Before Melanie moved past the threshold, she knelt down to her daughter. “I’ve known Miss Gina for a very long time. She’s harmless, even though she uses bad words sometimes. Be polite.”
“Sometimes you use bad words.”
“Not like Miss Gina,” Melanie all but mumbled.
Hope sent her a look she’d seen in her own face more times than she’d care to admit. Disbelief manifested in a high brow and a cock of the head. Melanie would laugh if Hope’s subtle attitude wasn’t spot-on.
“C’mon.” She dragged her daughter toward the abandoned registration desk. “Miss Gina?” she called.
Silence.
Thud!
Melanie shrugged at her daughter and peered at the ceiling. “Miss Gina?” she called toward the stairs.
A larger thud and a distinctive crash had the two of them running.
They made it halfway up before Melanie heard the smoky voice of Miss Gina. “Son of a bitch!”
Before Melanie made it into one of the guest bathrooms, water sprayed toward the door, a puddle pooled at Miss Gina’s feet.
She held a broken pipe with both hands, unsuccessfully attempting to hold the water in. “Towel,” she yelled the second Melanie ducked her head into the room.
She grabbed one from the far rack and handed it over.
As Miss Gina scrambled to keep the spray from removing the wallpaper, Melanie dropped to her knees to find the shutoff valve for the vintage Elizabethan toilet.
“It’s at the top.” Miss Gina pointed with her chin.
Melanie switched direction, climbed on the commode, and found the crank.
By the time the water stopped trickling, Miss Gina dripped like a leaky faucet, Melanie felt as if she’d had a second shower for the day, and Hope stood in the doorway with wide eyes.
“Are the extra towels still in the hall closet?” Melanie asked.
“Damn pipe . . . I just knew this was going to happen.”
“Miss Gina, the floor? We gotta get this up or your reception area is going to need a new plaster job.”
Miss Gina was a tiny woman who smoked more than she ate, laughed often, and cussed like a sinner on Saturday.
“Yeah, yeah . . . hall closet.”
Depleted from the mess, Miss Gina slumped against the vintage tub while Melanie hustled from the room. She piled towels in Hope’s arms and filled her own.
Hope mimicked her to help mop up the mess.
On all fours, Melanie sloshed up one puddle before tossing the soaked towel into the tub.
Hope handed her towels as if she were the towel girl at the spa.
“This is awful,” Miss Gina started. “I finally have a fully booked week and now this.”
“I’m sure you can get someone out here to fix it.”
For the first time since Melanie walked into the fray, Miss Gina looked her in the eye.
With a pause and a cock of her head, she wiggled a finger in the air. “Melanie Bartlett? Is that you?”
Melanie paused in her effort to clean the floor and smiled. “Hi, Miss Gina.”
Miss Gina jumped from the edge of the tub and threw her tiny arms around Melanie’s shoulders. “Oh, little girl . . . look at you.” She backed away and held her face. “You look tired.”
Melanie felt a laugh deep in her stomach. Leave it to Miss Gina to point out the obvious.
“Mommy’s always tired,” Hope said.
Miss Gina took in Hope with narrow eyes. “My Lord, she looks just like you did at her age. How old are you, doll?”
“Seven.”
Melanie held out her hand for another dry towel and Hope delivered it without taking her eyes from Miss Gina.
“I’m going to be eight at the end of summer.”
“Oh, don’t rush aging, little girl. It happens without your encouragement.”
Hope simply stared in bewilderment.
Melanie sat back on her heels once the majority of the water was off the floor. “I think the lobby is safe now.”
Miss Gina blew out a breath. “Yeah, but now I’m down one room.”
“It’s only one bathroom.”
“People don’t want to share bathrooms in a B and B.”
Melanie sucked in her bottom lip. “True.” She took another look around the familiar space. The wallpaper had changed from a floral print to one with muted stripes, but the art still held the flower motif she remembered. “How about offering it at half price?”
“I don’t know if that will work. Probably have to cut that down more. Besides, that would mean sharing my bathroom until I could get this one fixed.”
Looked like Miss Gina’s bad plumbing was Melanie’s good fortune. “We’ll take it.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” Miss Gina stood and wiped her hands on her shirt as she walked out of the room. “I can’t give an old friend castoffs. That wouldn’t be right.”
Melanie scrambled in front of her. “Really. We don’t mind. I was actually hoping Hope and I could stay in town longer than just the class reunion weekend. I can’t afford a full price room for that many days.”
“I couldn’t charge the person in this room. I’ll have plumbers coming and going. It’s too much to ask of you.” Miss Gina attempted to move around her, and Melanie planted her feet in the doorway.
“I don’t mind. Really. You’d be doing me a favor charging half.”
Hope pulled on Miss Gina’s skirt. “Mommy’s car broke.”
“It did?”
“Ah-huh.”
“You don’t have a car?”
“I’m using Jo’s until I figure out what to do with mine.”
“Can you believe our Jo is the town sheriff? I still pinch myself when I see her all geared up and wearing a gun.”
“Everything changes,” Melanie said with a glance at her daughter. “I’ll take the room, Miss Gina. I could use the extra time in town.”
Miss Gina glanced at Hope and back. “Fine . . . fine . . . but I’m not charging you for a crappy room. You can lend me a hand around here like the old days.”
“Oh, I can’t—”
Miss Gina stopped her with a hand in the air. “Not another word. It’s this room for free, or another one full price.”
Melanie bit her lip. “I’ll take it.”
Miss Gina’s grin gave Melanie pause. “Perfect. Hope, grab some of those wet towels. Let me show you where the washer and dryer are.” Miss Gina snapped her fingers with a wave of her hand.
Hope didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t mean to turn in . . . had actually driven by twice before turning around and pulling into Miller’s Auto. Besides . . . if he kept driving around the block, someone in River Bend was bound to think he’d been drinking and call the sheriff.
Not that Jo would do anything but laugh.
The crappy car he’d seen on the side of the road the night before was shoved outside of the garage doors and being lifted on the back of Miller’s tow truck.
Wyatt stepped out of his truck, shut the door without even taking the keys with him. River Bend was this side of Mayberry in terms of crime. The chances of someone jumping in his truck and taking off were nil.
“Luke?”
Luke was currently positioned between the undercarriage of the wreck and the chains of his tow truck.
Wyatt placed a hand to the side of the car and ducked.
Luke noticed him and tossed the hook his way. “Hey, Wyatt. Hook that up, will ya?”
He clasped the chain, made sure it held, and backed away from the car.
Luke wiped his hands on his faded jeans before grasping the automated controls of the tow to lift the car off the ground. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
While the belts and hydraulics kicked in, Luke asked, “What brings you by?”
“Saw this car on the road last night . . . just wondering how it all turned out.”
“Mel is an idiot,” Luke said with a laugh. “Leave it to a woman to run a car without oil.”
The familiarity of Luke’s words about the owner gave him pause. “Mel?”
“From Modesto to River Bend with an oil light blinking at her . . . who does that?” The hydraulics lifted the car as far as it would go before Luke tossed the controls on the bed of the lift. He fiddled with a few more chains while he worked.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Wyatt asked.
Luke offered a grin. “Women!”
Wyatt had to agree. A man wouldn’t let the oil run dry. Not a self-respecting man who did more than shove a key in the ignition and fill a gas tank. Thankfully, small towns weren’t filled with lawyers, doctors, and white-collar workers who fell into that category.
Women, on the other hand, didn’t have to hold six-figure careers to be deemed clueless when it came to cars.
“Can it be fixed?” Wyatt wasn’t completely sure why he asked.
“Cracked block.”
He blew out a long breath. A long look at the late model sedan had him shaking his head. “More trouble than it’s worth.”
“Yeah.” Luke shook his head. “Hated breaking that news to an old friend.” He shrugged and leaned an arm over the car. “It’s not a complete loss. She’ll make a great target out back of Grayson’s farm.”
Wyatt huffed. The image of a drowned shadow of a woman with wide eyes and fear swam into his head. She’d accused him of being an escapee from Sing Sing . . . Jack the Ripper, even. She had the right lines, but not an ounce of trust in a stranger. To hear she was an old friend of Luke’s made Wyatt wonder. “I’m sure your friend enjoyed the thought of her car being used as target practice.”
“She’s smarter than her cracked block implies.” Luke nodded toward Wyatt’s truck. “Where you headed today?”
“Miss Gina’s. I’ve been telling her for two years her roof needed to be replaced. Buckets in her attic after last night’s storm proved me right.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “That woman is still living in the sixties. Let me know when you find her pot plants.”
Wyatt had his head in the same place.
Miss Gina had a way of waving away problems as if she were high on something most times.
“I’ll do that.”
Wyatt pushed Mel and her cracked block from his head as he turned his truck back onto the main road through town.
Every year the annual high school reunion brought in new faces and the occasional casual hookup. Small towns had a way of limiting a single man’s sex life. Yeah, he could drive up the coast, or worse, up the five and hit Eugene in a little over an hour, but those encounters didn’t repeat.
When he’d first moved to River Bend the last thing on his mind was women or what he might be missing from a big city. He’d grown up just outside of San Francisco and had his share of traffic, crime, and noise to last a lifetime. The best memories of his life were those from when he was young and his parents had taken him and his little sister on camping trips to Sequoia or the Redwood National Park. The quiet and calm grounded him and reminded him of happy times. He vowed that as soon as he acquired a trade that would set him up with a nice, comfortable living in a small town outside of the state of California, he’d find one and move. A simple place that didn’t require him to drive through a desert to reach an airport.
That was five years ago.
A general contractor license was complete overkill for a small town where no one cared if you were licensed and bonded so long as you showed up when you said you were going to . . . and did the job as promised.
The nuance of small town living became obvious the first time he’d done a simple plumbing job for a widow who lived just outside of River Bend. Mrs. Kate offered a pot roast and an apple pie as payment.
He’d really thought that only happened in movies and novels.
Apparently not.
Having a deep respect for an older woman, especially a widow in her late seventies, Wyatt enjoyed the pot roast, ate the pie, and took the rest home that night at Mrs. Kate’s insistence. To this day, he made a point of stopping by Mrs. Kate’s on the first Sunday of every month with a toolbox and an empty stomach.
Unlike Mrs. Kate . . . Miss Gina offered horizontal naked favors as payment. With one look of hell no, Miss Gina offered a wink and cut a check. The woman still flirted like she was thirty and he was a teenager, but she never took it any further.
Thank God!
Mrs. Kate and Miss Gina were worlds apart and yet only a few miles away from each other. Wyatt appreciated both of them.
Wyatt turned down Miss Horizontal Naked Pot Lady’s B and B drive and dodged a pothole before the pavement turned into ground-up asphalt that resembled a driveway.
He recognized Jo’s Jeep and Miss Gina’s VW van in a vintage teal and white paint with a tuck and roll interior that looked like it just came off the showroom floor. Miss Gina loved her throwback from the sixties vehicle more than anything . . . and even after a storm the van appeared as if Miss Gina had been out polishing the thing the moment the precipitation dried up.
Wyatt didn’t bother walking into the inn. He stepped around the west side of the old Victorian and dragged his largest extension ladder with him. He knew months ago exactly where the roof was going to fail, but Miss Gina didn’t want to fix it until after the cosmos told her it was time.
The previous night’s storm was Miss Gina’s sparkling sign.
With a tool belt secured around his hips, he climbed up onto the roof of the three-story house and pulled himself higher on the brittle composition shingles.
The recent warm summers and lack of maintenance had blown free a good five-foot section the night before. This close to the coast, the weather did a number on every house. Miss Gina’s stood taller than most, had a decent ocean view from the widow’s walk on a clear day, and therefore took the brunt of every storm nature delivered.
Wyatt balanced on one knee while he wrote down the dimensions of the minimum of work that needed to take place to keep Miss Gina’s guests dry. He was extending his tape measure for the fourth time since climbing on the steep roof when he heard a noise behind him.
He twisted, caught himself as he slid half a foot.
“Wow . . . this is awesome.”
A little girl . . . seven, maybe ten, he couldn’t tell . . . had climbed up his ladder and was perched way too close to the edge of the brittle roof.
“Jesus!” He wasn’t sure where the kid had come from, but given how she was flipping around on the steep grade, she had no idea of the drop below.
“Climbing a tree must be like this,” he heard her say.
Wyatt felt his nose flare, took a deep breath. “Hey,” he said in a voice five times calmer than he felt.
“This is better than climbing a tree, isn’t it?” the kid asked as if they were in the middle of a conversation.
He wanted to counter her . . . say that if she were in a tree and fell the branches would break her fall, possibly end with a broken leg, not a broken neck.
To his dismay, the kid started to climb higher. “Can you see the ocean?” she asked as if they were sightseeing.
“Hold on!” This time Wyatt used a stronger voice.
The kid hesitated and slid a few inches.
Wyatt’s breath caught before the girl stopped herself and continued to climb. “Miss Gina said there was a leak . . . are you fixing the leak?”
“Yeah . . . you, you shouldn’t be up here.”
The tiny girl kept climbing and Wyatt felt his limbs crawling closer to the kid.
If he had a crew on this roof, he’d have to have scaffolding, rails to ensure the safety of his men. He didn’t hold any concessions for himself
. . . but a little girl without any idea of the danger of dangling off the side of a roof was a complete risk.
“Stop!” He found himself almost yelling when the kid moved closer to the failing shingles.
Her big blue eyes grew wide, her feet stopped moving.
“It’s not safe up here for little girls.”
Her brows drew together and Wyatt knew he’d said the wrong thing.
“Girls are just as strong as boys. More so.” She started to climb again. Determined.
Suddenly the world moved in slow motion. He saw her hand grip an unstable shingle, her feet lose balance . . . and a shriek sounded from below, drawing the child’s attention away from holding on.
With one hand dragging behind him, he let his boots lose their grip and took out a good twenty feet of Miss Gina’s roof before grasping hold of the kid’s hand and stopping the both of them on the gutter of the inn before they could take a two-for-one special ride to the nearest emergency room.
“Hope!”
“I got her.” Wyatt wrapped an arm around the kid and didn’t take another breath until he knew neither one of them was going over the edge.
Good God.
The little girl grabbed his chest with tiny nails and all but crawled up his neck.
“Hope?” A woman’s frantic cry had Wyatt opening his eyes.
Three stories down stood a blonde woman who had to be Hope’s mother. Before Wyatt could encourage Hope’s vise grip to leave some circulation in his neck, Miss Gina was beside the blonde.
“What the hell is going on?”
The blonde pointed up.
With her long skirts flowing behind her, Miss Gina tried to hold her hair back as the wind pushed against it.
“Hope, what are you doing up there?” Miss Gina asked.
“Climbing a tree,” Wyatt heard her say.
“This isn’t a tree, sweetheart,” he told her.
Hope had figured that out and all the bravado that had passed her lips a few minutes before was gone now. She glanced to the ground and quickly buried her head into Wyatt’s chest.
Doing It Over (A Most Likely to Novel Book 1) Page 4