By chance or by fate, Annette Watkins and Clarence Anderson both happened to be waiting in line at the Preston Hollow Bank of America. Anderson, who goes by “C.A.” and hadn’t dated in four years, hung around the lobby until Annette finished so he could ask for her number.

“He was just like ‘You’re beautiful.’ It wasn’t like cheesy or anything, because I probably wouldn’t give him my number,” Annette says.

Come to find out, both of them had mutual acquaintances. Both lived minutes from the bank. Both were divorced.

“It just seems like it’s timing sometimes. And that’s really what we felt like it was in this case. Being at the right place at the right time, and just really being at different stages of our lives,” Annette says.

After talking on the phone and hanging out, the two went on their first date — lunch at the now-closed Houston’s restaurant in Addison. After a year of dating, they decided they weren’t going to let each other get away.

“Sometimes, after people have been married before, you really understand how intentional one has to be with relationships, and I mean all relationships, not just with your spouse or significant other but with friends and family,” Annette says.

Two years after they met, they married November 2019 in an intimate ceremony in the Arboretum’s Secret Garden. Annette wore an ivory jumpsuit with a lace train; it was simple and elegant. She carried a bouquet of purple, pink and yellow flowers. A vanilla cake with raspberry filling was topped with a similar arrangement.

“To me, it was reflective of how we wanted to start the next chapter together in a very intimate way,” she says.

There’s nothing more intimate than spending nearly a year locked down while creating a new life. From March through July, the couple worked from home together before C.A. went back to his office.

“When you are at home when things are shut down, and everybody’s pretty much working from home, you really get to know the person on a whole another level,” Annette says. “I would say that’s been such a game-changer for us, kind of like it’s our time, and we enjoy it.”

Pretty much every day, the couple walks and talks on the Northaven Trail. Ozark and Manhunt: Deadly Games are in their Netflix queue. Wednesday is weekly date night. Cooking together and mixing cocktails is a new pastime they share. It was just them for the holidays, so they decided to make gumbo.

“I was stirring that roux for a several hours, and I messed the first roux up. So we had to start over, and we made this video, and we posted it because it was like, ‘OK, this is day two of this whole gumbo fiasco,’” she says.

“It ended up turning out amazing. But it was such a journey getting there. And I was determined that I was going to make a good gumbo.”