Chapter 9
Ryan
* * *
Ifixed the pipe within half an hour.
There was a rusted spot in one of the copper pipes under her kitchen sink that had caused it to burst. I replaced that and added better pipes with stronger metal. That part was easy to fix. The part that was hard work was all the water that had gushed out into the house. I managed to clean up most of it, but it was still pretty bad.
It was a good thing I’d come when I had because the water had nearly reached the electrical wiring, and that would have been a disaster none of us wanted.
By nightfall the place was still soaked, but with the doors and windows left open, I hoped the air would dry most of it up. Thankfully most of downstairs was covered with floorboards and not carpet like we had at my house. If that flood had happened to me, I would have had to rip the carpet up and redo the place.
I was pretty soaked myself and it was probably time for me to leave, but I hung back to talk to her. She’d left me about an hour before when I’d insisted on her taking a break, which she’d looked like she needed.
I packed away my tools and found her in the sitting room. She was resting on the bay window, gazing through the glass, looking out at the darkness of the night and the vague movement of the sea.
All that golden hair cascaded down her back in waves. She turned upon hearing me enter and regarded me with a curious expression.
Her face, bare of any makeup, was flawless and dewy. She looked younger, and I found myself trying to remember if she’d told me her age the other day.
No. The day of her arrival, I hadn’t gotten as far as taking down her date of birth. Noah had arrived by then.
Nerves gripped me and I knew I was staring at her for longer than was acceptable, getting lost in her beauty and those eyes that still drew me in with curiosity.
I finally found my voice. “Everything’s all done.”
“Thanks for your help. How much do I owe you?” She actually reached for her purse on the table nearby.
“No.” I held up my hands. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been here for hours.”
“It’s fine. We’re neighbors, right?” That was my attempt to level out the tension. “Next-door neighbors.” I nodded emphatically to give it more meaning.
“Thank you. I’ll find some way of making it up to you. The plumber wouldn’t have made it in time, and Noah’s out of town.”
Noah, the friend who I felt was more like her boyfriend. Maybe he wanted to be, or maybe she wanted him to be.
“I’m guessing he helps you out when things like this happen?” I enquired, moving closer.
“Yes, but things like this don’t tend to happen to me. It’s just bad luck. It’s all I seem to have attracted since being here.”
I could have informed her that bad luck wasn’t the only thing attracted to her. I also thought revealing that she attracted the hell out of me would be seen in the same light as bad luck in her book.
“I’m sure it’s just the usual that can be expected when you move somewhere new.”
“Unfortunately not. I think your town hates me being here.”
“Good thing you’re only here for eight months then, right?” Not that I was agreeing with her; I was just curious to know what she was doing in town. “Are you here studying or something?”
The other day when this had been mentioned, I’d asked if she was here for work and she’d never answered. Maybe it was studying. She’d handed my ass to me when she’d informed me she went to Yale, and she did look young, so maybe she was a grad student.
“Studying?” She raised her brows.
I lifted my shoulders into a shrug. “I’m trying to guess something that won’t piss you off any more than you already are at me.”
“And you think I’m studying?”
