She was pretty sure his outrage was feigned. ‘Do I look like a pirate?’

‘Not far off, actually.’

‘It will be completely above board. Promise. You want me to gut it for you first?’

‘I believe we’ve already established that I’m the one with the knife skills.’

‘True enough,’ he agreed easily. ‘All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, avec poisson.’

Anna was about to ask him what his name was, and then decided that it was more fun not to know. ‘Cheers, Kiwi.’

He laughed. ‘You’re welcome, Anna Campbell.’

‘Ahh,’ said Rhona. ‘So you’ve encountered the wonder that is Liam Harper. Sight for sore eyes, isn’t he?’

‘Hmm,’ said Anna, ‘and doesn’t he know it.’

Rhona laughed. ‘That he does. He’s sweet with it, though. Has a way of giving you his full attention when you’re speaking, no matter what else is going on. That’s a surprisingly rare trait, I’ve discovered.’

Anna was standing in Rhona’s workshop, having realized that since she was in Gardenstown anyway, she could drop in. Rhona owned one of the two-storey houses that stood on the village’s main zig-zagging hill street. The ‘workshop’ doubled as her showroom and was really a converted garage that opened directly onto the thoroughfare. It was perfect, as Rhona herself pointed out, for attracting the attention of passing tourists during the high season.

‘Everything is so beautiful, Rhona,’ Anna said, admiring a shallow bowl that had been washed with a pale glaze flecked in blue, ochre and sea green, recognizable as the colours of a sandy beach at low tide. ‘I can’t believe you’ve only been doing this a few years.’

Rhona smiled. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, when you find the thing you should have been doing all along? Slide right in like coming home and you wonder how you didn’t get there sooner.’

‘I’m going to have to take some of your dinner and side plates, and bowls too, if I can carry them,’ Anna decided. ‘I wish I could invite you for lunch tomorrow too, but I don’t have the room. Will you come next?’

‘Don’t fret – I couldn’t have come during the day. And of course I’ll come – I’ll look forward to it, but there’s no hurry. I think you’re doing amazingly well considering how long you’ve been at the Fishergirl’s Luck. When I moved in here I was in chaos for months.’

Anna thought about this. ‘Hmm. It definitely does feel as if I’ve been here a lot longer than three weeks. I suppose that means I’m settling in.’

Rhona smiled. ‘Maybe a sign you should stay after all?’