Page 103 of On the Wild Side

I’ve texted him more than usual today. I’m never this needy when he’s gone, but something isn’t right.

I don’t mean between us. Brady and I are solid. But there’ssomethingin my gut that won’t shut up. The poor man has texted me back twice, reassuring me that everything’s normal and absolutely fine on his end, trying to put my mind at ease. I need to let him focus and do his thing so it stays that way.

The dryer signals the end of a cycle, so I walk back to the laundry room and realize that I’m sloshing throughwater.

About two inches of it.

“Shit.”

It occurs to me that the washer obviously isn’t running anymore either, and it appears that it has a leak.

Great.

One more thing to worry about and deal with when I havenotime or brain space for this.

At least I havetwowashing machines, so I’m not completely dead in the water, so to speak. It takes me thirty minutes to find a plumber who has time to come take a look at it today, and then I find out that it’s not an easy fix.

Because ofcourse,it isn’t.

No, that would be too easy.

Maybe this is the thing that was making my gut feel weird. I take a second to take stock of my feelings and realize,nope.That’s not it.

“I have to order a couple of things,” Peter the plumber—I can’t make this shit up—says with a sigh. “We can’t get much overnighted out here, but it shouldn’t be more than a couple of days.”

“A couple ofdays?” I blink, staring at the mountain of laundry. “I’ll be here all night.”

“I’m sorry. I just don’t have it in stock at the shop. I’ll see if I can get it FedExed overnight, but inevitably, it will take two days.”

“The joys of living in the boonies.” I force a smile and then shrug. “Ah, well, looks like my daughter and I will be hanging out here tonight. Thanks for your help, Peter.”

“I’ll keep you posted, Abbi.” He walks out, and I give the busted washer the stink eye.

“Today of all days?” I demand, as if it’ll talk back to me. With a deep sigh, I go find a mop and a bucket and then decide to use the wet vac because that’ll pull the water up faster. It’s noisy, and I swear I can hear ringing, and when I turn it off, I find that I’m right.

My phone is ringing, and I don’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Miss Abbi, this is Lucky out at the barn.”

My stomach churns. Daisy’s out at the barn today for riding lessons.

“Hi, Lucky. Do you have bad news for me?”

“Well, I don’t want you to panic because Little Miss is fine. Or, she will be. She fell off the horse this afternoon and hurt her wrist.”

“Crap,” I whisper. “Is it broken?”

“We don’t think so, but I think it’ll make everyone feel better if she gets an X-ray. What do you think?”

“I agree. I’ll come out right away and get her and take her to the ER.”

“I’m real sorry about this, ma’am. It’s never fun when the little ones fall off.”

“It’s not your fault. I’ll be there soon.”

I click off and then turn and stare at the mess that I haven’t finished cleaning up, but then throw my hands up in the air.

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