“No such thing,” Dean insisted with cheer. “Meet me on the front porch in five. I’m swapping out batteries and cards. You can talk about the first impression Sly Sy made.”

“He’s a lot happier in the afternoon,” Silas noted as Dean bopped toward the front of the house.

“The man runs on caffeine and protein shakes,” she said as they picked their way through the backyard and around the side of the house. She spotted Billy scootching carefully across the sunporch roof on his butt. “Has he been in roofing long?” she asked.

Silas followed her gaze. “Billy’s fresh off the turnip truck,” he joked. “He worked in payroll at Canyon Custom Cabinetry. Until two weeks ago.”

“The factory that shuttered?” she asked.

“That’s the one,” he said, taking his hat off again and running a big hand through his hair. “Forty-eight years in business and then bam. Done. The executives hightailed it out of town and had the sheriff’s department escort employees out of the building on a Friday afternoon.”

“Wow. What happened?” she asked, kicking at a lump of earth that had been dislodged.

“Top-heavy organizational chart. Big, fat bonuses for the executives. Pay cuts and understaffing for the workers. Some joker figured out how to save money by messing with the quality of the product, and they all but killed the demand. Three hundred and fifty neighbors out of work in one day.”

“So now Billy’s a roofer.”

“We do what we can, where we can, to take care of our own,” Silas said. “Marta’s new, too.” He nodded toward the woman with the wheelbarrow. She had broad shoulders, narrow hips, a manicure, and looked like she was having the time of her life.

“She looks a little more confident on the job than Billy,” Maggie noted.

Silas grinned. “I bet Lou first pick that the Broncs—that’s the Boise State Broncos—would hire a new head coach in the off-season. I was right, so I got Marta and he got Billy. And now thanks to you hiring both companies, Marta can still afford to pay her sitter, and Billy doesn’t have to decide between groceries and insulin.”

“You should be saving this for the camera,” she teased.

He paused and looked deadly serious. “I don’t need to look like a hero if it makes someone else look like a victim.”

“That’s not what we do,” she promised. “We just tell the story.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” he said, turning her around to face the house. “Now, just picture how nice this terrace area will be as long as Billy there doesn’t take a header off your roof.”

Maggie could picture it. Cool stone under bare feet and strings of lights. Music. Drinks. Food. Laughter. Plants in greens and rainbows of color spilling out of pots. The tinkle of water in the fountain. Stolen kisses in the shadows.

Whoops. Rewind. Undo.