Page 12 of The Christmas Fix
He banged again and then pressed his face to the glass.
Mrs. Pringle was sitting in her wheelchair at the foot of the stairs she hadn’t used in a decade, wearing a pink rain slicker and holding a container of cookies. She was up to her knees in water.
She waved cheerfully.
“Fuck me,” Noah muttered, yanking the front door open.
“Hal-le-lu-juah, Noah. I sure am happy to see your handsome face.”
“Miz Pringle,” Noah sloshed toward her. “What in the ever-living hell am I going to do with you? You’ve got to be freezing.”
She pushed her thick glasses up her nose and gave him a smile. “Why, Noah Yates. I know you don’t mean to swear in front of a lady, do you?”
“No, ma’am.” Noah grabbed the handles of her wheelchair and started to push her toward the door.
“The water was only ankle deep until about half an hour ago, and then, my goodness, it just started pouring in!”
“You’re going to get yourself a case of hypothermia.” Or worse if he’d waited just half an hour more.
Mrs. Pringle wasn’t concerned. “I knew you’d be coming along any minute now to rescue me just like a handsome white knight. Wait, now! We can’t go without my belongings.” She pointed toward the garbage bags on the third step that the water was just beginning to lick at.
“Are you absolutely sure you need all this?”
She gave him a steely-eyed glare.
“Okay. All right. Just checking.”
She refused to let him wheel her out until he’d loaded the bags into the canoe. Only then did she give him the royal nod.
The bags took up more room in the canoe than he’d hoped. And there was still the problem of the wheelchair and its occupant.
“Well, Mr. Manager, what are you gonna do now?” she asked, more amused than terrified.
Noah shook his head. Merry residents had a little too much faith in each other. They forgot to be worried or scared, assuming that their neighbors would always have their back. And now, here he was holding a wheelchair as flood waters swirled around his knees hoping for a fucking Merry miracle.
The whistle, shrill and loud, cut through the wind.
“Need a hand?”
The voice was his salvation. It was a woman in a bright yellow slicker holding a small fishing boat in place by clinging to the top of Mrs. Pringle’s picket fence.
“Hallelujah,” Mrs. Pringle sang.
“Don’t hallelujah until our asses are safe and dry,” Noah suggested.
“Honey, after this hurricane ends, we’re gonna have a talk about your vo-cab-u-lary!”
“Yes, ma’am. But for now, I need you to stay right here.”
She harrumphed, and Noah positioned her against the front door before slogging his way toward the boat. The icy water didn’t even register anymore. He was beyond numb.
“Nice day,” the woman in the yellow slicker commented.
“Just beautiful,” he said, grabbing onto the fence. “I got a wheelchair-bound eighty-year-old and a canoe.”
“Well fuck,” the woman swore ripely. “Stu? Wheelchair.”
The man at the motor grunted. He seemed unimpressed with the circumstances. “Gonna hafta float her out,” he said finally.
