Free Love Rising: Spring (Mandrake Falls Series Romance Book 4) by Catherine Lloyd

body under the sink to get a look.
His white button-down shirt was getting dirty but he didn’t seem to care. The
jeans he was wearing were baggy and loose but the shirt fitted his body snugly.
He rolled up the sleeves, revealing tanned, surprisingly strong forearms.
    Jeremy handed her the bucket so he’d have room to work and
asked her if she had a flashlight and wrench. Jocelyn scrambled to find them,
hoping the batteries still worked. Nothing seemed to work for long in her house
and there was never enough money to replace the broken stuff. She had gradually
learned to live with less and less until she was pretty sure she wasn’t living
at all.
    Jeremy held his hand out to take the wrench and when she
gave it to him, their fingers touched. Jocelyn never really noticed his hands
before. Jeremy Marks had big square strong fingers, the kind that blue collar
guys developed over the years. He did a lot of physical labor with the theater
but there was also in his other job with the forestry service. Jeremy used to
work with Hudson occasionally before he got the contract with the theater.
    Jocelyn blinked and looked closer. Good god. Jeremy Marks
had muscles. They bunched under his shirt. Not huge muscles but strong enough
to wield the wrench which was quite heavy. He banged on one of the pipes.
    “Hold the flashlight for me, Joce .
Aim it up here. The cold water tap is leaking but I think the whole unit has to
be replaced. It looks like the pipe is cracked.” He grunted and pushed with his
heels to leverage himself up. “I’ll try to get a better look.”
    “That sounds expensive. Wait! Don’t take it apart!” she
cried as Jeremy hammered on the pipe. “I’ll call the landlord again. Maybe he’ll
deal with it if I sound like I mean business.”
    “He’s ignored your calls so far. He’s not going to respond
now that the problem is a real problem. We’ll fix it ourselves and take the
cost out your rent.” He removed his glasses and handed them to her. “Hold
these.”
    Jeremy gave the downspout another bang with the wrench and
the join was loosened. He twisted on the metal sleeve and the drain pipe separated.
    “The landlord isn’t going to agree to take less rent.”
Jocelyn winced as the plumbing under her sink was dismantled.
    “He has no choice. It’s the law.”
    “It is?”
    “Sure it is. You told him about the problem, he hasn’t fixed
it, you had to fix it yourself so you take it off the rent. You have to have
water in your kitchen, Joce .”
    He eased his long body out from under the sink. She was
squatting beside him, still holding the flashlight. His hair fell in thick
waves in his eyes. “Come on. We’ll go to the hardware store, get everything we
need and then you can submit the receipt with your rent check at the end of the
month. Your landlord will just have to suck it up.”
    “You mean we’re doing this today ?”
    “Do you have plans? I can come back tomorrow after work.”
    “No, I’m totally available but I don’t have enough cash at
the moment so if we could do it next week, that’d be better.”
    Jeremy stood up and brushed off his jeans. “We’ll see how
much everything is going to cost and take it from there.”
    She nodded, certain that it didn’t matter how much it
cost—she didn’t have the funds. Still, a trip to the hardware store was better
than sitting in her house worrying about her future.

 
    ♥

 
    NODEN’S HARDWARE on Main Street was one of the oldest
buildings in town, sided in red-painted clapboard and white trim. It stood
majestically opposite the town green, three stories high, slightly listing to
the left. The interior was cramped and low-ceilinged. Deep wooden shelves lined
the walls and were neatly stocked with hardware and household goods of every
type. A narrow wooden staircase bisected the building leading to the second and
third floors where dry goods, farm supplies, clothes and toys were sold. Noden operated on the principle that once a