She sat propped against the foundation, her legs crossed, his old Martin cradled in her lap, the dog curled at her side. Her baby fat was melting away, and a shiny brown curl brushed her cheek. Like him, she tanned easily, and despite the sunblock April made her wear, her skin had turned nearly as brown as his. She’d fixed all of her concentration on hitting the right chords so that her sublime singing seemed almost like an afterthought.

The final chords of “Why Not Smile?” trailed away. Still not seeing him, she spoke to the dog. “Okay, what do you want me to play now?”

Puffy yawned.

“I love that!” She shifted into the opening chords of “Down and Dirty,” one of the Moffatts’ biggest hits. But in Riley’s hands, the silly country tune had an edgy groove. He heard traces of Marli’s bluesy purr and of his drawl, but Riley’s voice belonged only to her. She’d taken the best qualities from each of them and made them her own. Puffy finally got around to greeting him with an obligatory trio of yips. Riley’s hands dropped from the guitar in midchorus, and he saw her dismay. His instincts warned him to be careful.

“Sounds like all your practice is paying off.” He stepped around a pile of wood scraps nobody had gotten around to cleaning up.

She tucked the guitar tighter against her chest, as if she were still afraid he’d take it away from her. “I didn’t think you’d be back until tonight.”

“I missed you, so I came back early.”

She didn’t believe him, but it was true. He’d missed April, too, more than he wanted to. In some perverse way, he’d even missed the stab of pain he felt watching Dean playing with Riley, laughing with Blue, or even sparring with the old lady. He sat on the ground next to the one child he did have, the little girl he’d been falling so ineptly in love with. “How are you doing with the F chord?”

“Okay.”

He picked up a nail that had fallen into the grass. “You have quite a voice. You know that, right?” She shrugged.

Out of nowhere, Marli’s words came back to him from one of their brief phone conversations last year. “Her teacher says she has a wonderful voice, but I’ve never heard it. And you know how everybody sucks up to you when you’re a celebrity. They’ll even use your kid to get close.”

One more mistake on his part. He’d blindly assumed Riley would be better off with his ex-wife than with him, even though he knew exactly how self-involved Marli was. He rolled the nail between his fingers. “Riley, talk to me.”

“About what?”

“The singing.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”