She fiddled with the napkin on her lap before curiosity overwhelmed her. “How do you know my brother-in-law and sister?”
“I met William first,” he said. “He and I go to the same bar, and one day we struck up a conversation and became friends. We happened to meet up there around the same time every so often to watch sports when he wasn’t working late at the hospital. He likes to show off photos of his family. It’s obvious how much he loves Yvonne and the kids.
“The last time I saw him, he mentioned his sweet and beautiful sister-in-law, and how he couldn’t figure out why you weren’t married. He hadn’t talked about you much before then, and when he said your name, I couldn’t believe it. I asked him your last name, and the next thing I know, he’s showing me a picture of you.”
“How did you convince him to set this up?”
“It wasn’t easy. At first he said no way, but then he said he’d discuss it with Yvonne. She eventually came on board when I told her I’d been looking for you and how happy I was to find you again.”
“My sister’s smarter than that. She can usually see through BS.”
“Maybe there wasn’t any BS. I really am happy to find you.”
His intense stare made Shawna uncomfortable. She played with the knife and fork on the table, moving them around before shifting them right back into the same position again.
“How long have you lived in Atlanta?” she asked.
“I moved here a few years ago. I’m a member of a few woodworking and custom furniture organizations. Someone in one of my networks heard about an owner selling his woodworking shop on the west end. It included the shop, the warehouse, and all the tools and machinery. After living in Oklahoma all my life, I wanted to leave and experience something different. I came to inspect the place and liked what I saw. The location was right, and the workers were anxious to please because they didn’t want to lose their jobs. I had a CPA inspect the books, and after the seller turned over his list of clients to me, I bought the place.”
“So you really did stay in custom furniture?”
Ryan nodded. “I was never cut out to sit in an office behind a desk. I need a scraper in my hand and the buzz of a power saw or sander in my head. The noise from the machines and the dust are like heaven to me. Few things are as enjoyable as building something from scratch. To consult with a client and take a product from a concept and create a useable piece of furniture—well, there’s nothing else like it. Of course being in this kind of business wreaks havoc on your hands.” He looked down at his palms.
His hands had been lightly calloused in Chicago from working on a farm most of his life and then as a woodworking apprentice. She’d never minded it, though.
“Congratulations on your success,” Shawna said.
“Congratulations are in order for you, too. William told me you opened a boutique.”
When she’d met Ryan, she’d finished school and worked at Saks Fifth Avenue, as she had every summer since her freshman year except when she went to France.
It had been her last summer with the company and they’d wanted to hire her on permanently, but she’d had other plans. She learned everything she could from them, the entire time thinking about her dream of one day opening her own store.
Nursing a wounded heart but determined to succeed, she’d opened a boutique named La Petite Robe a little over a year after moving to Atlanta. She chose Buckhead as the location, a major commercial district in the city. The astronomical lease initially caused her concern, but she’d made the right decision because the location turned out to be perfect, bringing in the type of clientele she longed to work with and who appreciated the designer clothing from New York and Paris.