Part 22 (2/2)

”I don't know.” She stroked his chest. ”I think I was in an old house. Going from room to room. There was someone I was supposed to find, but I just couldn't get to them.”

”I've had dreams like that. The searching variety. I had a lot of them after...” He hesitated. ”After Celia left.”

Celia. Her name had been Celia.

Frankie was tempted to ask all sorts of questions, but what was the point? The events had marked him and doing a postmortem on what had caused the scars wasn't going to change anything.

Instead, she found herself wanting to tell him that she loved him.

The realization that she had fallen for him didn't really seem sudden or out of the blue. It had been emerging for a time, slowly inching free of her unconsciousness, coming to the forefront of her mind.

She loved him.

The words were so close to breaching her lips, carried up out of her heart on a complicated wave of awe and bittersweet sorrow. So her mouth would stay closed, she kissed him, and lingered, keeping their lips together.

Chapter Fifteen.

N ate had just gone down to start breakfast when Frankie thought she heard him cursing. She froze, her pants halfway up her legs. Yup, that low rumble was him letting loose a few good ones. Yanking a s.h.i.+rt on over her head and throwing on some shoes, she quickly descended the stairs and nearly tripped on her own feet when she walked into the kitchen.

At first, she couldn't even comprehend what she was looking at.There were two inches of water across the floor and more was coming in from a huge hole in the ceiling. Sheetrock covered the stove and the counters.

”Oh, my G.o.d,” she breathed in horror.

Nate climb up onto a countertop and peered into the rafters. ”A pipe must have burst hours ago and the d.a.m.n thing has to be hooked into the supply line. You need time and a constant supply of water to make this kind of mess.”

Of course. Her shower last night. No pressure.

”You better check the walk-in,” Nate said. ”If the compressor got wet, it's probably shorted out.”

She crossed the room, splas.h.i.+ng as she went, the water soaking into her sneakers. Sure enough, the compressor wasn't working and there was a faint burning smell in the air.

This cannot be happening, she thought. It just couldn't be real. Any minute now the alarm clock was going to go off and they'd have a chuckle about her vivid imagination.

Any minute.

A slos.h.i.+ng noise cut through her stupid optimism.

George looked worried as he came into the room. ”I turned the sink off last night. Really, I did. At least I think I did.”

Hearing his voice helped her flip into crisis mode. She went to her office and called the plumber and the electrician. When she came back to the kitchen, Nate had gotten out mops and buckets, but was shaking his head.

”We need a water pump. Is there a U-Rent-It place around here?”

She got lost for a moment looking into the rafters. Water was relentlessly snaking into her house. How much was this going to cost to repair? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Her stomach rolled. She had a home owner's insurance policy, but old, rotting plumbing fell into the act of G.o.d category.

Actually, those rotting pipes were more like Lucifer's territory.

”Frankie?”

”Ah, there's one in the next town over. The plumber said he'd be here in fifteen minutes. If you can watch him, I'll go and get the equipment.”

Nate nodded. ”This doesn't smell like sewage, but the crud in that ceiling is nasty. I'm going to have to disinfect everything before we can serve food out of here. You should a.s.sume we're closed down at least until tomorrow afternoon. Probably longer.”

She thought of all the income they were going to lose. The guests were going to be due a refund for some of their payments. White Caps was a bed and breakfast after all. And they'd been making money hand over fist in the dining room, but that was going to stop, effective immediately.

As Frankie stared at the dirty puddle she was standing in, she realized it was all over. There was no way to meet the mortgage payments now. White Caps was lost.

She must have moaned or something because suddenly Nate was pulling her into his shoulder. As all of the fight left her, the only thing keeping her standing was his strong arm around her waist.

Joy waved as the Honda drove off. It had taken a half hour to convince Frankie that she could leave with Alex and Nate to go see the orthopedic surgeon and everything would still be under control. Because truly, there was nothing to be done. The plumber had shut off the water supply at the source and determined that the whole pipe system in the back end of the house needed to be replaced. The only good news was that he'd been able to jerry-rig a way for the bathrooms in the front to get water so the guests were taken care of.Reservations for the dining room had been cancelled indefinitely. Between replacing the walk-in compressor, installing the new plumbing and putting up fresh Sheetrock, they'd be lucky to reopen the kitchen in a week. But at least Frankie was handling the whole thing really well. She was utterly calm, even when the plumber had told her his part of the job would be upwards of $15,000. a.s.suming everything went smoothly.

Joy headed back inside. The guests were eating lunch in town, George had gone upstairs for a nap, and Grand-Em was in her room, rereading the dance cards from her 1939 debut at the Plaza in New York. For Joy, having a few moments to herself was an incredible luxury and she decided to take a swim.

After changing into her bikini, she went down to the dock and was about to dive in when she heard her name being called.

That voice. His voice.

She turned around and squinted into the sun, thinking she had to be hallucinating.

But good Lord, was that Gray Bennett? Walking down the lawn to her?

Joy lunged for her towel and wrapped it around herself. Being practically naked in front of him was not going to improve her verbal skills.

Which had pretty much drained out of the soles of her feet and into the cribbing anyway.

G.o.d, he was too beautiful to look at. Dressed in tennis whites and with his dark hair all s.h.i.+ny in the sunlight, he looked powerful and s.e.xy. With his sungla.s.ses hiding his eyes, he seemed calm and in control, but she was curious to find as he got closer that his harsh, hawk-like face was somewhat tense.

”Where is everyone?” he asked as he hit the dock.

She opened her mouth and words came out in a ramble. ”We had a little plumbing problem in the kitchen so the guests are out to lunch and Frankie took my brother to Albany.”

”Alex is in town?”

”He was in an accident.”

Gray frowned and took off the gla.s.ses. His blue eyes glowed with intelligence. ”I'm sorry to hear that. Is he all right?”

”We hope he will be. What are you doing here?” She winced. Way to be welcoming. Maybe she should kick him in the s.h.i.+ns while she was at it. ”What I mean is-”

He smiled. ”My father's birthday is in the middle of September and we're going to have the party up here this year. I was wondering if White Caps catered.”

They never had before, but she couldn't imagine Frankie would turn down business, especially now. ”Why don't I have my sister give you a call?”

”Sounds good.” He put his sungla.s.ses back on and his head tilted down a little. As crazy as it was, she had the feeling he was staring at her. And that he'd covered his eyes because he didn't want her to know it.

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