Page 26 of A Light in the Dark
I read between the lines: he hadn’t installed lighting in a space he was worried might flood out on him yearly. “I shall wait patiently where it is easiest for you to pick me up.”
Joel pointed at the curb. “I go down the hill and come around the block, which spares my sanity. I’m just glad our street has been mostly cleaned. We’re just down to mud. My SUV can handle a little mud.”
“It would be truly tragic if it couldn’t.”
“I would be crying if it couldn’t, honestly. It wouldn’t be much of a utility vehicle if it couldn’t handle getting some dirt on the tires.” Joel shot me a salute, closed the door, and locked it. I scampered down his short flight of steps to wait at the curb, wondering what sort of SUV the man drove.
Did he drive one of the ones that was just an oversized car, useless for anything other than hauling people? Did he have a proper SUV, which was larger, could haul peopleandstuff, and belonged on dirt roads? Did he have an SUV that was actually just a truck with a covered cab and an attitude problem?
The mystery amused me for the ten minutes it took Joel to free his vehicle from the cavernous depths of his garage and come around the block, revealing he dabbled in the second category, favoring common sense and functionality over status, although I noticed he’d picked a luxury brand for himself. Once he pulled up, I opened the passenger door and bounced inside, buckling in the instant my butt hit the leather seat before reaching out to grab the handle and close the door.
Once, as a teen, I’d failed to buckle in first, missed the door of my father’s truck, and had tumbled out. Ever since, I’d learned to rely on the seat belt in case my balance failed me again.
“I see you have fallen out of a tall vehicle before.”
I grinned. “Guilty as charged. My daddy likes big trucks.”
“I wanted a big truck, but big trucks in Stonecreek aren’t practical. This is the largest I could go without costing me my sanity, and I had to have a custom garage door made to handle the clearance issues as it is.”
Ouch. I bet that door, especially when it needed to beshored, cost as much as my house had. “You better treat that door like it’s worth its weight in gold.”
“I really do.”
After shoving my purse onto the floor between my feet, I relaxed, staring out the window to enjoy a different view of the city I called home. Sometimes, I took one of the busses, but more often than not, I walked. Everything I needed was within a two mile radius, something I could handle with relative ease. Some days, I considered getting a bicycle, but while riding down the hill seemed like a good time, the thought of pedaling up did an excellent job of deterring me. “What made you want a house this far down the hill?”
“Price,” he admitted. “I don’t understand why people like a quarter of the size for five times the amount. When I was shopping for my home, I wanted enough space to do things—or have a family. With my place? I can easily do both. I have a little over twenty-five hundred square feet of living space.”
Huh. My house had more living space than his, and that excluded my basement. “I really thought my place was smaller than yours!”
“It’s the courtyard. I don’t have a yard in the back like most places do on our street; my property ends at the walls of my neighbors. I also installed a three foot buffer made of solid concrete, which I had shored, just in case there’s a fire down the hill. I also installed fire protection on the roof, so chances are, my place will still be standing after any natural disaster.”
My eyes widened. “You can get fire protections for your roof?”
“Talk to your contact at the shoring company. They canhook you up. Most don’t ask for it because it’s rare that it’s needed. It’s not usually the roof catching on fire first. Honestly, the coverage isn’t even that expensive, especially compared to the actual shoring work.”
“I will do that once I get home. I know my yard is unusually large, too.”
“You have one of the best properties in our area. If your place had been up for sale when I had purchased, I would have bought it over my place in a heartbeat. Having that corner lot is a nightmare at times because of the flooding.” Two streets up the hill, Joel gestured at a smaller townhouse. “I almost bought that one, but when I had it inspected, there were a lot of problems I would have needed to repair before I could shore it. That’s why I have so many protections on my home. One of these days, unless the new owners do something about it, the foundation is going to give out. Maybe in the next two or three floods. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes out the house below it, too.”
I winced at the thought of one or two properties up the hill from us collapsing. While my shoring was rated for that sort of punishment, our neighbors’ homes weren’t. “I’m just going to thank you now for the advice about the extra shoring.”
“You’re welcome. I trust you got a good deal on the work?”
“I really did, but the Hunters may be stealing my bill. They claim they did some damage to my roof when they brought the helicopter in.” I made a show of shrugging and holding my arms up in surrender. “I got yelled at a little over my independent tendencies.”
Joel snickered. “The Hunters have a budget for helpingrefugees, and they offer incentives for people who help. Your shoring probably fits within the compensation guidelines they have. Just let them run away with the bill. You put your life on the line to help Gabriella, and they want to repay that debt. I’ve been in your shoes before, and the Hunters are good people. Just let them repay the debt.”
“You have?”
“I took them for roof protections already,” Joel informed me, and while he kept his eyes on the road, he flashed me a rather lopsided grin. “What I did was far less risky than what you did. And unlike you, I actually have formal training in search and rescue. I won’t lie; even if I had been on my step, I doubt I could have done what you did. I don’t have your rig. I will be changing that. We do some pretty dangerous stuff during rescue operations, but we don’t take impossible gambles that will claim our lives without accomplishing anything. And that’s what it would have been. At best, I would have been able to throw her a rope tied to a piece of furniture. That would have been dangerous enough.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Yeah, the flood waters are treacherous at best. She got lucky that she fell in so late into the flood. If there had been more debris, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“That luna moth saved her life. Without him, I wouldn’t have spotted her in the water at all. The glow caught my attention.”
Joel shook his head and he gestured at a building across the street. “The luna moth probably stood watch up the hill.”
