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The phone rang. Both men looked at it, then at each other. “You get it. If it’s my father, I’m not here.”
“You get it. It’s probably my mother.”
“Could be Sue Ann calling to tell you she can’t live without you. What if it’s a client?”
“They’ll leave a message.”
The machine did, in fact, pick up. Nate and Jared’s argument was broken into by a vivacious female voice. “Mr. Parker, this is Allison MacLord. I live in the condo just below yours? Please call me as soon as you get this message. There’s something leaking from your place down into mine. You’ve got a broken pipe or something. My bed’s soaked. I think you may have ruined my ceiling. Oh, ick, the carpet’s all squishy. You have insurance, right? My number’s 27…”
Nate snatched up the phone, and yelled into it, “What are you talking about Miss…whatever you said your name was? What’s leaking?”
Allison Marie MacLord held the phone away from her ear and blinked at it. One minute she’d been talking to a machine and the next a very vital, very vibrant, very forceful male voice. “Well, um, I don’t exactly know, Mr. Parker. I mean I just got home. My ceiling’s dripping, some paint’s already peeled and fallen, my mattress may never dry out and water’s welling up every time I take a step on the bedroom carpet. My feet are getting wet right through my shoes, which really makes me mad because I paid ten dollars for that water protecting spray they’re always trying to sell you at the shoe stores.”
Nate swore.
On her end, Allie grimaced. She hated confrontation. When the answering machine had picked up, she’d been almost relieved, except for the fact that leaving a message wasn’t going to stop the steady flow of…whatever anytime soon. “Mr. Parker? You are 3H, aren’t you? That’s what the mailbox says. Your next-door neighbor thought this was where you worked.”
Nate put his hand over the phone’s receiver. “Dad insisted my garbage disposal wasn’t working right the other night. God only knows what he did while he was crawling around under my sink.” He lifted his hand and spoke into the phone. “3H, yeah, that’s me. Damn it.”
“Um…” Allie sighed. This wasn’t going at all well. “Ah, I don’t suppose anyone around here has a spare key to your place?”
Nate dropped his head into his hand. “No. No spare keys.”
“You really should leave one with a neighbor, you know. What if you lock yourself out sometime? Then what would you do?”
“Miss M—”
“Allie. You should probably call me Allie. You did just destroy my bed, after all. You know, if you’d left a spare with a neighbor I could go in there for you and try to figure out what the problem is. Maybe call a plumber.”
Nate sighed. “What color is it?”
“What?”
“The…whatever that is dripping.”
“Oh.” Allie’s gaze drifted up. “It is, uh, kind of a very light brown.” It could be water simply picking up color as it passed through the beams over her head, but it could be something else totally. Yuck. “Ah, it seems to be picking up speed. I don’t know how much more my bed and carpet can absorb. If we don’t hurry here, it’s going to go down to the ceiling in 1H below me. If it hasn’t already—”
Nate swore again. “I’m on my way.” He threw down the phone and stood. “I’ve got to go. My father is singlehandedly destroying my entire building and something tells me he doesn’t carry workman’s insurance.”
Jared had the low class to laugh. “Better hurry, man.” He quickly grew serious. God only knows what havoc the old guy could wreak on their books. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep thinking.”
“Thanks, man.” Nate glowered as he raced out the door.
Slamming the car door as he jumped into his car did nothing but make the hand he caught in it hurt, and the speeding ticket he collected on the way cost him valuable time. By the time he reached his building, Nate was fuming. Still he pulled cautiously into a parking slot lest he somehow overshoot the space and smack right into the side of the building. If bad luck came in threes, he’d met his quota for the day. But there was no point in pushing his karma or whatever. One thing for sure, Nate was not meeting with any clients or signing any contracts today. Climbing out of the car, he closed the door without slamming it and hurried into the building. Not willing to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time. He juggled his keys in his palm as he made his way down the hall, then took a fortifying breath before opening the door to 3H. Cautiously Nate peaked in.
“Hell,” he said to no one in particular, and followed it up with something more pungent.
The living room carpet he stepped onto was dry. But he could see that water came to within a few inches of its border. Gingerly he made his way across the island of the living room to stare at the flooded kitchen. In the center of the room the water appeared to be over an inch deep. That was obviously the low spot created when the building settled. With a distasteful expression on his face, Nate toed off his good shoes. He leaned down to pull off his dark socks and roll up his pant legs. He waded in.
“Like I don’t have enough problems,” he muttered as he slogged his way over to the sink. “Economy’s nuts, dot coms dropping like no tomorrow.” He pulled open the cabinet door below the sink and squatted down to peer at a spaghetti bowl of pipes he would have preferred never getting to know on such an intimate basis.
“Not only do I have to put up with Dad’s business advice and dire warnings on the economy but now he’s got to turn into Handyman Negri’s evil counterpart. Unhandy-man Ted runs amok. Again. Damn it, Dad, what did you do under here last night? I swear to God it’s the last time I invite you to dinner because I feel bad about you eating alone. I eat alone practically every night and I survive.” Tentatively Nate reached out and touched an alien-looking length of white PVC pipe.
The phone rang.
Nate jumped and cracked his head on the underside of the counter.
“Ouch! Damn it!”
He backed out from under the sink, grabbed one of the kitchen towels his last girlfriend had bought him—see? women worried about stuff like that—swiped it over his hands and nabbed the telephone. “What,” he growled. “Make it good. This is not turning out to be one of my better days.”
“Um, Mr. Parker?”
Nate sighed. It was that Allison person. The one whose apartment his father had ruined. Nate struggled for a bit of sympathy, but honestly, it was tough to find when he was standing in the swamp that used to be his kitchen. “Yes?” It was all he could manage with any degree of civility.
“This is Allie MacLord. 2H?”
Nate rubbed tiredly at his forehead, took the portable phone with him as he ducked back down to peer under the sink again. “Ms. MacLord, I just—”
“Allie.”
Nate rubbed his forehead harder and dutifully repeated, “Allie. Look, I just walked in the door. I haven’t really had time to—”
“Oh, my timing is perfect then. I’ll be right up to help. My place won’t dry out until you quit dripping into it, you know.”
“I know—” He stepped, realizing he was talking to a dead phone. The woman had hung up on him. He, Mr. Masters in Business Administration, hadn’t managed to finish one sentence during their entire conversation. Now she was on her way up to finish off his ego by watching what a nonstarter he was with plumbing issues. “Real men know how, where and when to use a pipe wrench,” he told himself as he poked the end button on the phone and reached above his head to set the receiver on the counter.
Nate didn’t even own a pipe wrench.
He comforted himself. “Like I was saying earlier, the apple doesn’t fall all that far from the tree. It’s pretty obvious to me that Dad’s not all that hot with a wrench, either. At least I’m man enough to admit I don’t know what I don’t know.” It wasn’t all that much comfort as water continued to gush.
The doorbell sang out Allie’s arrival. “God help me,” he muttered as he closed his eyes in silent resignation. Nate called out, “Come in. It’s not locked.”
Nate heard the door open, then close. Seconds later a feminine voice said, “Oh, my.”
Not exactly the response that had come first to his mind upon viewing the scene, but hey, everyone was different. “Yeah,” he said. “Goll darn. What a mess.” He looked back over his shoulder and about fell on his butt into the water.
Allison, oops Allie MacWhoever was a pixie. A sprite. Nate bet she was a foot shorter than his own six foot two and if she turned around, he believed he’d see fairy wings. She was slightly built and, he’d bet his last dot com, Irish. Or Scottish. One or the other. Her hair was deep red verging on auburn. It was cut short and framed her face in soft waves. Her eyes were a clear, brilliant emerald-green and, even from across the room, he could see the freckles marching across the bridge of her nose, not because the freckles were so large or dark; they weren’t, but because her skin was so milky pale anything would stand out in contrast.
She stood on tiptoe at the edge of the floodplain, her hands tucked into the front pockets of stone-colored shorts that rode below on her hipbone. Her pink tank top barely met the top of her shorts and when she moved, as in breathed, a tantalizing narrow band of belly peaked out. For a short person, she had amazingly long legs. They were slim yet shapely and ended in little elf feet sporting amazingly pink flip-flops with orange and pink silk floppy flowers growing from the vamp.
Damn, but she was cute. Not pretty. Cute.
But cute could be good.
All Nate’s manly protective instincts went on red alert and he scowled. Who had let this little baby doll loose on her own in the world? What kind of parents did she have that they’d let a maybe eighteen-year-old alone with nobody to watch out for her? Morons. This Allie had morons for parents.
Allie gave Nathaniel Parker an odd look as she kicked off her flip-flops and prepared to wade in. The guy looked like he was in a trance or something. What was he staring at? Self-consciously she rubbed along her upper lip, feeling for remnants of the pb and j she’d scarfed down while waiting for some sign of life up above her, but she didn’t feel anything.
“Are you okay?” she asked, moving closer.
“What?” Nate shook his head to clear his brain and put a hand down in the water to help with his balance. “Sorry. I just—spaced out there for a moment, I guess.”
Allie splashed her way over to squat next to Nate. “What have we got?”
“A problem. A real problem. See this pipe here?” Nate gestured to the culprit pipe that was spurting water down under the sink. “It’s broken. My father must have bumped it and loosened it last night when he was playing around with the garbage disposal. See how close it is to the disposal? Pressure must have built up during the day until it burst.”
“Yeah, looks like,” Allie agreed, looking at Nate expectantly.
“Yeah.” Nate nodded solemnly. “Looks like.”
“You going to fix it?”
“Um. Well. Where’s the water turnoff in your place?”
Allie reached past him and turned a knob. “Right here.” The flow slowed to a trickle.
Nate moved her hand aside and tightened the knob farther. The water shut off completely. “Great. Now let’s see. I guess I need a wrench or something.”
“Call a plumber,” Allie advised. “Where’s your mop?”
“No, look. See? If we just align these two ends again and give this thing a couple of twists—”
“What is it with men? You can’t ask for directions even if you have no idea where you are. You can’t admit when you’re in over your head with a home repair. What is wrong with calling in a professional? Look at this mess!” Allie made a wide sweep with her hand and Nate had to lean backward to avoid being hit.
“It would have taken a plumber one third the time and I’d have a bed to sleep in tonight if you and your father hadn’t decided to play handyman last night.”
Nate puffed up with indignation over that. He’d practically ordered his father to leave his plumbing alone last night. This was not his fault. The blame lay squarely with his dad. “Now just hang on a second—”
But he never got to finish his sentence.
Allie rose in disgust. “Men. What was God thinking of?”
He could ask the same about women, Nate thought, but had the good sense to keep the sentiment to himself. “Look—”
“And where’s the darn mop? There’s no point in even starting on my place until yours is taken care of. It’s just going to keep dripping down otherwise.”
You had to be impressed. He towered over her, yet she didn’t back away. It was as if Allie didn’t even notice the size difference. Nate opened his pantry door and got out a mop. “You, uh, have any unmarried female relatives in the forty-to-fifty age range?” he asked as he began sopping up water. “Mother? Aunts?” Any female biologically related to this termagant would have no problems keeping his dad under control. Nate would bet the business on it. Same gene pool, after all. Same domineering attitude, he figured.
Allie had gone into the bathroom to raid his clothes hamper. She had several dirty bath towels in her hands, which she threw on the floor. “Unmarried female relatives? What are you talking about?”
Nate squeezed out the mop over the bucket he’d retrieved. “Nothing,” he mumbled, and was mortified to feel a blush creeping up his neck. When was the last time he’d blushed? Good grief. His father had him so crazed, he wasn’t even filtering his thoughts. They were simply entering his head and exiting his mouth. “Nothing at all.”
Allie gave him a suspicious look before picking up a sodden towel and twisting it over the bucket. “You need to do your laundry,” she said. “Your hamper’s full.”
“I know,” he replied humbly, not willing to argue with the termagant. She was on a roll and with good reason, Nate grudgingly admitted to himself. He had ruined her apartment, after all, which meant that when he finished his own lengthy cleanup, he’d be only half-done. With that thought, Nate excused himself and called his father.
“Pop, get over here,” he said into the receiver. “We’ve got a problem.” He stressed the plural pronoun. “And there’s somebody you’ve got to meet.”
The senior Mr. Parker showed up in time to watch the last bucket of water being dumped down the toilet. He entered the condo with windblown hair and a lot of grumbling over the abrupt summons. He’d been studying his computer manual, he groused. Had just started getting the hang of those little icon things and what the heck was so all-fired important?
Nate had gotten his blue eyes from his father, Allie noticed. And probably his hair color as well, though it was hard to tell from the older man’s graying crop. Allie would guess Nate to be in his late twenties to early thirties, which meant his father was at least somewhere over the midcentury mark. The man had aged well. Physically fit with broad shoulders and relatively flat stomach, Nate’s dad still had all his hair, excellent posture and only faint crow’s-feet extending from the corners of his eyes. If Nate took after his father, his wife would have no complaints thirty-odd years down the road.
His dad’s handshake was firm when Allie stuck out her hand. “How do you do, sir?”
“Ted,” Nate’s father corrected. “Call me Ted. And I do fine.” He frowned at his son. “Most of the time. When this one’s not giving me ulcers.”
If anybody was giving anyone ulcers, Nate thought irritably, his dad was doing Nate’s stomach lining in, not the other way around. “Your timing is impeccable, Dad,” Nate said. “The dirty work is over.”
Allie frowned. “Don’t forget about my place.”
Nate smiled painfully. “Right. How could I?” He sighed. “Dad, you take the clothes basket down to the laundry room and get a load of towels started, will you? There are quarters in my top bureau drawer. I need to go downstairs and see how bad Allie’s condo is.”
But his father wouldn’t hear of it. “No, I’ll go. I caused the problem, I guess, although I can’t believe it since I didn’t touch the pipes. I only worked on the garbage disposal, which is not leaking, from what I understand.”
Nate rolled his eyes. The pipes were only right next to the garbage disposal.
“Still, I’ll check out Allie’s place. You go ahead and get your laundry taken care of. Allie and I will be just fine.” With that pronouncement, Ted took Allie’s arm to lead her out of the condo. “So, my dear, how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight, Ted.”
Nate narrowly missed dropping the heavily laden hamper on his foot. Twenty-eight? No way. He thought he’d been generous with a guess of eighteen.
“Really?” he heard his father say. “My, my, getting up there. Any boyfriends? Serious ones, that is. Little thing like you could use a man to look after her, right?”
“Actually I’m quite capable of looking after myself.” Allie glowered over her shoulder at Nate. “That is, unless some big strapping male with nothing better to do with his time decides to flood my condo.”
Nate immediately pointed the finger at his father. “Hey, don’t look at me. This was his doing, every bit of it. Everything was working fine until he stuck his nose under my sink.”
Allie arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little old to be passing the buck?” she inquired.
“I am not passing the buck,” Nate said. “It’s the truth.” He waved a frustrated hand in an erasing motion. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Just go down and show my father the mess, will you? I’ll get this load started and be right there.”
“You shouldn’t leave your clothes in the laundry room,” Allie informed him. “Someone might steal them.”
“Out of a working machine?”
She nodded. “Yes. It happened to me in my college dorm.”
Oh, yeah? And what was her degree in? Mother hen-ism? Writing advice columns? “I’ll chance it,” Nate said with a forced smile. “You’ve got enough problems,” he advised her. “You really shouldn’t worry your pretty little head over mine.” He smiled condescendingly, knowing he’d just gotten her goat but good.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” she said. “Just don’t knock on my door when you need a towel so you can take your shower.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Nate responded just as insincerely. He rolled his eyes and took off for the laundry room before this ridiculous nonconversation went any further.
Nate dumped soap into the bottom of a couple of washing machines then started tossing lights into one, darks into the other in a rather haphazard fashion. He only shrugged when he noticed a dark sock had gotten in with his underwear, not bothering to retrieve it.
“All right, so I wrecked her bed, her ceiling and quite possibly her floor,” Nate muttered to himself as he gave the controls a vicious twist. “I said I’d take care of it, didn’t I?” Nate’s stomach clutched at the sound of water running into the machines. He ran his palm over his abdomen soothing it. “Just like a woman. Get a hold of something and never let it go. Probably thinks I won’t make good on it,” he continued to mutter as he stacked the detergent box into the empty clothes hamper. “Well, she doesn’t need to worry. When Nathaniel Parker says he’s going to take care of something, it’s as good as done.”
