Chapter 9
Wiping sweat from his forehead, Nolan made his way up his lawn. He just finished a six-mile run in eighty percent humidity and was feeling surprisingly good. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the clingy summer air heavy with salt until he’d been back.
A loud scream cut through the early morning air, and Nolan shifted directions from his front door to Isla’s. Without hesitation, he hurried up the stairs and knocked on the door, but when she didn’t answer, he threw the door open. The screams grew louder, and Nolan’s heart slammed in his chest.
What if she was hurt?
She did not handle pain well. One time she fell off her bike and skidded her knee, and it was as if she was dying. While sympathetic, he had still laughed at her. She’d held it against him for years.
He ran through the house, following Isla’s screams down the hallway to the kitchen. Isla stood, blonde hair wet and matted to her face. Water shot out around a towel she held pressed to the wall, and a puddle grew around her feet. Her eyes met his, and the desperation in her gaze nearly undid him.
He shifted gears and detoured to the basement. He found the water valve and turned it off. He took the stairs two at a time, making his way to the kitchen. As he stepped inside the familiar space, Isla slid down the wall and collapsed in the puddle.
He quickly turned on the kitchen sink faucet to help relieve any extra pressure in the pipes.
“You okay?” he asked, trying to keep his gaze from drifting to the soaking wet white t-shirt that clung to every small curve. She might as well have not been wearing a shirt at all. He could see the pink lace of her bra and how it cut low, stopping just shy of her nipple.
Memories of her bare beneath him, looking into his eyes with love and desire, flooded his mind. She’d never been shy of her body in front of him, and he had been able to worship every inch of her.
It had been a long time since then, but he had a great memory. Too great. His jaw tightened as he forced the memories far to the back of his mind.
Her hand lifted, the towel she still held dripped water onto her lap. “I don’t know what happened. The wall just exploded.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say a pipe burst.”
She blinked up; blue eyes full of confusion. “How does that even happen? It’s the middle of summer. It’s not like it could freeze.”
“Could be a ton of different reasons. It’s an old house, things break.”
She seemed to contemplate that for a moment. “How’d you get it to stop?”
“I turned the main water valve off.”
Her eyebrows pinched together above the bridge of her nose. “How do you know how to do that?”
“I used to help my dad with home repairs. He taught me a lot.”
She let out a breath and bumped her head against the wall. “My dad took care of everything, too, but I never thought to ask. I guess I’ll have to call him to help me assess the damage. He has so much on his plate already.”
“Don’t call him.”
“You turned my water off, so unless you’re willing to share your shower with me, I have no choice.”
Visions of Isla in his shower, soapsuds and water sluicing down her body was too much for any man to ignore, but he swallowed the desire to throw a sexual innuendo at her and focused on the current problem.
“I can help you.”
She shook her head, water flinging from her hair and hitting his arm. “No. You’ve already done enough. I can handle this.”
“If it wasn’t for me, you’d still have water spraying out of your wall.”
She pushed up from the floor and dropped the towel that hit the ground with a thwap. She stood taller, causing her bra to move lower, and revealing the crest of her nipple.
He nodded toward her shirt, figuring he’d be nice and let her know.
“Yes, my shirt is wet, but at least I’m wearing one.” He watched as her eyes drifted over his bare chest that was still slick with sweat.
“You might as well not be either,” he said, and her gaze darted down. Her hands crossed over her chest, and she spun on her foot. “Excuse me.” She ran upstairs to where the bedrooms were, and he went to the closet to grab a mop, assuming they were still in the same place they’d been when Mrs. Garrick was alive.
He opened the closet, and everything was exactly as he remembered it. Brooms, a mop, and vacuum sat against the far wall and cleaning supplies lined the shelves. He grabbed the mop and went back to the kitchen. The braided ends pushed through the water and did little else. If he was going to make any leeway, he needed towels. He went to the bathroom on the first floor and opened the closet door. The shelf that always held perfectly stacked towels was empty.
Back in the kitchen, he found a few hand towels and placed them on the puddle of water. They instantly soaked through. He grabbed a bucket from the utility closet and rung out the towels.
Isla returned in a bathing suit cover up that was only a little less see-through than the wet t-shirt. The material stopped mid-thigh, revealing soft and sun-golden flesh.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“It would have been done by now, but I couldn’t find any full-size towels.”
She bit her lip and shrugged. “I have to do laundry.”
“There used to be like twenty towels in that closet.” Mrs. Garrick had always kept it stocked, and as kids, they’d grab them before running through the sprinklers or heading down to the beach.
“There still are, but they’re all in the wash.”
Nolan’s head tilted. “Do you not know how to do laundry?”
Her mouth pinched tight. “Of course, I know how to do laundry. I’m not an idiot.”
“I never said you were. I’m just wondering how you went through so many towels.”
“I use one on my body and one for my hair every time I shower.”
And Nolan knew that was sometimes twice a day. She liked to shower in the morning to start fresh, but she also liked to shower after the beach, or after a walk, or just because.
“My mom always complained about how many towels I used, but I thought she was just picking on me. I didn’t realize how fast they pile up.”
Nolan ran a hand down his mouth, trying to cover his grin. Isla had always veered on the side of being slightly na?ve, but it wasn’t her fault. Her parents and grandma spoiled her rotten. She never had to lift a finger when she lived at home, so to see her in this big house by herself, learning everything at once was impressive. That wasn’t something the girl he remembered would have been able to do.
“Since you’re going to be washing them anyway, why don’t you go grab a few out of the hamper?”
She bit her lip again, and he had to divert his attention from the plump flesh. “I would, but I kind of started washing them and forgot to put them in the dryer…”
“Wait, how many towels did you put in the washer?”
“All of them.”
Oh Jesus, take the wheel.
“It was making a really loud thumping noise, so I left to run a few errands and when I came back, I forgot to throw them in the dryer.”
“The thumping noise was probably because it was off balance. When you overload the machine that can happen.”
“Oh.”
“They probably didn’t spin out right either. How long have they been in the machine? You might want to hang them outside to dry.”
“Um.” Her eyelashes swept the apples of her cheeks, and her eyes stayed focused on the ground like it was the most interesting floor she’d ever seen. “Yesterday…”
“You know they’re going to smell, right?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thank you for your help, but I can take it from here.”
“How? You don’t even have a towel to clean up this mess.”
Her shoulders slumped forward, and her lips curved down. “I think you’ve seen enough. The Isla Show is closing, so please go home.”
“The Isla Show? What are you talking about?”
She sighed, loudly. “All these examples of my incompetence. All I wanted was to prove to you that I’m not the same girl I was when you left, yet here you are, witnessing me in all my pathetic glory.”
“You’re not pathetic.”
“I don’t even know how to wash towels! I don’t know how to turn the water off, or how to own an entire house for that matter. I don’t know what the hell my grandma was thinking. The most responsibility I’ve ever had in my life was working till close at the flower shop and locking up. I can’t do this.” Her voice cracked, and her eyes filled with a sheen of tears.
“Hey,” he said, taking her face in his hands. He rubbed his thumb across the apple of her cheek, brushing away a solitary tear that escaped.
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t.”
He smiled. “You already are. You’re here. You’ve moved out of your parents’ house and you’re living in this house by yourself. You’re going to figure it out as you go.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You have to start somewhere. My first day in Seattle, I set the smoke alarm off four times trying to make bacon.”
She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t step away from his touch. “Everyone does that.”
His eyebrow arched. “Four times?”
“My record is six.”
“What the hell were you cooking?”
“Asparagus.”
His head swiveled back. “Asparagus?”
“I accidentally set them on fire. Don’t ask. The point is, setting the smoke detector off is common practice. Doesn’t exactly make me feel better about all my epic failures.”
“Overloading the washer and forgetting to put towels in the dryer are not epic failures.”
“No, but the pipe bursting is.” She stepped out of his hold, and he immediately wanted to pull her back to him. She waved her hand at the puddle of water on the floor and up to the water dripping down the wall. “Epic failure.”
“And not your fault.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“I’m ninety-nine percent positive. I won’t know until I can get to the pipe and see what actually happened, but I’m pretty confident you had nothing to do with it.”
“I already told you, I’ll call my dad.”
He shook his head. Mr. Garrick had always had too much on his plate, and now with his mother recently passing, Nolan was positive the man didn’t need the added stress. Besides, he wasn’t currently working; he had all the time in the world.
“Why call your dad when you have a handy man living right next door?”
“Now you’re calling yourself a handy man? Last I checked you were… actually, I’m not exactly sure what your title actually was.”
This time his gaze drifted to the floor. “It doesn’t matter. Right now, I’m title-less.”
“What happened?”
Isla used to be the one person he told everything to. Any problems at school, work, home, he went to her, but it’d been so long since he confided in her. He caught her gaze, and her eyes softened. It would be easy to fall into their old ways, but he wasn’t ready to open up.
“Story for a different day,” he said. “We need to clean up this mess. I’ll get some fresh towels from my house and then we’re busting open this wall.”
“Excuse me!”
“The only way to get to the pipe is through the wall.”
“You are not putting a hole in my grandma’s wall.”
“It’s your wall now, and yes I am, and you’re going to help me.”
“I know nothing about putting holes in walls and pipes.”
“You’re a homeowner now. It’s time to learn, and I’m going to teach you.”