Page 6 of Oops I Fell For The Lumberjack Next Door

The crawlspace panel is stuck. Swollen from years of moisture. I get my fingers under the edge, pull hard enough that my shoulders burn, and it pops loose. Inside: dark, dirty, and smelling of damp earth. The shutoff valve is six feet in, visible in the light from my phone.

I belly crawl under the house without discussion. Find the valve. It's corroded, stiff, but it turns with enough force. The hissing from the kitchen stops.

When I back out, Margot is standing with her arms crossed, dripping on her own lawn, looking at me with an expression caught halfway between relief and resentment.

"Thank you." She says it fast, tight, aimed at my boots.

"You're gonna need a plumber. The galvanized pipes are shot. Whole system should've been replaced years ago."

"I'll call someone."

"Tom Parker's got a list of contractors. Tell him what happened, he'll send someone good."

"Fine."

We stand there. Me in the dirt from her crawlspace. Her in the water from her kitchen. The mountain air is cold on wet skin, and I notice her shivering even though she's trying to hide it by keeping her arms locked tight.

"You should change into something dry."

"Thank you for the suggestion."

"Your books might be salvageable if you get them out of the boxes and stand them up to dry. Fan the pages. Don't use heat."

Her arms loosen slightly. "You know how to dry books?"

"My mom worked at the library in town for twenty years. Pipe burst in the storage room when I was fifteen. We spent three weekends saving everything we could."

A beat. She processes this. Then she nods once. "Okay."

I should leave. She wants me to leave. Every line of her body is screaming go away except for the part that's cold and tired and standing in a puddle in boots she bought yesterday.

But the plumber won't come until tomorrow at the earliest. She has no water. The temperature drops into the thirties tonight, and without functioning pipes there's no heat from the baseboard system, assuming the baseboard system even works.

"You need water tonight. I can run a hose from my outdoor spigot to your kitchen window. It's temporary. Just so you can fill pots, wash your hands, flush the toilet."

"A hose."

"Garden hose. It'll reach. I've done it before when the Henderson place was occupied and their well pump went out."

"The Henderson place."

"Your cabin. That's what people call it. Old man Henderson owned it for forty years before he moved to Reno and let it go."

She stares at me. Behind her, through the open kitchen door, her cat is still on the counter, paws tucked under her chest, watching both of us with a judgment that feels earned.

"You lived next to an empty cabin for eight years."

"Pretty much."

"And now I'm here."

"Yep."

"And you're going to run a garden hose to my kitchen window."

"If you'll let me."

She breathes in. Breathes out. Her shoulders drop by an inch, which on Margot Hemmings constitutes total surrender.