Murder Had a Little Lamb (23 page)

“Not now!” I cried. Which, of course, only incited them further. Lou started leaping up, pushing his powerful legs against me as if he’d decided that knocking me over would add one more dimension of fun to this exhilarating game.

I fended him off and grabbed my cellphone. Struggling to steady my hands, I scrolled down to Betty and Winston’s number. Since they’re my landlords, in the best of all possible worlds, this would become their problem, not mine.

“Hello,” I heard Betty say brightly.

“Betty!” I exclaimed. “You and Winston have to come over now! The faucet handle in the bathtub just broke off, and the entire cottage is about to flood—”

“I’m sorry,” she continued in the same happy voice, “but no one is available to take your call. Please wait for the tone and then leave a—”

“Great!” I cried, hitting the button that ended the call. Staring at the phone numbers on the tiny screen, I debated about who to call next. Nick? Not the best idea, since it wouldn’t look good for a lawyer-in-progress to be getting frantic phone calls from his helpless wife-to-be. Especially if he and the other members of his team were spiritedly sailing off into the sunset on
Kon-Tiki
.

It occurred to me then that a plumber would be a much better choice. Not that I had ever bothered to program the telephone numbers of any into my phone. And that was because I didn’t
know
of any plumbers.

Today was also Sunday. Which meant that there probably weren’t a lot of plumbers sitting around, waiting for their phone to ring so they could grab their trusty wrenches, jump into their truck, and race over to someone’s house.

I dashed back into the bathroom, anxious to see how things were progressing. I hoped the water tank might be empty by now, meaning that the crisis had passed—preferably before the water level had exceeded the height of the bathtub.

No such luck. In fact, the very thing I had been hoping wouldn’t happen had just happened. Water had begun sloshing onto the floor, adding insult to injury
by making a horrifying slapping noise. It occurred to me that Nick’s newfound ability to build rafts might turn out to be pretty darned useful. “Argh!” I screamed again.

My animals took my cries of agony to mean that our game had simply moved to another location. Lou came trotting into the bathroom, this time with a tennis ball in his mouth. He’d clearly decided that adding sports equipment to our pickup game would be an improvement. Max was right behind him, still carrying his favorite toy in his jaws. He gave a few violent shakes of his head, causing the pink plastic poodle to squeak for mercy. Tinkerbell darted between them, with a long piece of thread that perfectly matched the color of the throw pillow partially wrapped around one leg and partially trailing behind her.

“Lou, get
out
of here!” I screeched just as his front paws made contact with the ever-growing puddle of water. I guess my tone of voice scared him, since he immediately dropped the tennis ball. Into the puddle. Which caused a surprising amount of water to splash up onto my inside-out bathrobe. At least the water wasn’t hot anymore, since the limited supply of that had apparently been all used up. For once, that was a good thing.

When the sound of the doorbell abruptly cut through all the chaos, my first thought was that a plumber had magically appeared on my doorstep.

But within about two seconds I realized that someone else was much more likely to be standing on my doorstep. Forrester.

If I ignore him, I thought, maybe he’ll go away. But then it dawned on me that maybe he could be of help.

So I scurried over to the front door, once again accompanied by my entire team. The three of them gamboled beside me with their favorite toys in their mouths—or in Tink’s case, on their paws—acting as if they were thinking, “Boy, this game just keeps getting better and better!”

I flung open the door. Sure enough, Forrester was standing there. He was all dressed up in khaki pants and a crisp white shirt, and in his hands he clasped a bouquet of colorful wildflowers.

But the expression on his face was one of total confusion.

“Jess?” he asked, frowning. “Am I early?”

“Flood!” I cried, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him toward the back of the cottage. “In the bathroom. A pipe-fixture-whatever-you-call-it-thingy broke off, and the water won’t stop coming!”

“Well, well, well,” he said, actually sounding pleased. “Never in a million years did I think I’d ever see the day the confident, self-reliant Jessica Popper would be reduced to a damsel in distress!”

“Not now, Forrester,” I barked, still dragging him to the bathroom. “This is a crisis!”

As he passed the coffee table, he dropped the bouquet onto it. “Then I’m glad I arrived in time to be your knight in shining armor.”

“Believe me, that armor is going to get mighty rusty if we don’t do something about this immediately!”

By “we,” I meant “you,” of course. And just as I’d hoped, once Forrester had reached the bathroom, he
said, “Is
that
all. Let me turn off the main line valve. Where is it?”

I just looked at him. “I have no idea. This has never come up before.”

“I’ll find it,” he assured me, heading back out of the bathroom. “There are only so many possibilities.”

I don’t know what he did or where he did it, but no more than two minutes had passed before the water stopped. Just
stopped
, as if an act of wizardry had just been performed.

“Forrester, you saved my life!” I told him when he sashayed back into the bathroom. I didn’t even care that he looked positively smug.

Grinning, he replied, “That’s right, Jessie, I did.”

“I’ll call a plumber first thing tomorrow,” I said, thinking out loud. “In the meantime, I’ll keep trying Betty. She probably has someone she uses all the time.”

But I only had a few seconds to bask in my relief over having finally put an end to my bathroom’s temporary metamorphosis into Victoria Falls. Looking down, I saw that the water was seeping toward the rest of the house.

“I’ve got to mop all this up,” I said mournfully. “Right now.”

“I’ll help,” he offered, pulling off his shoes.

I was already running into the kitchen. I grabbed a mop, two big sponges, a bucket, and a small pile of rags.

“Thanks, Forrester,” I said sincerely when I returned. “But you don’t have to—”

“I said I’ll help.” Glancing down at the hem of his
pants, he added, “But I’m not willing to ruin my pants.”

“Then you should probably take them off.”

His eyebrows shot up. “What can I wear instead?”

Looking around the bathroom, I said, “Can’t you just put a towel around you?”

“That would work,” he said, nodding. “But I’d better take off my shirt, too.” With a sheepish smile, he added, “I got kind of dressed up for tonight.”

“Go ahead,” I said, already dipping both sponges into the puddle and wringing them out in the sink.

I turned to him to suggest that he use the bucket to start dumping water out the front door, then stopped.

“Whoa!” The word just popped out before I had a chance to stop myself.

Even though he’d told me exactly what he was going to do, I was still astonished by the sight of Forrester standing in front of me seemingly naked except for the big white towel wrapped around his waist. I had to admit that he had a surprisingly well-toned torso. In fact, his tanned skin, combined with his sun-bleached hair, made him look as if he were posing for a Ralph Lauren towel ad.

But instead of giving his bare chest or his muscular thighs more than a glance, I thrust the bucket at him. “Start bailing,” I commanded.

It took the two of us less than fifteen minutes to clean up all the water. As I was giving the entire bathroom a final wipe down with one of the few dry towels that remained, he said, “I’m going to get something to drink. Something cold. Want anything?”

“Definitely,” I said, noticing for the first time how
warm I was. And how thirsty. While earlier the balmy June day had seemed relaxing, the combination of all that spewing water and the heat generated by two bodies undergoing extensive physical exertion had converted the bathroom into a steam room. “Help yourself to whatever you find in the fridge.”

When I padded out of the bathroom a minute or two later, I found Forrester lounging on the couch, still dressed in nothing but the towel. In one hand he held a champagne glass that was filled with the bubbly stuff. A second glass, also filled, sat on the coffee table with the rest of the bottle.

I realized with horror that he’d found the bottle of champagne from my almost-wedding day in the refrigerator—and opened it.

“Here, drink some of this,” he instructed, picking up the second glass and half-standing so he could hand it to me. “You earned it.”

I had to admit that at the moment, a glass of champagne sounded like the perfect way of calming my nerves.

“Thanks, Forrester.” I accepted the glass, then plopped down on the couch next to him, taking care to wrap my bathrobe around my legs modestly. “You’re a good sport.”

“Are you kidding? That was fun!” he insisted.

“Cleaning up a flooded bathroom is fun?” I repeated.

“It is with you.” Grinning, he clinked his glass against mine. “I propose a toast. To dates that are anything but boring.”

I was about to correct him, pointing out that we
weren’t actually
on
a date, when I suddenly heard the familiar sound of the front door being opened. I froze.

“Who’s that?” Forrester asked.

At the exact same moment, a single syllable emerged from my dry lips: “Nick!”

Before I had a chance to do anything—hide the champagne, change out of Nick’s bathrobe, force Forrester to put on something besides the towel wrapped around his waist—Nick was standing in front of us, his eyes darting from me to Forrester to the two glasses in our hands.

The expression on his face made me shrink back so far that I practically dissolved into the couch’s upholstery fabric. He looked furious, hurt, baffled, and probably a whole bunch of other emotions I couldn’t identify.

Not one of them the least bit positive.

“What a surprise!” I cried, springing from the couch. “Nick, you’re not going to believe what just happened!”

“You’ve got me there,” he replied in a strained voice. “This is definitely something I’d classify as unbelievable.”

“But this isn’t what it looks like!” I cried. “That’s what’s so funny about this whole situation! You see, Forrester has been helping with the murder investigation your mother got me involved in, and to thank him, I—”

“Save it!” Nick growled, turning away and heading back toward the door.

“But Nick!” I cried, running after him. “A bathroom pipe broke!”

He didn’t appear to have heard me. He’d run out the door too fast.

By the time I reached the driveway, he was turning the key in the ignition.

“Nick!” I cried, racing after his car even though the gravel cut into the bottoms of my bare feet.

But it was too late. He had already driven off, without once looking back.

•   •   •

After sending Forrester on his way, I desperately tried calling and texting Nick. In fact, over the next two hours I punched so many keys on my stupid cellphone that my fingers hurt. But I still didn’t get any response.

When my phone finally buzzed, I grabbed it and answered before the first ring was over.

“Nick?” I demanded breathlessly.

“Nope. It’s Suzanne—the star-crossed lover.”

My heart sank. Not only wasn’t it Nick, it was someone I was in absolutely no mood to talk to.

“Suzanne, this really isn’t the best time—”

“Wait until you hear this, Jess,” Suzanne interrupted. “You’re not going to believe what’s going on with Kieran and me.”

I realized then that the one good thing about a conversation with Suzanne was that it usually focused on Suzanne. And at the moment, talking about her problematic love life struck me as a much better alternative to talking about mine.

Especially since I knew from experience that my main responsibility would be to listen.

“Okay, what’s up?” I settled back against the couch cushions, figuring this was bound to take a while.

Suzanne let out a deep sigh. “I’m beginning to think the man has major commitment issues.”

“Why?” I asked, even though I had a feeling I was opening the proverbial can of worms. Still, it was comforting to know I wasn’t the only one who was finding being in love to be an overwhelmingly distressing experience.

“Because he’s balking at the idea of us moving in together!” she replied crossly.

The individual in question was Kieran O’Malley—or, to be more accurate, Trooper O’Malley of the New York State Canine Unit. In addition to being what’s traditionally known as a great guy, Kieran also happened to look like a model for men’s cologne. He’s that cute, with sandy blond hair and eyes as green as a four leaf clover—not to mention a torso so muscular that you frequently find yourself wishing a freak gust of wind would blow the man’s shirt right off.

Kieran and Suzanne had met a few weeks earlier, right in my driveway, shortly after I’d signed on with the canine unit to provide medical care. The dogs lived with their human partners—which meant that at this point, the only person Kieran shared his place with was a crime-fighting German shepherd named Skittles.

“But Suzanne!” I protested. “You and Kieran have only been going out for a few weeks!”

“Exactly!” she cried, ignoring my use of the word
“only.” “Which is plenty of time for two people to recognize that they belong together.”

This seemed like a good time to exercise a little diplomacy. “I don’t doubt that,” I told her. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean you two soul mates have to live under the same roof, does it?”

“Why wouldn’t we want to spend every possible moment together?” she countered. “Drinking our nonfat lattes every morning, taking out the recycling, shopping for milk and laundry soap and toilet paper …”

I guess everyone has their own idea of romance, I thought.

“I’m not sure I agree with you on this, Suzanne,” I said warily. “If you ask me, you’re moving kind of fast.”