hand instead and handed the kid the envelope, which she tore into eagerly as he rose to face the mom again. Though that was a relative term, since Mallory Keegan stood damn near a foot shorter than he did. “Your daughter and I ran into each other at Ruby’s. She thought I needed a…loan,” he settled on.
“Look, Mom!” Chloe had pulled out the gift certificate from the envelope and was waving it between them. “It’s for the new Purple Princess game! That’s what it says, right? F—r—e—e,” she spelled out.
Mallory’s brows drew together and she tugged the vivid, purple card he’d picked up at CeeVid—his uncle’s computer gaming company—out of her daughter’s grasp, looking from Ryan’s face to it. “Yes, that’s what it says.” She focused on Ryan again. Uncertainty clouded her gaze as if she were waging some internal debate.
He wasn’t sure who was on the winning side, though, when she took a step back, leaning against the open door to push it wider. Her arm was still around Chloe, the dollar crumpled between her fingers. “Maybe you’d better come in.”
He could see past them both into the warmth of the house.
He’d returned the buck. Given the kid a gift just because it was easily convenient for him, thanks to family connections, and it was time to go.
He shifted sideways a little and stepped past her, into the house.
He immediately spotted the white-haired woman from the diner, coming down the stairs. Her arms were full of bath towels. Sopping wet, judging by the water dripping off them.
Mallory pushed back her hair again and gave him an awkward smile. “Have a seat.” She waved in the general direction of a living room opening off the hallway where they stood. “Chloe, sit with Mr. Clay and introduce your grandmother. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She hurried over to the elderly woman and took the towels. Water squished out of them even more during the exchange, and she left a wet trail behind her as she disappeared down the hall.
Realizing he was watching the sway of her shapely jean-clad rear, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a small, slightly damp hand slid into his.
“Come on.” Chloe tugged him toward one of the sleek beige couches that nearly consumed the living room, their style screaming modern against the aged brick of the fireplace that they flanked. “Grammy, this is Mr. Clay,” the little girl called over her shoulder as they went. “Mr. Clay, this is Grammy.”
He caught the amused glint in the woman’s eyes as she followed them. “Kathleen Keegan,” the lady elaborated in a distinct brogue. “Can I take your coat?”
The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. He suddenly felt surrounded by women.
Ordinarily, that wasn’t exactly a situation to cause him undue strain. But something about the Keegan women—all three of them—made him distinctly edgy.
He should have just let the kid give up her dollar. She’d have felt good about donating to a charity case and he wouldn’t be standing there wondering what the hell he was doing.
But as soon as the wish crossed his thoughts, what was left of his conscience smacked him hard.
So instead of keeping the coat exactly where it was—on and ready for him to make a quick exit—he shrugged out of the scarred leather and handed it over to the old woman, who beamed at him as if he were four and had just correctly recited the alphabet.
“Sit. Sit.” She waited until he’d perched on the awful couch. “What can I get you to warm yourself?”
He caught sight of Mallory crossing the hallway again and squelched the wholly inappropriate answer he could have given. “Nothing, ma’am. I’m fine, thank you.”
He could see the argument forming in her eyes even before he finished speaking, and pushed to his feet. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be nosy, but do you need help?”
He scooted around Kathleen to intercept Mallory. She was carrying a bucket and a mop, with another towel, dry this time, tossed over her shoulder. “Do you have a water leak or something?” Chloe had said something about water getting worse—he hadn’t paid any attention because he’d been too busy cataloguing her mother’s soft lips, and his unwelcome and very physical reaction to her appeal.
Mallory shook her head. “No worries. Everything’s fine.”
It wasn’t exactly an answer and he gave a pointed look at the items in her hands and her cheeks went pinker than her lips.
“Just some cleanup,” she added hurriedly, and fairly dashed around him to pound up the stairs. “Gram, fix him some of your famous hot chocolate,” she called over her shoulder.
“It’s a fine mix,” Kathleen said, behind him. “I add a little kick when it’s a strapping young man like yourself drinking it.”
He didn’t want hot chocolate. Even if it were spiked. He didn’t want to be here in this house that smelled like lemon furniture polish and lilacs. He didn’t want to be reminded of things that were good and clean and worthy.
He wanted to be away from Weaver, away from everything that he’d once known and cared about.
He closed his hand over the newel post at the base of the staircase and looked back at Kathleen. “How bad’s the leak?”
She was still holding his coat, folded at her waist. “Pretty bad,” she said. Her eyes—a color she’d passed on to Mallory—twinkled a little. “My granddaughter won’t admit it, but I’m afraid she might be making it worse.”
“Hold the kick,” he told Kathleen.
“Can I have some hot chocolate, too, Grammy?” Chloe piped as he headed up the stairs.
Finding the bathroom wasn’t difficult. All he had to do was follow the trail of wet footprints down the hardwood hall.
She was on her hands and knees, derriere to the door, furiously wielding the fresh towel over the floor. The source of the problem was obvious thanks to the opened cabinet that had been emptied of everything except a pitiful collection of wrenches and a bucket that was near to full beneath the steady trickle of water coming from one of the pipes.
“Galvanized pipe,” he said, and her head jerked around to peer at him over her shoulder.
He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and forced himself to look at the plumbing and not the very feminine shape before him.
He mostly failed, though.
“Old houses like this often still have galvanized instead of copper or PVC,” he continued. “Unfortunately, it corrodes from the inside out and you sometimes don’t even know you’ve got a problem until—” he waved his hand toward the cabinet and sink “—Niagara Falls.”
Her lips compressed and she turned back to drying the floor. “I’ve tightened again and again. It just won’t stop.”
He crouched down next to her, realizing too late just how close that would put them. “You need a repair clamp.”
She twisted around until she was sitting on her rear.
