shed.
“Fine. I’m not. But I usually have nearby landlords who...do this for me. Which is sort of what’s happening now, except you’re involving me. Although, I have to say, I have never had a pipe just...explode all over me before. Not a euphemism.”
“How could that be...?”
Her eyes widened and she looked at him meaningfully. “Pipes...burst...liquid all over the... Oh, wow. Think about it. Please don’t make me say it. And I’m going to stop talking now. Please shut my water off.”
Suddenly, he got it. Heat shot from his face down to his groin. This was what happened when he spent six—okay, honestly, it was closer to seven—months without sex. His mind was completely void of anything that went beyond boobs and the innuendo that had just popped up. So to speak. It was enough to...well, as she’d put it, explode his pipe.
He did not have time for this. He didn’t have the patience for it, either.
“Fine,” he growled, stalking to the pipe that was sticking out of the ground in the back of the old building, wrapped in a thick swath of insulation. He reached down and pushed the valve up. “So now your water’s off. Direct me to your flood and I can see if there’s a quick fix that won’t require you to go without water all night.”
“It’s in the upstairs bathroom. So...back to the house. And I hope you’re enjoying this tour of...things that are not finished in the yard,” she said, leading them both back to the house.
“What are you doing with the flower bed?” he asked, looking at the bare dirt.
“I don’t know... Something. I was hoping someone could tell me which plants you...plant here this time of year. I don’t know anything about flowers or grass or... I’m going to do some investigating tomorrow.”
“Haven’t you planted flowers before?”
She shrugged. “There’s never been any point. I leave before anything grows. Or...when I was in San Diego I had an apartment and I had, like, a little pineapple plant in a pot. But some asshole stole it off the balcony. So I figured unless I wanted chains on my potted plants I’d just forget it. This is nice. I don’t have to chain things to the porch.” She opened the front door and walked in, then paused at the base of the stairs. “Up that way. The one off the master bedroom.”
He sighed and walked upward, toward his watery doom. Or something like that.
He could hear her following behind, her footsteps softer and off rhythm to his own.
He walked into the bedroom and saw a few damp footprints on the wood floor, then he looked into the bathroom, where there was a sizable puddle by the sink.
He sighed heavily and got down on his knees, the water seeping through his uniform pants, then he opened the cabinet doors. “What the...hell?”
“I had to improvise,” she said, her voice small.
He leaned in and examined the makeshift stopper she’d wrapped around the pipes. A shirt, a pair of sweatpants and...a black lace bra winding it all together.
“I was about to get in the shower, so I was already naked, and then there was water and so I had to stop it, and then I had to...tie it off. With something. I think that bra is toast.”
He cleared his throat. “Probably.” He reached out and started unwinding the bra, and tried not to think about how this was the first time he’d touched a woman’s underwear in seven—okay, maybe it was more like eight—months.
It was Sadie Miller’s bra. He should focus on that. On the fact that he remembered what a gangly, hissing little miscreant she’d been back when she was a teenager. All long limbs and blond shaggy hair, smelling like booze and cigarette smoke as she kicked at him while he’d tried to put her in handcuffs without breaking her slender wrists.
Sadie Miller’s bra should hold no interest for him. And neither should her breasts. Or her innuendos.
* * *
ELI UNWOUND THE STRAP a little bit more and the rest sprang free, spraying his face with water.
Sadie bit her fist to keep from whimpering as she watched Eli Garrett, on his hands and knees, fiddling with her bra. She was so mortified she wanted to flush herself down the toilet. It would be preferable to this nightmare.
She was just one giant explosion of embarrassment after the other tonight. The whole pipe euphemism? What was her problem? Why did she say things like that around him? Good gravy.
She was good at talking to people. She did it for a living. Spoke with calm authority and with self-control, and with carefully chosen words.
And here she was pointing out every innuendo and dying a million tiny deaths—not in the good French way—like some extra awkward high school geek she’d never been.
What was it about Eli that caused regression? It was a mystery to her. He made her feel flaily. And kind of...horny. And that was just stupid. Cracking lady-wood over a cop said nothing good about her deep emotional issues. She was a therapist. She really should have a better handle on this.
Though she wasn’t really a therapist at the moment. She was a bed-and-breakfast owner who was sinking her life savings into a place with leaky pipes, populated by grumpy, muscular men. Who said she didn’t make good life choices?
He unwound all of her clothing—thank God she hadn’t used her panties. She was just really, really thankful. Then he stood up, the sodden garments in his very large hand, his dark brows drawn together. “This isn’t a quick fix. You will need a plumber. Which my brother will pay for.”
“He said he wasn’t sure where all that fell in the agreement.” She reached out and took the ball of clothes, water dripping onto the floor.
“But I am,” he said, his voice hard. “It’s BS to act like he won’t pay for a burst pipe. Obviously that had nothing to do with your improvements. My brother is just being a lame landlord. Trust me, he’s not doing it on purpose. He’s just...nonfunctional right now.”
Sadie’s heart squeezed tight. “I’m sorry about his wife. I... If he ever needs to talk...”
“He would rather shove barbed wire under his fingernails. And I’m being literal.”
“Okay, then, so maybe vouchers for my services wouldn’t go over well in exchange for this debacle.”
“Connor isn’t a talker,” Eli said.
“Well, big surprise,” she retorted, dumping the wet clothes into the sink and walking out of the space that really was way too small to be sharing with a man of his stature.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It just seems like it runs in the family, that’s all.”
“Meaning?” he asked.
“You’re a little uptight,” she said, walking near the bed and feeling a sudden surge of heat and self-consciousness. Dear Lord, it was like she wasn’t even an adult anymore. Internally jittering because she was standing near both a man and a bed and they were alone.
“If by uptight you mean responsible for a shit-ton of stuff, sure,” he bit out, “I’m uptight. Do you need water?”
“I have some,” she said. “All over my floor.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, his civility clearly almost at an end. “You’re going to need...coffee in the morning at least, I assume, and you need to shower.”
She lifted a shoulder. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Either Connor will get his ass in gear and try to fix this tomorrow, or we’ll want to call out a plumber. Either way you don’t have water tonight, because the main has to stay shut off since the pipes are so old. And it means you don’t have water until midmorning tomorrow. So, would you like to come