“Okay.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe. Do you have a ladder? A snow rake? Anything like roof cement?”
“No cement, but the rest is in the stable,” she said, turning one way, then the other. “I need more towels. I should change. I need?—”
“You need to stay right here and let me go up there and handle it. Where in the stable?”
“You can’t?—”
He put a finger on her lips. “I can. In fact, that is my middle name. Is the stable locked?”
“No. The roof rake is bright orange and the ladder is the heavy one with the duct tape.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know. But I want to. Let me figure it out and you make tea and dessert. We haven’t finished our lovely date.”
“It wasn’t…”
A flash in his eyes told her that if she finished that sentence, she would hurt this incredibly kind man and she didn’t want to. “It wasn’t…enough,” she agreed. “You’re right. I’ll make tea and you?—”
“Will stop the leak. Gimme some time. Oh, I have an idea. Can you fill a sock with some calcium chloride?”
She drew back. Calcium chloride she knew—every homeowner in the mountains used it to melt ice. But… “A sock?”
He nodded. “A sock. The longest one you have.”
After rummaging around a bit, she filled an old cotton ski sock with the pellets they used for the steps and knotted it, wondering what trick he knew for this.
A moment later, the mudroom door opened and Matt appeared, having changed into jeans, work boots, and a puffer jacket. Behind him, in the shadows, she saw the ladder leaning against the house and the roof rake on the ground.
“Sock?”
She reached out, the stuffed sock dangling from her hand. “Did you find the leak?”
“I found the ice lip that’s causing it. If I can tuck this sock perpendicular to the gutter, it’ll melt the path and stop the leak. For now, anyway.”
“Wait, there, Florida man. How do you know this?”
“I told you—my uncle lived in upstate New York and I spent holidays with him in a really old house. This isn’t an uncommon problem.”
She nodded, accepting the explanation, then looking at the ladder. “Matt, it’s slick up there.”
“I’ve been on a few roofs,” he told her.
“Not icy ones that are older than time.”
He just smiled. “Trust me.”
“I seem to be doing that an awful lot tonight,” she breathed, but she followed him outside, the cold diving down the collar of her coat.
With the porch light splayed over the eaves, she could see it—the glistening lip of ice that had formed above the gutter, snow piled behind it with nowhere to go but into…whatever breach was up there.
He set the ladder and tested it, then tested it again. Then he climbed just high enough to lean the roof rake onto the snow, struggling a bit.
“Something is…” He stretched over the snow, his head disappearing from her view. “What the heck?”
MJ’s heart dropped. “What is it?”
“Just a popped nail.”
“Oh, is that all?”
