clothes since this morning and now her long floral skirt moved around her like a flower garden.
Rock took this picture in, and realized it had been way too long since he’d been out on a date with a pretty woman. And taking old Miss McPherson to the seafood market once a week didn’t count.
“You hungry?” he heard himself saying.
Ana turned, almost too fast. She nearly fell off the stepstool. Rock wasn’t fast enough to catch her, and he was glad. That would have been a classic romantic way of getting her into his arms—too obvious.
But since he didn’t want to look unchivalrous, he did step forward. “Steady there.”
“I’m fine,” Ana said, stepping down from the stool to turn and stare at him as she pushed her hair away from her eyes. “I must have misunderstood you, though. I thought you asked me if I was hungry.”
“No misunderstanding. I did—ask you that, I mean.”
She stood there with her hands on her hips, an almost doubting glare on her pretty face. “Why did you—ask?”
So she was the suspicious type. “No particular reason, other than it’s getting dark and…I only had a sandwich for lunch. I was thinking about fried catfish out at the Sunken Pier. Ever been there?”
“No.”
“No, you’ve never been there, or no, you aren’t hungry, or just plain ‘no, I don’t want to have dinner with you, Rock’?”
“No to the first, yes to the second, and…I’m not sure to the last part.”
He crossed his hands over his chest, his trusty pocket notepad clutched in one hand. Then he leaned forward, offering up what he hoped was his best smile. “Why aren’t you sure? It’s just a meal. We can go over the cabinet plans again.”
She frowned, looked around. “I guess we do need to finalize everything—set your hours, your fee, things like that.”
“Exactly. A business dinner.”
“Strictly business.”
“Wouldn’t dream of having it any other way.”
He liked the trace of disappointment that had scurried through her green eyes. But he wouldn’t dare tell her that since she’d walked into his shop this morning, he had at least thought of having things another way—besides the strictly business way, that is.
“I’ll freshen up and get my purse,” she said, clearly as confused and unsure as she’d been two minutes ago. “We won’t be late, will we? I have so much paperwork—contracts with food vendors, inventory sheets to check over—”
“I’ll have you home at a reasonable hour, I promise.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay, then.”
“You know, Mark Twain said principles have no real force except when one is well fed.”
She rewarded him with a smile. “And you are clearly a man of principle.”
“That I am. And manners. My mama taught me both.”
“That I can believe,” she said, her expression softening. “I trust your mother’s opinion and her good judgment of character, even if you are her son and she has to recommend you on that basis alone. I think I’ll be safe with you.”
“Completely.”
But as Rock watched her hurry up the narrow staircase, he had to wonder how much he could trust his mother’s judgment. After all, Eloise had brought Ana and him together for her own maternal reasons.
And now Rock was worried about those reasons and about how being with this shy, old-fashioned woman made him feel.
The real question was—would he be safe with Ana Hanson?
Chapter Three
“And that’s how it got its name,” Rock said, waving a hand in the air toward the old partially sunken pier just outside the wide window.
Ana watched as he smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. They held that distant darkness that seemed to flare like thunderclouds now and then. He looked down at his plate, then shrugged. “There’s a lot of history on this old island.”
Ana laughed, then nibbled the remains of her baked trout. “So you’re telling me that pier used to be completely safe and sturdy, until twenty years ago when a hurricane came through and almost swept it into the sea? And because of that and the restaurant’s legendary name, no one wants to fix the pier now?”
Rock nodded, grabbed a crispy hush puppy, then chewed before answering. “The first restaurant got washed into the ocean. That was the original Seafood at the Pier fine dining establishment. It had been here since 1910. But after the hurricane, the only thing left was that part of the pier that’s sticking up from the water now. A good place for pelicans and egrets to perch. The owner’s son decided to rebuild under a new name—thus The Sunken Pier Restaurant. Been here and been going strong ever since, through storms and summer tourists alike, frying up fish and steaming up shrimp and lobster, oysters and clams—whatever bounty the sea has to offer.”
Ana stared out the window at the ocean. Dusk had descended over the water in a rainbow of pastel hues—some pinks and reds here, and a few mauves and blues there. The water washed against the ancient remains of the old pier, slapping against the aged wood pilings in an ever-changing, but never-ending melody of life. And what was left of the pier looked somehow symbolic of that life. The thick beams and timbers lay at a haphazard angle, crossways and sideways, like a pile of kindling, stopped in time in mid-collapse.
Ana thought that her own life seemed like that—at times she felt about to fall apart at any minute, but at other times, she dug in, refusing to give up in spite of being beaten down at every turn.
She looked back over at Rock. “I guess I can understand why they left it that way. It’s a reminder of sorts.”
“Exactly,” he said, bobbing his head, a bittersweet smile crinkling his dark-skinned face. “My mother even did a sculpture based on that pier. She called it The Resurrection because the crossbeams of some of the pilings made her think of a cross. She made it out of wood and iron, with a waterfall flowing through it to represent the ocean and life.”
“Where is this sculpture now?” Ana asked. “I imagine some collector snatched it up right away, but I don’t recall seeing it in any of the trade catalogues or art books.”
Rock’s eyes darkened again and the smile disappeared from his face. “You probably never saw it because it wasn’t for sale. But someone acquired the piece, anyway, many years after she’d finished it. Locked it away in a garden behind his fancy mansion up on the bluffs.”
Sensing that Rock didn’t approve of this particular art collector, Ana leaned forward. “Isn’t that a good thing? That your mother sold the piece, I mean?”
He lifted his chin. “Normally, yeah, that’s good, selling a fine piece of art. But she didn’t get a very good
