Things were not good. The fixes that they’d made to the pipes in the apartment over the bookstore were solid fixes. Unfortunately, manipulation of the pipes to fix the original leak had caused more leaks.
Jon fumed as he tried to discuss the situation with the owner of the building, who wouldn’t even meet them, but would only talk to Jon on the phone.
They’d had to turn the water off for the entire building, and now he had to let every tenant know, again, that they’d be without water. What was it about people who owned buildings thinking that collecting rents was all there was to it?
He left the plumber to fix the new leaks, and made his way to every tenant, meeting Leona in the very narrow stairwell to the second floor.
“I was just coming down to see you,” he said as they stood nearly toe to toe on the stairs looking at one another.
“To tell me I’ll be without water again?”
Jon bit the inside of his cheek to calm himself from the bite of her comment. “Yep.”
“What is going on? The pipes in my store are rattling more than normal.”
“Well, we have a bigger problem than normal.”
“Can you fix it?” she snapped the question as she folded her arms in front of her.
Jon mimicked her stance. “I can fix it. But I can only do as much as that owner will foot the bill for. This entire building is old enough that everything needs to be rerun, or it’s just going to keep breaking. And it’s going to break, and leak, into every unit in this building. Including yours.”
Her face contorted into something between irritation and anger. “And you’ve told him all of this, in detail?”
“Of course I have. Do you want to call him? Maybe you can be more persuasive.”
“I’ll do better than that,” she bit out. “I’ll go talk to him in person.”
“I’m right behind you, doll. Let’s make this happen.”
She spun to face him. Now they were nose to nose, and her eyes lit angry, but the small twitch of her mouth made Jon stir inside, like he hadn’t in years.
“Don’t call me doll.”
“No problem,” he countered.
“You don’t have to go with me.”
Jon shrugged. “I have some words.”
Leona’s brow furrowed. “He’s not a very nice man.”
“I’ve spoken to him,” Jon admitted. “I know that first-hand.”
“I can handle this.”
Leona turned to walk away, but Jon reached for her, took hold of her hand and stopped her.
They both looked down to where their hands joined, but he didn’t let go.
“You shouldn’t have to do this alone. Or at all. I was hired to do a job, and my reputation is on the line if this all goes badly. I can handle it.”
Leona worried her lip. “Trust me on this one.”
“Then just let me go with you. I’ll drive.”
She shook her head. “I’m not riding in your work truck.”
“What’s wrong with my work truck?”
“If we go, I’ll drive,” she countered. and Jon decided he had no choice if he wanted to confront the man.
“Fine.”
Leona made calls to Sadie and Fiona, asking them to open the store. She didn’t give them any other information, and they didn’t ask.
Jon followed her through the store and out the back door to her car. She hit the fob to unlock the doors, and then climbed in behind the driver’s seat.
“You’re kidding me with this?” Jon asked, as he did everything he could to slide into the Mini-Cooper with his long legs and tall torso. “If you crash, they’ll never extract me from this thing.”
“I’m not going to crash,” she defended herself.
“Yeah, and I’m never going to get my legs to unfold,” he grunted as he managed into the car. “My truck is clean.”
Leona let out a breath. “Sorry. I just need an ounce of control in this situation.”
She started the car and backed out of the parking space. Driving down the alley, she slowed when she came to the street. Taking a moment to calm herself, she didn’t pull onto the street.
“You know where you’re going?” Jon asked.
“Do you?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Resigned, Leona nodded. “Yes. I know.”
“He’s this bad? I mean you’re out of sorts.”
Leona pulled onto the street and drove. “You’ve known me less than two days. You don’t know my sorts.”
There was a curl on his pursed lips, and she wondered if he did know her. Had she met him? She thought she would have remembered him. Surely he wasn’t a reader. He had rough, calloused hands, and always had a little stubble of a beard. If she had to guess, he worked from sunup to sundown to make the bills, and he fell into a recliner at the end of the day and put his feet up in front of the TV.
“So, you didn’t answer my question,” Jon said. “The owner of the building?”
Leona gripped her steering wheel tighter. “He’s just had a hard life, and it settled into his personality.”
“So you know him? I mean personally?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know him.”
“How long have you been in business?”
“Twenty years.”
Jon ran the back of his hand over the whiskers on his chin, and it scratched against his skin. “I wouldn’t have pegged you to be much older than me. That means you’re either older than I think, or you started your business very young.”
“And how old do you think I am?” Leona asked as she flicked on her turn signal and turned down the next street.
“Oh, no. I’m not going there. I’ll tell you that I’m thirty-eight, and I think you’re close to that.”
The smile that formed on her mouth couldn’t be helped. “I’m not much older.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
She pursed her lips. “Let’s just say when young Ford Fix It was born, I was learning my A-B-C’s in kindergarten.”
He nodded slowly. “So you were young when you opened your store,” he commented, and she knew he’d done the math.
“An opportunity arose and I took it.”
“Pretty impressive.”
She shifted a glance at him. “How old were you when you started your business?”
He ran his tongue over his teeth. “Not as young.”
“Okay, how many years ago?”
Jon chuckled. “Eight.”
Leona grinned, having done the math. “Still young.”
“Yeah, that’s what a lot of the old guys who own buildings around here said too, when I approached them to sell their properties. Headstrong community.”
“You want to buy buildings?”
“As many as I can. And then, I’ll fix those, and I won’t have to worry about little side jobs.”
Leona understood that statement more than she cared to. Not only the owning, but the lack of respect when someone young wanted to do big things.