First Jack heard the music, and then he saw April. It was dark, just past ten o’clock, and she sat on the cottage’s sagging front porch underneath a crooked metal light fixture, painting her toenails. The years evaporated. In her clingy black top and pink shorts, she looked so much like the twenty-year-old he remembered that he forgot to watch where he was going and tripped on a tree root inside the broken-down picket fence.

April looked up. And immediately looked back down again. He’d been rotten to her last night, and she hadn’t forgotten.

All day he’d witnessed her relentless efficiency as she’d directed the house painters who’d finally straggled in, argued with a plumber, supervised the unloading of a truckload of furniture, and pointedly avoided him. Only the men’s gazes following her were familiar.

He stopped at the foot of the wooden steps and tilted his head toward the raucous music. She’d perched on an old Adirondack chair with her foot propped on the seat. “What are you listening to?” he said.

“Skullhead Julie.” She kept her attention firmly fixed on her toes.

“Who’s that?”

“An alternative group out of L.A.” Her long, jagged hair fell over her face as she reached back to lower the volume. Most women her age had cut their hair, but she’d never followed trends. When everyone else had worn the Farrah flip, April had adopted a brutal geometric cut that had showcased those amazing blue eyes and made her the center of attention.

“You were always the first to spot new talent,” he said.

“I don’t really keep up anymore.”

“I doubt that.”

She blew on her toes, another excuse to freeze him out. “If you came to get Riley, you’re about an hour too late. She got tired and fell asleep in the second bedroom.”

He’d barely seen Riley today. All morning, she’d followed April around, and in the afternoon, she’d gone off with Dean on a purple bike he’d pulled from the bed of his new truck. When they’d gotten back, she’d been red-faced and sweaty, but she’d also been happy. He should have been the one to buy her a bike, but he hadn’t thought of it.

April shoved the brush into the bottle. “I’m surprised it took you so long to get over here. I could have been spiking her milk with uppers or filling her head with stories of your seedy past.”

“Now you’re being petulant.” He propped his foot on the bottom step. “I was a real prick last night. I came over to apologize.”

“Go ahead.”

“I thought that’s what I just did.”

“Think again.”

He deserved everything she was throwing out and more, but he couldn’t hold back a smile as he stepped up to the edge of the porch. “You want me to grovel?”

“For starters.”