Passion in Bloom (Hometown Heartstrings #2)

Chapter 16

Roarke

“F uck!” I couldn’t stop shouting it. Shock had me running toward the bathroom.

I’d never pulled out of a woman faster than I just did with Heather, and she was the kind of woman I wanted to stay inside of for as long as possible. That tight glove. That slick heat.

I missed the intimacy already.

Now, in a horrible sense of whiplash, I was shoved right back into reality.

Namely, the reality that my fucking pipes had busted.

Realizing that bursting sound had come from my bathroom erased all sexy thoughts from my mind. As I ran toward the open door, letting the spray of water reach my skin, I shivered and tried to think.

Water geysered out of the joint in the pipe beneath the sink. The showerhead was dribbling water, seeming to go faster and faster like it wanted to pop off the head and spray the walls the other way.

I volleyed my gaze back and forth, rushing to think of where to stop the spray first.

“What in the hell is—” Heather hurried up to me, cramming her arms in her sweatshirt. Her panties were in hand, but she didn’t seem to pay attention to her clothes at all as her eyes opened wide with a what the fuck expression of confusion and shock.

I tugged off the condom, tossing it in the direction of the garbage as I hurried. Grabbing a towel off the hook, I hunkered low to fend off the worst of the spray in the pipe. A puddle had me slipping. The floor and walls were already dripping. As I crouched to block the spray and find the water shut off, I squinted and growled.

“Fucking Todd,” I bellowed as I struggled to get close enough. The sink was so low. This bathroom was such a tight fit. I dropped to my haunches, feeling oddly intimidated with my junk hanging low.

“Is this from that crew he’s got digging outside?” she guessed, grabbing another towel to hand to me as I struggled to get to the pipe.

“It has to be,” I shouted over the sound of water spraying and hitting the wall with force. It was like a damn hydrant had been opened. “My water pressure’s been off and now—Ah!”

I covered the pipe and wrapped the towel around the opening in the joint, but as I did, Heather slipped and fell back on her ass onto the floor in hurrying to give me another towel.

“Shit. Are you okay?” Keeping one hand on the towel around the pipe, I looked back to help her up. As I pivoted, another joint gave way and more water shot out at me.

It hit my inner thigh, and I yelled at the impact so close to my balls.

Falling back and into her, we scrambled in the wetness. “It’s everywhere!”

“My balls!”

“What?” she shouted as we fought to get up. “It hit your balls?”

I couldn’t help but laugh as we crawled to get up. My laughter didn’t last long though, since I heard another crack. This one came from further away, but it couldn’t bode well.

“Put clothes on,” she shouted as she spat water from her mouth. “I’ll find the shutoff.”

I rushed out of there, yanking my jeans on. They were wet, too, since the spray of the first opening had hosed a stream clear out into my bedroom. They covered me, though, and by the time I joined Heather in the bathroom again, I saw the showerhead spraying out a cone of water as well.

“What in the fuck? What the hell did they do?”

“I can’t reach the shutoff valve,” she announced, wincing as she tried to grope up under the skin. Her hair was matted to her head. Her eyes were slitted shut from the spray.

“Your arm is smaller than mine. It has to reach.”

“It might be smaller but I’m not an acrobatic!” she snapped.

“Can you feel it?”

“There!” She clenched her teeth as she seemed to strain. I wrapped a towel around the showerhead to stop it from shooting into both of our eyes.

“Shit.” She sat back, holding up the busted-off handle to the valve shutoff.

“What the hell?”

“It gave way!” she sassed as she scooted back from the dual cracks in the pipes blasting water at us.

“You didn’t have to yank it like that.”

“I know how to yank!” She smirked. “I mean turn. You turn the handle. You don’t yank.”

“You broke it off!”

She thrust the rusty handle in my face. “Not by sheer force. Look at how old this thing is!”

Bickering aside, we tried to tackle the waterworks together. She tried to fend off the water from under the sink while I did my best to open the small access door to the shutoff for the shower. In the small room, we were on top of each other. Soaked and cranky. Quarreling but on the same page of stopping the water.

“Call Todd!” she shouted over the chaos.

“He’s not going to be able to stop this,” I replied.

She stood, drenched and spatting water out as she glared at me. “Well neither are we!”

“The crew isn’t even out there today.”

She frowned, seeming to strain to listen to something in the distance. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” I wiped the water from my face, squinting at her.

A weird gushing noise sounded from outside of the bathroom, and I winced. “Oh, fuck.”

Together, we darted out of the bathroom to find the kitchen area flooded. The sink pipes had burst too, sending a waterfall into the air. With this trajectory, the water sprayed out toward the living room, too.

The couch. The carpet. The TV. The table. It was everywhere.

Heather squeaked in alarm, rushing back to the bedroom. I hustled to the sink, splashing through the inches of water. It streamed out from the cupboard beneath the sink as well as spraying up and outward.

I shoved the door open to kneel and find a shutoff there, but it mut have been moved to somewhere under the cabinetry at this reach.

“I’m calling,” Heather said.

I turned back to see her with her phone pressed to her ear.

“I’m calling Todd. He’s got to know how to shut off a main something somewhere!”

For the next twenty minutes, we alternated in what had to look like a freaking National Lampoon’s disaster. Water wouldn’t stop spraying. Everything that wasn’t damp was soaked.

We switched, holding up towels to stuff and plug the cracks, only to have the other openings spray out with more force. If she wasn’t on hold trying to reach Todd, I was.

Eventually, he answered.

“The pipes busted!” I said on speaker.

“Which one?”

“All of them!” Heather shouted in reply.

“Ah, fuck.” Todd grumbled some more. “I’ll be on my way.”

Twenty minutes later, he showed up. I was glad that Heather pulled on her pants, not that it really hid anything. Our clothes were soaked and the garments clung to us, squishing and dripping as we moved.

Todd wasn’t any better prepared to fight with the pipes, but he had been smart enough to call another ranch hand who’d rented out here long ago. He recalled how the pipes acted up for him when he stayed at a different cabin, and it was with his help that we could trudge outside into the cold and locate the main shutoff to my entire home.

As soon as the handle squeaked and turned under my strength on this thicker pipe, I held my breath and prayed the metal lever wasn’t so rusted out that it would snap as well.

It didn’t. And once the water was stilled, Todd spoke on speaker from inside my cabin. “It ain’t gushin’ out no more!”

I heaved out a deep exhale, looking up at Heather and the other ranch hand. Her breath misted in front of her mouth, proving how cold she was. As if the icy cling of my wet clothes against my body could’ve fooled me. We were soaked. We were in the open November air.

“Come on,” she said, holding a hand out to me so I could get back to level ground from this natural depression where the pipes ran outside. “You’ll freeze.”

“So will you.” I didn’t like the chatter of her teeth as she saw me up to the ground again.

“Both of you will,” the other man said. “Listen, my daughter’s about to go into labor any second now and my wife will kill me if I’m not there to rush to the hospital with them all.”

I waved him off. “Thanks, man. I appreciate you coming.”

He couldn’t help now. All that remained after that commotion was cleanup, and that wouldn’t be a quick feat.

Todd shook his head in the cabin, surveying the damage. “What a mess.”

I shot him a stern look. “You don’t say.”

“Well, you ain’t gonna be able to stay here anymore,” he replied. He sighed, letting his shoulders slump as he looked at the puddles taking over my cabin. “I think that cabin up closer to the road is mostly clean, if you wanna stay there in the meantime...”

And you were just talking about me moving into town. I supposed this cabin turning into a damn water fountain would be another reason for the owners to tear them down.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I told him.

But then Heather surprised me. “You can, um, you could camp out at my place.” She pressed her lips together, almost sheepish as she glanced at Todd. Suggesting that was a telling clue that she and I were getting together. Her cabin was just a studio-spaced unit. Her offer implied that we’d be sleeping together there.

“Yeah?” I asked, fighting a smile.

This was bold.

This was big.

She was taking a step in saying that, and it seemed she was brave enough to let Todd see that we were...something. I had no clue what, but after we crossed the line to have sex, she wasn’t quite as skittish now. This was a leap forward where I wanted to go, which was anywhere near her.

“Well, that’s a nice gesture,” Todd quipped. With his back to her, he winked at me.

A nice gesture? Sure, it was. But it sounded a lot more like an introduction to how much she wanted to open up to me.

“I appreciate it,” I told her, hoping she could know just how grateful I was that she’d come into my life—and not just because I needed a new place to stay.