It’s bigger than I expected, too, a long, low building spreading out around the curving end bank of a long, thin lake glittering in the red-gold sunset. Waist-high wood posts connected by thick nautical ropes line a wood plank leading to the front door. The building is white with blue shutters and a slate-gray roof, lots of tall, narrow windows running around back. I open the door for her, and she pauses as she passes me.

“You smell good,” she murmurs.

I’m tempted to reveal my secret, but she moves the rest of the way in, and then the hostess is greeting us, asking if we have a reservation.

“Yeah. Two, for Fischer, at six forty-five.”

Nadia glances up at me. “You made reservations?”

“This morning, after we said we’d go. I just didn’t want to get all the way here and have to wait an hour for a table.”

“Oh. Probably smart.” She looks like she’s feeling as unsure about this as I am.

The place is swanky. I’d expected a cute little place, nice but not super upscale. This is…more than that.

Low ceilings, heavy wood beams. Lots of pillars, high-back booths with a handful of tea lights and a single flower in the middle. All exactly as in the book. Which, in the description, sounded cozy. The overall effect, now that I’m here, is far more intimate and romantic.

The hostess leads us to a table at the back of the restaurant, overlooking the lake and the docks. The walls along the back slide open and accordion against the far corners so the whole rear of the building is open to the warm early fall evening. Our table is small, the walls at our backs tall. The only light except for the sunset is from the tea lights, which are scattered in an artfully haphazard way around the small vase of bubbled blue glass, which contains a single lavender Gerbera daisy. White linen napkins rolled around the silverware. The table is rough old wood—actually old, not fake-old; as a carpenter, I can tell the difference. French-inspired, semi-nautical music plays low in the background.

She’s looking around, taking it all in. And looking, to my perhaps unpracticed eye, a little green around the gills, so to speak. As if this is more than she expected, more than she was ready for.