by Liz Isaacson
“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.”
Chapter Nineteen
Dylan stared after the gray Rogers Plumbing van—Penny—his heart driving away with the woman behind the wheel. His head hurt; his throat hurt; he needed some pain medication and a dark room in which to take a nap.
But he stood on the street, his girlfriend having just whipped him in Spanish and then driven away. The jukebox incident from years ago filtered through his mind. But this time, he actually understood her frustration. Her fury.
What do I do now? he pleaded silently. He hadn’t dared tell his mother about the break-up. Boone either, and by some slip of fate, they’d both called last night. Dylan had avoided his mother’s call and gotten off the line with Boone after only twenty-four seconds.
With his heart cracked, he made his way back across the street to his truck. He had work to do too, and tracking Cami down had taken a couple of hours that morning that he didn’t have to spare.
He tried the last thing he had: his phone.
They aren’t going to replace you on the build. I wouldn’t let them. He sent the text and stared at his screen, willing her response to come back immediately.
How very noble of you, she sent. It wasn’t my fault those sites flooded. It was yours. And you just stood there and said nothing. You let me take the blame.
Dylan’s heart bounced around in his chest like it had been kicked. Was that true? Gerald hadn’t said why the sites had flooded, only that they had, and he needed Dylan at the build site, puke or no puke. So Dylan had gone. He hadn’t even seen the sites yesterday. Only the posse of men and the restoration van.
His plan to head home and get back to bed changed as he aimed his truck north toward Rivers Merge. His anger amplified with every second that passed where he didn’t have the answers he needed. He hoped Gerald was at his desk, because if he wasn’t, someone was going to have to weather a storm they didn’t deserve.
He pushed into the construction trailer and found the foreman at his desk. Thankfully.
“Gerald,” Dylan said. “How did those three sites flood?”
The foreman just gazed at him.
“Gerald.” Dylan took careful steps forward. “It was Camila’s fault, right? You wouldn’t tell her something that wasn’t true, right?”
Would he?
“That’s not how we do things in Three Rivers,” Dylan said when the foreman simply stared.
Gerald rolled his eyes. “When houses flood, it’s a plumbing problem.”
“No.” Dylan shook his head. “There are a lot of reasons why a house might flood.” Dylan’s heart could barely beat. “She said it was my fault. What was she talking about?”
Gerald stood, sighed, and strode around his desk. “The water came on, because the pumps had power.”
Dylan’s confusion was complete, cascading through him like a waterfall. “No,” he finally said. “I didn’t connect the water pumps to power.”
“Someone did.”
“Who?” Dylan demanded.
“I don’t know.” Gerald stepped closer and then closer still. “So see? It was you or her, and it’s not like I fired her. I’m planning to call her this evening and let her know everything has been cleared up and that I need her to get over here and get her specs so she can be ready to go.”
“She’ll be two days behind.” Dylan just stared, his emotions all over the place, hardly able to be separated or defined.
“I’m going to offer to bring in a crew to help her.”
Dylan’s eyebrows sprang up. “A crew?” She wouldn’t like that. Not one little bit.
“We need a few extra hands to get the flood-damaged wood fixed anyway, and those homes have to be rewired in spots, so you’ll need the help—”
“I don’t need any help.” Apparently Dylan didn’t like the thought of working with a crew of Gerald’s men either. “And I’m going to figure out who connected the water pumps to power.” He turned and reached for the door handle.
“Dylan, if you do that—”
He spun back, his own anger shooting through his head, making it hard to order his words. “I’m not taking the blame for it, and Cami certainly shouldn’t have to.” He walked forward one slow step at a time. He paused when he was only a few feet from Gerald. “Just because she’s a woman.”
Gerald flinched, not the answer Dylan wanted. But at least he knew now why the blame had been pinned on Cami. He vowed he’d never tell her—but he guessed she knew already.
He went home, his mind churning. How could he find out who had connected those pumps to the power, who had ruined three sites, and who wanted Cami to take the fall for it?
Too riled up to sleep, he took several painkillers and pulled out his tiny tree for the coffee table. Three feet tall and pre-lit, he got it set up in under five minutes, tired of coming home to darkness and silence. He had one box of Christmas balls, and he hooked those onto the boughs in another five. Anything to keep his mind working, thinking through the problem.
He had exactly one gift to put under his Christmas tree this early. Cami’s ring box. Profound sadness sang through him as he cracked the lid and looked at the diamond. Would he ever be able to give it to her? Would she even open the door if he went over there? How could he get her back?
Figure out who connected power to the pumps.
He wasn’t sure if it was his thought, or that from a Higher Power, but he knew he needed to do it if he wanted Cami in his life. And he did.
Help me, he pleaded. Just give me a direction. The first step. Anything.
Like lightning striking, an idea entered his mind. He reached for his phone, his heart pounding. With a froggy voice and an ache still pounding behind his eyes, he dialed the Sheriff’s office.
He wasn’t expecting the Sheriff himself, Brian Bellsby, to answer, but the man said, “Sheriff Bellsby here,” like he spent all day answering phones.
“Sheriff Bellsby,” Dylan said. “This is sort of an odd question, but do we have security cameras around town? Maybe something that tracks traffic or…?” Dylan couldn’t really imagine there were cameras in Three Rivers, but it was the only thought that had come to his mind.
“We’ve got ‘em around town, yeah,” the Sheriff said. “Up on some of the street lamps.”
Dylan’s head felt light, almost detached from his body. “Up at the northern end of town?”
“Oh yeah. The residents up there have money, and they like the cameras.”
“How can I get a look at the footage?” Dylan asked, wondering if there was some permit he needed, or a stack of papers he’d need to sign until his hand cramped.
“Why?” Dylan could practically see the older man lean forward, his eyes narrowed. He had the suspicious tone down pat.
Dylan didn’t see a reason not to be
truthful. “Three of the houses at the Rivers Merge development were vandalized night before last.”
“Vandalized? No one called in any vandalism.”
“We thought it was a…an electrical mistake. I just learned today that it wasn’t.” That sounded reasonable, and it was true.
“If you’ll come on down to the station, I’ll get you the papers you need, and we’ll pull the tapes.”
Yep, paperwork. Not Dylan’s strong suit. But one glance at the ring box sitting under his Christmas tree, and he said, “I’ll be right over.”
An hour later, Dylan had practically signed enough papers to donate a kidney, and Sheriff Bellsby still hadn’t gotten up from the desk. He looked at the last document very carefully, like Dylan had forged it right in front of him.
“It can take some time to locate the footage.” Sheriff Bellsby finally stood, a long groan coming from his mouth.
“How much time?” Dylan asked.
“An hour or two.”
Dylan checked his phone and saw it was almost lunchtime. “I’ll be back then.” He got up and left the police station to walk down the block to a diner that had been around as long as the town. The diner was hopping with noon customers, and Dylan joined the fray at the bar. He ordered a cheeseburger and fries and hoped he wouldn’t see his boss from the Electric Company. He’d called in sick, and he wasn’t sure how he’d explain his lunch downtown if Asher walked in.
Thankfully, he didn’t, but another man sat down next to him. Dylan glanced at him and looked away when he didn’t recognize him immediately.
“Hey, Dylan.”
He turned back to the man. “Oh, uh…Thomas, right?” He was the architect on the build, but Dylan hadn’t seen him since he’d announced the bid winners, months ago.
“Right.” He flashed Dylan that icy smile and ordered coffee and a Reuben sandwich from the waitress as she walked by.
“What brings you here?” Dylan asked as his food arrived. He busied himself with his burger, but that same slinky feeling crawled over his skin at Thomas’s proximity.