On her end, Allie grimaced. She hated confrontation. When the answering machine had picked up, she’d been almost relieved, except for the fact that leaving a message wasn’t going to stop the steady flow of…whatever anytime soon. “Mr. Parker? You are 3H, aren’t you? That’s what the mailbox says. Your next-door neighbor thought this was where you worked.”
Nate put his hand over the phone’s receiver. “Dad insisted my garbage disposal wasn’t working right the other night. God only knows what he did while he was crawling around under my sink.” He lifted his hand and spoke into the phone. “3H, yeah, that’s me. Damn it.”
“Um…” Allie sighed. This wasn’t going at all well. “Ah, I don’t suppose anyone around here has a spare key to your place?”
Nate dropped his head into his hand. “No. No spare keys.”
“You really should leave one with a neighbor, you know. What if you lock yourself out sometime? Then what would you do?”
“Miss M—”
“Allie. You should probably call me Allie. You did just destroy my bed, after all. You know, if you’d left a spare with a neighbor I could go in there for you and try to figure out what the problem is. Maybe call a plumber.”
Nate sighed. “What color is it?”
“What?”
“The…whatever that is dripping.”
“Oh.” Allie’s gaze drifted up. “It is, uh, kind of a very light brown.” It could be water simply picking up color as it passed through the beams over her head, but it could be something else totally. Yuck. “Ah, it seems to be picking up speed. I don’t know how much more my bed and carpet can absorb. If we don’t hurry here, it’s going to go down to the ceiling in 1H below me. If it hasn’t already—”
Nate swore again. “I’m on my way.” He threw down the phone and stood. “I’ve got to go. My father is singlehandedly destroying my entire building and something tells me he doesn’t carry workman’s insurance.”
Jared had the low class to laugh. “Better hurry, man.” He quickly grew serious. God only knows what havoc the old guy could wreak on their books. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep thinking.”
“Thanks, man.” Nate glowered as he raced out the door.
Slamming the car door as he jumped into his car did nothing but make the hand he caught in it hurt, and the speeding ticket he collected on the way cost him valuable time. By the time he reached his building, Nate was fuming. Still he pulled cautiously into a parking slot lest he somehow overshoot the space and smack right into the side of the building. If bad luck came in threes, he’d met his quota for the day. But there was no point in pushing his karma or whatever. One thing for sure, Nate was not meeting with any clients or signing any contracts today. Climbing out of the car, he closed the door without slamming it and hurried into the building. Not willing to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time. He juggled his keys in his palm as he made his way down the hall, then took a fortifying breath before opening the door to 3H. Cautiously Nate peaked in.
“Hell,” he said to no one in particular, and followed it up with something more pungent.
The living room carpet he stepped onto was dry. But he could see that water came to within a few inches of its border. Gingerly he made his way across the island of the living room to stare at the flooded kitchen. In the center of the room the water appeared to be over an inch deep. That was obviously the low spot created when the building settled. With a distasteful expression on his face, Nate toed off his good shoes. He leaned down to pull off his dark socks and roll up his pant legs. He waded in.
“Like I don’t have enough problems,” he muttered as he slogged his way over to the sink. “Economy’s nuts, dot coms dropping like no tomorrow.” He pulled open the cabinet door below the sink and squatted down to peer at a spaghetti bowl of pipes he would have preferred never getting to know on such an intimate basis.
“Not only do I have to put up with Dad’s business advice and dire warnings on the economy but now he’s got to turn into Handyman Negri’s evil counterpart. Unhandy-man Ted runs amok. Again. Damn it, Dad, what did you do under here last night? I swear to God it’s the last time I invite you to dinner because I feel bad about you eating alone. I eat alone practically every night and I survive.” Tentatively Nate reached out and touched an alien-looking length of white PVC pipe.
The phone rang.
Nate jumped and cracked his head on the underside of the counter.
“Ouch! Damn it!”
He backed out from under the sink, grabbed one of the kitchen towels his last girlfriend had bought him—see? women worried about stuff like that—swiped it over his hands and nabbed the telephone. “What,” he growled. “Make it good. This is not turning out to be one of my better days.”
“Um, Mr. Parker?”
Nate sighed. It was that Allison person. The one whose apartment his father had ruined. Nate struggled for a bit of sympathy, but honestly, it was tough to find when he was standing in the swamp that used to be his kitchen. “Yes?” It was all he could manage with any degree of civility.
“This is Allie MacLord. 2H?”
Nate rubbed tiredly at his forehead, took the portable phone with him as he ducked back down to peer under the sink again. “Ms. MacLord, I just—”
“Allie.”
Nate rubbed his forehead harder and dutifully repeated, “Allie. Look, I just walked in the door. I haven’t really had time to—”
“Oh, my timing is perfect then. I’ll be right up to help. My place won’t dry out until you quit dripping into it, you know.”
“I know—” He stepped, realizing he was talking to a dead phone. The woman had hung up on him. He, Mr. Masters in Business Administration, hadn’t managed to finish one sentence during their entire conversation. Now she was on her way up to finish off his ego by watching what a nonstarter he was with plumbing issues. “Real men know how, where and when to use a pipe wrench,” he told himself as he poked the end button on the phone and reached above his head to set the receiver on the counter.
Nate didn’t even own a pipe wrench.
He comforted himself. “Like I was saying earlier, the apple doesn’t fall all that far from the tree. It’s pretty obvious to me that Dad’s not all that hot with a wrench, either. At least I’m man enough to admit I don’t know what I don’t know.” It wasn’t all that much comfort as water continued to gush.
The doorbell sang out Allie’s arrival. “God help me,” he muttered as he closed his eyes in silent resignation. Nate called out, “Come in. It’s not locked.”
Nate heard the door open, then close. Seconds later a feminine voice said, “Oh, my.”
Not exactly the response that had come first to his mind upon viewing the scene, but hey, everyone was different. “Yeah,” he said. “Goll darn. What a mess.” He looked back over his shoulder and about fell on his butt into the water.
Allison, oops Allie MacWhoever was a pixie. A sprite. Nate bet she was a foot shorter than his own six foot two and if she turned around, he believed he’d see fairy wings. She was slightly built and, he’d bet his last dot com, Irish. Or Scottish. One or the other. Her hair was deep red verging on auburn. It was cut short and framed her face in soft waves. Her eyes were a clear, brilliant emerald-green and, even from across the room, he could see the freckles marching across the bridge of her nose, not because the freckles were so large or dark; they weren’t, but because her skin was so milky pale anything would stand out in contrast.
She stood on tiptoe at the edge of the floodplain, her hands tucked into the front pockets of stone-colored shorts that rode below on her hipbone. Her pink tank top barely met the top of her shorts and when she moved,