“I was walking by, heard what I figure was the last of it. I didn’t plug my ears and whistle a tune. But maybe you don’t want my take.”

“Why would I?”

Her frigid tone didn’t seem to chill him in the least. “Because I get it. I know what it is to need to prove you can handle yourself, make your own. I don’t come from where you do, but it’s not all that far off. My mother talks,” he added. “I let her. So I’ve got some of the backstory.”

She shrugged. “It’s not a secret.”

“Pisser though, being gossip fodder, especially when it’s ancient history, and not really about you since it’s about your parents.”

“I guess I should quid pro quo and tell you I know you lost your father, and your mother moved back here to work for your uncle. And that didn’t work so well for you.”

“He’s a fucker. Always was.” He picked up his coffee, gestured with the mug. “How do you do that? The crust deal? Get it almost perfectly round?”

“Practice.”

“Yeah, most everything takes it.” He watched in silence as she folded it, placed it in the first pie plate, unfolded. “Applause. So anyway, my take—”

“If I’m going to get your take, you can be useful and pit the cherries.”

“How?”

She handed him a hairpin, took another. “Like this.” She demonstrated, plunging the pin into the base of the cherry. The pit popped out the top.

His eyes, very green, lit with interest. “That’s freaking ingenious. Let me try that.”

He did so with considerable more skill than she’d expected, so she pushed two bowls toward him.

“Pits in here, fruit in here.”

“Got it.” He got to work. “Del doesn’t think about money like most of us do. He’s nobody’s fool, that’s for damn sure. He’s generous by nature—nurture, too, if what I hear about his parents is even half true.”

“They were amazing people. Incredible people.”

“That’s the word on the street.” Mal’s hands worked quickly, deftly—impressing her—with pin and pit. “He’s compassionate and fair. Not a pushover, but believes in using money not just for his comfort and pleasure, but to build, to make a mark, to change lives. He’s a hell of a guy.”

“He really is.”

“Plus he’s not an asshole, which counts a lot. Hey. You’re not going to water up or anything, are you?” Mal asked cautiously.

“No. I don’t water up easily.”

“Good. So what I’m saying is he buys this place—or he and Legs buy it.”

“Are you really going to call Parker ‘Legs’?”