The Long, Hot Texas Summer. Cathy Thacker Gillen

figured you would know this stuff.”

      Amanda did. Unfortunately, she had gone down this particular path before, and it wasn’t a mistake she intended to repeat. “Isn’t this the kind of thing you should be discussing with your girlfriend?” she asked.

      Justin went to the fridge again and brought out two more bottles of beer and a jar of jalapeño barbecue sauce. “Don’t have one.” He opened both beers and handed her one.

      Their fingers brushed, sending a thrill spiraling through her. Amanda took a small sip of the delicious golden brew and studied him over the rim. “Don’t have one as in you recently broke up with someone, or don’t have one as in you don’t want to be in a relationship?” she asked before she could stop herself.

      The corner of his mouth quirked up and he took a drink. “You really want to know?”

      “I do,” she murmured. Though maybe she shouldn’t...

      He let out a long breath, then turned and dumped the green beans into a saucepan to heat. “A couple of years out of college, I got engaged to a woman I worked with.” The words seemed to come with difficulty. “Pilar and I were both vying for promotion. But there was only one slot available at the company where we worked, and the competition for it was intense. I’d been there longer, had an edge. So Pilar picked my brain at length about what I thought it would take to land the top job, then passed my ideas off as her own before I could present them to my boss.” He took another sip of beer. “Suffice it to say, she got the promotion.”

      “That’s terrible!” Amanda blurted out, stunned by the depth of his ex’s betrayal.

      “The worst of it was that Pilar didn’t think she had done anything wrong.” There was a long pause as Justin lounged against the counter. “She said that the corporate world was brutally competitive and to succeed one had to be ruthless. She was only surprised I hadn’t done the same to her, or at least tried. But—” cynicism crept into his low tone “—she felt we could still go on, forewarned and forearmed.”

      Amanda couldn’t believe her ears. “Obviously, you felt otherwise.”

      “I realized I didn’t want to be in a relationship where competitiveness was a factor. So I ended it.”

      “Over her objections,” Amanda guessed.

      “Yes.”

      Amanda couldn’t blame him for brooding. Setting the bottle aside, she closed the distance between them and squeezed his hand compassionately. “I would have done the same thing in your place,” she admitted.

      “What about you?” He drained the remainder of his beer. “Is there a reason you don’t want to help me out? A boyfriend waiting in the wings who might not approve?”

      Hoping Justin hadn’t picked up on how attracted she was to him, because an awareness like that could propel them right into the bedroom, Amanda flushed. She moved a slight distance away and worked to contain the emotion in her voice. “I’m not attached, either. Although, like you, I was engaged once, several years ago.”

      His gaze scanned her face and body, lingering thoughtfully, before returning to her eyes. “What happened?”

      “Rob’s parents got wind of the fact that I had a less-than-admirable record before I went to live with my grandparents.”

      His gentle expression encouraged her to go on. Amanda drew a bolstering breath. “They heard from one of their friends, who managed a department store, that I had been caught shoplifting there. As you can imagine, my potential in-laws were not pleased. They had in mind a very different type of woman as the mother of their grandchildren.”

      He caught her hand when she would have turned away. “So your fiancé broke up with you?”

      Amanda leaned into his touch despite herself. “I broke up with him. I didn’t want to come between Rob and his family, and I certainly didn’t want to have kids with a man whose own parents detested me.”

      Justin turned around and brought out two plates. “And Rob didn’t try to persuade you otherwise?”

      Noting that Justin had simply assumed she’d dine with him, Amanda shook her head. “In the end, he agreed a long-standing family quarrel wasn’t what he wanted, either.”

      “And since then...?” Justin asked, seeming to understand implicitly how devastated the whole debacle had left her.

      She decided she might as well eat with him—she was starving and he had enough food to feed four people. “I’ve had dates here and there, but nothing with the potential to be lasting.”

      It seemed the kind of guys she wanted to date all had stellar childhoods and stable, loving families. In the end, none wanted to be dating a former delinquent.

      The most vulnerable part of her did not want to find out that Justin felt the same way.

      Justin loaded their plates with food and motioned for her to sit down at the stainless-steel work island that ran down the center of the room. He took a seat and his smile turned seductive. “So there’s really no reason you shouldn’t help me, then.”

      Except that it would bring them closer, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be closer to someone who made her feel this wildly excited and yearning for more.

      She liked the way she had been before. Content with what she had, and who she was. Not longing for the Cinderella fantasy of a spellbinding romance.

      Aware Justin was still waiting for her answer, Amanda settled onto a high-backed stool opposite him. “Don’t you have a mother or a sister or someone else you could ask?” Her mouth and throat had suddenly gone bone-dry.

      He added a healthy splash of barbecue sauce to his plate and cut into his sausages with gusto. “I don’t have any sisters. My four brothers know as little about party planning as I do.”

      “There’s still your mother,” Amanda persisted.

      Justin set the barbecue sauce in front of her. “She’s a wildcatter, with her own company to run. Not only is she completely inept in the kitchen—to the point that it’s a running family joke—she’s pretty busy scoping out a new drilling site in the Trans-Pecos area of southwest Texas.”

      “So,” Amanda said, picking up her knife and fork, “it’s back to me.”

      Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes. “That lunch you served us proves you’re an amazing cook.”

      She kept her eyes locked with his, even as her heart raced in her chest. She took a bite of the meal he had prepared. The sausage was delicious—crispy on the outside, meaty and flavorful on the inside. “This is really tasty, too.”

      “The supermarket deli made half of it.”

      Amanda felt her face flush even as she savored the tang of the German-style potato salad. “One excellent home-cooked meal is not going to get you what you want.”

      “Sure?” His eyes danced with merriment. “Because there are more meals where this came from.”

      Amanda raked her teeth across her lower lip. She knew he was attracted to her, too. Sparks arced between them every time they were near. “Is this just an excuse to spend time with me?” she asked warily.

      He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin, poker-faced once again. “I said I wouldn’t hit on you while you were working here.”

      And he hadn’t. The problem was, she was beginning to want to proposition him. At least in fantasy...

      Heat climbed from her chest to her neck and face. “I believe that you really do need help for this worthwhile cause, but why does it have to come from me? Surely you could hire a party planner or caterer.”

      Finished eating, Justin leaned toward her, forearms on the table. “We don’t have the budget for that. Plus, word would get out. And since entertaining is going to be