I nodded.
“She was weak,” she whispered.
She meant Jeannie.
“I’m not,” I replied firmly. “I’m a tough broad.”
She blinked. Then her face cracked. Then she burst out laughing.
Rebecca moved in to bump me with her shoulder. When I looked at her, she winked.
That felt good.
Deacon had an awesome family.
Again, I wasn’t surprised.
Rebecca took the plate I was drying, and with Deacon’s mom and sister, we finished the dishes.
* * * * *
Late that spring, I stood at the end of the side porch, looking into the new clearing, watching what was happening there, close to the river.
Deacon, Manuel, and Deacon’s (very handsome) friend Raid were working on the gazebo.
He’d chosen the octagon.
It was going to be beautiful.
Esteban and Gerardo were helping. Gerardo even had a little man’s tool belt on his hips. Of course, it was filled with plastic tools, but it worked for him. Silvia was hanging around, handing men nails, helping with boards, mostly to be near Deacon. Though, I was beginning to wonder if it was mostly to be near Raid.
She needed a boyfriend.
But only in a few years.
Like, ten of them.
Down the way, I could hear, but wasn’t looking at Raid’s woman Hanna playing what sounded like ring around the rosy with Margarita and Araceli, Bossy dancing around them, barking happily.
And behind me, I heard Milagros come up.
I didn’t look at her, even as she got so close our shoulders brushed.
Needless to say, Deacon fixed things with the Cabreras.
It took him a while with Milagros.
But he did it.
He was also taking downtime, hanging with me, helping with the cabins. Since there wasn’t a great deal to do, this meant we went to the slopes a lot when there was snow. And Deacon took to snowboarding like Deacon, effortlessly, explaining this by saying, “My feet were nearly surgically attached to a skateboard when I was a kid, woman.”
Whatever. So he could do anything. And snowboarding with Deacon worked for me.
Anything with Deacon worked for me.
The rest of the time, we dinked around a lot.
Now that the ground was not frozen, he was back to work.