by Liz Isaacson
“Good, Dylan.” She smiled at him, and he grinned back. “You?”
“Just fine.”
“Heard you went out with someone the other night.”
Dylan shook his head, though the smile remained on his face. “How in the world would you know that? I didn’t think you left this ranch.”
“Very funny.” She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “But who was it?”
“The plumber, Cami Cruz.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Yeah, well, I’m planning on cutting through the pipes in my kitchen sink just to see her again.” He tipped his hat now that Sabrina had her boots on.
“So you like her,” Trina folded her arms and a baby cried in the house.
“I sure do.” Dylan took Sabrina’s hand and they started to walk away. “Bye, Miss Trina,” he called over his shoulder. “All right, Bri,” he said as the gravel crunched under their boots. “This guy’s name is Carl and he’s a bit afraid of the horses.”
“Why would anybody be afraid of horses?” she asked in a genuine need-to-know tone.
“Oh, baby, they’re big. And they’re tall. And he can’t walk real good. You know?”
“I’ll help him,” she said, and Dylan knew she would. After all, the girl had a remarkable talent with horses and people alike, and there was nothing more Dylan liked than spending evenings at Courage Reins.
Unless, of course, he could spend the evening with Cami. But she hadn’t called or texted after their date two nights ago, and he’d given her space.
But as he introduced Bri to Carl, he decided he’d definitely be calling Cami that night to see if they could get together again soon.
Only a few days later, Dylan showed up at the Rivers Merge development to put in the temporary electrical lines the builder needed to move forward with the project. Surprise darted through him to see Cami there, driving a yellow and black excavator.
His blood started pumping hard through his body at the sight of her dark ponytail swaying as she clawed at the ground.
Dang, she was skilled and beautiful—and she’d never answered his call from the other night. He’d thought they’d had a good time, too. Held hands a little. Chatted. Laughed. He hadn’t found that thing they had in common, but he couldn’t be expected to do so when he never saw her, could he?
“Hey,” someone said, and Dylan startled his gaze away from Cami, realizing that he’d been staring for several long seconds.
“Hey,” Dylan said turning to find Easton, a co-worker from the Electric Company. “Let’s get this temporary line in.” It took everything he had not to turn and watch the activity near the tree line.
“Looks like they’re digging wells,” Easton said. “I didn’t realize this wouldn’t be part of the town sewer system.”
Dylan frowned, but he didn’t say anything. He honestly had no idea what the plans were for this community. He’d been given his electrical specs, and he hadn’t seen Cami since their dinner, so he had no idea what her plumbing plans looked like.
Wasn’t his business anyway.
He and Easton got to work to bring electricity down from the power lines across the street. The green utility boxes that fed the homes that used to be the farthest ones north sat opposite him, and Dylan said, “Better get the road coned off.”
Easton did that while Dylan got out his map for where the underground lines would be. It would take them almost two weeks to get the electrical boxes in place for this build, but he wasn’t doing all of that today. Just getting the power from one side of the street to the other. He’d come in as they started building and add the power grid as they advanced through the construction phases.
Getting the power from there to here required busting through the asphalt road and digging down two feet. At least there were no sidewalks to be redone, and the public works department would send out the asphalt crew to patch this road until the construction was complete.
Easton had the green electrical box open and the breakers off before Dylan brought in the jackhammer to get the asphalt broken up. Thankfully, they only needed about a one-foot strip, and it only took a few minutes to get through the road.
Then they took to the trench with shovels. Dylan liked the hard work, the bend and dig and throw repeated motion of digging a trench for the wires. Sure, he went home tired at the end of every day, but he always felt good about what he’d accomplished.
“We’ll need to see the plumbing specs,” Easton said. “If they’re doing well houses, those will require power.”
Dylan lifted his head, the trench almost done. “That’s true.” He frowned and glanced back to where Cami had moved to a new spot of earth to abuse. The site hadn’t been cleared or leveled yet, but Dylan knew it would be soon. In fact, by the time Dylan returned to Rivers Merge, it would look completely different. They’d leave him space to put his wires in the ground, but the plots would be leveled, staked, with foundations poured and plumbing started.
“I’ll go ask her,” he said, brushing his gloved hands together. Dylan left Easton to finish the trench and approached Cami in her powerful piece of equipment. He swallowed, trying to wet his throat before he spoke.
He waved to get her attention, and she nodded to acknowledge that she’d seen him. But she didn’t cut the engine or stop working. In fact, she made Dylan wait an entire five minutes while she finished digging the well. Only then did she climb down from the excavator, wearing her ultra-tight yoga pants and a tank top the color of lemons.
Dylan licked his lips, his focus on hers, which shone with gloss under the mid-morning sun. “Are you doing wells in all the properties?” he asked.
“No, just five back here,” she said, shielding her eyes with her hand as she looked up at him.
A smile curved his mouth. Her beauty made him ache with the need to kiss her. “Do you—they need power in the pump houses?”
“I’m sure they will. My job was to get the wells done today,” she said, a definite edge in her voice.
He didn’t need another repeated jukebox incident, so he took a step back when he wanted to lunge forward, wrap his arms around her, and bring her into his chest. “I’ll check with the construction foreman. I didn’t see powered pump houses in my specs.”
He wanted to ask her about the unreturned phone call, but he didn’t want to appear desperate.
Dylan turned and went back the way he’d come, taking a detour toward the construction trailer instead of returning to Easton, who had the two-by-fours out and was waist-deep in the earth to make sure they got seated correctly. It didn’t rain or snow much here in Three Rivers, but Dylan and his crew always planned for the worst, especially heading into the winter months.
He’d climbed the steps and opened the door to the trailer before he realized Cami had come with him. His pulse pa-pumped an extra time, whether from nerves or her proximity, he wasn’t sure.
“Gerald,” Dylan said, keeping one eye on Cami as she flanked him. “Cami said there’s five wells along the back of the build.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder but it was in the complete wrong direction. He dropped his hand to his side. “Are you planning to build powered pump houses for those?”
Gerald, a man close to fifty if Dylan had to guess, looked up from the desk against the wall. “Wells?”
“My specs had five wells along the back edge of the build,” Cami said. “I just finished the third one.”
Gerald shook his head as he rose. “That’s an old spec. We’re doing individual water for each unit. City sewer systems.”
“An old spec?” Cami stepped forward, and all the alarms in Dylan’s body and mind went off. Loudly.
“Why do I have an old spec?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Gerald settled his weight onto the edge of his desk and folded his arms, completely unconcerned. Dylan wanted to yell at him to run! Hide! Because while he faced the back of Cami’s head, he could feel the sizzling energy of her anger. It hung in the air like the scent of fried
food at the town fair.
“I’ll find out and get you the updated specs,” Gerald said, sighing as he went back around his desk. He sat down and pulled a folder toward him, settling his glasses back into place. Conversation over.
“So I’m good,” Dylan said loudly. “I’ll just finish up that temporary power line, and—”
Cami spun around, her honeyed eyes anything but sweet. “What am I supposed to do with those holes?” She stared at him, but he knew she wasn’t really asking him.
“Fill ‘em in,” Gerald said like it was just that easy. Like she hadn’t spent almost half a day of her time digging them. Dylan would be mad too.
He tried to smile, but Cami rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stomped past him. “I’ll fill them in.”
Dylan followed her out, calling, “Cami.”
She slowed but didn’t turn around. He caught up to her easily. “Sorry about the outdated specs. Want me to help—?”
“I don’t need your help, Dylan.” Her words slapped him in the face, knocked the wind right out of his lungs, slowed his feet until they stopped. She kept going, marching with sure strides until she reached her excavator. She climbed in and started scooping dirt back into the hole she’d just made.
Fact or false: We’ll find something we have in common.
Dylan watched her for a few moments past normal and then he returned to Easton and the job he was there to do. And it wasn’t to help Cami with her outdated specs, or stare at her until it was obvious to everyone in town that he had a Texas-sized crush on the woman, or to try to find something they had in common.
He’d been about to ask her to lunch, but now he wondered if he should interact with her at all past what he had to in order to finish this project.
Chapter Six
Cami sighed as she let the hot water run over her hair and back. Some might think it silly to shower before getting on a horse, but Cami couldn’t possibly subject the poor creature to the smell of machinery and frustration.
So she showered and got in her two-seater sedan. Penny would never make it all the way out the Three Rivers Ranch, and while she hoped if they had a plumbing problem, they’d call her, she honestly doubted if her van would make it.
She pulled up to the stables on the north side of the street and got out, trying to exhale out the stress of her day.
Old specs.
How ridiculous. She doubted a man would’ve gotten old specs. At the very least, the manager would’ve apologized to a man. All she’d gotten was “Fill ‘em in.”
Which she’d done. It had taken another few hours, and she’d wasted so much time and money. The thought of it got her blood pressure up again, and she was supposed to be here to ride horses, release her cares to the atmosphere, and relax.
And she couldn’t do that if she dwelled on work. She’d taken off early just to get over the catastrophe from that morning.
“And Dylan was there,” she muttered. As if she needed another reason to look stupid in front of him. All the giggling and hand-holding from the other night made embarrassed heat shoot to her face every time she thought about it.
So much so that she hadn’t been able to answer him when he’d called last night. And that just made her feel even worse when it came to him.
She sighed and Brynn Greene said, “There you are. You gonna come in and ride?”
Cami pushed one more breath out. “Yeah. Yes, I am.” She didn’t get on a horse nearly as often as she’d like to, but when she could get out here and breathe the fresh air, and brush down a horse, and remember that her life hadn’t always been about trying to prove she was capable, she remembered how much she liked the small-town life.
“You want Valentine?” Brynn called on her way back into the building.
Cami followed her, saying, “Yes, please.” She pushed through the door to find Brynn holding a little girl on her hip. “Oh, hey, there,” she said, a bit awkwardly.
“Say hello, baby,” Brynn said, but the girl said nothing. Brynn giggled and said, “Go on back, Cami. And if you want something to eat when you’re done, just come down to the cabin.”
“Thanks, Brynn.” Cami very rarely stayed to eat with the Greene’s, though Brynn asked her to every time she came.
She loved coming out here at the start of her weekend, though she worked just as many Saturdays as she took off. But Friday nights on horseback were perfect. It was still afternoon, but she figured a ride now would be just as wonderful as it would’ve been later.
She took slow steps down the aisle toward Valentine’s stall, but the horse wasn’t there. Cami turned to the other side of the aisle, and The Green Giant was gone too.
“Carole Anne,” she said, a smile forming on her face. She started down the aisle and out the door, where sure enough, a blonde woman with the curliest hair on the planet stood in the pasture with both horses.
She was the quintessential cowgirl, with the short denim shorts and the cowgirl boots. Her hair was always piled in a curly, snaky mess on top of her head, and she wore sunglasses instead of a hat.
“Carole Anne,” Cami called, her own cowgirl boots pinching a bit on her pinky toe on her right foot. She didn’t wear the boots enough to have them completely broken in, even after several months of owning them.
Her friend always went by both names, and she turned toward Cami. “There you are.”
Cami arrived and took the reins for Valentine. “Got off early?” she asked Carole Anne.
“Yeah, as always,” she said. “There’s too many of us at the grocer.”
“You don’t need to work anyway,” Cami said.
“No, but it’s good to get out of the house sometimes.”
“You can come out here anytime you want.” Cami swung into the saddle as she pushed back the jealousy. Carole Anne was literally the nicest person in all of Texas, and she just happened to have the perfect life.
At least on the outside.
Cami knew Carole Anne adored her husband, sure. And that he worked as a banker in town and she didn’t need to work at all. They traded yard care tips while they sat on their front steps and chatted, so Cami also knew that Carole Anne had been told she could never have children, and that such a thing was as close to death for her as one could get.
So she was terribly lonely—by her own admission—and worked at the only grocery store in Three Rivers so she’d have some friends and adult interaction during the day.
And she rode with Cami most Friday evenings. She mounted her horse too, and they set off in the opposite direction of the sun.
“Congratulations on getting the bid,” Carole Anne said after a few minutes.
Cami smiled. “Thanks.” She didn’t want to talk about the disaster that had happened today, choosing instead to go with the euphoria of winning the bid from earlier in the week.
“Should keep you plenty busy for a couple of years,” Carole Anne said. “What with all the town work too.”
“Yeah.” Cami sighed. “I think Dana and Abraham will retire once it’s done.”
“You think they’ll make it that long?”
“I don’t know,” Cami said.
“Will you buy their shop?”
Cami had thought a lot about doing exactly that. But she hadn’t wanted to infringe on the Rogers’. They were good people, who’d spent a lifetime building their business. Who was she to come in and buy it?
“I’m going to talk to them,” she said. “When the time is right.” She flashed Carole Anne a smile, glad Valentine seemed to be in a lazy mood this afternoon. He plodded along with slow steps, and she barely held the reins in her fingers.
The silence out in the country soothed her, and they fell silent as their horses found some fresh grasses and started to nibble.
She thought about Dylan and if he’d ever come out and spend a lazy afternoon with the horses. He seemed like the kind of man who always had to be doing something, going somewhere, making things happen.
She’d watched him work for a f
ew minutes that morning, and he certainly had muscles to set posts and dig trenches, and his work ethic clearly didn’t need much improving. She found herself wondering what he did in his free time, and if he’d like to spend any of it with her.
“So,” she said, making a quick decision. “I’m, well, I went out with a guy this week.”
Carole Anne jerked her head toward Cami. “You did? Who?”
“Dylan Walker?” She looked at Carole Anne to judge her reaction. She’d grown up in the Three Rivers, and though Dylan was a few years older than her, she probably knew him or his family.
“Why, Dylan’s good people,” Carole Anne said. “His mom’s one of the best cooks in the whole county.”
Cami laughed like being a good cook was a requirement for being a good person. “I can barely make banana bread, but I still think I’m a decent person.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I actually have no idea what you mean.” Cami grinned at her.
“The Walkers are a stable, church-going family,” Carole Anne said. “They work hard, and they make cute babies.”
Cami scoffed and shook her head. “Oh, wow. Well, we went on one date, so I don’t think we’re quite to talking about babies yet.”
Carole Anne tsk’ed at her horse to get it to move again. “Come on, Greenie. No more grass.” She waited for Cami to come up alongside her and then she added, “Is there going to be a second date?”
“I don’t know.” Cami watched the horizon now, hoping her face didn’t show the heat creeping into her cheeks. “He called, and I didn’t call him back.”
“Why not? You don’t think he’s pretty much the cutest single man in town?”
“Is he?”
“Uh, yeah. Some of the other girls at the grocer have been plotting during their lunch hours for how they can get him to ask them out.” Carole Anne giggled. “Apparently he hasn’t gone out with anyone in a while, and they’ve been biding their time.”
He hadn’t had a problem asking her to dinner, and another dose of warmth moved through her. “I should probably call him back, huh?”