Rules of Lying (Jane Dough Series) by Stephie Smith Page B

in one direction, then another.
    What the hell?
    A torrent of water slapped the glass I’d pressed my nose against, causing me to stumble backwards into the dining room table. As the stream of liquid flooded down the glass, my gaze went with it, checking the bottom of the door to make sure the water wasn’t coming inside. Thank goodness I’d replaced the sliding glass doors with French doors. Otherwise the water would have run down to the tracks and into the house.
    Oh, no! The sliding glass doors in the family room were directly across from the other downspout. I raced through the kitchen to the family room. The tracks were half filled with water. Crap! It would only be a matter of minutes before my expensive wood floor—which Mark and I had spent a week installing—was ruined.
    I jerked into action, sprinting to the garage, planning to grab up the screwdriver and screws, and then realized I’d left them on the patio. I flung open the garage’s side door and dashed around to the backyard. I didn’t spare a single fearful thought for the thunder and lightning, though under normal circumstances I would have been scared to death. If my floor was ruined, I was going to wish I was dead anyway.
    By the time I got to the patio, I was soaked, though that didn’t lessen the annoyance of being smacked in the face by a deluge of water, which happened the moment I was close enough to the makeshift downspout to be a successful target.
    I snatched up the second extension from the ground. For two brief seconds I considered removing the dangling extension so I could fit the aluminum downspout, which was now lying in the backyard, back into the gutter, but the force of the water hurtling out of the extension told me it would be a losing battle. Instead, I tried to slip the second extension over the end of the dangling one, but I couldn’t get the pieces to twist together.
    I shook the streaming water from my face so I could get a good look at the problem. No wonder! I had grabbed the wrong end when I picked up the second extension from the ground. I had no choice but to let go of the “fire hose” so I could flip the second extension around, and I was immediately rewarded by another slap in the face.
    After a few tries I managed to shove the two extensions together, and at that very moment it occurred to me that the screwdriver and screws were lying on the patio out of reach. I would either have to let go and run through the entire exercise a third time or I’d have to stand there and hold the pieces together until the rain let up enough that I could do the job properly.
    That did it. I had reached the end of my rope. I let out a scream, which made me feel better even though I knew I’d be standing there for a good while.
    “Need some help?” came a shout through the pounding rain a minute later.
    I twisted my head around to see Hank striding toward me, drenched but not seeming to care. I was so happy to see him, I wasn’t one bit embarrassed by my display of temper.
    “No, thanks,” I yelled back. “Today seemed like a good day to stand in the rain and hold together a downspout.”
    He grinned, and I jerked my head in the direction of the screwdriver and screws lying on the patio.
    Hank screwed the pieces together while I held them tight, and then we did the same for the other downspout. The rain eased off to a drizzle just as we were finishing. Of course.
    “I could hear you scream from my driveway. Why didn’t you wait until the storm passed?”
    “Because of the floor.” The floor! Without another word, I took off for the garage since I’d never unlocked the sliding glass doors. Hank trailed behind me. I grabbed towels from the linen closet and began soaking up the water in the tracks.
    “We better dry ourselves off too,” Hank said. “We’re drippin’ all over the place.”
    And we were. We quickly finished with the floor and exited through the sliding doors to the patio, where we could dry off without