Room at the Inn for Christmas (Second Chance at Star Inn)(10)

“If you want to give me a list of jobs, keep up.” Cart flicked a switch and the dingy cellar lit up bright as day. Rows of fluorescent lights, rectangles with white plastic covers, illuminated every corner. The stairway was well lit for the first time ever. Another thing Lou Star had spent money on.

Cart tromped down the wooden stairs to a huge concrete block basement stacked with bins and boxes. The rest of the house was beautiful, but down here it was strictly utilitarian. Storage, two water heaters, the boiler for the radiators, pipes and ducts and electric wires. All sorts of exciting things down here.

He heard footsteps behind him and already regretted his temper. He turned to apologize, and Mandy almost bumped into him. He stood one step below her on the basement floor and they were nose to nose.

His hands came up to stop her from taking that last step down and plowing into him. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s just that I came in and heard Angel say what she said, and it was what I wanted to hear. It made me really happy.”

His grip tightened on her upper arms, then relaxed and slid downward, almost like a caress.

“And you heard me act like I was horrified by the very thought of staying and it made you—” Her voice dwindled to silence and he figured she was trying to be polite, which was a nice change for one of them. Maybe he oughta take his turn.

“Blow my stack? Bite your head off? Snarl like a grizzly with a sore paw? Snap like a—”

“I was going to say”—Mandy smiled as she interrupted—“it made you . . . upset.”

“I suppose that covers it.” He needed to back up, let her go. Instead he stayed right where he was and took a moment to enjoy her golden eyes striped with brown and green. Eyes that could change color depending on what she wore and the light she stood in. Right now in the fluorescent lighting they glittered like sparks of gold.

“So.” She cleared her throat, then blinked. “Is there really a hot water heater down here?”

And that broke the moment, which he was sure she intended. He stepped away, turned and headed for the back corner. “Yep, except it’s not a hot water heater.”

“Of course it is.”

“No, it’s just a water heater. In fact, if you want to attach a temperature to it, it’s probably a cold water heater. I mean why bother heating water that’s already hot? So—”

“Spare me the plumber semantics. I didn’t spend much time on water and plumbing and furnaces at Halston or here. Show me what you’re doing?”

“You want to help?”

“Well, I’m not mechanically inclined. Once you get past righty tighty and lefty loosey I’m kinda lost. So, I think my help would just slow you down, but running this inn is more than baking muffins and washing linen. And the owner ought to have some knowledge of all aspects of her business. And I did used to tag along with my dad when he worked down here. So let’s see what’s involved in changing a heating element in a water heater. I’m adult enough to admit it when I don’t know something.”

Cart had the fleeting thought that he had a few adult things he wouldn’t mind teaching her.

Saying that out loud would wreck a nice mood.

So he kept quiet and led the way to the darkest corner of this old behemoth basement.

He pointed to a wooden wall with a good-sized door in the center. “That’s the utility room.”

“I used to pretend it was a dungeon and scare myself silly over it.”

Cart smiled over his shoulder at her and wondered if she ever pretended he was her knight in shining armor. “The old boiler’s still there and should probably be replaced. Your dad considered getting a gas furnace—it’s much more modern and efficient, but the ductwork would require ripping walls out, and cutting through floors in spots.”

Pointing to one corner, Cart said, “He did put in a gas furnace strictly for the ground-floor rooms, including your living quarters, because he could run all the ductwork in the basement. But he never went through with updating the whole house. He’d probably have gotten a new boiler at some point, but this one keeps chugging along.”

“The radiators and boiler were always touchy.”

Nodding, Cart said, “And I’m about the only one who knows how to baby the thing along. The radiators in each room need careful, regular maintenance. But it’s fine right now. The water heater I need to fix today isn’t new, but it should work for a good many years yet. When he remodeled all the bathrooms the water volume to the bigger showers was too much for the old water heater. The new one is massive to keep hot water available on all the upper floors.”

Cart pulled a screwdriver out of a fabric loop on his blue jeans and hunkered down to get to work.





Chapter Five

“I used to hold the flashlight for Dad.” She’d stood beside her father while he repaired things down here. She’d loved working with him on the house and with Mom in the kitchen. Her future had always been here at the inn . . . until it wasn’t.

Cart looked over his shoulder at her. “You mean when he fixed the water heater?”

“Yes, or replaced a fuse or tinkered with the boiler. We only had a couple of lightbulbs down here then. And fuses that screwed in. In fact, what happened to the fuse box?”

“When we rewired the house, we went to breaker switches instead of fuses and moved it up to the kitchen pantry.”