Page 118 of Small Town, Big Storm

The six-year-old doesn’t miss it either.

She just nods sagely.“Hockey players have to have strong legs and strong lungs.”

Fuck, she’s smart.

“You’re right.”

“I’m going to be a hockey player one day.”

My heart squeezes.“Then you’ll be a hockey player,” I say.

“Maybe we should have walls and pipes that don’t burst before we think about pools or hockey,” Rain mutters.

“And I thoughtyouwere a master plumber,” I return dryly.

He scowls.

“Especially when you work in your towel.”

His scowl deepens.

Poppy giggles then takes Holly’s hand in her unbroken one.“We’ll go scope out the back yard and determine proper pool placement.You two…boyscan sort out plumbing things.”

They carefully pick their way through the wreck that’s the house.

The last week has been spent opening up walls and arranging inspections.The long and short of it is that there’s a fuck-ton of work to complete.

But I figure that’s to my advantage.

Poppy said I won’t wake up alone again, and I mean to do my best to make that happen.

“I take it the date went well,” Rain says.“Apart from the side of broken wrist?”

I’mthe one scowling this time.

His mouth twitches.“I heard that Shep is trying to figure out how to properly apologize to Poppy.”

I groan, scrub my hands over my face, my imagination going wild.

The man doesn’t do anything in half-measure.

“Christ.”

Rain just claps me on the shoulder.“Come on,” he says.“I need your help finishing up the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom.”

“Shouldn’t you make sure we don’t fall through the floor first?”

“Asshole,” he mutters.

But he doesn’t complain further as I follow him upstairs and into the bathroom.

Then I’m acting as a second set of hands, doing it while lying on the floor that Rain has repaired over the last few days.

Doing it while exchanging only stilted commands and grunts.

As we Harrisons prefer it.

Or maybe as part of methinksI should prefer it.