“Probably. It might be a genetic thing. I caught liking little kids from my mother. It’s a pleasure, seeing children’s faces, and adults, too, when they first enter my shop. It’s an experience for them, it’s like entering a new world. So different from simply looking through a catalog or online and cold ordering.”

As she spoke, Christina watched Andy and silently approved. He was an easy companion, flattering her with his regard, paying attention to what she said, asking pertinent questions, gazing at her with what seemed like genuine admiration.

“And now you,” Christina prompted. Her wine had eased her nerves. She hadn’t slept well the night before. Her own personal video of Andy in her store, his smile, the lovely deep sound of his voice, all played over and over again, as if her mind just didn’t want to let it go. Her Inner Christina told her she absolutely could not count on this evening amounting to anything at all, but here with him now, so close that they could reach out and touch, all common sense floated away. “Tell me about you.”

They ate mussels in garlic and buttery broth as Andy told her briefly about his past. He’d grown up in New York, gone to boarding school and college in Massachusetts, and worked for his father’s brokerage firm. He was thirty; he’d never married, although he’d been engaged. He went to Colorado and Switzerland in the winter to ski, but his brownstone townhouse in Brooklyn was his home.

“Although, to tell the truth, Brooklyn doesn’t feel like home anymore.” Andy took a sip of wine and leaned back in his chair.

Christina waited. She sensed he was debating with himself over how much he wanted to tell her. She sat back in her chair, too, quiet and ready to listen.

Andy hesitated. “Dad had a minor stroke three years ago. He came to Nantucket that spring to rest and recuperate. He’d owned the cliff house for years, for summer vacations, but for some reason, he now says he intends to live here year-round for the rest of his life. He’s tired, he says. When our mother died six years ago, his zest for life seemed to leave him, too. Not that he wasn’t always a cantankerous, critical, coldhearted workaholic. But Mother softened him. She made him have fun, whatever that could possibly be in his cranky life. And with computers, he can work from home.”

“Where do you fit into the company?”