She pointed to the patch on the cap she’d tucked her hair under. “I prefer repairperson, but whatever works.” She moved forward and he stepped aside to let her in. “Point me to your kitchen.”

One lesson she’d learned was that it was better to get inside and get busy, rather than stand at the door defending herself. She followed Nelson to the kitchen. He was going to be a hoverer. And probably an armchair expert, too. It was tough for some men to admit to a woman that there was a “manly” household task they couldn’t do. Like unclogging a disposal.

“It’s not clogged,” he assured her. “But the thing won’t drain. It eventually empties, but it takes a long time.”

It’s definitely clogged.

She’d also learned not to argue before starting the job. It was a waste of time, especially with manly men. Instead, she took a quick peek inside the disposal with her penlight, then turned on the water and waited until it reached the top of the disposal. She hit the switch. The machine sounded fine, but the water wasn’t going anywhere, that was for sure. The problem was in the trap beneath it. An awkward job to get to, but not complicated.

Jack cleared his throat. “Vickie Pendergast insisted your company could fix this, but if you can’t, I understand...”

She ignored the not-so-subtle hint that she should give up and leave. Instead, she opened the lower cupboard and sat on the floor, her toolbox within reach.

“No worries, Mr. Nelson. I’ll have this cleared in a jiffy.” She’d brought in a small black pail to catch the water, and slid it under the curved drainpipe.

“Call me Jack. You won’t need a bucket,” Jack said with a great deal of confidence. “It’s not clogged.”

“Well, I like to rule out the easy fixes first. The disposal itself looks and sounds fine, so let’s take a quick look at the trap.”

Which I know is clogged.

A few minutes later, Zoey’s nose wrinkled as she pulled a gluey glob of potato skins—nailed it!—from the pipe directly under the disposal. She ran her rubber-gloved fingers around the inside of the PVC pipe to make sure she’d gotten it all, then reassembled everything. Before saying a word to Jack, she turned on the faucet. Water flowed freely before, during and after running the disposal.

He had a shocked smile on his face. “Well, I’ll be damned. What was it?”