“No?” He was intrigued. “How do you like it then?”

“Well.” She squinted, the toes of one shoe resting on the tops of the other. “My foster mother, Jetty, she had such an eye for art. And she could talk about it for days. She had a Picasso.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. A real Picasso. It was a sketch on newsprint paper. Not a painting or anything. Just two messy figures and a haphazard sun all done in orange crayon. She had it framed, of course, but she never hung it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” she repeated. “She said it was a gift from an old, rich boyfriend, and she never liked it that much. It sat on the floor, leaning against the wall in the guest bedroom for years. And yet, she had three different O’Keeffe prints carefully framed and displayed in the kitchen. She had a Picasso original that no one ever saw and she could talk your ear off about Georgia O’Keeffe. I don’t know.” Via shrugged and seemed to come back from her memories. Back into the here and now. “It taught me something about art, I think. Not to have reverence for something that doesn’t move you.”

She strolled to the other side of the workshop and looked at one of the lamps he’d flicked on. It was the beta version of the one she claimed to have admired at Mary’s shop.

“I guess that I just like art that fits into somebody’s life, you know? I’ve seen Georgia O’Keeffe exhibitions before, but I still prefer the way those paintings looked on the old peeling wallpaper of Jetty’s kitchen.”

She turned back and caught his eye. After a second, those dark eyes of hers dropped and she shrugged her slim shoulders.

“I feel exactly the same way.”

Her eyes swooped back up to him and she stopped shifting around on her feet. “Yeah?”

“Definitely. When I finish a piece, it’s in the best shape it will ever be in. Sanded, polished to a nice glow, the works. But as soon as I send it home with somebody, I know it’s only a matter of time before there’s fingerprints on the copper, scratches on the wood, crayon or a hot coffee cup ring or whatever it is. This is art, sure, for me. The process of it is creative. And I love that. But in the end, I want people to use this furniture, you know?”

She nodded and turned away. “You can never come over to my place.”

“I’m sorry?” He pushed his meaty hands into his pockets and froze. Had he said something offensive? Or—God—could she tell that he was one second away from blushing like a schoolboy just being alone with her? That would be humiliating.

“I think we’re becoming friends, but I’m pretty sure you’d drop me like a hot potato if you saw the furniture in my house.” She was grinning at him and it soothed his worry at the same time it made his stomach turn over. She had quite the smile, this Miss DeRosa. White, white teeth, that crooked one in the front catching the light. When she lit up like that, lines beside those dark eyes fanned out and made her look a little older. In a good way. Too good of a way.