Parker closed her eyes, blew out a breath. “Okay.”

“Okay, then. Goodbye, Parker.”

Janice hung up before she could say the same.

Parker placed the phone on the table, and Colin grasped both her hands in his.

“Well?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I pick up my check later today.”

Colin shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It is what it is.”

“The same water washed right by the school,” Colin argued for her.

“Doesn’t matter. She warned me.”

He lifted her hands to his, kissed her knuckles. “You okay?”

She did a quick head to toe. Realized she was no longer shaking. The unemployment line had been hanging over her head for months. Now that it had finally happened, no fault of her own, she was actually relieved. “I’m sure I’ll freak out later. Right now, we need to get some water flowing in this house.”

She pulled away and stood.

“You’re something else,” he told her.

“Glad you think so. You’re now dating an unemployed deadbeat.”

He stood with her, pulled her close. “Unemployed, maybe. Deadbeat . . . never.”

The way Parker’s mind worked was genius.

She initially filled buckets with pool water and dragged them into the bathrooms in the house so they could flush the toilets. She stocked up on baby wipes and hand sanitizer along with paper plates, plastic utensils, and rolls of paper towels. But when she strung a series of garden hoses from the working valve by the gate, across the span of the wash, and to the nearest working hose bib and bypassed the section of land where the break had to be, Colin knew she was the right woman for him.

“That’s gonna work?” Fabio asked her.

“Are you doubting me?”

Colin shook his head and Fabio nodded.

Sure enough, she managed to turn the shutoff valves on and boom. Running water in the house.

She stood over the sink, water flowing, and smiled. “Pressure sucks. It’s one shower at a time around here and laundry only when nothing else is running . . . but we can flush a toilet.”

Her accomplishment showed on her face. Hard to believe that the day started off with a call from her boss telling her she no longer needed to show up for work.

That was it. Parker didn’t cry, rage, or anything. She jumped right into getting the water limping back into the house and managed it before noon.

Colin went back to work and so did Parker.

Every time he looked up, she was on a different part of the property shoveling mud or filling a sandbag.

One of his drivers leaned out of his truck and pointed across the property. “Your lady works harder than any woman I’ve ever seen,” he told Colin.

“She sure does.” He really liked that Parker was being referred to as his.

He stayed three nights before Parker pushed him out and told him to go home.

Three nights of holding her when she fell asleep and waking up next to her early in the morning.

He liked it. All of it.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she told him as he stood by his truck, reluctant to leave.

“Or forgetful.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re going to forget me by morning?”

“That would be a little hard since I’ll be here in the morning.”

He leaned against his truck, his arms around her waist as she stood between his legs.

“You need to sleep in your own bed and water your plants.”

“My plants are fake.”

“Happy hour with your brother and sister.”

“Okay, okay . . . I get the hint.”

She kissed him briefly. “Besides, if you go home now I won’t feel guilty about asking you to come back over the weekend when it’s supposed to rain again.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “You’ve proven you can handle the rain.”

She glanced toward the guesthouse. “Yeah, but we have to pull the fence back and open the gate.”

Lights from inside the guesthouse glowed across the pool. “That makes Erin nervous.”

Parker started to nod and stopped herself. “It makes all of us uneasy.”

“But especially Erin.” Colin looked over his shoulder. “Why is that?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. So please don’t ask.”

He really did appreciate someone who could keep a secret. “You’re a rare find, Parker.”

“Loyal. In fact . . . once things settle down I’d like to see about getting an alarm system inside the guesthouse.”

“You mean like the one you have inside yours that you don’t use?”

“Touché. In my defense, I’m a better shot than Erin.”

“Kinda hard to miss with a shotgun.”

She grinned. “It’s on my short list of things to do around here.”

His thoughts moved to his brother. “Matt installed the system in his house.”

“Really?”

Colin nodded. “He’s gone for days on end with his job sometimes. I can ask him to take a look and see what it will cost.” Doing something for Erin would make his day.

“I can’t ask—”

“You don’t have to. I will. It’s quiet back here at night, isolated. I see why your parents installed your system and would like to see you using it. I’ll ask Matt to look at yours and figure out what it will take to put one in the guesthouse.”

Parker leaned into him from knees to chest. “I’m depending on you way too much.”

“God, I hope so.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The sooner you depend on me, the sooner I can pull you into my web and never let you go.”

Confusion swept over her face. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Too much?” he asked. Because it wasn’t too much for him.

“I don’t know.”

She shifted in his arms, but he didn’t let her go. He tried to calm her unease. “Would it be easier if I asked you to be my girlfriend?”

“I thought I already was.”

“Exclusive girlfriend?”

Her smile fell completely. “I thought I was that, too.”

“Glad we’re on the same page, then.” He loved getting under her skin.

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re teasing me.”

He kissed her nose. “I’m defining our relationship so there is no misunderstanding. If I thought you’d let me, I’d go all Neanderthal and lay my claim on you right now.”

That had her smiling again. “What does that look like?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll come up with something.”

She was laughing now.

He kissed her and set her aside before his body got the wrong idea.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he drove down her driveway, and saw her turning to walk inside the house, Colin had a strong desire to turn back. Every time he left her side it felt wrong. Even calling her his girlfriend felt weak. The image of him picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder was the perfect amount of Neanderthal for him. Something told him she might not be into the over-the-shoulder toss.