Chapter 4Maria had hoped for a few interesting responses to her advertisement. She sat quietly while the shells were baking for tonight’s Winter Custard Tart. It would be a dark chocolate custard with slivers of dried pear, apple, and apricot partially reconstituted in a spicy mulled cider. She’d come out to the front of house and was using the computer tucked discreetly into Graziella’s greeting station.
The soft warmth of the interior design based on Ligurian countryside villas, and the beautiful photos that Russell had taken while honeymooning there to decorate the walls, made it feel like home. She had lived seventeen years in Italy, thirty in New York, and now six months here in Seattle, but this is what felt like home. Somehow she still felt more Italian than American.
The lights w
