Chapter Twenty
N atalie pried her eyes open at nine Sunday morning, wishing she could sleep the day away. But she still had a mess on her hands, and that basement wasn’t going to clean itself. And oh, what a mess it was.
The house she’d bought and barely had time to enjoy these past five years was a beautiful two story in an older part of her hometown.
She’d chosen it for its nearness to several parks and its clean, classic style.
Unfortunately, she’d been ignorant to the conditions that came with this neighborhood during heavy rains.
The town was older, its pipes that carried sewage and rainwater originally interconnected.
When the combination sewers were unable to handle large volumes of rainwater pouring into the system, manhole lids lifted off the streets and basements flooded.
In the past, their rains hadn’t been as heavy, so her powered, functioning sump pump was able to keep up.
Between a loss of power and rainfall like the area hadn’t seen in many years, yesterday had quickly evolved into the perfect storm for her poor basement and several of the neighbors around her, too.
When her uncle had called midday, he’d measured six inches of water in the basement.
By the time he located a portable pump and generator, it was closer to twelve.
If only it’d been just rainwater down there…
She shuddered at the memory of seeing things a person never wanted to see floating in their basement. Sewer things . The stench had been so bad, she’d nearly thrown up twice.
Thankfully, the power finally came back on around midnight, and the pump ran dry around one. At that point, she turned everything off, took a long, hot shower, and crawled into bed. She fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.
She lay in bed now, having hit snooze on her alarm at least twice, struggling to motivate herself to get moving.
Today’s continued cleanup was going to suck, and what made it that much worse was that her mind kept wandering westward.
She was missing Sam. Missing Madison and Norah and Neil and Eli and Sunnie. Missing… dare she admit it…
Montana.
Natalie reached for her phone and found several texts from Sam, two from Madison, and one from Neil.
All had missed her at the ferret photo hunt and would let her know as soon as they saw anything.
Sam apologized for the dozenth time about not being there to see her off and promised to call midday to check in on her.
A smile tugged at her weary lips. Funny how a simple promise to check in made her heart swell. Sam was a good man; she prayed they could find a way to make things work. Prayed even harder that she’d get her house in order and back on a plane as soon as possible.
“Which means I’ve got no time for moping,” she conceded, rolling to an upright position.
Her uncle had warned that she would need to scrub everything down with a mixture of one part bleach to nine parts water to keep mold and bacteria at bay. At least the bleach smell should help mask the sewer odor. She hoped so, anyway.
“So, how bad is it?” Sam asked when he called as promised.
“Oh, Sam, it’s awful. The water, the smell .”
Natalie swiped a stray hair from her sweaty face. Today’s scrubbing had made her a hot mess in minutes even with the AC running. Though the day was shaping up to be a warm one, she stepped outside and took a seat on the front steps, breathing in some much-needed fresh air.
“I’m just so thankful my basement doesn’t have any carpet, because it would all need ripped out. As would any drywall.” She’d thought about having the basement finished a few years back. It was a good thing she hadn’t.
Thank God for small miracles.
“Damn. Did the water do much damage to what you had down there, then?”
She leaned back against the nearest banister.
“Oh yeah. My furnace is toast. Would have lost the water heater, too, if the water had risen another inch or two. Those are replaceable items, though. It’s the dozen or so boxes I had down there filled with holiday decorations passed down through our family and some of my childhood keepsakes that worries me the most. Now that I’ve got the basement emptied, scrubbed, and drying, I’ve got to go through those boxes and see what might be salvageable.
I know they’re just things, but—” Her voice cracked.
Natalie drew in a long breath, struggling to keep her emotions in check. “Man, this sucks.”
“I’m so sorry, honey. Wish there was something I could do to help.”
She swiped away a rogue tear from her cheek. “Buy me a house and all new stuff?”
Sam chuckled, the sound warming her heart and giving it a painful squeeze all at the same time. Is this how it would be when she was done in Marietta, their conversations reminding her of how much she missed him?
“We’ve got plenty of homes in Montana. You get your things packed; I’ll send the movers.”
Two weeks ago, she would have laughed at such a radical idea. Today, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to dream, if only for a moment.
“Tempting,” she said. “And for the record? I’d take riding Marshmallow over cleaning sewage water out of a basement any day.”
Sam whistled on the other end of the line. “Damn, it must have been bad over there.”
“It’s definitely been better.” Would be better even with the mess if you were here.
She sighed. “But the insurance guy will be out in the morning, so hopefully he will get me all taken care of. And I found a flight from Indy to Bozeman on Tuesday, so I’ve just got to find a ride to the airport before I buy that ticket.
Hopefully, Uncle Ralph or Cyndi can take me. ”
“Tuesday? Man, you’re going to miss all the ferret fun,” Sam teased.
He filled her in on night one of the stakeout, including how Sam and the girls had stayed with Neil until the wee hours of the morning.
Unfortunately, no ferrets were seen at their location.
Today, Neil would use his fancy motion-sensing software to review the video from the other three sites.
“Tonight, he’s going to set up camp by the beaver dam and watch the sight, solo.
He said it would help him focus, but I think he just doesn’t want to get into another drinking match with me. ”
Natalie laughed, totally picturing those two trying to outdo each other again. “Well, keep me posted. I’ll just be here, cleaning and sorting.”
“Will do. Good luck,” he said. “And Natalie?”
“Yeah, Sam?”
“Hurry back, honey.”
She disconnected and held the phone to her chest. It’d barely been twenty-four hours since she’d arrived home, and already she was missing him terribly. Grinning, she rose to her feet. I’m as bad as a smitten schoolgirl.
Natalie spent the rest of the afternoon in her backyard, going through the boxes she’d brought up from the basement.
Most had come into contact with the sewer water, but, thankfully, not all.
The ones that had, though, required her to go through them, piece by piece, to see what, if anything, could be saved.
Thankfully, several of the boxes had small, plastic containers within them that kept those contents clean and dry.
But the sorting and checking was slow, tedious work.
Twice, she went inside to escape the smell and the heat, only to doze off on the couch. By nightfall, she was spent.
Too tired to think straight, she got cleaned up and crawled into bed, intending to figure out her flight arrangements in the morning. After all, there couldn’t be that many people vying for a seat from Indy to Bozeman when it wasn’t skiing season.
She awoke Monday, well ahead of the insurance adjustor’s scheduled visit, and was surprised to find a video message from Sam.
There was no sound, only the view of another gorgeous, Montana sunset.
Natalie smiled at the sweet sentiment; she missed sunsets with him, too.
She raised her finger to swipe past the video but stopped as the camera view slowly zoomed in.
There, in the long, deep shadows of dusk, a mama ferret and her three kits played peek-a-boo in one of the abandoned prairie dog burrows Madison had pointed out, down by the river.
He’d done it—Neil had captured what they needed.
The ranch would be saved!
Natalie jumped out of bed and did a little dance, relieved not to have to pursue a resort that could have greatly impacted the Miles family.
She texted him back, though he was likely still asleep at this hour, and said she’d call him later so he could tell her all about it.
She did another little happy dance as she forwarded the video on to her boss in an email with a single line of text.
Endangered ferret presence confirmed.
Still smiling, she headed for the shower, feeling lighter than she’d felt in weeks. Two, to be exact.
No resort! Oh, Sam would be so happy. She could nearly picture his face already.
And hadn’t he said something about celebrating when the ferrets had been found?
If that celebration was anything like its precursor by the river, it was sure to be a mighty fine time.
She could hardly wait to get back out west.
Cyndi called later that morning, and the women made plans to do brunch and catch up.
Thankfully, her home had no basement and was spared from the mess that Natalie walked into.
She’d offered to come and help the moment she heard Natalie was back in town, but Natalie didn’t want her around the mess or the smell.
Lunch seemed a far more enjoyable way to reconnect.
Natalie had just finished with her hair and makeup when Steven’s response arrived in her inbox.
Natalie,