braid whipping around her as she looked back over her shoulder.
Her car bounced as it avoided the mailbox and reversed onto the road before she pushed the gearshift into drive. She paused in front of him. Rolled down the window.
He inhaled and took a step toward her. Ready to explain. Ready to apologize. Ready to listen.
“Don’t drown the chickens.”
Before he could reply, her Subaru sputtered off down the road.
Don’t drown the chickens.
Don’t. Drown. The chickens.
He straightened. Well, at the very least he could avoid that.
His oxfords—his one and only pair of oxfords—dragged with each soggy step as he went to his truck and reached over the side of the bed for his channel locks, then made his way toward her meter box. His mind raced, but oddly enough, his thoughts didn’t linger on the cash he’d need to cover the cost of this mess. His mind rested on her.
On those intriguing eyes.
He wondered which version of the woman he’d just met—the carefree fairy in the stairway or the tense, distant neighbor—would be the one to whom he’d have to say, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to be without water for several days.”
Chapter 3
Bree
“Our precious home is flooding, dear.”
Bree slipped the words into Evie’s ears as she picked up a flute of champagne and moved around a group of small-talkers. She maneuvered through a sea of sequins and tuxedo shoulders jutting out at every turn. As crowded as the room was, nothing but space existed between the tip of her head and the glass globes and antique chandeliers of the vaulted ceiling high above. The Barter would stand for nothing less than holding their Annual Spring Gala at the Martha Washington Inn.
Holding the bowl of nuts like a football, she squeezed around another couple and snaked through the narrow labyrinth toward the food table. People of all sorts were at the Barter galas, and from one sniff, Bree could tell which side of the fence they played on. Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion, Chanel No. 5, Soir de Paris, Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleue—these were the scents of the standard patrons, the ones who enthusiastically supported the nation’s oldest live-performance theatre.
Her side, the actors’ side, smelled like either Bath & Body Works Tropical Passionfruit body spray or essential oil of a gumbo tree. Like Cinderella, the actors slipped into a pumpkin-turned-carriage for several Barter-sponsored events per year and mingled with sponsors who talked about vacation homes in Tuscany. Actors responded shrilly with, “Well, who doesn’t?” and laughed at the patrons’ jokes, ever mindful of how many crab cakes were left on the tray.
The patrons smiled indulgently at their prized actors’ eccentricities. The actors smiled back at their patrons who were rich enough to get away with eccentric behaviors of their own.
These fundraising events were sprinkled throughout the year, but the Barter’s Spring Gala was the biggest of all. And this was Bree’s first.
Bree slid her bowl of nuts between a platter of smoked salmon and what appeared to be some sort of edible intestine. As she did so, the unmistakably overpowering scent of tea tree oil came from behind her.
Ah. Evie.
“My house is what now?” With cat liner up to her temples, Evie stood with both hands on her hips—or rather on her skirt, which as of yesterday had been the patchwork quilt draped across their sofa.
Right.
Bree had lived in the house with Evie for six months, had equal ownership in the house inherited from Bree’s grandmother, and yet her grandmother’s former caretaker couldn’t once admit the house was theirs equally. Not once.
Honestly, just because Evie lived in the house for five years with Nana she thought she owned the place.
Bree scanned the food options and picked up a cherry tomato with cheese on a toothpick. “Well, I’m no professional, but I’d say a truck broke the water line. Do you think this is swiss?”
Evie clutched the quilt skirt at her thighs and, with some effort, moved herself closer. “Did they fix it?”
“No idea.”
“Is the water stopped?”
“Not a clue.”
“Who was there looking at it?”
“Some man.” Bree would not say his name. She would not admit out loud that she had remembered his name when he had so flippantly looked her in the eye with that quizzical do-I-know-you? expression and said that horrible word, “Becca?”
Evie took a step toward her. “What kind of man?”
“Well, after a surprising turn of events, I’d say a terrible-human-being kind of man.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you helpful in any way at all?”
Bree pointed her toothpick toward the ceiling. “I told him