She stared at him, and her jaw dropped. “Seriously? Why’s that?”
“Because little Crystal,” he said, “was this guy’s student at school. And he worried and fretted and wondered for a long time. And he ended up quitting his teaching job and going into the family business, which was the big concrete business downtown, because he was so heartbroken over her. Now that you’ve solved that case, he was more than happy to donate concrete.”
Doreen nodded, a little choked up at this display of appreciation for what she had done. She sniffled and wiped away the tears that had fallen. Tony kept on talking like she hadn’t cried in front of him.
“And this is the easy-mix stuff, and I’m pretty sure, if we need more, we can go grab more.”
“And how do we mix it?” she asked.
He pointed to a pickup backing up with this big rolling-looking thing in the back. “In this case,” he said, “we’ll do a lot of it by hand. So we’ll space the two-by-fours as the break marks, and then we’ll pour individual sections.”
She was absolutely thrilled to realize that she was getting a patio at the same time. “If you give me the teacher’s name,” she said, “I’d be more than happy to call him and thank him. I’m so happy to see this come together.”
Chapter 11
Sunday Afternoon …
Tony quickly gave Doreen the name and the phone number of the teacher; then she stepped off to the side and called him. And when Ron Howard answered, and she explained who she was, he laughed and said, “I’m more than happy to do it, and those bags aren’t anywhere near enough to repay you. Let me think about it. Maybe I’ll send over a pallet, and you can just call us, and we’ll bring back whatever you don’t need.” And she laughed in delight. When she returned to Tony, she told him what Ron had said.
Tony nodded, smiled, and said, “That’s huge.”
“Do we need to have all the deck done first?”
He shook his head. “No, as long as we know where the markers are and where the steps are,” he said, “we’ll block it off and take the concrete right up to the edge.”
It was an even busier and more chaotic morning and afternoon compared to the day before, and she didn’t think that was possible. Mack came. Mack left. Mack came again, and then Mack left again. When he came back the third time, it was three o’clock. He walked over, whispered to her, and said, “Offer the beer.”
She gasped and cried out. “I forgot,” she said. “So much is going on and everyone was so busy. I think that it’s safe to walk up here on the deck now, isn’t it?”
Mack went to talk to a couple guys and then held out his hand, helping her onto the first step, the second step, and then up to her new deck. The deck and stairs were solid and secured well. “Wow,” she said, staring at the massive deck around her now. Stairs were on the front and on the side to get down around the house to the driveway. And a patio was happening. She was shocked. “This is really beautiful.”
Just then Tony walked over and asked, “Did you want a garden along here? You don’t have steps here. I know a railing is going up, but we wondered if you wanted something like a two-foot band here, where you could put something that climbs.”
She nodded immediately. “Yes, please,” she said. “I could put a trellis and the clematis or something up here. That would look gorgeous.” So they cut into their sidewalk framing on the side and gave her a two-foot solid band for about six feet, and then they did the same on the other side. As she watched, they framed up boards to go all the way around the edge. She looked at Mack and said, “Can you believe I’m getting a deck and a patio?”
He chuckled. “I am not surprised.” He walked into the kitchen. and she followed him. “Let’s get the beer out,” he said. “We don’t want them to take too much of a break if things are really happening now.”
She watched in surprise and realized that the concrete was already being poured. “Is this a big truckload or what? He said he would send over a pallet of bags.”
Mack immediately halted at the sound of a big truck backing up with its beeps reverberating through the yard. He headed over and said, “What’s this?”
Tony laughed. “I guess our concrete guy decided to screw that. We’ve got five yards here, which is lots for our purpose,” he said, “and it’s been tinted ever-so-slightly to a beautiful rustic color for the patio. We’re desperately trying to finish off this framework so we can start pouring.”
Doreen was close enough to hear him, and she asked, “Really, so no mixing?”
Tony shook his head. “This is the best-case scenario ever,” he said. “He’ll back up, and we’ve brought a couple wheelbarrows, plus we have yours, Doreen. So we’ll move the wet concrete manually because we don’t have a pumper truck to get it around the side of the house.”
All those technical terms were driving her crazy, but she was quite happy to stand here with two six-packs in her hands as the men immediately started moving concrete. She looked over at Mack and held up the six-packs. He shrugged.
One of the guys working on the deck walked over and said, “I’ll take one of those.”
She smiled, snapped it off its plastic ring, and held it out to him.
He said, “If we can get the steps at least in place, then we won’t have to step over the concrete.”
“Oh my,” she said. “I guess, all of a sudden, we’re backing
