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“I’ll work on getting this mess cleaned up before that baby girl gets home from kindergarten.”
    “You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Towels squished beneath Tess’s shoes as she made her way across the kitchen to where Mrs. Webb was standing. “You go home and rest. You’ve done more than enough.”
    “Nonsense.” Mrs. Webb’s hands were back on her full hips. “You need the help.”
    Tess braced her own hands on her trim hips in a faceoff. “I can take it from here. The last thing you need to do is be bending and such when your arthritis is flaring up.”
    After a bit more convincing, Mrs. Webb agreed to go home after meeting Jenny at the bus stop. Gage had arrived while Tess had been convincing the older woman to go.
    When Mrs. Webb turned to head out to wait for the school bus, Tess introduced her to Gage.
    “One of the McBride boys.” Mrs. Webb looked him up and down. “I remember you from when you were just a little hellion. You’ve grown to be a fine young man.”
    Gage gave her a grin. “Good to see you, Mrs. Webb.”
    “I best be getting to that girl before the bus arrives.” Mrs. Webb headed out of the house.
    Tess often worried that Jenny might be too much for the older woman, but Mrs. Webb insisted that it kept her young and that the best thing for her arthritis was to keep moving.
    “Thank you for coming.” She tilted her head up to meet Gage’s eyes. “Mrs. Webb said that the neighbor told her it’s something to do with the line to the icemaker breaking and that valve not shutting off. And then the water to the house wouldn’t turn off, that it was frozen or something. So he had to shut off the main.”
    “I’ll take a look.” Gage knelt behind the fridge and examined the copper tubing and whatever it was that connected them—she had no idea what it all was. When he finished, he stood. “I’m going to check the valve to the house and see what the problem is there, then head to the hardware store before it closes.”
    Tess gave a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Gage.”
    “Not a problem.” He smiled and rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of it, so no worries.”
    She nodded. “You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
    He squeezed her shoulder and smiled before turning and heading out the front door.
    Mrs. Webb accompanied Jenny in before leaving and Tess and Jenny both hugged her goodbye.
    Tess squeezed Jenny to her. “You can eat your snack at the dining room table and do your homework and play with your dolls in your bedroom. I need you to stay out of the kitchen, okay?”
    Jenny looked at the kitchen floor. “That’s a big mess, Mommy.”
    “That it is.” Tess stepped on the squishy towels and got out an apple and some peanut butter and made Jenny her snack before giving the girl the plate along with a glass of milk. She ate while sitting on the chair, swinging her legs back and forth.
    Tess busied herself in the kitchen, wringing out towels and doing everything she could to get the floor dry. Jenny finished her snack and brought the plate and glass to the kitchen before picking up her backpack and going to her bedroom.
    Gage returned with tools and a number of other things and set to work. She offered him ice water or tea, and he gladly accepted a glass of water from the pitcher she kept in the fridge. She kept his glass filled and continued to sneak looks at him as she finished cleaning up the mess and drying the floor. Something about him being here in her kitchen doing handy fix-it work felt comfortable, as if he belonged right there.
    At that moment she didn’t question her thoughts. She just went with them. What the hell, anyway.
    Then she remembered how he’d showed up at Jo-Jo’s last night, thinking she was there. That caused her to frown again.
    She blew out a rush of air as she threw the last of the towels into the washer. Who’d have thought that Gage would turn out to be her knight in shining armor and rescue her? At the thought