Chapter 2
Jules
The sound that woke Jules wasn't her alarm. It was water. Violent, rushing water that, for a moment, made her think she was still on that beach beneath the waterfall in her dream.
"What in the hell—"
In the pre-dawn darkness, she shoved her hair out of her face where it had come loose from its braid, sat up, and listened. She heard it clearly then: rushing water, like someone had turned on every faucet in the house at once.
Jules launched from her bed and fumbled for the light switch. Cold wetness soaked through her fuzzy socks the instant her feet hit the floor, and what she saw made her stomach drop.
There was water everywhere.
It streamed from under the kitchen door, spreading across her living room in an ever-widening lake that ran off into her bedroom.
Her vintage area rug floated like a dead thing, and photo albums under the coffee table sat drowning in two inches of destruction.
As she stared in horror, one of her favorite sandals went floating by.
"No, no, no!"
She splashed through the flood and yanked open the kitchen door. Water sprayed from under the sink with explosive force, hitting the ceiling hard enough to rain back down. The walls streamed with moisture. The cabinets dripped.
"Fred!"
She rescued her succulent, setting him on top of the refrigerator, then dropped to her knees in the cold water. The cabinet doors hung open, knocked aside by the water's force, and she could see the problem immediately. A pipe had burst, the metal torn open like it was paper.
Squinting in the dark, she found the valve for that pipe, grabbed it and twisted.
Nothing.
She threw her weight into it. The valve groaned, gave a quarter turn, then stuck completely. Rust flaked off, cutting into her palms.
"Come on!"
Bracing both feet against the cabinet frame, she pulled until her muscles screamed. The valve wouldn't budge. If anything, the water pressure increased, soaking through her thin sleep shirt until she could win a wet T-shirt contest.
Think. Think. Think.
Main water shut-off. Had to be in the basement.
She ran for the basement door, slipping on the wet hardwood. Her hip slammed the doorframe as she careened by and pain shot down her leg, but adrenaline pushed her forward. The stairs were slick with humidity, and she took them recklessly, white-knuckling the rail.
The basement was already flooding. Three inches of icy water biting at her bare ankles beneath her soggy socks.
The shut-off valve was on the far wall, barely visible behind boxes of Christmas decorations and her parents' old things she couldn't bear to throw away.
Jules waded through the freezing water, her pajama shorts plastered to her thighs.
The boxes collapsed into soggy cardboard at her touch, ornaments and memories floating away to collect in the corners of the room.
The valve was painted over. Multiple times. Evidence of her father's "improvements" that did little but make things look better without actually fixing them.
A sense of momentary helplessness swept over her as she stared at it. "You've got to be kidding me, Dad."
Jules glanced around the flooding room. Tools. She needed tools.
Back up the stairs she went, slogging through the kitchen to the side door. Her father's toolbox was in the garage, exactly where he'd left it three years ago. She grabbed her keys from the hook on the wall and burst outside.
Just as Lex had predicted, the storm had intensified overnight.
Wind drove snow horizontally, cutting through her soaked clothes like ice.
Her teeth chattered and her wet hands turned red as she fumbled with the padlock on the garage door, which she eventually got open, then grabbed the heavy toolbox and ran back into the house.
Down in the basement again, the water was now four inches deep.
Her dad's wrench wouldn't fit the painted valve.
The pliers slipped uselessly. She attacked it with his hammer, chipping paint, denting the adjacent pipe, accomplishing nothing while apologizing to his memory for the mess she was making.
Above her head, wood groaned. Jules looked up to see the original beams from the year her grandparents bought the place began to bow. Water streamed through the floorboards onto her head.
She needed help. Now.
Running back upstairs, she grabbed her phone from the nightstand, scrolling through contacts with shaking, bloody fingers.
Mary from the coffee shop whose husband did plumbing work—straight to voicemail.
Ben from hardware—no answer.
But Faye…her best friend would answer. She always did.
Jules hit Faye's number, praying she was awake. Adam usually left early for the garage, so maybe—
"Jules?" Faye's voice was groggy but concerned. "What's wrong? It's not even six yet."
"My house is flooding!" The words came out in a sob. "A pipe burst and I can't shut it off and everything is ruined and—"
"Oh my God, hang on. Adam! ADAM!" She heard Faye's feet hit the floor, heard her calling for her boyfriend. "Adam, Jules needs help. Her house is flooding!"
Muffled conversation, then Faye was back. "He's on his way. Ten minutes, maybe less. He's grabbing his tools."
"Faye, I'm so sorry to wake you—"
"Don't you dare apologize. That's what friends are for. And you know Adam loves being the hero." Despite everything, Faye's familiar warmth made Jules feel less alone. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
She looked down at her bloody fingers, her skin cracked from the cold and trying to hang onto the tools. "I'm fine. Just... everything's destroyed. My parents' things..."
"Oh, honey. Adam will fix it. He's amazing at this stuff. I swear the man can fix anything. It's kind of annoying actually." Faye was clearly trying to make her laugh. "Just hold on. Try to move important stuff up high if you can."
"Okay. Okay. Thank you."
"Jules? It'll be okay. I promise."
They hung up, and Jules spent the next few minutes in frantic salvage mode, throwing her mother's books onto high shelves, shoving her laptop and work files onto counters, dragging any furniture that was dry and would fit through the doorway into the spare bedroom that used to be hers.
Adam didn't knock. He just walked in, took one look at the disaster—and at her, soaked and shivering in transparent pajamas—and headed straight for the basement.
"Faye's in the truck," he called over his shoulder. "She's calling around to find you a place to stay."
Relief flooded through her. Faye was here. Her best friend who'd helped her through her parents' deaths, who understood about trying to save family homes, and who'd shown up even though it was barely dawn.
Jules followed Adam anyway, watching him wade through the flood without hesitation. He grabbed the painted valve with bare hands and turned it with the kind of strength that made her wonder what Faye fed him. Metal screamed, and the water stopped.
The sudden silence felt deafening.
"Thank you," she breathed. "Thank you so much—"
"Let's check the damage." He was already moving, and she had to jog through the water to keep up.
In the kitchen, Adam crouched under the sink, examining the burst pipe. His shoulders barely fit in the space her father had proudly built "custom."
"This is really bad." He sat back on his heels. "This looks like it's been leaking for months, maybe years."
"I knew I should have had it all redone when I took over the house after Dad died..." She trailed off, throat tight.
"It's not your fault. Old houses like this, they hide problems until they can't anymore." Adam stood, towering over her. She'd never really noticed how big he was. "I'll check the walls."
He pulled out a moisture meter and ran it along the kitchen walls. The device shrieked warnings with every reading.
"Insulation's soaked. Has been for a long time." He moved to the living room with that same careful stride. "This wall too. And..." He checked between the kitchen and her childhood bedroom. "Yeah. This whole section."
"What does that mean?"
Adam turned to face her, and she recognized the expression.
It was the same one he'd worn when he'd had to tell Faye her car needed a new engine.
"You can't stay here. The water damage is too extensive.
There's mold risk, electrical hazards, structural problems. That basement ceiling could collapse.
I'm sorry, Jules, but this place probably needs to be completely gutted and everything that got wet will need to be replaced. "
Jules stared, thinking of three generations of memories soaking into nothing. "Gutted?"
"Kitchen stripped to studs. Flooring replaced. All insulation torn out. We're talking three weeks minimum, probably more for a house this age if you want to keep it around for a long time."
"Three weeks?" Her voice squeaked.
The front door opened and Faye rushed in, still in her pajamas with a coat thrown over them and waterproof boots on her feet.
"Jules! Oh honey, look at this mess." She splashed over to her and wrapped Jules in a tight hug.
"We're going to fix this, okay? I've been calling around. The inn is booked solid, but—"
"Everything's booked," Jules said miserably against her friend's shoulder. "The festival, the holidays..."
Faye pulled back, holding Jules's shoulders. "That's why Adam has a solution."
Jules looked between them. Adam was studying the ceiling with unusual interest while Faye had that expression she got when she was trying to be subtle about something.
"What solution?"
"Uh… there's a cabin," Adam said carefully. "Up the mountain a bit. It's huge. Used to be a hunting lodge and it's been well taken care of. There's plenty of room. You could stay there until your house is livable again."
"Whose cabin is it?" Jules asked, something in the way Adam and Faye exchanged glances making her suspicious.
"The owner won't mind," Adam said, which wasn't any kind of answer at all.
"Adam," Faye said in a warning tone.