Close to You

herself up. Her feet scrabbled for
purchase, but she couldn’t hoist herself up.
    Dropping, breathing heavily, she
looked around. To her left there was a bush.
    A bush would work. She scooted over
and grabbed the fence again. Putting her feet on top of the bush,
she lifted herself up to straddle the fence. A feeling of triumph
made her want to laugh out loud.
    Until she realized she had to make it
down the other side. And there wasn’t anything she could use to
step down on.
    She sobered, gripping the fence tight.
She felt a splinter pierce her palm as she tried to figure out how
to get down.
    There was nothing for it. She had to
jump.
    Heart pounding, palms sweating, she
eased her legs over slowly. She meant to dangle her way down
easily, but she lost control and dropped to the ground.
Hard.
    She lay on the ground, looking up at
the night clouds. How ironic would it be if she was found here,
broken, in the morning? After she caught her breath, she took stock
of her injuries, but she realized somehow she hadn’t gotten
anything worse than a couple splinters and some
scratches.
    Wincing, she gingerly stood and looked
around. She couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the garden hose
to the side of the building.
    It was like fate prodding her that it
was actually connected to a water spigot that worked. She turned it
on and watched the water pour out.
    She could turn it off and leave now,
no one the wiser.
    And then she’d lose her business and
her son. And she’d be completely alone.
    Margaret turned the faucet up higher,
so the water gushed forth. Then she set the hose on the ground,
facing the glass door at the back of the café.
    She could see what Treat was talking
about—the water pooled right away. She didn’t wait to see if it
seeped inside like he’d theorized. She needed to figure out how to
leave.
    Dragging a plastic bucket to the
fence, she climbed up easier this time and used the bush to ease
her way down the other side.
    As she rounded the corner, she
startled as she caught a glimpse of a half-crazed woman staring at
her in the café’s window.
    Her own
reflection . She wilted, partly in relief.
Pulling her sweater tight around herself, she hurried around the
corner and toward her home.
     

Chapter Seventeen
     
    Humming, Eve unlocked the front door
and bent down to pick up the pack of newspapers delivered each
morning. She bumped the door open with her hip and set the
newspapers on a table so she could lock behind her.
    She loved coming in early, before the
store opened, to bake. Especially Monday, because she was fresh
from having Sunday off. This Sunday had been especially nice too.
She’d spent the day with Freya and her baby. She’d spent the night
talking to Treat on the phone. She paused and sighed, remembering
how delicious his voice had been on the phone, like he’d been in
bed with her.
    One day soon.
    Intending to head to the kitchen, she
turned, only her foot lost traction and she slipped.
    With a startled yelp, she
overcorrected and flew forward. A loud snap echoed in the empty space. Pain
shot through her shoulder and arm as she slammed into the
wall.
    “ Ouch.” Righting herself,
she rotated her arm. Nothing seemed broken. She frowned. It’d
sounded like something broke.
    Then she looked down and saw the heel
of her Christian Louboutins lying dead on the hardwood.
    “ No, ” she cried, kneeling. They were one of her favorite pairs—red
with white polka dots and a bow. Her fingers brushed the floor as
she picked up the dead heel—
    Eve frowned at the wetness on her
fingertips. “What the hell?”
    She brushed her hand on the hardwood.
It was wet. She rubbed her fingertips together and then sniffed
them. Water.
    Standing, she limped gingerly to the
counter to flip on the lights. Kicking off her shoes, she walked
back around and looked at the floor.
    It was covered with water—a thin layer
up front but increasingly thicker as she looked toward the
back.
    Shocked, she stared at it. She didn’t
know how long she stood there until the cold pooling over her feet
propelled her into action.
    “ Damn, damn, damn.” Tucking
her hair back, she walked to the back of her café. Three-quarters
of the way back, the water rose from a thin film to an
inch.
    Not a big deal, she tried to assure
herself, but panic welled inside her as surely as the water in the
café. She bent and turned the cuffs of her jeans up a couple turns.
As her scones were baking, she’d mop up the water.