“It’s very peaceful here,” Hudson said. “I can see why you come every weekend.”

“Well, I come mainly for my dad.”

Hudson smiled lightly. “I think he’s part of what makes it peaceful. There’s a feeling of family here that’s pretty incredible.”

Annika swirled her port slowly. “Yeah, I guess there is.”

There was a pause, and then Hudson said carefully, “Are you worried your dad might sell this place?”

“No. Yes. Kind of?” Annika shrugged. “It’s all I have of my mom. I feel like she’s everywhere here, you know? I feel her so much—I can see the things she picked out. I know some of her likes and dislikes because of this house. Maybe it’s silly, but I almost feel like I know her because of this house.”

“I don’t think that’s silly,” Hudson said, leaning his elbows against the railing. “She put a lot of herself into this home. It seems to me that it’s kind of a legacy she left behind for you.”

“Exactly.” Annika stared at him. No one had ever put it that way before. “That’s exactly it.”

He nodded, holding her gaze for a while before looking away at the hills in the distance. “You know what you asked me, in the car? About whether I have doubts about Break Up?”

Annika’s heart thumped. “Yeah. You said it was complicated.”

Hudson met her gaze again. The outdoor gas fireplace was on behind her, and the flames flickered in his eyes. “It is complicated. My brother … he’s a mechanic in Swanson, the same town I grew up in. He doesn’t make a lot, and he already has three kids. My parents have run the same convenience store for thirty years; my mom inherited it from her parents. I knew from the beginning that if anyone was going to support my parents, it’d have to be me. They always expected that of me, you know. I was always supposed to be the one who got away, and the one who’d get successful and take care of them in their twilight years.”

Annika shook her head, reeling from the fact that Hudson was actually sharing something deep with her again. But she wanted to keep up; she didn’t want him to stop. “But you said you helped them pay off their house and retire, right?”