Chapter 5 - THE NEW FOUNDATION
Three months later.
The grey skies of November had given way to a crisp, brilliant autumn afternoon in Seattle. The maples along the streets of Fremont were blazing with leaves of gold and crimson, and the air smelled of woodsmoke and salt from the Sound.
The modest grey duplex with the white porch was gone.
In its place—or rather, built on a sprawling, three-acre bluff overlooking the water in Magnolia—was a new home.
It wasn't a glass fortress. It wasn't an isolated penthouse perched in the clouds.
It was an architectural masterpiece designed by Sloan Callaway, featuring warm cedar beams, massive stone hearths, floor-to-ceiling windows that let the sunlight flood every room, and a sprawling, sunlit studio where architectural drawings covered a massive walnut drafting table.
On the back lawn, beneath the branches of an old cedar tree, a wooden swing hung from a thick rope.
Griffin Drake—wearing a casual charcoal crewneck sweater instead of his usual three-piece Tom Ford suit—stood by the edge of the lawn, holding a silver thermos of coffee and watching two eight-year-old girls chase a golden retriever across the grass.
“Daddy!” Hazel shouted, her laughter ringing out across the water as she vaulted over a low garden wall. “Catch me!”
Griffin laughed—a deep, booming sound that would have terrified his board of directors—and jogged forward, scooping both Hazel and Iris up into his arms at the same time, spinning them around until they shrieked with delight.
From the wide wooden deck of the house, the sliding glass door opened.
Sloan stepped out onto the porch. She was wearing a soft cream-colored sweater and jeans, her dark hair falling in natural waves around her shoulders. She looked healthier, stronger, and more radiantly alive than she had in ten years. A faint, glowing color sat high on her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled with a quiet, unshakeable peace.
She held two mugs of coffee in her hands.
Griffin set the twins down gently, watching them race off toward the golden retriever again, before walking across the grass toward the deck.
He stopped at the bottom of the wooden steps, looking up at her.
“You’re working too late again,” Griffin teased gently, nodding toward the stack of blueprints visible on her drafting table through the open glass door. “It’s four o'clock on a Saturday. The architectural firm of Callaway & Drake is officially closed for the weekend.”
Sloan smiled, walking down the steps and handing him one of the mugs. She stepped into the circle of his arms, resting her head against his chest right over his heart.
“I’m not working,” Sloan murmured, her fingers curling into the wool of his sweater. “I was just checking the structural load on the back deck.”
“And?” Griffin asked, resting his chin on top of her dark curls, breathing in the scent of vanilla and rain that belonged entirely to her. “Does it hold?”
May you like
Sloan tilted her head up, looking into his dark, steady eyes with a smile that made the last ten years of shadows vanish completely.
“It holds,” she whispered. “It’s built on a foundation that’s never going to break.”
