I’m seething when I stomp back into the Stag Law offices. I can’t tell if I’m more annoyed that Valerie was right or that I have to deal with my running coach and his hot, broody face. That I saw looming above me when I passed the fuck out on my first run.

I cannot have him coming to my house. I just cannot.

”Donna,” I let myself into her office and rap my fingers on the door frame. She looks up at me, questioningly. ”I hear you’re the one who found me the geotechnical engineer to fix the trench?”

She blushes. What the hell? ”Did Mick Brady come to look at your yard personally? Don’t be insulted by him, dear. He’s just like that.”

”No.” This reaction is so unexpected I slump against her door frame. ”He sent his son Isaac.” I think back to the lanky guy in the tight-but-worn jeans, hard hat, tool belt. I make a mental note to focus on that image later. Alone in my shower. The fucking tool belt ought to be enough to break through the strike my clit has been on lately.

Donna smiles. ”Mick has three nice young sons. Just like our Mr. Stag is one of three boys! I only had the one son—”

”Donna, I’m sorry. I’m freaking out here. He says I have a rotational landslide, and I looked that shit up on the drive back here and it’s going to cost a quarter million dollars to repair my fucking back yard.”

She pales. ”Oh, I’m sure the Bradys won’t charge you the regular rate! Goodness. Nobody could afford that.”

No shit, I think. Her phone rings, and her face lights up again. ”This is Beltane Engineering,” she says to me. ”Should I just transfer to you directly?”

”Is it Isaac??” Oh, god, I cannot be just talking to him on the phone right now. I need to work out a strategy for coming back from passing out.

Donna shakes her head. She mouths ”admin.”

I nod and walk back toward my office. As promised, Isaac had ”his people” call with information. Some teenager on the phone is prattling on about something called a ”headscarp” and confirms my worst fears: a conservative estimate for the repair is a quarter million dollars for the concrete, soil and heavy machinery. Not even including the labor.

I try my best to thank him politely and retreat into my office couch to regroup. Even if I split the cost with Valerie, I don’t have that kind of money just lying around. Even though I got my townhouse for a few thousand bucks, I took out a home equity loan when I restored it.

And let’s be honest. I’m doing ok in the salary department, but not too many people have a quarter million dollars liquid just lying around.

I pull up an internet search for Isaac Brady and learn that he’s apparently some genius when it comes to soil and weight loads. He’s won awards from the environmental protection people for repairing dams and coal mines. I sigh. If this guy, moody fucker though he may be, tells me this headscarf thing is going on in my yard, it’s unlikely that he’s wrong.

I try not to fixate on his suggestion that the city was going to condemn my house. My fucking house! The minute I signed that deed, I felt like I was finally free from my parents’ expectations and all the ways I failed to meet them. I didn’t even know how to use a lawn mower when I got that house, let alone how to refinish floors and hang sheetrock.

Every online tutorial I watched, every contractor I brought in just as a consultant, I felt like I was coming into my self. It paid off at work, too. If I could use a belt sander by myself, I sure as shit could present my ideas to a room full of men set on overlooking me.

I really feel like I’m going to cry, and this is very, very unusual for me. I call Emma, crossing my fingers that she can answer the phone. If one or more of her kids is asleep, she can only ever text. ”Hey,” she whispers.

”Ems,” I start, and then I burst into tears. Actual boo-hoo sobs out loud.

”Woah, Nicole, what’s wrong, love?”

I tell her about the landslide, that it’s so expensive to fix it might as well cost ten million dollars. ”I might lose my house,” I sob.

”Ok. So do you want solutions or comfort?”

I consider this. I grew up in a house without comfort. My mother has had too much botox to emote. My sister is her protege. Refined girls do not cry, they do not smear their makeup, and they most certainly do not grow curves and curls like I sprouted and refused to rein in. ”Solutions,” I tell Emma, and take a deep breath.

I hear Emma walking down a hallway, presumably where she can talk louder. ”Ok, so first you need to call your homeowners insurance and see if this is covered, although I doubt it will be or Zack would have mentioned that.”

”Isaac,” I correct her.

”I thought you said he goes by Zack?”

”Exactly. And that’s a stupid fucking nickname for Isaac,” I snap at my friend. ”I’m sorry,” I say immediately.

”Ok, so we’re going to calm down and do some comfort before we keep going with the solutions.”

I take a deep breath. She’s right. I’m spiraling. ”You’re resourceful,” I hear Emma say. ”You’re a bad ass bitch who takes no shit. Not from wolves on Wall Street and certainly not from a damn crack in the ground. Right?”

I nod. Which she can’t see, because she keeps prodding. ”Right?”

”Yes,” I tell her. ”I’m going to defeat this. Just like all the other challenges.”

”Exactly!” She shouts. ”So step one, call the insurance. Step two, you need to talk to my sister-in-law.”

”Which one?” Since I work for Stag Law, I realize she must be talking about Juniper Jones, Tyrion Stag’s wife. Juniper was a lawyer here for a long time, but is now a judge of…something.

Emma’s going on about how Juniper is constantly settling property dispute cases and knows all the jargon. ”Juniper can help you figure out who to sue,” Emma says.

”Sue?” Jesus, I do not have time for a lawsuit. I don’t have time for a landslide. I’m supposed to be training for this damn marathon and, oh I don’t know, directing the strategy for a major law firm looking to expand operations.

”Nik, my love, there’s got to be a reason the earth opened up and swallowed your yard. You need to find the reason, and sue to make the culprit pay for the restoration.”

It had not occurred to me that there might be a culprit here. ”I literally thought I had just pissed off the gods,” I tell her. She’s one thousand per cent right, of course. It all just sounds like so much work. I flop over my desk and rest my cheek on the wood and close my eyes as Emma continues. ”Does Zack really think the city will condemn your house?”

”I think he was just saying that to be a smart-ass.” But I’m not sure. I hear Emma telling me I can come stay with her and Thatcher any time and I thank her, hang up the phone, and head back home.

I’m useless to anyone where work is concerned. I draw a bath and slide into the tub, trying to forget my stress about the house. I’m not sure what is happening this week, but my entire world has been turned upside-down.

I’m desperate to relax. It feels like there’s a geyser waiting to erupt in my guts. I wonder if masturbating will help, even though it hasn’t been going very well the past few times I’ve tried. I close my eyes and pull up my handyman fantasy images of Isaac in his jeans, squatting in my yard, and my fingers go to town on my clit.

But nothing happens. I growl in frustration and turn the water back on, adjusting myself so the flow runs over my crotch. Nothing. ”What in the fucking hell is this?”

I start to wonder if running has broken my clit or something. I kick at the faucet in a rage and head downstairs. I pull the cork out of yesterday’s wine bottle with my teeth and start drinking straight from the bottle.

As I chug the wine, I try porn. I try online pictures I find of Isaac and his brothers running different races. I try everything I can think of short of zapping my clit with my taser, but nothing works. Eventually, I’m too drunk to care about my inability to come and I pass out on my couch.