Her walks through the streets of New York amazed her that she lived here. She didn’t care that she made solemn-faced neighbors scurry away from her wide Texas smiles. “I am here!” she wanted to shout. She was making a new and fabulous life! Or would! Hope made her buoyant.

She had managed to avoid Gabriel for another two days, but obviously it wasn’t going to last. Based on his repeated comments about the conversation they needed to have, she figured the man’s lawyer hadn’t given a good enough explanation as to why she had backed out of the sale.

But she should have known that no explanation left on an answering machine would be good enough. Gabriel Kane wasn’t the sort of man who ever gave up. If he wanted something, he would take it. She had figured that out the day she saw him from the front steps.

Just as with the other aspects of her life, she had to take control of this, too, and make it clear why she couldn’t sell. So when the dinner invitation slid under her door, she decided it was time to address the situation head-on.

She reread the invitation, then felt a surge of surprised worry when she noticed the mention of cake. But she pushed that aside, too.

Instead, she focused on what she had been meaning to do since she had slipped through the front door. Clean.

Before fleeing to New York, she hadn’t seen the apartment in years. During the first month she had been in Manhattan, she had stayed with Cordelia in her fancy Central Park West duplex apartment and had been too consumed with loss to give any thought to what she would do next or where she would live long-term. But after that month of staying with her sister, she had been hit with the certainty that she couldn’t stay with Cordelia and her husband any longer. With that thought she knew exactly where she would go. Great-aunt Evie’s garden apartment.

Standing in the apartment now, Portia took in the dark draperies and grime. The apartment flowed back to French doors that opened onto the garden, which sat a few steps up in the rear. The kitchen was rustic, with a cast-iron stove, a sink, an ancient refrigerator, and an old stone fireplace that Portia couldn’t imagine had been used in years, if not decades. The slate floor in the entry and the hardwood throughout the rest of the apartment were murky and scuffed, uneven in places. The bathroom was dingy, but had a beautiful antique ball-and-claw tub. Portia felt sure there was potential.

She unearthed cleaning supplies from the kitchen cabinet and got to work. She pulled every stick of furniture out into the back garden. She rolled up all the rugs and dragged them out, too. Once the apartment was empty, she tied a scarf over her nose and took down the dusty curtains she planned to wash. She swept down the exposed-brick walls and hardwood floors, and even found a hand broom to tackle the fireplace.

When she finished and looked around, sweat rolling down her back and streaking her face, nothing looked any cleaner than when she had started.

So she started over, this time with hot water, Clorox, rags, and a mop. She scrubbed everything in sight until her hands were raw and red. By the end of the day, she was covered in grime and soot, her hair a tangle. But when she drifted off to sleep, the apartment was clean, and she had a deep sense that for whatever reason, she had come home.

The next morning, she woke with a groan. Every bone in her body ached. But when she glanced around and saw what she had accomplished, excitement drummed through her. She also thought of the dinner invitation. Though she shouldn’t have been, she was excited about that, too.

She gave a thought to giving in and making the cake herself, then pushed it away. She hurried out to purchase the least-expensive dessert she could find. Once she had that taken care of, she resorted to her great-aunt’s closet again. She found a fabulous pair of long, flowing, gray flannel, pinstriped pants with wide cuffs by Yves Saint Laurent, and a simple cotton blouse made in Paris as well. Then at five minutes before seven that evening, Portia headed upstairs with the cake.

Inside the vestibule, next to the front door, a series of work permits had been posted. Portia hadn’t been in New York City long, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that her neighbor was in the process of renovating the rest of the town house.

Out of habit, she knocked. In all the years she and her sisters had spent summers with Aunt Evie, the doorbell had never worked. When no one answered, she knocked again, this time more loudly. Eventually Ariel peeked out the curtain over the side window. “What are you doing just standing there?” Ariel asked, pulling open the door.

“I knocked.”

“Haven’t you heard of a doorbell?”

The girl looked at Portia like she was crazy, popping out and pressing the button like a game show hostess demonstrating how to spin the wheel. Bells sounded, a sign that the new owner wasn’t content with broken stuff.

Portia felt an odd feeling of displacement at the thought, as if the work permits and new doorbell meant her old life was really gone. Which was ridiculous. Her husband divorcing her had put that particular pony to bed, not a stranger remodeling her great-aunt’s former home.

“My great-aunt used to live here,” Portia said, distracted. “Back then, the doorbell was broken.”

“Seriously? Someone you know used to live here?”

“Yes, my great-aunt,” Portia repeated, walking farther into the town house.

The structure was the same, but nothing else. The entire inside had been gutted and refurbished. The old Victorian wallpaper was gone, stripped, the walls redone with a bright white textured plaster. Portia shouldn’t have missed the water stains shaped like butterflies and dragons, but she did.

The carpet had been pulled up, the wood underneath refinished and covered with Oriental rugs. Expensive art hung above expensive furniture. Everything was perfectly done, and in the back of Portia’s head she knew it was beautiful. But that was way back in her head, pushed aside by the fact that the work she had done in her own apartment suddenly felt inadequate compared to this. Glumly, she noted that one of the man’s rugs could no doubt have paid for an entire year’s worth of property taxes that Portia now had to figure out how to pay.

“Where’s your aunt now?” Ariel asked.

“She died. A few years back.” The words came out more abruptly than Portia intended. She thought for a second that Ariel flinched, but then the girl rolled her eyes.

“Was she old?”

“Yes, but very lively and dear. She left the building to my sisters and me. My sisters sold the upper floors to your dad.”

“So that’s why you’re in the basement. I take it she didn’t like you as much as the others.”

Portia laughed. “She left me the garden apartment, not a basement. She knew I love gardens.”

“My mom’s dead,” Ariel said. “Like your aunt. But my mom wasn’t old.” She turned away as if she hadn’t said anything all that important.

It took Portia a second to absorb the words. Was that why she felt a connection to Ariel when she barely knew her? Did girls who had lost mothers have a hidden bond?

“That looks like a store-bought cake,” Ariel said, shifting gears before Portia could respond.

“It is.”

“You were supposed to bring one of those amazing cakes you make yourself.”

Ariel gaped. “You did both the other night.”

“Sorry. That was then. This is now.”

Ariel’s shoulders slumped. But then she drew an exaggerated breath. She shrugged. “I can only do so much.”

Portia followed the girl toward the back of the house. Unless there had been major structural changes, Portia knew they were coming to the sunroom, her favorite part of the house.

But it wasn’t the room that she saw. It was Gabriel.

“Damn it, Dan, that isn’t acceptable,” he said into a cell phone. “I’ve told you, I’m not going to relent. Make them pay.”

He stood with his back to them, looking out the tall windows, phone pressed to his ear. Everything about him felt barely controlled, hardly contained. Without warning, he turned and saw her.

The dark of his eyes grew intense as his gaze met hers before it slowly drifted over her.

“You remember our neighbor, Daddy,” Ariel said, sweet as pie, emphasis on the word Daddy.

Portia hadn’t seen him since the burger incident three days ago, and he seemed to take her in, assessing to determine if she was fine.

She scowled at the memory of the incident, which made him raise a brow, his lips quirking.

A voice squawked anxiously from the phone he was holding. “I’m here,” he said smoothly, seeming reluctant to turn away. But eventually he did, concentrating on the call.

Ariel leaned close. “I use the whole Daddy thing to soften him up. For some reason, he likes it. Go figure.” She cocked her head. “Come on. Let’s put that store-bought cake in the kitchen.”

Portia followed Ariel through a swinging door and into the kitchen. The heat of the oven hit her along with the bright yellow and white walls, white trim and crown molding. The kitchen had been redone as well, but instead of making it into something different, it had become a newer version of its old self. She had to concede she loved it.

An older woman stood at the wide granite counter, making a salad. She didn’t say hello or glance up.

“Come on,” Ariel said, taking the cake and setting it on the counter, then herding Portia through another swinging door into the dining room. “That’s Gerta, and she hates being interrupted. Dad hasn’t had very good luck finding housekeepers. We should wait in here.”