Page 222 of Hidden Nature

“It’s Reena. It’s the Realtor.”

Elsie pointed at him. “Don’t even think about taking it outside.”

“Right. Okay, here goes. Hey, Reena.” He held the phone between his ear and Drea’s.

It only took a look at their faces to know, so Nash gave their server the signal.

“Yeah, yeah. This is great. This is everything. We will. That’s perfect. Okay. Thanks.”

“Thank you!” Drea added as her eyes filled.

Theo set down the phone. “We got the house.”

As he and Drea wrapped around each other, people at nearby tables clapped. The manager brought out a bottle of champagne, trailed by the server with a tray of flutes.

“Wow” was all Theo could manage. “Wow.”

“Congratulations, Drea,” Charlene, the manager—and one of Sloan’s former running mates—popped the cork. “Congratulations, Theo. We’ve all been waiting for the good news. Your brother had us get a bottle chilled.”

“I figured first-time homeowners can’t celebrate without champagne. And,” Nash added, “now I get to kick you out in a few weeks. Over to you, Dean,” he said as the server poured the glasses.

“It’s your champagne.”

Nash shook his head. “Over to you.”

“All right then.” Dean took a minute, lifted his glass with one hand, took his wife’s hand in the other. “A house is just a building. It’s the people in it, what they bring to it and each other, that make a home. You’re making a home. Here’s to many happy years in your home.”

“Dad.” Drea wiped at tears. “You and Mom, and Sloan, too. You showed me how.”

Theo looked at Nash. “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Stop.”

“It’s true. I wouldn’t be here without you, just like Drea wouldn’tbe here without Dean and Elsie and Sloan. So—and it means a lot to me to be able to say this. Here’s to our family.”

When Elsie began to weep, Dean put an arm around her shoulders, kissed the top of her head.

“It’s fine,” Sloan told Theo. “She does that.” She reached her glass over the table to tap it to Theo’s. “To our family.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sloan came home from work to find both her father’s and Nash’s trucks in front of the house. By the time she parked, Mop and Tic had raced around from the back to greet her.

“What is this, a party?”

She heard the voices, so with the dogs walked around the house.

And found the patio she’d planned staked out, mason’s lines run. Sometime while she’d dealt with an unrepentant poacher, a couple of confused hikers, a group of campers with a collapsed tent, they’d excavated, laid and leveled the gravel, added the layer of decomposed granite over it, and raked it smooth. Working together, they finished up tamping that layer down.

“Where’s your work order?” Sloan demanded.

“Dads don’t need no steenking work orders.” Dean shoved up his cap. “You outlined your patio space with pink paint.”

“Coral.”

“Close enough. We’re doing a dry-set. You wanted flagstone.” He gestured toward the piles of stone as Nash kept tamping. “Works with the house. Jonah’s handling a trail hike today, Theo and Robo, on another job. I had some time, so I dragged this guy into it.”

“I’m getting a lesson,” Nash said over the hard hum of the plate compactor.

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