Suddenly You

by Sarah Mayberry

  It was very dark in the roof cavity, despite the flashlight beam. Unease trickled down her spine as she balanced on a rough wooden rafter on her knees. What were the odds that there were rats and mice up here? She shone the torch around the roof cavity, noting the thin layer of fiberglass fluff masquerading as insulation. No wonder the house was so hot in summer and cold in winter. She aimed the light toward the front of the house. Something glinted in the far distance. It took her a moment to realize it was the flashlight beam reflecting off the stream of water coming in from the roof.

  Well, at least she knew which way to crawl.

  She made her way slowly forward, shifting from rafter to rafter on her hands and knees, the flashlight clenched between her teeth. Every few feet or so she tossed the ice-cream containers ahead of herself to keep her hands free. She was well aware that any slips would see her crashing through a thin layer of plaster into the room below, and she concentrated fiercely on where she put her knees and hands.

  Every now and then she looked up to gauge how much farther she had to go. By the time she’d entered the space above Alice’s bedroom, her knees were aching and her nose was itching from all the dust and fiberglass. She sat back on her heels and located the leak with the flashlight beam. Fortunately there was a rafter directly underneath and she was able to place the largest of the containers on a stable footing.

  “Thank. God.”

  She was desperate to make her way back to the access hole, but she forced herself to inspect the surrounding space while she was there. She groaned with dismay when she saw another flash of light on water. Another leak. Above her bedroom, if she hazarded a guess.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  She sighed heavily and clenched the flashlight between her teeth again and crawled, slow painful inch by slow painful inch, toward the second leak. It was close to the front wall where the roof sloped and she had to crouch low and slide the container into position.

  “I am so asking for a discount on my bloody rent for this,” she muttered as she swiveled on one knee to face the way she’d come.

  This time she didn’t scan for more leaks, even though she had one remaining container. She was over the dank darkness, her hands and chest felt itchy, her knees ached. She figured she’d done her bit, the rest was up to her landlord.

  She was starting the homeward journey when the flashlight beam flickered dramatically.

  “No. Don’t even think about it.” She froze, waiting for the beam to steady again.

  When it kept flickering, she tapped it against her thigh.

  “Come on. I only need a couple more minutes. Five, tops.”

  As if in response to her request, the flashlight flickered one last time before it steadied. She let out a grateful sigh.

  Then the world went black.

  “No. No way. Please don’t do this to me,” she pleaded as she fumbled in the dark, trying to find the switch on the side of the flashlight.

  She flicked the flashlight on and off, then unscrewed the battery cap and jiggled the batteries around a little before screwing it back on.

  No dice. The flashlight had deserted her. Leaving her stranded miles from the access hole in a very dark, potentially rat-infested attic.

  Pippa swore vehemently, the worst four-letter words she knew. This was what she got for taking action and rescuing herself. Next time she was letting the stupid ceiling cave in.

  Her knees screamed for her to move. Her heart in her mouth, she shuffled forward a couple of inches. The distant access hole was the only source of light. She could barely see her own hand in front of her face, let alone the detail of the rafters ahead of her.

  Swearing repeatedly under her breath, she crawled forward another few feet. It wasn’t as though she had a choice—it was shuffle forward into the unknown, or remain stuck in the dark with no hope of rescue. Especially since she hadn’t been smart enough to bring her phone with her.

  Her groping hands told her she’d reached a complicated part of the roof where the rafters changed direction, a mess that had been a whole lot easier to navigate with the help of the flashlight. Now, she groped and frowned and inched forward cautiously, flinching every time a splinter dug into her knees or hands but persevering because the only hope of relief was to reach that distant square of light.

  A rustling on her left had her head whipping around. She froze, staring into the darkness, one knee balanced precariously on a rafter, the other midair.

  Please let that not be a rat. Please.

  She couldn’t see or hear anything. Maybe it had just been wind. Maybe the noise had even come from outside the roof.

  Her arms were starting to shake from supporting the bulk of her weight. She put her knee down. She was lifting her leg to resume her journey when something skittered across her hand. Something sinuous and furry with a long tail and eyes that glinted in the dark.

  Pippa didn’t think. She simply reacted, screaming and rising up on her knees and flailing with her hands to beat off whatever rodent was in the vicinity.

  Everything happened in a blur after that. Her head connected painfully with one of the rafters overhead, her knee slipped, and the next thing she knew she was off balance and toppling to her right. She hit the plaster sheeting with a resonant thunk. It gave instantly, cracking beneath her like too-thin ice and she shrieked as she plunged toward the floor and almost certain injury—only to land on something resilient and forgiving and springy.

  It took her a few seconds to understand she was lying on her bed, fragments of plaster beneath and around her. She hadn’t broken her leg or fractured her skull. She was alive and relatively well and incredibly, ridiculously lucky.

  Her first impulse was to laugh, a great guffaw that spoke more of shock and relief than mirth. Then she rose onto her knees and did a quick body pat to confirm she really was in one piece.

  She was. A minor miracle. Heart still hammering against her breastbone, she stood on distinctly shaky legs. Only then did she look up.

  She silently mouthed yet another swear word as she took in the woman-sized hole in her bedroom ceiling. Bits of ragged plaster dangled from the hole, and insulation fluff and plaster dotted the bed and floor. She was covered in dust, plaster and cobwebs, with yet more insulation clinging to her clothes.

  For a moment she was so overwhelmed she couldn’t think. It was such a big hole. Then she remembered Alice and went to check on her daughter.

  Alice was sobbing quietly to herself and Pippa guessed she’d probably been crying while Pippa had been stuck in the attic. She didn’t dare touch her baby while covered in fiberglass, however, so she made reassuring noises before heading into the bathroom to shower. Barely two minutes later and wrapped in a towel, she lifted Alice into her arms.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart, Mummy’s here. It’s all right.”

  Holding her daughter against her chest and crooning reassurances, she returned to her bedroom doorway.

  The hole in the ceiling seemed to have grown since she’d last seen it. She stared into it, cold water dripping down her back from her wet hair.

  She needed to have it fixed, of course. She was no expert on home renovation, but she was pretty sure that would run into the hundreds, maybe even the thousands to repair.

  For the second time in as many weeks she felt the bite of despair. She’d survived one financial crisis, only to find herself in the middle of another. All because she was an idiot. She should have let the stupid leaky roof destroy the ceiling. At least the repairs would have been the landlord’s problem. Now, they were hers.

  Even if she couldn’t afford to replaster a matchbox, let alone a whole bedroom ceiling.

  Pathetic, self-pitying tears pricked the back of her eyes. It was all very well to keep telling herself that things would be better in a year’s time when she was qualified and teaching and earning a decent wage but right now, right this minute, she felt helpless and hopeless. It was the car all over again—she didn’t have the skill to fix it on h
er own, and she didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it. Not right away, anyway.

  Alice stirred in her arms, hands grasping the edge of Pippa’s towel. Pippa rocked her automatically, trying to push the horrible overwhelmed feeling to one side so she could think.

  She didn’t have to repair the ceiling immediately. She could simply sit tight and wait till she had the money to pay for the repairs, as she’d planned to do with her car before Harry had come riding to her rescue. Obviously, she wouldn’t be able to use her room, since the thought of sleeping with a gaping hole above her head made her shiver. But there was a perfectly good couch in the sunroom. She could sleep out there until she’d saved the funds.

  Even as the thought crossed her mind her mood dropped another notch. She didn’t want to camp out in her own home. There must be some other way. Maybe she could patch the ceiling herself somehow or come up with some other kind of temporary measure?

  She dismissed the notion after barely a moment’s thought. She was about as handy as Ivana Trump—i.e. not very. Pippa had wreaked enough havoc without attempting to do some sort of half-assed, half-baked repair job.

  She would simply have to suck it up, the way she’d sucked up everything else life had thrown at her in the past couple of years. Living with a dirty great hole in the ceiling wouldn’t kill her.

  Turning her back on the mess she’d made, she returned to the kitchen, telling herself that within a day tonight’s events would be miraculously transformed into a hilarious dinner party anecdote thanks to a good night’s sleep and a little perspective.

  Here’s hoping.

  She was rounding the counter to turn on the kettle when her gaze landed on the bottle of whiskey she’d bought for Harry. She stopped dead in her tracks as a single, incredibly inappropriate thought hit her.

  Harry would know what to do.

  Hell, Harry could probably fix her ceiling with one well-muscled arm behind his back.

  She shook her head. It was a dumb thought. She couldn’t ask him to come running to her aid again. Not after the way she’d gotten all over him when he’d offered to fix her door. Any goodwill he might have had toward her had been well and truly worn out by her own stubborn, prideful behavior.

  You are such an idiot.

  She didn’t flinch from her own self-assessment because she knew she deserved it. Not simply because of the way she’d reacted when Harry had so good-naturedly offered to help her out, but because even now when she had the opportunity to ask for help from someone who had always been kind to her, her pride demanded that she find some other way to handle the situation rather than throw herself at Harry’s mercy. Even if that meant sleeping on the couch for weeks, and even if she knew in her bones that he wouldn’t hesitate to help her, no questions asked.

  The other night she’d asked Harry if her being a single parent meant that she wasn’t allowed to retain any dignity. Standing in her self-sabotaged house, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe she’d valued dignity a lot higher than perhaps she should have.

  Maybe survival was more important. Maybe gracious acceptance of the fact that, at this particular moment in her life, she needed help held more weight.

  Maybe she couldn’t afford to be proud right now. Maybe that was what being a good mother and growing up was all about.

  She stared at the bottle. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she reached for the phone.

  * * *

  HARRY SPENT THE ten-minute drive from his place to Pippa’s trying to understand why she’d phoned him. After the way they’d parted, he’d figured he’d be at the very bottom of her SOS list. Yet something bad had happened, and he was the person she’d turned to.

  Even more confusing and mysterious to him was his reaction. He’d felt a definite thud of satisfaction when he’d heard her voice, a feeling that had only intensified when she’d confessed why she was calling. He’d been on the way out to play basketball with some friends, but he’d bailed on his mates rather than disappoint her. Because she needed him.

  Crazy, confusing, messed-up stuff.

  The porch light was on when he pulled into the driveway. He ran through the rain, his toolbox a heavy weight against his leg. She opened the door wearing a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt, her wet hair in a messy ponytail, her glasses balanced near the end of her nose.

  “You didn’t have to come straight over, you know. It’s not that kind of an emergency.” She looked guilty, uncomfortable and sheepish.

  He tightened his grip on the handle of his toolbox. It was either that or give in to the sudden urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattled.

  She’d fallen through the ceiling. She could have broken her neck, her back, an arm, a leg.... She could be lying unconscious right now.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. As I said on the phone, the bed broke my fall.”

  “You didn’t knock your head or twist anything?” He didn’t know why he couldn’t take her at her word.

  “I’m fine. Honestly. Apart from feeling like the biggest dick under the sun.”

  “Yeah, well. If the shoe fits…”

  “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. She could have killed herself. He wasn’t about to let her off the hook.

  “If the flashlight hadn’t gone out, I would have been fine.”

  “If the bed hadn’t been there, you’d be in hospital.”

  “You sound like a parent.”

  He felt like one, too. Not a sensation he was particularly familiar with.

  “Maybe you should show me the damage.”

  “There’s something I need to give you first.” She started down the hallway.

  It took him a moment to follow her. He was too busy watching her ass as she walked toward the kitchen. He’d never seen her in jeans before. It was a revelation—and not a welcome one.

  The soft denim hugged her full, rounded bottom. Her hips swayed from side to side. He found himself wondering if her panties were as colorful as the cherry-red bra she’d been wearing the other day and if she was a matching set kind of girl, or more the mix and match type. Then she stepped around the door she’d refused to let him fix and suddenly it was a whole lot easier to remember why he was here and why it was a bad idea for him to be staring at her butt.

  His mind firmly on the matter at hand, he followed her into the kitchen. She picked up a bottle of whiskey and offered it to him.

  “This is for you. To apologize for the other night.” She pushed her glasses to the bridge of her nose, a surefire giveaway she was nervous. “And this, too.”

  She offered him a crisp white envelope bearing his name in neat black handwriting.

  He frowned. “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “Harry, come on. We both know I do. I behaved like a petulant, spoiled schoolgirl.”

  He opened his mouth to deny it but she simply thrust the letter into his hand.

  “Read it. Put me out of my misery.”

  “I don’t need to read it. Apology accepted.”

  She gave him a pained look. “You can’t just let me off the hook like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I deserve to squirm.”

  “Pippa, we’re cool. Relax.”

  “Okay, if you won’t read it, I’ll say it. I was horrible the other night. I took all my frustration with Steve and my life in general out on you, all because you had the gall to offer to help me out. God forbid. Which was incredibly kind and generous and noble of you, by the way. In short, Harry, I’m unreservedly sorry for everything I said, and I hope you can forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  She made a frustrated noise. “Sometimes you’re too nice for your own good, do you know that?”

  “I’m not nice.” If she knew he’d been staring at her ass thirty seconds ago, wondering what color panties she was wearing, she wouldn’t think he was nice. If she knew that he’d been thinking about
the creamy fullness of her breasts for the past few days, and how good she’d felt when she’d embraced him, baby and all, she’d know exactly how down and dirty he could be.

  “Well, I’ve yet to see any evidence of that, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”

  She smiled at him, a cheeky, challenging smile that reminded him of all the smart-ass wisecracks she’d thrown his way. He felt a sudden, almost overwhelming surge of affection for her. He liked this woman. He liked her honesty. He liked her attitude and her smarts—hell, he even liked her feistiness, though it meant he’d been on the wrong end of her tongue more than a few times.

  If it hadn’t been for Steve, if they’d met anywhere else, under any other circumstances…

  “So where’s this hole?” he said.

  Because there was no point thinking about what might have been. Nothing would change who she was or who he was.

  Anyway, she’d probably laugh in his face if she knew what he was thinking. She’d never said it, but she’d been slumming it when she went out with Steve. She was educated and smart and arty—he and Steve were blue-collar guys who worked with their hands for a living and only opened a newspaper to find the cartoons and the sports section.

  “It’s in my room.”

  He kept his gaze strictly on the back of her head as she led him to her bedroom. She gestured for him to precede her into the room. His gaze swept briefly over the bed and tallboy, and a pile of debris that had been pushed into the corner, before rising to the ceiling. He whistled when he saw the mighty hole she’d punched in the plaster and she gave him a nervous look.

  “So, what do you think? Is it fixable? Or do I need to call in a builder?” She pushed her glasses up her nose again, then crossed her arms over her chest.

  “You ever thought about getting a pair of glasses that stay up on their own?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Your glasses. They’re always falling off.”

  “Oh. Right. That’s because they’re vintage. Technically, they’re probably too big for my face. But I love them.” She shrugged, her eyes lifting to the ceiling, worry once again filling their depths as she waited for his assessment.