Loving Again: The Broken Hearts Club

by Michele Barlow

  This was definitely not what she needed right now. She was nervous enough and had been telling herself that she should be proud of how well she was coping.

  Now she wasn’t coping. “Oh please, I can’t do this!” This was something her husband would have fixed. He would have calmly figured out what needed to be done, and done it. Evie was not the calm and collected type. She was the ‘panic and then be embarrassed about her drama later’ type.

  “I need help!” she cried out to no one. Hailey was upstairs, already asleep. That girl could sleep through a train rumbling by next to the house. Nothing woke her up. Not even the ceiling caving in because of a water leak.

  There was no answer to her call because she was all alone in her shop. She just needed one of the plumbers to call her back. She didn’t even care how much it cost. Just someone to help her from having her dream shop destroyed.

  Grabbing her cell, she called Mabe. It was late and she didn’t want to disturb her, but she was the only person she could think of who would know what to do in an emergency.

  The phone barely rang before Mabe picked up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s wrong? You wouldn’t call me this late if there wasn’t something wrong.”

  Gawd, she was so smart. “I have a broken pipe and it’s dripping through the ceiling. No one will call me back. My store is going to be wrecked and I don’t know what to do!” Evie was hyperventilating now.

  “Settle down, child. No reason to get all riled up about it. I’ll make a call and have someone I know over there as soon as I can.”

  “Who? A plumber?” Not that Evie was going to be picky.

  “More of an all-around handyman. He can help you out. Just don’t forget to let him in when he knocks. I’m going to finish my whiskey and go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow after you open.”

  The line went dead and Evie felt a tiny bit of hope that Mabe would send someone who could actually help. She didn’t care if he was a hundred years old if he could stop the leak.

  Ten minutes went by and Evie had cleaned up the water on the floor as best she could. She stopped by the gilt framed mirror by the counter and saw that her hair had come out of the short ponytail she was wearing. She had kept her hair longer for her husband. It was highlighted every eight weeks to make sure it was perfectly accented to frame her face. It was also a look that she had perfected for work. Curling iron and hairspray every morning.

  The last year she had let that go. She stopped coloring, her normal medium brown hair was now cut just below her shoulders, and her natural curl often made it a bit shorter. Right now, the curls were standing around her face as though she had just woken up. Evie smoothed back the hairs and tucked them behind her ears. She had no makeup on since she was going to bed when the leak started. If she had to rank herself, she was probably just shy of a hot mess.

  It was almost eleven at night and she was lucky she wasn’t in her PJs. Staring at the ceiling as the water persisted, drip, drip, drip, she waited. The best she could do upstairs was wrap towels around the pipes and close the cabinet doors.

  A brisk knock rattled the glass of the shop’s front door. The last thing she was going to do before going to bed was tear off the paper that covered the windows. She couldn’t see who was at the door, but hopefully it would be her plumbing savior.

  Unlocking the deadbolt at the top, she pulled the door open, propping her foot behind it as a temporary security measure in case the person on the other side wasn’t who she was expecting.

  Standing under the light that shone down from above the door was a tall, broad shouldered man. His frame took up the entirety of the small entrance. She couldn’t see his face right away because he was wearing a Seahawks baseball cap with a black hoodie pulled over it. Evie was about to slam the door closed when she saw the toolbox in the man’s big hand.

  The stranger’s chin tipped up and Evie felt something indescribable punch straight through her chest.

  He was gorgeous, with a rough, short beard covering a strong jaw, his mouth in a straight line as if he was annoyed. His eyes though, those were something she hadn’t seen outside of Hollywood movie star. They were crystal blue. Not cobalt or gray, they were like a Caribbean ocean. Perfectly clear and surrounded by dark eyelashes.

  Evie took a breath as she was perusing the man, the air feeling foreign in her lungs.

  “You Evie?” he asked in a deep voice.

  “Uh….”

  Evie knew the answer to that question. She was sure of it. Her head was tilted back since he was a good foot taller than her, and her brain was trying to compare him to other men she’d met. He was by far the tallest.

  “I think so, you are?”

  “I’m Leo Carr. Mabe said you needed some help?”

  “Wow, I so do…”

  Evie opened the door and stepped back to give the big man enough room to enter. She turned and leaned against the closed door and willed herself to act cool, or at least normal.

  Chapter 5

  The minute Evie opened the door Leo knew exactly why Mabe had called him. Evie was adorable. Fucking adorable and sexy as hell. She was petite in height, but curvy everywhere else. Full breasted, wide hips, she looked like one of his favorite comic book heroines.

  Mabe had been trying to get him settled for years, and he’d managed to avoid her machinations until now. She called and said that her friend had an emergency, her store was flooding and he needed to rush over.

  Leo had never been able to say no to Mabe, so he had jumped in his old pickup truck and drove over. Now he was standing in the middle of the room looking up at the drip from the ceiling. It wasn’t good, but it was in no way a flooding situation. Mabe was meddling; he’d have to thank her for that.

  “Um, did you say your name was Leo Carr?”

  Turning back to the woman, he smiled at her. No reason to take his frustrations out on her. She was probably unaware of Mabe’s desire to play matchmaker.

  “Yes, Leo. My mom always called me her little lion so she clearly had a plan for my name.” Leo stepped close to her, maybe a little too close, but she didn’t step back. He watched her head tilt back as she looked up to meet his eyes. He liked that, it made him want to protect her. That wasn’t normal for him, not that he wasn’t an advocate of those that needed it. His awareness of her was making his pants tight and he didn’t want her to think poorly of him for sporting wood in front of a stranger. His immediate reaction to her had thrown him a bit and he was quickly trying to recover.

  “You must be an August baby then,” she said with a laugh that petered out awkwardly.

  He watched her swallow. He couldn’t tell if she was nervous, scared, or just uncomfortable around new people. Granted he was standing very close, but he couldn’t resist. She was pulling him in.

  “I’ve Evie. Evie Ward.”

  “Nice to meet you, Evie.” He paused, letting that name sit on his tongue. Evie was like her name, short and sweet. He could see himself saying that name a lot. “So, a leak, huh? Where is it coming from?”

  “Upstairs in my apartment. There is a crack in the pipe under my kitchen sink and I can’t find a shut off valve. I did look. I’m not completely inept at these things, but broken pipes are beyond me. I’m supposed to be opening tomorrow and I can’t have buckets on the floor.”

  Looking around the room, Leo put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “No, that might be a little unprofessional. Can you show me?” he asked pointing up at the ceiling.

  “Sure, follow me.”

  Evie pushed away from the door and walked past him. She took him to the back and led him to a set of stairs. As they neared the top, she turned and put her finger to her lips. “Shhh.”

  He raised his eyebrow at her and she kept walking. “My daughter is asleep.”

  She had a daughter. He wondered if she had a man too. Walking into the kitchen, she grabbed a pot lid and held it up like a shield before she pulled open the cabinet door.
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  She was fucking adorable, standing there as if she was facing a dragon instead of a little water.

  Squatting down, he looked under the sink. Untying the towel she had wrapped around the pipe, a pot lid was shoved in front of him.

  He looked up at her in amusement. “I’m good, I won’t melt.”

  “Lucky you,” she snarked.

  “This isn’t too bad. You are going to need a new pipe. I don’t have that on me, but I can wrap some tape around it until tomorrow. Go check your bathroom for an emergency valve.”

  “Shit, the bathroom. I didn’t look there,” she said before rushing off.

  Leo couldn’t help but chuckle. He could hear her cursing in the other room then the leak slowed down and stopped. Evie came back in looking frazzled.

  “I didn’t even think of it being in there. I probably could have saved some of my ceiling if I’d turned it off in time.”

  “These apartments aren’t always up to code. The buildings have been here a long time, and they were usually afterthoughts. Do you have any dry towels? I’ll get some duct tape around this and if you can, hold off on using the sink until tomorrow. I’ll be by with the part in the morning and can fix it. Maybe after you’re closed I can fix the damage downstairs. It’s just a little sheetrock to patch. If you can, put a heater on the floor to help dry it out as best you can.”

  “I tried every plumber I could find. I don’t remember anyone with your name.”

  “I’m not a plumber. More of a jack-of-all-trades. I do odd jobs to keep myself busy and I help Mabe out when she has work that needs done. She doesn’t trust many people. She must have really taken to you. I’ve seen her turn the town against newbies. Drives them right out if she thinks they are a bad fit.”

  “Wow, how mercenary,” Evie said with a laugh.

  “Don’t let that frail appearance fool you. She is more mayor of this town than anyone else.”

  “I’ll do my best to stay on her good side then.”

  Leo finished putting the tape around the pipe. He told Evie to go turn the water back on only halfway. Enough to brush your teeth and flush a toilet but hopefully not enough to bust through the tape.

  “Duct tape, who would have thought?” she mused.

  “I buy it by the case. You can’t really go wrong with it. Let me help you clean up,” he offered.

  “Oh, no you don’t have to do that. I feel bad you had to come out so late anyway. If I could have found that stupid valve it could have waited until tomorrow.”

  “But then we wouldn’t have met. I’d say someone placed that shut off in there just so we’d get a chance to introduce ourselves.”

  “Everything happens for a reason, hmm?”

  “Absolutely. The world is too organized to believe in true chaos.”

  “In my experience we have zero control and chaos abounds. You try to hold on too tight and the universe will rip it right out of your hands.”

  Evie was smiling, but Leo couldn’t miss the sadness in her voice. It was a deep pain, the kind that changed a person. He knew that pain, but he had been lucky enough to have only brushed against it rather than have it ravage his life.

  Behind those beautiful green eyes, Evie was ravaged.

  “Well, this chaos we can take care of. Let’s get downstairs dried up.”

  “You really don’t have to. I was just going to take the paper off the windows and go to bed. I’m not opening too early tomorrow. I figure people aren’t going to be lining up at 8 a.m.”

  “You’re on island time. Store hours are more than a little flexible around here.”

  “I’ve noticed that. Don’t people get annoyed? Mabe is always closing her shop.”

  “You either shrug and move on, or pitch a fit. Pitching a fit doesn’t get you very far around here. We just move at a slower pace.”

  “That’s part of what I like about it. Everything I’ve noticed runs on the tides. Busy times, tourists, it’s all dependent on the water.”

  “Not everyone can live here, you know. It takes fortitude to let go of the desire to control everything.”

  Evie gave him a sad smile. “I’m working on that.”

  Leo didn’t want to make her sad. He could feel that she was moments away from pain, and he didn’t want to be the cause of that. Grabbing the wet towels from off the floor, he handed them to her and made sure that a bucket was under the sink.

  The water on the kitchen floor was easy enough to take care of, and he wiped it up with one of the towels while he waited for her to return. He soaked up the last puddle before tossing the wet towel into the kitchen sink.

  Despite Evie’s protests, the water downstairs was cleaned up quickly, and Leo continued to help her by removing the brown paper that covered the windows. When his arms were full of paper, Evie pointed to the back room, and he found a large trashcan that had been brought out specifically for this task. Evie followed him, her eyes on him as he looked around the room. There were items he didn’t recognize and some that he did. She had a wheel that was obviously used for spinning clay and a large round stove in the corner that he guessed was a kiln. He turned back to face Evie. “Looks like you have quite the set up in here.”

  “I finally have my own kiln. I’ve always wanted one. Before I left Colorado I had to schedule time at the community college, this is much more convenient. I have it running almost 24/7 right now.

  “You have a strong desire to make otter figurines? I like the dishes, those are really nice.”

  Evie blushed. “I was trying to be more formal with my designs. I thought that if I made items that would be pieces you could design your décor around they would fly off the shelves. Mabe told me that if I didn’t cater to the tourists I’d never make a living here. I know she’s right, I’m not at some upscale mall selling my stuff next to three hundred dollar repurposed tree stump end tables. She assured me that otters and whales would sell.”

  Leo chuckled. “Three hundred dollars for a tree stump? I’m in the wrong business. Mabe is right. They want clamshells, Orcas, and mermaids for some reason. You might want to add that to your collections.”

  “Mermaids? Really?”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “It’s the sea. Hey, we believe in Sasquatch. And depending on who you ask there is a Wheedle on the Space Needle.”

  “A wheedle? What the heck is that?”

  “I’ll bring you the book. You can read it to your little one. My mom read it to me when I was younger.”

  “That’s nice, thanks. Hailey loves when I read to her.”

  “Hailey, that’s a pretty name. She in school?”

  “Just the preschool. Her teacher’s name is Honeybee, I’ll be honest, I’m not brave enough to ask if that’s her real name. Hailey loves it there. They have chickens and she’s named them all. I’m sure they had other names, but they weren’t up to my little lady’s refined taste. I know one of them is named Princess Petals. I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s a rooster.”

  Leo laughed. “I grew up around here and I went to school with Honeybee, I can confirm that, yes, that’s her real name. Is she still trying to convince the kids that vegan snacks taste good?”

  “Oh, gosh. Hailey comes home hungry, poor thing. But exposing her to healthy food has not been high on my list so I’m glad for the school. I know she tries to like the snacks, but they’re just not her thing yet.”

  “The preschool is a good place. Honeybee keeps them safe and, believe it or not, they are learning.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt that. Besides, as long as she’s happy, I’m happy.”

  There was a pause in their conversation. Leo didn’t want to leave. He knew he was coming back the next day, but he was enjoying talking to her. But more than that, he was thinking about how pretty she looked when she was feeling uncomfortable, or nervous. Her features looked delicate even though her strength was still showing through underneath.

  For the first time in his life, he was interested in a way that was new to him.
He was interested sexually, that was for sure, but the real desire that he felt was stemming from the mystery that made Evie who she was.

  Chapter 6

  He was still staring at her. The big handsome man was watching her like a hawk. She was a new face in town, that was sure to invite some scrutiny, not to mention the fact that she was sure she wasn’t presenting herself the best way she could. She was frazzled, dressed liked she didn’t come out in public often, and he was just so far out of her league.

  “So, thanks for coming by. I appreciate it, really. I would have had a horrible night and probably not opened tomorrow if this was still ruining my floors.”

  “I’m glad I picked up when Mabe called. I know better than to ignore her calls, no matter when they come in. She’d tan my hide. I’ll be honest, I feel like I’m leaving you to spend the night worrying.” He looked concerned, and Evie felt something warm spreading in her stomach.

  “That’s not exactly impossible. I’m starting to feel the adrenaline drop from my earlier panic. I may pass out on the couch as soon as you leave. I only need to be up to make the tea and turn on the lights tomorrow.”

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying, “Well, then I don’t want to keep you up. I’ll stop by tomorrow when I have the part. Any time better for you?”

  “I’ll be here all day until I get a sale. After that it will be all cake, or clay, I guess,” she said with small giggle.

  Why did he make her so nervous? She felt like she was fifteen again. Suddenly she was struck by the fact that the last man that had made her giggle this way was Isaac. A twinge of guilt fluttered under the pure carnal desire she was feeling. It was a confusing pairing of emotions.

  “I’ll come by sometime tomorrow after you open. I’m sure the opening will be a smash. Everyone likes something new, so you’ll at least have locals coming to check out the competition.”