Page 40 of Hidden Nature

Her grandmother’s hug, equally fierce, added a whiff of Dior’s J’adore. “You look better, and brighter with it. Skinny, but better and brighter.”

“You have red hair.”

“What do you think?” Blue eyes smug, Ava patted her bold copper wedge. “I decided enough of old lady ash blond and went for it.”

“I love it, and the cut’s great.”

“Got some zip to it. They can take that bullshit about growing old gracefully and stuff it.”

“You’ll never be old, Gramma.”

“Not if I can help it. I have to keep my boyfriend here on his toes.”

“And she does,” Miles confirmed. “She sure does.”

“And always will. Elsie, everything looks wonderful.”

“I learned from the best.”

“You sure did.” With a laugh, Ava fisted her hands on her hips. “Dean, you’re not only a handsome devil, but a lucky son of a bitch.”

“Don’t I know it.” He gave his mother-in-law a kiss and a glass of wine.

Within the hour, the house on the lake filled with people, with voices, with the scents of the season. After the initial not-so-subtle studies, words of concern or encouragement, the subject of Sloan’s health—to her relief—dropped away.

And she considered the decimation of her carefully created charcuterie a solid compliment. Adults munched, drank, gathered in a crowd or cozied up for more personal chats. Kids, ranging from eleven to four, gave Mop all the love a dog could want.

By the time her father began to carve the turkey—fancily presented with a surround of parsley, cranberries, rosemary, sage—Sloan had fielded all the comments and questions.

Her paternal grandfather carved the ham served on a bed of rosemary and thyme.

Ezra Cooper winked at his daughter-in-law. “I swear, Elsie, I’m putting on the pounds just looking at this spread.” Behind his black-framed glasses, his gaze slid to Sloan. “And seeing as we’re all of us together, and all of us healthy, wealthy, and wise, I’m gonna be grateful for every one of them.”

“Together.” Rose Cooper’s hand reached for Sloan’s, squeezed lightly as the eyes she’d passed to her granddaughter scanned the faces all around. “That’s the gift.”

When they sat around the big table, when that table groaned with platters and bowls, Dean lifted his glass.

“To family. The best there is.”

They feasted.

Roughly a mile away, the Littlefield brothers sat in the chilly, outdated kitchen with a large pepperoni pizza on the makeshift table.

Theo lifted his beer. “Here’s to us, the fucking Fix-It Brothers. We’re going to kick some handyman ass around here.”

“Here’s to us,” Nash agreed. “To the fucking Fix-It Brothers, to kicking that handyman ass, and Jesus, getting those damn permits so we can start on this wreck of a house.”

“I’ll drink to all of that.” And Theo did before he took his first slice. “It’s going to be a great house when we’re done with it.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Did you ever picture us in a place like this?” As he ate, Theo glanced around the frozen-in-the-seventies kitchen. “In a big, drafty, full-of-potential house near a lake in the mountains?”

“I guess I did, since I bought the place.”

“No, I mean back when. I used to think how we’d get out, just out of that mausoleum where you weren’t supposed to touch anything. Then after the divorce, out of the mausoleum she kept, and out of the midlife crisis mansion he bought where everything was sharp and shiny.”

“The chrome and glass palace.”

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