Michael followed her. Even his footsteps sounded the same. “Please, Ann. Can we talk? This doesn’t need to go badly.”

“It’s already gone badly.”

The motion sensor flicked on above them on the back stoop. He grabbed her arm and she swung around. “Please?”

The light above Michael’s face made him appear so ghostly that she wondered if he was real. She had to admit he looked great; she’d always thought he looked great. His features seemed more distinct now—his cheekbones more defined, his nose more angular. In her mind, he’d been frozen at the age of eighteen. But here he was, and he was older, a real man now. Everything had changed, and yet—nothing. He still had that wildly misbehaving cowlick on the right side of his hairline, only now his thick, jet-black hair glimmered with a few silver strands—or was it the porch light and the rain?

Ann felt Michael watching her in his steady way. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have his eyes on her; he’d always watched her, hadn’t he?

“I need to go,” she said. It was too much, seeing him here after all these years. She had to fight this strange and unexpected impulse to collapse in his arms. He’d been not just part of her life, but her family’s life. She had to keep reminding herself of what he’d done, although now, with so much happening, it was hard to even remember what, exactly, that was.

“You just show up like this after all these years?”

“Hello to you, too.” He tried to force a crooked smile. He seemed embarrassed by his own gesture, or perhaps overcome? He fixed his eyes on the rotted porch board he nudged with the toe of his shoe. Ann almost wanted to feel sorry for him—but that was what had gotten her into all that trouble in the past, wasn’t it? She’d thought of herself as an object lesson in what happens when you go soft. And yet—what was it about him? It was like listening to a chord change in music that plucked on her most vulnerable emotions. A part of her wished that nothing had come between them, that they’d always been there for each other.

“So, you’re the reason the Realtor canceled the contract.”

“I’m a legitimate heir. Poppy knows it,” he said. “And come on, Ann. You know it, too. I don’t care about the house in Milwaukee or any of your parents’ other assets. All I want is my third of the house. This house. I’ll buy you and Poppy out of your shares. Or if Poppy wants to share it, we can work something out.”