Page 41 of Hold

“It’s a nice day,” Thea said, smiling more.

“Yeah,” Cat said slowly. “It is.” But she didn’t look convinced.

“I’m going in the pool. Benji! Don’t rattle the gate. And finish your peas.”

“They’re cold!”

“They’re supposed to be cold. It’s a salad.”

“Gross.”

“Fine. Have the spinach salad instead.”

“Urgh!” He ate the pea salad. Once he figured out there was bacon in it, he was much more amenable.

“Take Johnny?” Penny asked next to her, and Thea held out her hands. The baby was a gorgeous little boy with gold skin and blue eyes, which were closed now as he slept. Thea let his weight sink into her and felt the rare contentment expand in her chest. Yeah. Things could be a lot worse.

She might have dozed off. The next thing she heard was a shriek from the house. She and the baby jerked awake. Someone had put a blanket under his butt so that he wouldn’t roll off her lap. Cat, probably. But there was some new crisis coming from inside the house.

“Kane!” Ellen was yelling. “Quick! It’s frigging Niagara Falls!”

Kane, who had obviously been in the pool, ran past Thea, dripping wet. She heard more raised voices, and her curiosity got the better of her. Hefting Johnny more tightly in her arms, she followed the sounds.

Everyone except Megan, who stayed with the other small kids, flocked into the kitchen and through it to the hallway that led to the main staircase. In the middle of it, between the butler’s pantry and the dining room (seating for twenty), water was pouring through a recessed light fixture and onto the two-hundred-year-old floor tiles.

“Make it stop!” Ellen cried.

“Hon,” Kane said, sounding just as stressed. “How the hell do I make it stop? How the hell did it get in the light fixture anyway?”

“You could turn off the main water line,” came another voice.

They all turned as one to face Jake. Under so much attention, he blushed. “I mean, it’s a leak somewhere that’s finding the path of least resistance. So first of all, we should—”

“How?” interrupted Kane.

“Jesus, Kane, tell me why we bought this ancient pile again?” Ellen snapped. “It’s in the basement!”

They all moved off, Jake, Ellen, and Kane running, the others seemingly attached to them by long strings, following behind, too riveted to do anything else.

At the top of the basement stairs, the rest of them waited while the voices carried from downstairs. “Jake, do you know what it looks like?” Kane asked.

“Iknow what it looks like!” Ellen retorted, but then Jake said, “Here it is,” and she said, “Oh. I thought it was that one.”

Then Jake said, “Okay, it’s off.”

The others looked back down the hallway. The water was less of a deluge now, and more of a light rain shower. By the time Jake, Kane, and Ellen had come upstairs, it had stopped. “Jacob,” Kane said, “You’re a genius.”

Jake was flushing again. “Now I should see if I can find what’s leaking.” He grinned at his uncle. “And hope it isn’t a drain stack.”

But after a few minutes of looking, Jake couldn’t find the source of the leak. Everyone else except Thea and Benji, who’d been mopping up the mess with towels, had gone back out to the pool.

“We can’t call a plumber!” Ellen exclaimed. “It’s a holiday!”

“We can’t be without water all weekend either, hon,” Kane pointed out.

Jake looked at his mother. “Liam might come.”

Kane said, “Who’s Liam?” at the same time Thea said, “Oh, I don’t know, Jake.”