Forty years. One slice of pie a day. And a wager the whole dock has been carrying since before anybody can remember.
At fifty-seven, Pearl Devane runs the Blue Door pie window on the Cortez fish-house dock and feeds the whole village without asking a thing back - except that Cap Ott Riddle keeps buying his one slice of pie a day, the way he has for forty years, and one of these mornings finds the nerve to say why.
Ott finally said the words out loud. But courting at sixty-three, after forty years of almost, is its own halting, terrifying thing - and a heart that skips at the worst possible time has Ott trying to protect Pearl the only way he knows how: by pushing her away. Which is the one thing she cannot forgive, because she was "protected" from the truth once before, and she swore never again.
Meanwhile a slick developer wants to condemn the old fish house and put a private marina where the fleet has landed its catch for a hundred years. When the whole village lines up to save the dock that made it, Pearl and Ott have to decide whether forty years of almost finally gets its happy ending - or whether they will let the best light either of them has ever known go dark on the piling one more time.
A sweet, clean, slow-burn later-in-life second-chance romance with no spice and a guaranteed happily-ever-after. Welcome to Cortez, where every book is a new couple, a fresh start, and a happy ending.
