“What would you call it?”

“Horrible. I was horrible to you.” She leaned her head back on the rocker and studied him. “You haven’t changed at all. I’d know you anywhere.”

“Your hair is shorter, but otherwise, you look exactly the same, too.”

“Tell me you found someone else, got married, had a boatload of kids. Tell me it all worked out well for you.”

“No wife, no kids, but a good life. A satisfying life.”

“I ruined the wife and kids thing for you, didn’t I?”

He fought to maintain a neutral expression, to not let her see the pain. “Don’t give yourself too much credit, Donovan. You weren’t all that important.”

Her laughter danced through the night, making his heart flutter. “Whatever you say, tough guy.”

He never had been able to fool her. “Could I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Your husband…?”

“Seth.”

“You were happy with him?”

“That’s a very complicated question.”

Luke expelled a tortured moan. “Come on. Tell me it was worth it—at least for one of us.”

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a long time. “Seth was a good man, a wonderful father, a devoted husband and I loved him.”

“But?”

She looked over at him, their eyes connecting with a powerful sense of awareness that left him breathless. “What I felt for him… It was different than what I felt for you.”

He wanted to ask her what she meant by that. How was it different? Different better? Different more? Different less? But he couldn’t seem to form any of those questions, so he had to settle for what she’d given him.

“I shouldn’t be admitting these things, especially to you. See what I mean about karma?”

Luke shook his head. “The universe doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t.”

“Some days, it’s hard to believe I didn’t have it coming. I wasn’t always a good person.”

“You can’t honestly believe that. A drunk driver killed your family, not you.”

“That’s what my counselor has been trying to get me to believe for fifteen months now.”

“Getting any closer?”

“Good days, bad days.”

“I hope seeing me won’t make this a bad day.”

“Seeing you is wonderful. I’ve wished for years to have the opportunity to tell you how sorry I was to have left without a word. Sometimes when we’d come for a summer visit with my parents, I’d think about going down to McCarthy’s to see you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“That would’ve been so unfair to you, for me to show up out of the blue like that after all that time just so I could make myself feel better about being a shit to you.”

“I would’ve liked to have seen you, to have met your kids. More than anything, I’ve missed my friend Sydney. The best friend I ever had.”