Camila wiped her hand across her forehead, her fingers coming away slick with sweat. “You need a new faucet,” she said as she straightened. The housewife who met her eyes had worry in hers.

“How much will that be?”

“You can go get one yourself, and I can install it for….” Camila pulled out her phone, glad this house had air conditioning blowing from the overhead vent. Some of the older homes in Three Rivers didn’t, which made working on leaks under kitchen sinks nearly unbearable.

She tapped a few times on her phone, activating the price list from Rogers Plumbing. “One-thirty,” Cami said. “If you want me to grab the standard faucet from our place, it’ll be an inflated price.” She looked up into the woman’s face. “It’s cheaper to go to the hardware store and get the faucet you want and just have me install it.”

The other woman nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“Great.” Cami put a smile on her face. “Let me know when you have it, and I’ll swing by and get it installed.”

“How long does that take?”

“Half an hour. I can squeeze you in.” She pocketed her phone and picked up the work order board she’d brought inside with her. A little girl no older than five came down the stairs and to her mother’s side.

Cami gave them both the warmest smile she could muster and headed for the front door. The bid announcements were starting in an hour, and she needed to grab something to eat before she went back up to the build site on the northeast side of town.

Her stomach turned over at the thought of putting anything in her mouth. Okay, so maybe eating before the bid winners were announced was a poor idea. She skipped the stop at her house for the peanut butter sandwich she’d made that morning and went back to the plumbing storefront on Main Street. Dana would be there, as she ran the storefront for anyone who came in and took all the service calls.

Her husband, Abraham, was getting close to retirement and he didn’t usually come into the shop until later in the day. His arthritis had been flaring up in this mid-autumn Texas heat too, and Cami reminded herself to get a batch of tamales down to him that evening.

“Hey,” she said, putting the work order clipboard on Dana’s desk. The older woman looked up and smiled, her dark hair salted with gray. “The Fletchers are going to get a faucet and call when they’re ready to have me come install it. I’m headed up to the Saddleback build site to see if we won the bid.”

Dana slid the work orders toward her and smiled. “How long will you be up there?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Cami said, her nerves firing again. She’d seen her ex-boyfriend in the trailer the previous day, and she’d tried hiding behind Dylan’s broad shoulders so Wade wouldn’t see her. And she’d nearly been trampled by Dylan after he tossed his bid in the tray and turned to go.

“I’ve never seen a builder do bids like this before,” Cami said, hoping Wade would send someone else from his plumbing shop in Amarillo. Stop thinking about Wade, she commanded herself. The man didn’t deserve more than a moment of her attention, and she’d given him a lot more than that over the years.

“Hopefully not too long,” Cami said. “I mean, they’re just announcing who won. I don’t expect there will be a debate.” She’d never been able to adjust her bid once a contractor was selected, and she didn’t see why Saddleback would do that in this situation.

What she did see was that the Rogers’s needed this bid to stay open. Sure, installing new toilets and fixing pipes had kept them afloat for the better part of three decades. Their big repairs like fixing sewer pipes and re-plumbing the older homes sustained them through the leaner months.

But with all the new building happening in Three Rivers, they needed to be doing all the plumbs in those construction sites, or they’d become obsolete.

“I’ll see you later,” she said, turning to go before she allowed her desperation to infect her expression.

“Let me know how it goes,” Dana called after her.

Cami arrived at the site, seemingly the last one there, just like yesterday. Today, the builders had set up two large tent shades, with rows of white folding chairs underneath. She groaned as she stepped from her air-conditioned work van. She slammed the door, and the resulting rattle reminded her that she needed to be more careful with Penny. Penny-the-Plumbing-Van had been with her since she’d started with Rogers Plumbing, nearly four years ago. Penny was getting older, was an excellent friend, and did the bulk of the heavy lifting when it came to carrying the equipment Cami needed.

She affectionately patted the hood as she rounded the van and scanned the shady areas for a seat—and Wade’s dark hair. He sat on the left side, near the front, and she ducked toward the back, hoping he hadn’t seen her yesterday. She’d followed Dylan right back out of the trailer and taken refuge in Penny until she’d calmed enough to go to her next job.

At that moment, she caught sight of Dylan Walker’s shock of blond hair. Her feet paused. He had an empty seat next to him. He was the only person she knew here, and though she didn’t particularly like him—in fact, almost everything about the man irritated her—her feet took her in his direction, because he was sitting on the far right, near the back. As far from Wade as Cami could get.

“Can I sit here?” she asked.

Dylan glanced up at her, and his blue-green eyes punched her right in the chest. His beautiful eyes didn’t irritate her, and a little flutter started in her stomach.

“Sure.” He grinned and shifted slightly on his seat as if he needed to make room for her to sit in his lap.

Cami pulled her phone from her back pocket and sat. So he had nice eyes—and a killer smile. Didn’t mean she was interested in him. She’d heard enough stories from enough women to know that Dylan wasn’t looking for a serious relationship.

Neither are you, Cami told herself. Her last attempt at serious had ended disastrously, with her moving from Amarillo to Three Rivers and knocking on the Rogers’s door the next morning, begging for a job.

She cleared her throat and focused on the podium that had been set up at the front.

“Nervous?” Dylan asked.

She let out a very nervous chuckle. “Yes.” She slid a look in his direction, long enough to catch the set line of his mouth but not long enough to truly admire his handsome features. “You?”

“Totally.” He wiped his palms down his thighs. “And they put us outside to melt in the heat. Like we’re not already sweating enough.” His disgruntled words made her smile.

“I’ve been sweating since six this morning,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” He leaned slightly toward her. “Why’s that?”

“I do kickboxing in the mornings,” she said, facing him fully and arching her right eyebrow.

A smile with the wattage of the sun beamed across his face. “Sounds…fierce.”

“And then I’ve been in and out of cupboards all morning.” Her stomach growled, but she ignored it.

“And you skipped lunch,” he said with a chuckle. “Me too.” He faced the front again, and Cami took comfort in the fact that he was as worried about winning the bid as she was.

“If you win, we should celebrate,” he said, his voice much quieter than before.

She jerked away from him and looked at him. He didn’t look at her but kept his focus up front. The only indication that he was talking to her came in the slight lean toward her chair.

Cami settled back into her seat properly. “What does that mean?”

“Dinner,” he said. “Me and you.”

She wanted to eat everything she could get her hands on after this bid, whether she won or not. Her compulsive need to eat—whether she was happy or sad, had lots of money or none, had had a good day or a bad one—was why she got up at five o’clock in the morning and worked out with a weight bag and a personal trainer.

Cami knew there were better ways to deal with her emotions, but she hadn’t quite found one that worked for her yet.

“I’m not going to dinner with you,” she hissed as a suit from Saddleback Homes stood and started making his way toward the podium.

“Even if I win the bid?” he asked.

“Especially if you win the bid,” she said. She couldn’t imagine how arrogant he’d be then. He’d probably jump up and shout if the city won the electric bid.

He chuckled like her rejection didn’t even faze him, like his heart was made of steel and her words had bounced right off. No wonder he’d had four girlfriends in six months.

You don’t know if that’s true, she told herself as she folded her arms and crossed her legs. Trying to clench all her emotions inside, she took a deep breath, but that only filled her nose with the woodsy, wild scent of Dylan’s cologne.

“Is that smell your cologne or a toxic spill?” she whispered.

Dylan didn’t have time to answer before the suited man adjusted the microphone for his height and said, “Welcome to the Saddleback Homes Rivers Merge Development.” He had a round, smooth voice that should’ve soothed Cami but didn’t. “My name is Thomas Martin, and I’m the lead architect on this build.” He smiled but it didn’t carry any warmth.

Someone approached and handed him an envelope. “And now I have the winning bidders in my hand.”

The crowd shifted and murmurs swam from the front to the back. Beside her, Dylan straightened, his gaze singular on that envelope.

Thomas ripped it open and extracted several sheets of paper. Cami released the breath she’d been holding. They’d start with the bigger companies first, like cement and brick masons, the landscapers, and then move to the smaller things inside: the electricians, the plumbers, the painters, the tile masters.

Still, she paid rapt attention to the companies and point-of-contact names as Thomas read them. If she won the bid for Rogers Plumbing, she’d be working with all of these…men. It hit her square in the face that every person under the tent was a man, except for her.

Her anxiety flipped up, and she worked to calm it. She’d spent her entire career working for men and with men. This would be no different. It would simply be two years of working with the same men as they built the one-hundred-ten unit development.

Cami tried to swallow, but her throat wasn’t cooperating. She needed this to keep the Rogers’s relevant, keep her job in Three Rivers secure. They needed it so they could retire. They had three daughters, all married and living in the Hill Country. Cami wasn’t sure if one of them would return to Three Rivers and take over the family business, but it was on her list of things to discuss with the Rogers’s. They just needed to get through this bid first.

“Electric work,” Thomas said, and Dylan’s head jerked up from the notebook where he’d been taking notes. “Will be done by Three Rivers Electric Company.” Thomas scanned the crowd until his eyes landed on Dylan.

Without thinking, Cami reached over and squeezed his knee. “Congratulations, Dylan.”

He wore a smile just as wide as the one previously, but it carried only joy and no heat. That fact registered in her brain, but she didn’t know what to make of it. Was he truly interested in her? Could they really go to dinner and have a good time?

“Plumbing work,” Thomas said, and Cami almost bolted. She couldn’t bear to hear another plumber—someone from outside Three Rivers—named, and she suddenly had no confidence that her bid had been good enough.

“Indoor and outdoor plumbing, for the entire community, will be done by Rogers Plumbing,” Thomas said, the last two words reverberating around the tent.

Cami’s heart stopped. Just full-on stopped pumping.

Thomas met her eyes, and gave a small nod of acknowledgement, and her pulse raced forward again.

“Congrats, Cami,” Dylan said, not an ounce of sarcasm in his voice. He beamed at her. “You sure we can’t go to dinner? Maybe my toxic spill cologne has driven away your appetite. I could shower before we go.”

Her mind raced as fast as her heart was galloping. Something sparked between her and Dylan in that moment. That very moment when he had those deep, ocean-colored eyes trained right on her, and a gentle yet sure smile on his face, and that so-not-a-toxic-spill cologne wafting between them.

Oh, yes, something very hot sparked between them, reminding Cami that water and electricity didn’t mix.

But she couldn’t help the smile pulling against the corners of her mouth. She felt positively giddy when she said, “Yeah, let’s go to dinner.”