Harlequin Superromance September 2017 Box Set

It sucked to have his own words thrown back at him.

He leaned toward her so that they were essentially chest to chest, or chest to upper abdomen since she was about six inches shorter than him. But she spoke first. “I am not threatening you. I am grateful that you are letting me stay.” Even though it was her right. She didn’t say it, but it was written all over her face.

“Grateful in your own way.”

“However,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken, “be clear on this…if things don’t go smoothly, then we will get my grandfather involved, and I promise you I will come out on top.”

He almost laughed. She didn’t realize that she was currently on the receiving end of some tough love. Fine. He’d allow her the fantasy.

“All I ask is mutual respect,” Cole said. He was done being treated like the help.

“Agreed.” She held out a hand. Her nails were perfectly manicured. Apparently being out of work for two months didn’t affect the beauty budget.

Cole took her hand and shook. “Agreed.”

* * *

TAYLOR WATCHED COLE Bryan head toward the machine shed through narrowed eyes. He was more of an adversary than she’d anticipated. And he had a ridiculously nice ass. All in all, a great physical package coupled with a maddeningly stubborn personality. Well, she wasn’t done yet, but she recognized when it was time to stop and regroup. Plot her strategy.

He hadn’t offered to help her move her stuff into the bunkhouse, which was just as well. She needed time. Getting robbed was bad enough, but finding out that she was going to live in what was basically a primitive motel room while she conducted her job search…well, on the bright side, the circumstances would motivate her to nail something down as soon as possible.

On that positive note, she walked over to the bunkhouse and opened the door. Stale air enveloped her as she stepped inside, and she instantly crossed to the nearest window and attempted to heave it open. No luck. She went to the next. Again, nothing. Finally, the last window screeched open a crack. It would have to do.

Taylor turned to survey her new surroundings, fighting the sinking feeling in her gut. The bunkhouse was just as she remembered it from her childhood visits, except that it seemed smaller. The single room was long and narrow, with beat-up vinyl flooring and dingy tan paint on the walls. In the corner was a bank of cupboards and a cast-iron sink that was worth a small fortune on the renovation market. She crossed the room to run a finger over the cast iron. She had a primo sink in a very sad environment. The only furniture consisted of two old bed frames, neither with mattresses, a chrome-and-enamel kitchen set that had seen better days—but would also bring decent money if Karl chose to sell it—and a single ratty, overstuffed chair that she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Who knew how many rodents were familiar with the piece?

Temporary environment. Remember that.

At the other end of the room was a small bathroom with a shower and an old toilet, plus a sink with a cheap replacement single-handle faucet that seemed out of place on the antique basin. The flooring was clean but disintegrating.

Taylor sighed as she stood in the doorway and surveyed the shower with the sorry curtain hanging limply from the cockeyed rod. She was so very much a soak-in-the-tub person.

Temporary.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Taylor turned and headed out to the trailer to start schlepping boxes inside. It appeared she’d have to buy a mattress for the old bed frame. Or better yet…

She pulled the cell out of her pocket and dialed her grandfather’s number.

“You made it okay?”

“I did. I hit a small bump at the motel I stayed at last night, but I’ll fill you in on that later.” Because Karl was protective and, despite what Cole might think of her, she didn’t want to upset him unnecessarily. “I’m calling to ask if there’s an extra mattress in your house that I could borrow while I’m in the bunkhouse.”

“There’s a bed in the spare room with a decent mattress, but you should clear it with Cole.”

“I will. But if he has no issues, then I can tell him you have no issues either, right?”

“Right.”

“Thanks, Grandpa. I’ll settle in today and then start the job search tomorrow.” She smiled a little. “I’ll keep you posted this time. Sorry about before.”

“Not a problem. Don’t wear yourself out moving in.”

“No worries. Thanks, Grandpa. Talk to you soon.”

Her smile faded as she pocketed the phone. Twenty-four hours ago she’d said goodbye to her real life, and now she needed to adapt to her new, temporary life. She’d make the best of it, come hell, high water or a good-looking, stubborn farm-mate.

She turned toward the door, going over her schedule in her head. She’d unload the trailer, take inventory and try to figure out what was missing, make a shopping list, return the rental trailer to the local dealer, nicely ask farm guy to help her with the mattress—

The scream ripped out of her throat as a huge rodent appeared out of nowhere, almost running over her feet as it scurried toward the bathroom.

She was barely aware she was moving, but somehow she ended up outside where there were likely many more of the killer rodents. Wasting no time and barely allowing her feet to touch the ground, she made a dash for the SUV and leaped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her.

Her heart was hitting her ribs so hard that she couldn’t catch her breath, and that was when she felt dampness on her cheeks. What had she done? What horrible thing had she done to deserve losing her apartment, being robbed and getting attacked by a rodent in less than one day’s time?

A tap on the window made her jump a mile. Farm guy was there, peering into her window with a scowl on his handsome face. She took a chance and turned on the ignition so that she could roll down the window a crack.

“What?” The single word irritated her beyond belief, even as she told herself that this wasn’t his fault.

“There’s a rat in the bunkhouse.”

“Really?”

The words that jumped to her lips at his disbelieving tone were not pretty, but Taylor managed to swallow them. “It ran in from outside.”

“I’ll take a look.”

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. He shook his head and stalked away toward the bunkhouse. Taylor rolled the window back up, leaned her head against the backrest and closed her eyes. Her lashes were wet as they hit her cheeks.

Damn.

Her new temporary life sucked.

CHAPTER FOUR

COLE WAS NOT a fan of rodents. Mice destroyed equipment, gnawed on saddles, and made their way into pantries and car engines. Pack rats did even more damage to vehicles, and heaven help you if you cornered one. Ground squirrels destroyed fields, gophers destroyed gardens. If there’d been a rodent in Taylor’s bathroom, things wouldn’t have ended well for Mr. Rat, but Taylor didn’t have a rodent in her house. She had a young cottontail rabbit cowering behind the toilet, staring up at Cole with wide brown eyes. Cole’s lips curled a little as he regarded the young bunny.

How in the hell was Karl, the most down-to-earth guy on the planet, related to a woman who mistook a rabbit for a rat? And how was he supposed to share his farm with her? Because legally it was his farm until the lease expired, which wasn’t for another three years. Karl had the option of living there, but the land and the outbuildings were his.

Was the bunkhouse one of the outbuildings? That hadn’t been spelled out in the agreement, but he assumed that since it could be used for grain or tool storage, yeah, it was.

Cole pulled his gloves out of his back pocket and slipped them on before slowly approaching the frightened baby, just in case Junior decided to bite out of fear.

“How’d you get in here, buddy?”

The petrified bunny rolled into a ball as he took hold of its nape and scooped it up, cradling its furry bottom in one hand. Holding his captive, he toed the door open and then kicked it shut again, in case the little guy had brothers and sisters lurking nearby, then crossed over to Taylor’s car. He motioned with his head for her to roll down the window, and she did—about two inches. He held up the baby, and Taylor gave him a deeply skeptical look.

“This is your rat.”

She gave her head an adamant shake. “No.”

He lifted a skeptical eyebrow as he raised the bunny a little higher in front of her window. “You’re saying that there’s a rat and a rabbit in the bunkhouse?”

“The rat could have gotten in the same way the bunny got in.”

She had a point, but since the bunkhouse didn’t smell of rat, he didn’t think that was the case. “Have you ever gotten a whiff of eau de pack rat?”

Her mouth flattened. Judging from her silence, it appeared that Taylor did not like to be wrong or admit to being wrong. Well, in this case she was. “Trust me. You don’t have a rat.”

Color had crept up her neck and across her fair cheeks. Her mouth worked for a moment, then she reached for the door handle and got out of the car.

“I swear it looked like a rat when it raced in front of me.”

“The dreaded hopping rat?”

She gave a brave attempt at a smirk, but her cheeks were still pink. “He wasn’t hopping. He was running.” She tilted her head to get a better angle, apparently falling victim to the rabbit’s soul-melting brown eyes. “What will you do with him?”

“Let him go.”

Her gaze snapped up to his in an almost accusatory way. “What if he’s an orphan?”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s old enough to get his own food. He’ll probably be raiding the garden within the hour.”

“So he’ll be okay?” She cautiously reached out to stroke the bunny’s head with two fingers, and he couldn’t help but notice again that the nails on those fingers were perfectly polished. Maybe if Karl had had more of a down-to-earth, get-her-hands-dirty kind of granddaughter, Cole would have been on board with this whole plan of her living in the bunkhouse and sharing his space. But this woman… The muscles in his jaw tightened as her fingers brushed against his as she stroked the rabbit again, then she looked up at him with a faint frown. “I asked if he would be okay.”

“As okay as any wild creature will be.” Her hand stilled, and he stifled a sigh. “Nature’s a bitch, Taylor. There aren’t any guarantees.”

He could see that she didn’t like his answer, but he wasn’t going to tiptoe around facts.

“I wonder how he got into the bunkhouse.”

“I have an idea.” Cole crossed the drive to the thick juniper hedge and gently set the rabbit on the ground. The little guy sat stock-still for a few seconds, then gave a mighty hop and plunged into the shrubbery. Cole looked up to see Taylor studying him. “Let’s go check out your place.”

It was obvious from the way her mouth tightened that she didn’t think of the run-down bunkhouse as her place, but that was tough. It was hers for as long as she was there.

He led the way down the dirt path to the bunkhouse. Before Karl’s grandfather had broken up the original sprawling ranch into three smaller hay operations and sold them, the ranch’s workers had lived in this building. When Karl returned from the service fifty years ago, he’d been fortunate enough to buy the parcel with the original houses and barns.

Taylor followed him into the dingy interior, and Cole allowed that she might have a legitimate gripe about her living quarters, if it wasn’t for the fact she was getting them for free. Taylor headed toward the bathroom, which must have been where she’d encountered the bunny, but Cole crossed to the opposite side of the common area and pulled open the cupboard under the old iron sink. Sure enough, the floorboards there were rotted and broken from decades of water damage, and there was a hole large enough for a rabbit to squeeze through.

He looked over his shoulder at Taylor. “You’re lucky this place isn’t overrun with mice.” Her expression was so comical that he had to clear his throat to keep from laughing. “Karl has some gnarly cats. They do a decent job of keeping the place clear of mice.”

She wrapped her arms around her midsection. “I have a cat, too. I didn’t want to bring him until I was sure of where I’d be living.”

Cole looked over his shoulder at her. “I guess you know now.”

The look she gave him was more of a “We’ll see…” than a “Yes, I do.” She set her keys on the counter and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Let me see the problem.”

Cole gestured at the dark space in front of him. Was it just him, or did everything that came out of her mouth sound like a freaking order?

She crouched down beside him and peered under the sink, frowning as she took in the damage. Then she sat back on her heels. “Will you have time to fix this soon?”

“No.” He pushed himself to his feet without looking at her. “You’ll have to hire someone.”

“This doesn’t appear to be a big job,” she murmured in a reasonable voice.

“Then do it yourself.”

That was when he had the satisfaction of seeing a flash of annoyance cross her face. “I don’t have tools.”

“And I don’t have the time.” He might have had the time if she’d asked, but to simply assume that he would take care of things for her…wasn’t going to happen. “Karl has lots of tools in the shed next to the barn.”

“What’s the problem here?”

“The problem is that I have the lease on this place and you’re not going to come in here and direct my life.”

“Direct your life?”

“I am not at your beck and call, sweetheart. If you have a problem, then you need to handle it. Because you were not part of my lease agreement.”

“I’m out of work, I’ve just been robbed and—”

“Assaulted by a bunny.”

Color flooded her cheeks again. “That’s not funny.”

“Not meant to be.” Much. He took a step closer, halfway wishing that her perfume didn’t smell so damned good. It was a light, teasing scent that irritated him because it made his thoughts drift in directions he’d rather not have them drift. He yanked his thoughts back into line. “Maybe if you’d asked instead of assuming…”

Her chin rose a fraction of an inch. “I don’t think it would have made a difference if I’d asked or told. You’ve decided you’re not going to do one thing to make life easy for me while I’m here.”

“I’m allowing you to stay.”

“So as not to upset Karl.”

“The result is the same. You’re here.”

“Are you always this unpleasant?”

The laugh escaped before he could stop it. “No. Prior to the first of this year, I was a professional pleasant person.” He smiled in a way that felt satisfyingly dark. “But now I’m a farmer and I no longer have to suffer fools gladly.”

“Are you calling me a fool?” She spoke in a slow, measured tone.

“I’m calling you entitled.”

Her eyes flashed, but her expression barely shifted. She, too, was skilled at hiding her true feelings. He wondered briefly what it would take, short of a marauding rabbit, to make her lose her cool—which was not the direction his thoughts should be taking. He was on the farm to enjoy some solitude. Live on his terms, not on the whims of others. And he certainly wasn’t there to cause his unwanted tenant to lose it.

“I have things to do,” she said coolly.

“Me, too.” He headed to the door, stopping at the threshold. “The tools are in the building—”

“I know where the tools are,” she snapped.

“Just making sure.” With that he stepped outside, leaving Ms. Taylor Evans to soak up the ambiance of her new home.

* * *

TWO HOURS LATER Taylor was still stewing about her encounter with Cole. Entitled? No. It’d made sense for him to do the repairs. Yes, she could have asked rather than assumed, but in her world, the landlord took care of things like holes in the floor.

She rolled her neck, trying to ease the stiffness out of it. She’d unpacked the trailer and discovered that the losses were less than she’d anticipated. As near as she could tell, the thieves had blindly grabbed boxes, because if they’d looked inside, they wouldn’t have bothered with some of the things they’d taken. She’d lost her flatware, some serving dishes, her lingerie and a box of miscellaneous electronics. The loss of the flatware and dishes she took in stride, but the lingerie…that pissed her off. Bras were expensive, and finding ones that fit properly—that approached nightmare territory, which was why she bought her underwear from a boutique that specialized in bra fitting.

Five hundred bucks of silk, lace and underwire. Gone. Like that.

Let it go. Move on. She could practically hear Karl saying the same words he’d said over the phone whenever she’d failed to ace a test or hadn’t run her best during a cross-country meet. She wouldn’t be sharing this particular loss with him.

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Taylor folded the list she’d made and slipped it into her purse. She’d get a copy to the sheriff’s office and another to the insurance company. One more task tacked onto an already full agenda. She still had to return the trailer, buy flatware of some kind—and at the moment she was leaning toward plastic—and hire someone to fix the floor with money she couldn’t spare.

It had to be done. She wouldn’t have minded coming home to bunnies hopping around her house, but mice…she didn’t do mice. The floor needed to be fixed.

So what now? Pick the name of a handyman at random? The way her luck was running, she’d hire a scam artist.

She needed advice in the worst way, and even though she hated to call her grandfather with a sad story again, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed his number. Miraculously, he answered, so after making certain that all was well on his end, she launched into a description of what Cole had called the bunny attack, leaving out the part where she’d mistaken Thumper for a rat, as well as the part where she’d locked herself in her car. She had to hold on to some small shred of dignity. It was bad enough that her farm-mate had seen her. She ended her story with a description of the damaged boards under the sink.

“So what do I need? A plumber or a carpenter?”

“Why don’t you ask Cole to fix it?”

Because she’d had it up to there with tall, dark and irritating. “He’s pretty busy with farm stuff. I thought I could hire someone to do it.”

“Yeah, you could.”

“It’d be pricey, right?” She was guessing based on his tone of voice.

“I’ll call Cole.”

“No.” The word popped out in a way that made it necessary to do damage control immediately afterward. She forced an easy smile into her voice. “I can handle things. I was just looking for a little guidance.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Don’t worry about it. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

Half an hour later she realized just how long her grandfather was going to have to wait to hear that all was well. All the carpenters and plumbers were booked out for many weeks due to new construction in the area. The two local handymen were also seriously booked up.

“I’ll tell you what,” the last guy said, perhaps hearing the distress and desperation in her voice, “if you can cover the area with thick plastic and duct tape, that might keep the mice from coming in. If they’re not hungry enough to chew. Don’t keep food in the house.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. No food. Right. “And you’ll put me on the schedule?”

“Three weeks out.”

“If there’s a cancellation?”

She heard him suck a breath in between his teeth. “Five people ahead of you, but I’ll slot you into the waiting list.”

“Thank you.” It was kind of hard to say the words in a meaningful way, but she knew better than to annoy a handyman.

Taylor didn’t allow herself any breathing room between ending the call and heading for her car. She had to keep moving because if she stopped to consider her reality—no bras, possible mice, sleeping in a place in which she didn’t yet have a mattress—then she might not move forward at all.

Temporary. Remember?

Maybe she needed to write the word on the back of her hand in indelible ink.

She carefully closed the bunkhouse door as she left so as not to let in more rabbits, and then headed for her car, only to stop when she caught sight of Cole in the big shed where the baler and swather were parked. Abruptly she shifted course. Why? She hadn’t a clue. Maybe because she was still steamed about him calling her entitled. Taylor had never been good about leaving a fight alone. The same obsessive tendencies that had made her a great student also made it hard for her to handle unfinished business. He was bent over the baler, denim hugging the back of his thighs. Yeah, the guy was built. And yeah, he wasn’t getting any points for that. She was more about attitude, and his sucked where she was concerned.

“Hey,” she said. His head jerked up and he turned, the pained expression on his face clearly asking “What now, lady?” He was as ready for a fight as she was…so she wasn’t going to.

“I’m heading to town. Want anything?”

He blinked at her as a suspicious frown formed. “No.”

“Just checking,” she said smoothly.

“Right.” He turned back to the baler.

Dismissed. She didn’t think so. She ambled closer, saw the muscles of his shoulders bunch just a bit. He glared at her again, and she wondered if he knew that scowling only made him look hotter—in the sensual sense, rather than the angry sense.

“I need access to the house this afternoon.”

“Why?”

“Karl said I could have the mattress in the guest room.” And rather than ask him to help her move it, she figured she could back her SUV to the side door, lay the seat down and shove it in. Awkward, yes, but she wasn’t going to ask this guy for help.

“Fine.”

She waited. He waited. Taylor was used to charged atmosphere—and there was a definite edgy vibe developing between them as each waited for the other to make a move—but apparently Cole also seemed to be comfortable with tense silences. Neither of them blinked, but Taylor was the one who had to get the rental trailer back within the hour or pay for another day. She’d certainly rather spend her money on new bras than a now-useless trailer.

Finally, she gave in—but only because of extenuating circumstances. With a curt nod she started to turn, but not before she saw the glimmer of victory light his eyes.

Walk away. Return the trailer. This is just one battle, not the war.

Taylor didn’t let battles go lightly, but this time she would.

For now anyway.

* * *

AFTER WINNING THE FACE-OFF, Cole watched Taylor march out of the machine shop to her SUV, wondering what had happened to her Z. Had she done the sane thing and sold it to help make ends meet? Or hung on to it as she waited for some kind of miracle rescue for the situation she’d gotten herself into? A few seconds later he cringed as she peeled out of the driveway. Cool. She could pay to have it regraveled.

Cole stepped back into the machine shop. He could dig into the scrap lumber and fix the floor while she was gone, but he was still pissed about her assumption that he would fix things ASAP for her. More than that, he was irritated that she was there at all. He’d leased the place, and therefore it should be his…but Karl was a longtime friend of his grandfather’s, and had given Cole a healthy break on the farm’s lease. The least he could do was play ball for the undoubtedly short period that Ms. Taylor Evans would be in residence. Which was another good reason why he wouldn’t fix the floor. The more uncomfortable she was, the quicker she’d be out of here. But if Karl asked him to fix it, he would.

Hell, if she asked him to fix it again, he probably would.

The wrench slipped and he banged his knuckles. Shaking his hand and cursing, he then braced his hands on the edge of the baler and let out a breath. It sucked being a decent guy sometimes. Decent guys tended to get taken advantage of. Miranda had taken advantage of him whenever she could, and since he had a conscience as well as a younger sister to protect, he stuck things out on the ranch until Jancey finished high school. Then he told Miranda he was through. The look on her face had been rather satisfying. And even though he no longer managed the ranch, he still had a stake in the place. A stake that Miranda would dearly love to relieve him of.

“Good luck with that,” he muttered.

Once upon a time, the Bryan Ranch had been a joint venture between his father and his uncle. They hadn’t made a lot of money, but they’d eked out a living—and then his uncle married his second wife, Miranda, who proceeded to talk the brothers into increasing their profits by turning one ranch into a guest ranch and leaving the other as a small working ranch for the entertainment of their guests…and to keep Cole’s father happy.

The plan worked. Miranda turned the guest ranch into a popular vacation and retreat destination, making most of the family miserable in the process—everyone except for her husband, who loved her blindly until the day he died. Cole’s father had immersed himself in the working ranch and ignored the guests and everything associated with them, so after graduating from college, Cole had become responsible for the trail rides, the outfitting, the cattle drives—anything that involved animals and guests. He was good at his job, and enjoyed it until his father died and Miranda went power mad. Everything had to be cleared through her and everything had to be perfect. Not just regular perfect, but exceptionally perfect—which was a direct quote from his step-aunt.

After their father died, Jancey had stayed in the family home while Cole had spent most of his time at the main guest ranch, a half mile away so that he could be on call—Miranda’s idea, even though Jancey had been only a junior in high school at the time. The arrangement worked for the most part, if one didn’t mind the animal-population explosion that had occurred once Jancey had the working ranch to herself. Whenever possible, Cole had escaped to his family home to spend time with his sister. Jancey was better at looking after guests than he was, which was why she had continued working at the ranch, saving money for college, after he quit.

Bottom line, the ranch made money and he and Jancey got a cut. But the price they’d paid in emotional turmoil was ridiculous.

Which was why he wanted to be alone, and the fact that he wasn’t ate at him.

Maybe Jancey was right—maybe he was suffering from post-Miranda stress disorder.

* * *

TAYLOR DROVE PAST the hotel parking lot where she’d been robbed, then made her way to the sheriff’s office. After dropping off her list of stolen items, and knowing full well that she needn’t have bothered because she was never seeing any of that stuff again, she returned the trailer, then headed to the building supply store two blocks away.

Taylor pushed an oversize cart along the aisles, feeling remarkably out of place. She’d never been in a building supply store—not one that didn’t also sell appliances and curtains and flowers in addition to lumber and hardware. She cruised the aisles, though since there weren’t many, it didn’t take that long. She bought thick plastic and duct tape, then, since she was in no hurry to get back, she stopped at the coffee shop on the other side of the parking lot and took her time sipping a chai latte.

Chai was her go-to calmer-downer, but instead of relaxing as she sipped the hot, sweet tea mixture, she found herself drumming her fingers. Abruptly, she closed her hand and dropped it into her lap, where it clenched into a fist.

Plastic and duct tape and a couple of gnarly cats were all that would stand between her and the rodent population of the Eagle Valley.

How was she supposed to sleep with that kind of a threat hanging over her head? Meanwhile the guy who probably didn’t care about rodents slept in the mouse-proof house.

Her fist clenched even tighter, and Taylor made a conscious effort to unclench.

It was clear that her grandfather wasn’t going to suggest to Cole that he trade places with her, even after the month was up. Which meant that she was probably stuck in the bunkhouse hellhole until she got back on her feet.

Taylor started drumming her fingers again, then she picked up her phone and went to YouTube, searching for videos on repairing rotten floorboards. She scrolled through videos, watching pieces here and there, before concluding that her repair didn’t have to be pretty. It had to be mouse-proof. Who was going to see under the sink except for her?

And if things played out well, she wouldn’t be there for that long. The obsessive part of her brain wouldn’t have to grapple with the fact that there were messy boards under the sink. She’d spent the better part of the evening reading through job listings within driving distance of the Eagle Valley, so she had hope.

She felt better as she finished her tea. First she’d conquer home repair, then she’d find a job. Ever upward and all that.

Taylor got to her feet, shouldered her purse, tossed the cup into the trash and left the shop with a sense of purpose.

Forty-five minutes later she had short boards that the woman in the lumber department had cut for her, a box of wood screws, a cordless drill that made her feel kind of powerful and macho—and which had cost less than one of her bras—a hammer, just because, and steel wool for plugging extra space around the incoming pipe. She also had two mousetraps, just in case. Taylor smiled grimly as she pushed the cart through the automatic doors.

It was good to take control.

* * *

THE SOUND OF a drill brought Cole’s head up as he walked by the bunkhouse on his way to the barn, where he planned to start fixing the corrals for the three orphan calves he was taking off his sister’s hands. The drilling stopped, followed by a clatter and a muttered curse. When they’d spoken earlier about the hole under the sink, Taylor had seemed clueless about repairs, but judging from where the noise was coming from, she appeared to be tackling them herself.