undaunted, she went up the steps and opened the door.

“She’s here,” someone said, but Cami couldn’t identify who, as there were several men standing in the trailer, most of them with their back to her.

Gerald rose from the desk and everyone seemed to part and turn and look at her at the same time. Gerald wore an indiscernible look on his face. “Site five, six, and seven have flooded.”

Horror infected Cami, from her toes to her forehead, as the words landed like bombs in her ears. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Her thoughts spun, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong in those three homes that she hadn’t in the others. Her mind couldn’t settle onto any one thought.

“We should’ve hired Wadsworth,” someone said, a suit from the building company, and Cami finally got her neck to wrench in his direction.

“It’s not too late,” another man said.

Cami faced all men. Always all men.

“No,” she managed to croak. “I didn’t do anything wrong in the rough plumb of any of the sites.”

Every eye stared at her, and she felt vastly outnumbered. But she was the right one for this job, and she wasn’t going to let Wade Wadsworth come waltzing in here and take it from her.

“I saw Wade Wadsworth here at the trailer,” she said. “A couple of months ago. Maybe longer than that. Maybe he came back and….” She trailed off, the thought too wild, even to attribute to Wade. But he had been here that day Dylan had brought her coffee, and that was when she’d plumbed those specific houses.

“What?” Suit One asked. “Sabotaged your work?”

Cami lifted her chin. “Yeah, something like that.” She folded her arms. “I want to see the sites.”

“I’ve got restoration crews in them already,” Gerald said. “Water’s all off. Power too.”

“Power?” She glanced around for Dylan but he wasn’t there. Why wasn’t he there? But slowly her mind switched from Dylan to the real problem. “Those sites shouldn’t have live power yet. Not until the drywall goes up and the furnace needs to kick on.”

She thought back. She’d finished the last two homes about ten days ago. The roofers had been taking two days to roof, and Dylan took a week to wire the whole house. So she finished a house one day, and Dylan finished with it a week and a half later.

So, yes, the power would be in sites five, six, and seven, but it shouldn’t actually be live until the drywall went in, which didn’t happen until after insulation, which hadn’t even cleared site three yet.

“The only sites that should have live power are one and two,” she said. “Why did five, six, and seven have it?”

“Who cares about the power?” Suit Two asked. “We’re talking about water here.” He waved his hands around like he was swimming. “Water,” he said again, as if she was too stupid to understand him. “And that water is everywhere in those homes. The subfloors will need to be replaced, part of the walls. This is a huge problem, loads of money and work and….”

Cami hoped her glare had silenced him. “The power controls the—”

“Water pump,” Gerald said with Cami.

“I want to see the sites,” Cami said again, ready to die on this hill. “It’s not my fault if the pumps came on when they weren’t supposed to and flooded the houses. My job is to move the water from one place to another. It’s everyone’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen until the right time.”

Gerald collected a large ring of keys and moved toward her. “Let’s go see the sites.”

As they walked down the gravel paths that would become roads, Cami fired off a quick text to Dylan: Where you at?

Sick today. Couldn’t stop puking last night.

Her heart went out to him, and she felt a tiny bit guilty for being mad at him that he wasn’t there to support her. And that she’d practically thrown him under the bus. But she honestly couldn’t think of a single thing she’d done to make all the pipes in the houses flood.

The restoration van had pulled all the way to the cement steps leading into the house, and two hoses—one red, one blue—snaked through the open front door of site five.

“Stan!” Gerald called, and the machinery roaring inside the house stopped. “What’s the verdict?”

“We can get it dried out,” he said. “There are some places that need to be replaced. We’re testing the stability of them as we go and outlining the sections that will need to be redone.”

Gerald nodded and looked around at the skeleton of the house. About six inches up the walls, the water line was evident. Cami stared at it in disbelief. This had been leaking for a long time.

She said so, and Gerald held up his hand. “Stan?”

“Yeah,” Stan said, glancing around. “The pumps came on, oh, I don’t know. I would guess early evening last night and ran all night.”

Cami drew in a breath. Not her fault. Those pumps shouldn’t have come on, not until the water lines were hooked up to appliances and drains.

“Why did the pumps suddenly come on?” Gerald asked. “This home’s had electrical for a week.”

“Dunno.” Stan wiped his hand through his hair. “But that’s what happened in all three houses.”

“But not number eight?” Cami asked.

“That one’s not done yet,” Gerald said. “Dylan called in sick today, but he said he’d get the electrical in this week, on schedule.”

“So it didn’t flood. No power to the pump.” Cami nodded like that solved the problem. “This has nothing to do with my plumbing work,” she said.

No one with her—not Gerald, not Stan, neither of the two suits from Saddleback—looked as convinced as she was.

“Why don’t you—?” Gerald started.

“I’ll be getting the specs for phase two,” she interrupted. “I have appointments all day today, and I don’t have time for this.” She stalked away, expecting him to call after her that she was fired, that she’d lost the bid, that they’d be calling Wade to come finish the rest of the phases.

He didn’t, and Cami made it back to the trailer, her hands shaking with fury and fear. Now, if she just knew where the phase two specs were….

Only thirty minutes passed before Gerald and his posse came through the front door. This time, Dylan was with them. His skin looked like wet cement and sweat plastered his hair to his forehead. She wanted him to come to her side, take her side, but he just stood half a step behind Gerald, his eyes worried and his mouth closed.

She wouldn’t beg him to come join her, though his name sat against the tip of her tongue to do exactly that. She bit back the urge and folded her arms.

“Just take today off,” Gerald said. “Until we can figure out what to do.”

“No.” Cami shook her head. “You’ve already figured out what to do. You hired a restoration company to fix the water damage.”

“The water damage is going to cost twenty thousand to repair,” Suit Two said.

“You have the money,” she hurled back, appraising his clothes like they alone could make up the financial loss. For all she knew, they could.

Calm down, she commanded herself. Now wasn’t the time for her temper to get the better of her. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said, hating the pleading note in her voice. She didn’t want Dylan to get fired either, and she honestly didn’t know why those pumps had come on last night. Her theory that Wade had come and played a little game of sabotage was sounding better and better with every breath she took.

Dylan should know she didn’t do anything wrong. He wired in the same walls where she plumbed. He would’ve seen any mistakes. He’d have reported it, and she’d have fixed them.

He’d said nothing, just like he was now.

That hurt more than the thought of losing this bid.

“Cami,” Gerald said, but she didn’t hear his next words.

Losing Dylan hurt more than losing her job, and that had never been the case with anyone before. She stalked forward, ignoring Gerald and the Suits completely. She paused in front of Dylan, her emotion so close to the surface. So close.

“We’re done,” she bit out, stomping down the stairs and back to Penny.

She got out of the parking lot, away from Rivers Merge, before the first tears fell.

The following day, Cami had scheduled as many jobs as humanly possible. She’d spent her “day off” yesterday working for Rogers, just as she’d planned. But she hadn’t gotten the phase two specs, and therefore, she didn’t know what to expect once the New Year hit.

Heck, she didn’t even know what to expect for today or tomorrow, not when it came to Rivers Merge.

So she spent her time with wrenches and pipes and toilets. They didn’t betray her. Didn’t spew hot water when they should be cold. Didn’t ask her if she wanted kids when he wasn’t serious. Didn’t take her home to spend time with him, making traditions and telling her he loved her only to break her heart.

Cami had finally felt like her life was coming together into something she could be proud of. A new business. A new boyfriend.

Why did this have to happen now? she wondered, even tipping her head back to look at the ceiling.

God didn’t answer, leaving Cami as frustrated and cranky as ever.

She finished the job, collected the check and signature on the work order board, and left the home only to find Dylan’s shiny white truck parked across the street. Her traitorous feet slowed, and her hopeless heart thumped harder and harder.

She finally got herself moving toward Penny again. If she could just get inside, the van would protect her. Get her out of here.

“Cami,” Dylan called as he got out of his truck.

She ignored him and wrenched open Penny’s door, the metal squealing in protest. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

She was just about to yank the door closed when Dylan’s strong hand stopped it. “I just want to talk to you.”

“I don’t care about anything you have to say,” she said. Especially not now. Not when he hadn’t said anything when it really mattered.

“They—”

“¡Vete!” she said in Spanish, lurching out of the car. Go away! She just wanted to get away. “¡Déjame solo!” She continued in Spanish, because each word seemed to knock Dylan back half a step. He finally moved enough for her to stalk back to the van and slam the door.

“Come on, Penny,” she said, her voice shaking along with every muscle in her body. “Let’s go.”