He spotted the house coming up on his right. The current was moving fast here, and he wished he’d tracked down someone with a fishing boat. Best case scenario, he’d find that Mrs. Pringle had moved to higher ground to wait out the storm. Worst case scenario? He had no idea how he was going to get a two-hundred-pound—not that he’d ever say that guesstimate to her face—wheelchair-bound woman into a canoe, but he’d figure it out.

Fixing problems was his super power.

Noah lined up the nose of the canoe with the visible part of Mrs. Pringle’s white picket fence gate and paddled hard, his muscles bunching and screaming under the duress. He hit the gate hard enough that it opened and the canoe scraped through, landing with a dull thud against the house.

The impact nearly toppled him into the water, and Noah vowed if he ever attempted a water rescue again, it would be with at the very least a more stable kayak. The front porch itself was underwater, and Noah had to scramble out of the canoe into thigh-deep water to get to the front door. He fastened the canoe’s lead rope to one of Mrs. Pringle’s porch columns and pounded on the front door.

“Mizz Pringle!”

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.”