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“Turn off the water!” her mom shouted, the water now spraying her right in the face.
“Oh, my.” She skidded to a halt at the site. “Out front?”
“No. Under the sink.”
Under the sink? Of course. Scooting down, surrounded by growing puddles, she opened the lower cabinet doors and practically crawling under the sink on all fours, she turned the hot water off first, praying her mother wasn’t being spewed with scalding water. The valve shut tight, she turned to the blue valve to the right and turned until the handle stopped and the sound of gushing water slowed. Backing out from under the sink, she had never been so relieved to no longer have running water, and so thankful that no one had seen her crawling around on all fours.
Pushing to her feet, her mother was already running to the linen closet. While Sandra grabbed a few dry dish rags from a drawer to sop up the water pooling on the floor, her mother ran in with a stack of bath towels.
“It’s times like this I really miss having a man in the house.”
Sandra wrung the soaking wet towels in the sink. “What happened?”
“I have no idea.” Beside her, her mother wrung another towel then tossed it back on the still wet floor. “One minute I was grinding lemon rinds in the disposal and the next minute water was everywhere.”
At that moment, the water boiling in a pan on the stove bubbled over.
“Lord, love a duck.” Her mother sighed and standing closer, Sandra flipped the knob, turning off the gas. “Why don’t you check on David? I’ll finish the tea, then dry the rest of the floor.”
Torn between the disaster on the first floor, and her son not feeling well upstairs, Sandra must have hesitated a moment too long for her mother’s taste.
“Go. I’ll get more towels.”
“I’ll check on David and bring the towels from our bathroom down.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Her mother sighed as she poured the green apple and lemon rind tea into a mug.
Taking the stairs two at a time, she made it to their room just in time to hear David retching through the closed door. “Marvelous.” Hurrying into the room, her heart did a slow stutter at the miserable expression on her son’s face. Poor kid was staring horrified at the mess on the blankets in front of him. At least most of his pajamas had been spared. “Oh, baby.”
It didn’t take long to change David out of his slightly soiled jammies and settle him into her bed—with a trash can—and strip the sheets from his bed.
“Here we go.” Her mother came into the room with a small tray, carrying the mug of tea and a dish of dry saltines. “We’ll drink the tea first and if you get hungry, we can have some saltines, but not for at least an hour.”
“You stay with him a few minutes and I’ll run these sheets down to the laundry.”
“Good idea.”
The sheets bundled into a massive ball, she carried them in her arms, making her way down the stairs. Not quite to the bottom, the doorbell sounded. “Who the heck could that be?”
Some days simply dragged by, today was one of those days. Paxton had felt like a teen anticipating a first date with the head cheerleader. If he’d been unable to get Sandra out of his mind before, knowing they were going on a dinner date tonight kept her in the forefront of his mind. Even when he had to help out in the barn, not even hanging with the horses was enough to make him forget about Sandra.
Rather than waste time pretending to have something else that mattered, he opted to just accept that he was anxious and even a little nervous and might as well just give up and head to town. Having stopped to pick up some flowers, he hoped they would make an acceptable peace offering for arriving over an hour early.
Standing on her front porch, he picked one heck of a time to second-guess his decision. “Don’t be stupid,” he chastised himself. He could toss back and forth if arriving early was a blessing or an intrusion, but he was here, and if he didn’t ring the darn bell, any minute now the neighbors would start a new topic of discussion on the grapevine. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he rang the bell.
When the door flew open, a frazzled Sandra, loaded down with laundry, opened her mouth, then at the sight of him, snapped it shut. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he heard her groan. Not a good sign.
“I came to town early and hoped that would be okay.”
She sighed heavily. “David’s sick and I need to wash his sheets.” The last word had barely crossed her lips when the load slipped from her hands.
“Here.” He reached forward. “Let me help.”
“They’re dirty.”
He chuckled and pulled the linens from her arms. “That’s usually what happens when someone’s sick.”
“I suppose you can leave them in the laundry room.”
