Kate Hardy - Holiday With The Best Man

Trying to push away the thought that she wasn’t adjusting terribly well to her new life so far, Grace opened the front door of the house that had been converted into three flats—and saw with horror that the hallway was an inch deep in water. Water that was coming from underneath her front door.

OK. Forget the panic and work with your common sense, the way you always do, she told herself. Turn off the water supply at the mains to stop any more water gushing out from wherever the leak is, turn off the electricity to avoid any problems there, run the taps to make sure the system drains fully, and then find out where the leak is coming from and call the landlord to organise a plumber.

Fortified now she had a plan to work to, Grace opened the flat’s front door to find water everywhere. The carpet was soaked through and she could see from the change in the colour of the material that the water was soaking its way up into the sofa, too. What a mess. She took a deep breath, took off her shoes, and put them on the kitchen table along with her handbag and briefcase so they’d be out of the way of the water.

Stopcock. Where would the stopcock be? The house had been converted into flats, so there was only a fifty-fifty chance that the stopcock would be inside her flat. But, to her relief, when she opened the cupboard under the sink in the hope that it was the most likely place to find the stopcock, the little wheel on the water pipe was clearly visible. She turned it off. Another switch dealt with the electricity supply, and when she went into the bathroom to turn on the taps to drain the system she could see the problem immediately: water was gushing through a burst pipe underneath the sink.

She grabbed the washing up bowl from the kitchen sink and put it there to catch the water that was still gushing from the burst pipe, then turned on the taps in the bath so the system would start to drain.

Those were the most important things. Now to call the landlord—and she really hoped that he’d be able to send an emergency plumber out to fix the pipe tonight. Though, even when the pipe was fixed and the water supply was back on, Grace knew that she was still going to have to find somewhere else to sleep tonight, because the flat was too badly flooded to be habitable. She’d also have to find somewhere to store all her stuff.

Although part of her wanted to burst into tears of sheer frustration and anger and misery, she knew that crying wasn’t going to solve anything. She needed to stick with the practical stuff. Once she’d sorted that out, she could start weeping. But absolutely not until then.

There was a note in Bella’s handwriting underneath a magnet on the door of the fridge, with a telephone number and the words, Call if any problems. Obviously this was the landlord’s number; Grace was truly grateful that for once her little sister had been organised, despite spending the last three weeks knee-deep in plans for her whirlwind wedding to Hugh. Grace grabbed her mobile phone from her bag and called the number on the note.

* * *

Roland didn’t recognise the number on his phone’s screen, so he let the call go through to voicemail. A cold caller would give up as soon as Roland’s recorded message started playing, and anyone who really wanted to talk to him could leave a message and he’d return the call when he had time.

There was an audible sigh on the answering machine. ‘Hello. This is Grace Faraday.’

Bella’s sister? Roland frowned. Why on earth would she be calling him?

‘Please call me back urgently.’ She said her telephone number slowly and clearly. ‘If I haven’t heard from you within thirty minutes, I’ll call an emergency plumber and assume that you’ll pick up the bill.’

Why did she need an emergency plumber? And why on earth did she think that he’d pay for the cost?

Intending to suggest that she called her landlord or her insurance company instead, he picked up the phone. ‘Roland Devereux speaking.’

There was a stunned silence for a moment. ‘Roland? As in Hugh’s other best man Roland?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Um, right—if you didn’t catch the message I was in the middle of leaving, it’s Bella’s sister Grace. There’s a flood at the flat and I need an emergency plumber.’ Her voice took on a slightly haughty tone. ‘I assume that you, as the landlord, have a list of tradesmen you use.’

So that was why she thought he’d pay the bill for an emergency plumber. ‘I’m not the landlord.’

‘Ah. Sorry.’ The haughtiness disappeared, and there was the slightest wobble in her voice. ‘I don’t suppose you know the landlord’s contact details?’

Why on earth would he know something like that? ‘No.’

‘OK. Never mind.’

And there it was.

The tiniest sob. Muffled quickly, but he heard it.

It brought back all the memories of Lynette. Her heart-wrenching sobs every single month they’d failed to make a baby. The guilt about how badly he’d let her down and how he’d failed her at the last.

Plus Grace was his best friend’s sister-in-law. If Roland’s sister had called Hugh for help, Hugh would’ve come straight to Philly’s rescue. So Roland knew he had to do the right thing.

‘I’m sorry to have bother—’ she began.

‘Grace. How bad is the flood?’ he cut in.

‘You’ve just told me you’re not the landlord, so don’t worry about it.’

He winced, but he knew that he deserved the slightly acidic tone in her voice. But there was one thing that was bothering him. ‘Where did you get my number?’

‘Bella left me a note on the fridge—a phone number for emergencies.’ She sighed. ‘Again, I apologise. I assumed it was the landlord’s number. Obviously I was wrong.’

That didn’t matter right now. He was focused on the flood. ‘Have you turned off the water?’

‘Yes. I’m not an airhead,’ she said drily. ‘I also turned off the electricity supply to prevent any problems there, and I’m currently draining the system to try and stop any more water coming through. I need a plumber to fix the burst pipe, and I also need to tell the people in the flats upstairs, in case the problem in my flat has affected their water supply, too.’

He was surprised that Grace sounded so capable and so organised. It didn’t fit with what he’d been told about her. But she’d said there was a burst pipe, and clearly she didn’t have a number to call for help—apart from his, which Bella had left her in case of emergencies. He could hardly just hang up and leave her to it. ‘What’s the address?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Why?’

‘Because you just called me for help,’ he said.

‘Mistakenly,’ she said crisply. ‘For which I apologise. Yet again.’

‘Bella obviously left you my number in case of emergencies—and a burst pipe counts as an emergency.’ Although Bella had forgotten to tell him she’d given Grace his number, that wasn’t Grace’s fault. ‘Where are you?’

‘Bella’s flat.’

‘I don’t actually know the address,’ Roland explained.

‘Oh. Right.’ Sounding slightly reluctant, she told him the address.

‘OK. I’m on my way.’

‘Are you a plumber or something?’

‘No, but I know a good one. I’ll call him on the way and have him on standby in case you can’t get hold of the landlord.’

‘Thank you,’ Grace said. ‘I appreciate this.’

Roland called his plumber from the car, warning him that it was possibly a storm in a teacup but asking him to stay on standby. But, when he turned up at the flat, he discovered that Grace had been underplaying the situation, if anything. The water had clearly been gushing for a while and the carpets were soaked through; they’d need to be taken up and probably replaced. The sofa also needed to be moved, because water was seeping into it. And he felt another twinge of guilt as he noticed that Grace looked as if she’d been crying. Although she was clearly trying to be brave, this had obviously upset her.