“You think jiggling your phone might get you one? And you’re the boss of a tech company?” She raises her eyebrows at me and smirks. It’s cute and annoying.
“I own it.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d stolen your phone.”
“The company. Not the phone. But I do own the phone too.”
She shakes her head, kneels on the floor next to the dog and strokes those flappy, hairy ears.
“Does yours have a signal?” I ask.
“Yeah, I got a text right before you showed up.” She leans forward and picks up her phone from the coffee table. “Oh. No. Not now I don’t.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah, looks like there’s no Wi-Fi either.” She gets up and peers into the gap between a bookcase and the wall.
“No lights on the router. Internet must be out too.” She looks at me. “It comes from two towns away. They get worse weather there, and their electricity goes down more often than here. Our internet goes out whenever they lose power.”
I toss my phone on the breakfast bar with a clatter and throw my hands in the air, pulse thundering through my veins. “Holy fucking hell. Which fool located an internet provider in a place where the power goes out at the drop of a fucking snowflake?”
I probably shouldn’t have thrown my phone onto the tiled counter, so I pick it up and look it over for damage.
“You can check the counter’s okay too, if you like,” Summer snaps. “My grandfather spent hours carefully salvaging those tiles from a heritage building that was being torn down.”
She pauses, and when she speaks again her voice is softer. “He picked up lots of things from there. Said previously loved things have character and life.” She casts her eyes around the room. “This place isn’t as old as it looks. It’s just made from a lot of old stuff.”
I run my fingers over the small blue-and-white-patterned squares. They do have a vintage look about them. The whole cabin does. With its wood-paneled walls and floors, it has a 1970s Swiss chalet vibe. But my God, it’s tiny.
“Do you actuallylivehere?”
Her head jerks up and she looks at me like I asked her to clean something unpleasant off my shoes. “Yes. Yes, I do. I happen to love it. And if I wasn’t here with a door to knock on, you’d have even more problems right now.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—”
She dismisses me with a wave of her hand. “At least we still have power. That’s something.” She stands and pulls up her socks. “The only radio I have is the emergency one. I’ll grab it and find out what’s going on.”
The last thing I want to do is offend her. This woman is my lifeline right now. And she might be a little wacky, but she seems kind. Maybe I can redeem myself with some gentle teasing.
“Emergency radio? What’s that? Something that plays the hits of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s when you’re in a crisis?”
She chews her lip as she gives the dog the rest of the banana. I’m pretty sure she’s struggling not to smile. Hopefully that worked then.
“You live in San Francisco, right? Land of many earthquakes?”
I nod and follow her with my eyes as she walks by.
“Then you know what an emergency radio is.”
She pulls a folding step stool out of a closet by the back door and climbs the three steps to reach the cupboard above it.
“Do you need a hand?”
“No, thanks. Never need a hand.”
I turn my head to eye the dog. As our gazes meet, her tail swishes and her tongue lolls out the side of her mouth. On the table next to her is a sketchpad open to a blank page and some pencils. What does Summer draw?
“Well, anyway.” I wander over and stand next to her as she balances on the top step. “Since you’re charging my phone, the least I can do is help.”
