carriage house with no problem. None of the old homes in West Fork were all that grand, but this was one of the fanciest, trimmed with some modest turn-of-the-century gingerbread. It appeared that the ground floor of the carriage house was now a detached garage. An outside staircase led up to the apartment. Allie came out, locked up and had started down the steps by the time he got out of his pickup.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I don’t have a car. I use this for hauling.”
She looked in the back, dented a few thousand times, and grinned. “No, really?”
His mouth quirked. “Guess you can tell.”
Racks were installed to hold slabs of granite or marble to prevent cracks or breakage. Chunks pretty much got tossed in. The pickup had a long bed and a double set of tires in back to support the weight of a heavy load of stone.
“Is this part of the ‘what do you do for a living’ question?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact it is.” He opened the passenger side door and realized she wouldn’t be able to swing herself up the way he did. Nolan winced.
Allie wore a skirt, but hadn’t really dressed up, for which he was thankful. He’d gone as far as slacks and an open-neck sport shirt, dressy enough for any north county restaurant. She accepted his boost, but didn’t seem to have any trouble with the scramble.
They agreed on Mexican food, and he backed out of her driveway. “I’m a stonemason,” he said abruptly. “I work mostly with granite, sometimes marble, rarely other stones.”
She stared at him. “What do you do with the granite and marble?”
“My bread and butter is countertops. Kitchen, bathroom.” He frowned, thinking how to explain. “All custom work. People come to me when they’re building or remodeling high-end houses and want something out of the ordinary.” He told her about some of his other jobs: the garden bench, tabletops, even floors occasionally. “Fountains, too. And when I have time, I sculpt.”
They’d reached the restaurant. Not until they were seated and had ordered did she cross her arms on the table, lean forward and fix a fascinated gaze on him. “Tell me about your sculpting.”
Nolan shifted in his seat. “I’m not always good with words,” he admitted after a minute.
“Maybe you’ll show me your work one of these days.”
“I can do that.” Though he always felt uneasy showing his pieces to others. A couple of galleries carried his sculptures, but he twitched some even when the gallery owners were exclaiming over them.
“Do you do figures? Animals? Abstract shapes?”
“Yes,” he said, then laughed at her pursed lips. “All of the above. I guess everything I carve has a sort of modern look. I don’t do literal or detailed.” He found his hands were trying to shape the air. “The stone tells me what it wants to be,” he finally said, helplessly, bracing himself for rolled eyes.
But she nodded her understanding. “To some extent, I feel that way with quilts. Usually I decide to do a certain pattern, or have thought of a variation that will make my quilt different, but often the idea comes in response to a wonderful fabric that comes in and I suddenly see what it would do the best.”
He looked at her in amazement. “That’s how it is for me. It’s as if something is inside that particular block of stone. I’m uncovering it more than creating.”
Her nod held equal satisfaction. “Most people don’t understand that, do they?”
“No.”
Conversation flowed surprisingly easily after that, an experience that was rare for Nolan. Of course, he got her to do most of the talking, which helped, but she poked and prodded some answers out of him, too. They shared chips and salsa as he heard about the quilt shop, how she’d been a quilter for years until she realized her hobby was more of a vocation and decided to figure out how she could make it provide a livelihood.
“Not that small-business ownership is hugely profitable.” She scrunched her nose in a way he thought was cute. “Overhead, inventory, taxes... I only have one very part-time employee, and I keep her hours down as much as I can. Do you know what a bite payroll taxes add?” she asked indignantly.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve had employees off and on.”
“Why off and on?”
“Well, it’s more that I used to have employees then decided I wouldn’t take on more jobs than I could do myself. I like to work alone.” It was more than