by Lucy Score
CHAPTER SIX
Noah squinted against the wind and the rain and fought to keep the bow of the canoe pointed in the right direction. He’d slogged through eighteen inches of water to meet up with his fire chief who couldn’t verify if any of his crew had made it to Mrs. Pringle’s house. A neighboring town’s search and rescue team was on its way, but with water still rising in the downtown, Noah wasn’t taking any chances.
He’d left Sara in the house with the dozen displaced neighbors they’d opened the doors to. A veritable river separated them from the old high school building that was acting as a shelter. Sara was more than happy to play hostess, and he’d left her making her “famous tuna salad” for their new roommates.
He’d liberated a canoe from the back of a neighbor’s garage and pushed off into the murk and mud. Mrs. Pringle’s home was only five blocks over, an easy walk on a pretty day. However, paddling through debris and current slowed him down considerably.
His hands were white knuckled on the oar as the rain, and cold bit at every gap in his rain jacket and pants. The water was higher and faster on the lower end of town, and he lost valuable time when the current plowed him through a hedge row.
He hoped to God that Mrs. Pringle had been talked into going to a neighbor’s house. But the woman was beyond stubborn. Round and soft, she fit the grandmother type to a tee. Her hair still had more black than silver in it and she always wore a hat to church on Sundays. Her vocabulary was sprinkled with southernisms like “lawd a’ mercy!” Everyone loved her. Hell, Noah adored her, and she doted on Sara as if she was one of her eleven grandbabies. There were always cookies in her house, always a donation ready for whoever knocked on her door selling candles or candy. She was everyone’s granny.
She’d been wheelchair bound for about ten years now. Volunteers from town had gotten together to build the ramp in front of the house she shared with Mr. Pringle. Noah remembered helping. He’d been twenty-two. Fresh out of college and juggling a wife, a new career as a public servant, and his toddler.
He spotted the house coming up on his right. The current was moving fast here, and he wished he’d tracked down someone with a fishing boat. Best case scenario, he’d find that Mrs. Pringle had moved to higher ground to wait out the storm. Worst case scenario? He had no idea how he was going to get a two-hundred-pound—not that he’d ever say that guesstimate to her face—wheelchair-bound woman into a canoe, but he’d figure it out.
Fixing problems was his super power.
Noah lined up the nose of the canoe with the visible part of Mrs. Pringle’s white picket fence gate and paddled hard, his muscles bunching and screaming under the duress. He hit the gate hard enough that it opened and the canoe scraped through, landing with a dull thud against the house.
The impact nearly toppled him into the water, and Noah vowed if he ever attempted a water rescue again, it would be with at the very least a more stable kayak. The front porch itself was underwater, and Noah had to scramble out of the canoe into thigh-deep water to get to the front door. He fastened the canoe’s lead rope to one of Mrs. Pringle’s porch columns and pounded on the front door.
“Mizz Pringle!”
He banged again and then pressed his face to the glass.
Mrs. Pringle was sitting in her wheelchair at the foot of the stairs she hadn’t used in a decade, wearing a pink rain slicker and holding a container of cookies. She was up to her knees in water.
She waved cheerfully.
“Fuck me,” Noah muttered, yanking the front door open.
“Hal-le-lu-juah, Noah. I sure am happy to see your handsome face.”
“Miz Pringle,” Noah sloshed toward her. “What in the ever-living hell am I going to do with you? You’ve got to be freezing.”
She pushed her thick glasses up her nose and gave him a smile. “Why, Noah Yates. I know you don’t mean to swear in front of a lady, do you?”
“No, ma’am.” Noah grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and started to push her toward the door.
“The water was only ankle deep until about half an hour ago, and then, my goodness, it just started pouring in!”
“You’re going to get yourself a case of hypothermia.” Or worse if he’d waited just half an hour more.
Mrs. Pringle wasn’t concerned. “I knew you’d be coming along any minute now to rescue me just like a handsome white knight. Wait, now! We can’t go without my belongings.” She pointed toward the garbage bags on the third step that the water was just beginning to lick at.
“Are you absolutely sure you need all this?”
She gave him a steely-eyed glare.
“Okay. All right. Just checking.”
She refused to let him wheel her out until he’d loaded the bags into the canoe. Only then did she give him the royal nod.
The bags took up more room in the canoe than he’d hoped. And there was still the problem of the wheelchair and its occupant.
“Well, Mr. Manager, what are you gonna do now?” she asked, more amused than terrified.
Noah shook his head. Merry residents had a little too much faith in each other. They forgot to be worried or scared, assuming that their neighbors would always have their back. And now, here he was holding a wheelchair as flood waters swirled around his knees hoping for a fucking Merry miracle.
The whistle, shrill and loud, cut through the wind.
“Need a hand?”
The voice was his salvation. It was a woman in a bright yellow slicker holding a small fishing boat in place by clinging to the top of Mrs. Pringle’s picket fence.
“Hallelujah,” Mrs. Pringle sang.
“Don’t hallelujah until our asses are safe and dry,” Noah suggested.
“Honey, after this hurricane ends, we’re gonna have a talk about your vo-cab-u-lary!”
“Yes, ma’am. But for now, I need you to stay right here.”
She harrumphed, and Noah positioned her against the front door before slogging his way toward the boat. The icy water didn’t even register anymore. He was beyond numb.
“Nice day,” the woman in the yellow slicker commented.
“Just beautiful,” he said, grabbing onto the fence. “I got a wheelchair-bound eighty-year-old and a canoe.”
“Well fuck,” the woman swore ripely. “Stu? Wheelchair.”
The man at the motor grunted. He seemed unimpressed with the circumstances. “Gonna hafta float her out,” he said finally.
He fished out a rope from the bottom of the boat and tossed one end to Noah. “You take this end and tie it around her. We’ll reel ya in.”
Noah clamped a hand around the rope and trudged back through the waters to Mrs. Pringle who was entirely too cheerful about the situation. “Ready for your ride, Miz Pringle?”
She nodded. “Let’s do this.”
He took her down the first of the steps backwards, hoping to God she and the chair would float rather than sink like a stone.
She floated, sort of. But the current was strong, and it took every ounce of Noah’s strength to keep her on course, head above water. They were both going to die of hypothermia if he couldn’t get her someplace warm and dry fast.
The woman in the boat made a grab for Mrs. Pringle’s arm. Through his rain smeared glasses, Noah couldn’t see much of her other than her height and general bedraggledness. But there was no way she was going to muscle the very solid Mrs. Pringle into the boat.
“Stu, I need your ass up here,” she yelled over her shoulder.
Mrs. Pringle tut-tutted. “You youngins and your language.”
“Sorry ma’am, but it’s bound to get worse before it gets better,” the woman said with a quick grin beneath the brim of her ball cap.
The man Noah presumed to be Stu, grimaced as he lashed another rope around the picket fence to hold the boat in place.
“Shoulda gone fishin’ in Canada when I had the chance,” he muttered under his breath. Pissed off but surefooted, Stu clim
bed his way to the woman. He took one look at Mrs. Pringle and swiped the hat off his head. “Gonna take more than the two of us.”
No shit, Sherlock.
“Now, I know you aren’t calling me fat,” Mrs. Pringle huffed, haughty even in floodwater up to her chest.
“What if we put the chair in first and then I boost her up to you?”
“Sounds good to me,” the woman said. “Ma’am can you hang onto the side of the boat?”
“I sure can. I go to physical therapy twice a week. I can bicep curl five pounds.”
Noah kept one arm around Mrs. Pringle’s waist while she grabbed on to the boat. “Ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” She curled her fingers tighter, and Noah pushed and pulled the chair out from under her. He muscled it up one-handed until one of the handles popped out of the water. His biceps screamed until Stu grabbed the arm of the chair and hauled it aboard.
Noah ran through his list of things he was going to do when the hurricane was over. Hug his daughter. Shower. Put on dry socks. Eat a steak. Sleep for twenty-four hours.
But first he had to get Mrs. Pringle on that boat.
“Current’s picking up,” Stu observed. He sounded like he was describing the night’s dinner specials.
Noah was well aware of the current. The water rushing around his legs and waist was pulling on him like a riptide. Debris and flotsam smacked into him with alarming and painful frequency.
He hefted, and they hauled. Together they managed to wrangle Mrs. Pringle over the side of the boat. She landed unceremoniously, and the boat slashed gracelessly back to an even keel. Noah was just reaching for the hand the woman in the yellow rain coat offered when something big and unwieldy hit him with the force of a speeding truck.
He saw the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. A tiny hammer. And then the water closed over his head. His legs swept out from under him. He was an idiot. He was going to drown in water the color of chocolate milk. Sara was going to grow up without him. He’d miss her graduation. What if she went to the wrong college? Picked the wrong guy? What if she never outgrew her obsession with clothes and boys and gossip?
It wasn’t his life that flashed before his eyes. It was Sara’s. Maybe because she’d been right. He wasn’t happy. He had no idea what fun was. And now he’d never get the chance to find out.
Something grabbed him. A strong hand, a glimpse of tattoo. It got a fistful of hood and neck, and the icy waters released him. It was the woman, the line of her jaw tense as she strained to drag his ass over the side of the boat.
“Lean!” she yelled. Stu and Mrs. Pringle leaned hard to the other side as she pulled him higher. Noah found his footing again and, with one last burst of strength, boosted himself over the edge. He landed in the bottom of the boat, the woman collapsing next to him.
“We good?” Stu grumbled from the back.
Noah was too tired to open his eyes. So, he settled for nodding. He was going to hug the hell out of Sara and add an entire pizza to that list.
“We’re good. Get us the hell out of here, Stu, before we all become fish bait,” the woman next to him called.
“Thanks,” Noah gasped.
“No problem.”
“You all want some cookies?” Mrs. Pringle asked, as they chugged away from Mistletoe Avenue.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Present
That son of bitch Noah Yates made her resort to this. She had to bring in the big guns since he couldn’t be bothered to take her calls anymore. Except that one time that he answered with a curt “Stop. Calling. Me.”
Cat drummed her fingers in time to the blaring beat of Bon Jovi as she headed north to Merry for the second time in a week. Not only did she have the blessing of the network for this special but also their throbbing hard-on for the idea. They saw schmaltz and advertising dollars, a multi-episode arc of pure profit. She saw a chance to save Christmas for an entire town. Drake was committed to co-starring. Sponsors were lining up.
The only thing she needed was a yes from an asshole.
She took the exit for Merry, steering the SUV she’d rented around piles of still-soggy trash arranged at the curb in front of nearly every home. For some, renovations had started immediately. For others, they needed more time to process. Soon, they’d have volunteers to help where they could, replacing insulation and drywall, ripping out old carpet, laying new.
Cat turned onto the main street, a road that only days ago had been underwater. Storefronts showed the water damage, but there were people, still smiling, still waving. And that was the appeal of Merry. That was why they needed camera crews here now, shooting B roll and capturing the post-flood, pre-reno. This is what people cared about seeing.
She’d enjoyed the week they spent here with the show a few years ago, getting to know the town and its residents. She’d never known a community to be so protective and supportive of their own.
She came to a stop in front of the diner. Sunshine’s was where locals gathered for breakfast and strong cups of coffee seven days a week. The cook and owner, Reggie, sprinkled a bit of his Jamaican roots into every traditional diner dish. Cat had been especially fond of the banana fritter pancakes.
But the diner as she’d known it was gone. In its place was a muddy hull of a building. People still gathered there, she noted. Reggie was serving up coffee and donuts from a folding card table in front of the building.
The steadfast New England spirit. She could respect that.
Cat eased down the block to the three-story brick building that housed Merry’s police station, community room, and city manager’s office. The building, marred by a line of mud demarking the flood level, was remarkably intact.
She turned off the SUV and flipped down the visor mirror to check her reflection. She’d gone all out in the weaponry department. A subtle smoky eye, bright red lips, perfectly coiffed ponytail. She was dressed casually in leg-hugging jeans and a gray sweater. One did not strut onto the scene of a disaster in four-inch stilettos and a miniskirt.
She’d taken a rash of shit from Gannon when he found out she’d “fucking frolicked through hurricane floodwaters.” Her brother wasn’t exactly thrilled when she mentioned that was exactly why she hadn’t told him in the first place.
And she had a feeling she’d be taking another rash of shit from the man three floors up in a minute. But she was prepared. Catalina King didn’t back down from a challenge. No, she pounded and sawed her way through them and then flipped them the bird once she was on the other side.
She slid out of the SUV and marched up the stairs to the building’s glass doors. It smelled like all old buildings. A little musty, a little dusty, with a hint of polished wood.
Noah Yates’ office was on the top floor, and Cat used all three flights to walk herself through her argument. A King by birth, she mostly resorted to yelling, or—if the situation called for it—throwing something that would make a satisfying smash. She had a feeling that wouldn’t work with Mr. We Don’t Need Your Help.
The desk outside his office was empty, and the door open. Cat took it as an implied welcome. The office itself was empty, but judging by the wallet on the desk, Cat assumed its occupant and his stubborn streak would be returning shortly.
Papers littered the desk and credenza but in a seemingly chaotic sort of organization. Buckets in varying sizes sat under weak spots in the drop ceiling catching the occasional drip. The carpet was old, stained, and the coffee pot looked as though it had been purchased in the 1980s.
The windows overlooked Main Street and the evidence of the town’s trauma. A constant reminder of the work that needed to be done.
Cat snooped around the desk and picked up a framed photo. Noah, who she hadn’t had the misfortune to meet when she’d been in town shooting before, appeared to be a good-looking man. The glasses gave him a hint of nerd, but the dark, tousled hair and happy grin upped the appeal. The girl next to him had mischief and magic written in he
r pretty brown eyes.
Cat wondered if he was as hard-assed a father as he was town manager.
She’d looked up her show notes and discovered that Mr. Yates had been on vacation with his daughter the week they’d shot here in Merry. He’d cut his vacation short when he got word of her “confrontation” with one of the townsfolk in the one and only bar during her birthday celebration. When he’d shown up on set, she’d been sleeping off a hangover in her trailer.
A production assistant and the field producer were able to talk him down and get him off set before Cat could blow up on him. She didn’t care how beloved Handsy McGrabber was in the town of Merry. Her ass was off-limits, especially after an ignored verbal warning. She’d given the drunken grabber one chance to keep his beefy hands to himself, and when he paid her no heed and went for the gold, she’d clocked him in the face maybe just a little harder than she should have. But in her defense, she was six or seven sheets to the wind, and her tolerance for bullshit was at an all-time low.
She didn’t overdo it as much anymore. Sure, she still enjoyed a good time. But she was a little more careful when it came to weighing the consequences. Especially since hangovers had stopped being inconveniences and turned into raging days of “wishing for a swift death.”
Yates’ desk phone rang and the blinking red light told her there were already several voicemail messages awaiting him.
“Can I help you?” He stood in the open doorway in jeans and a fleece. His hair, a dark brown, was longer on top than it had been in the photo, curling just a little. His eyes, a bright, sharp green, crinkled a little at the corners behind those glasses that were actually pretty sexy in real life. He had broad shoulders and, from what Cat could see under the layers, a very athletic body.
Cat set the photo back in its place and flashed him her most winning smile. “I think I should be asking you that.”
His eyes narrowed and a deep line appeared between his brows.