And in the blended union of both, she knew they'd find their way forward.

Landon glanced out over the Rossis' backyard, littered with the evidence of the previous day's party. They'd made a sizeable dent the night before, but there was still much to be done. With a mental shrug, he dragged a fresh garbage bag out of its roll and headed for the picnic tables.

The big pieces-including food-had been removed the night before, so he focused on the small items that had been left behind. Napkins stuck in bushes, a discarded ketchup bottle that had found its way behind a small toolshed, and about six boxes worth of burned out sparklers.

He grabbed them all, working his way methodically through the grass, quadrant by quadrant.

"You're hired." Giavanna Rossi walked toward him, a plate in hand.

"This is all the payment I need."

She gestured him over to the now-empty picnic table. "My sons could take a lesson from you. I sent Tony out here twice this morning and he told me the backyard was clean." She kicked at the half-full bag of trash. "Clean. Bah!"

"To be fair to Tony, he had two pint-sized helpers following him around."

The mention of her grandchildren had her smiling before she reached out and patted his hand. "You're a good man, Landon. A kind man."

"I had good training."

She cocked her head, her gaze penetrating. "Never underestimate what's inside. I trained my boys well, too. You see I've had varied success."

For all Daphne liked to grouse about them, he'd now spent time with each of her brothers and they were good guys. A bit rough around the edges and altogether too protective, but they were okay. "Oh, I don't know. I think you and Daphne are a bit too hard on them. They bluster because they care. I see it in my brother, Fender. He doesn't have a ton of finesse, but he's got the biggest heart of anyone I know."

"Wise, too."

She took a seat opposite him on the bench and drank from a mug she'd also carried outside. "Your mother is well?"

"She's great. She's running for borough president, so between that and her business, she's been busy this summer."

"She's got my vote."

Landon finished up his meatballs and would have licked the plate if it wouldn't undo all the goodwill he'd built with Giavanna.

"How is your other mother?"

The easy, open conversation ground to a screeching halt. "She's not someone I spend much of my time worrying about."

Which was a raging lie-especially as of late-but he'd be damned if he was going to be blindsided over it.

"That's your choice." Giavanna took a sip of her coffee.

"But one you don't agree with."

"You can't bottle these things up. You need to talk about them. Accept them."

"Did Daphne tell you something?"

The woman's eyes narrowed. "No."

"Did you say anything to her?"

Giavanna put down her cup and reached for his hands. He managed to move them out of the way before she could make contact. "You love her. She loves you. You need to share your lives."

Was that what last night was all about? Something her mother influenced and put her up to?

"My business is my own. Can we just leave it at that?"

"I know what it is to live with pain. With anger. You can't carry that or it will eat you alive."

Acid crawled up his throat and back down to his stomach, a rollercoaster of pain.

"Please give Daphne my apologies, I need to leave."

Before she could stop him, Landon had cleared the backyard and let himself out into the back alley.

Daphne carried Tyler over her shoulder fireman-style, her nephew's giggles echoing off the walls in delighted screeches. "Aunt Phe! Again!"

Her little helper had been anything but as she'd traipsed around the house looking for any discarded plates, napkins, or drinks that had been left behind. Tyler put the offending items in the garbage bag, and Daphne had crisscrossed back and forth to the bathroom, dumping out half-drunk sodas before rinsing the cans and bottles for recycling.

It was the same every year.

Once she'd asked her mother why people couldn't clean up after themselves, and Giavanna had reminded her that people mingled at a party, moving from person to person, topic to topic, room to room. How could they be expected to remember where they left a Coke can or a glass of wine?

Daphne wasn't quite on the same page-she always tried to keep up with her dirty plates-but knew her mother had a point. One of the signs of a good party was a heaping garbage can afterwards.

"We did good, Tyler. Nonna's house is almost clean. All that's left is for Poppy to vacuum the rugs."

"I do it!"

She carefully let him down and watched his retreating form race for the pile of toys her mother kept in a corner of the living room. In moments, the popcorn action of his little vacuum cleaner echoed from the living room.

"Poppy's helper." She smiled at her mother coming in from the backyard, another garbage bag in hand. "Landon did a good job. And Tony said the backyard was clean."

Daphne reached for one of the clean mugs by the coffeemaker. "Can I top you off?"

"I'm good."

She poured herself a cup of coffee, the rich aroma a pleasant assault on the senses, when she realized her mother had come in alone. "Where's Landon?"

"He went home."

"What?" Daphne looked out the back windows, as if unconvinced by her mother's words. He had to be out there. "Why did he go home?"

"I might have-" Her mother stopped, took a deep breath. "I might have said something."

"Mom. Why?"

"I meant what I told you yesterday. You have a right to know."

Something dark and greasy opened up in her stomach, the scent of the coffee suddenly overpowering.

"So you blindsided the man while he was trying to help you? That's so typical." Daphne set her mug down on the counter, well aware she'd be wearing her coffee if she didn't calm down. "You had no right."

"I had every right. You're my daughter."

"That's where you're wrong. You have no right to butt in and harass and harangue and whatever else it is you do, comforting yourself that it's all about love and motherhood. It's not. It's wrong. Your children have lives. I have a life." She slammed a hand to her chest. "I can make my own decisions and I don't need your bullshit. Damn it!"

She hunted for her purse and then realized she'd given her phone to Carson. "I need to leave."

She stomped out before her mother could make even a token protest.

Landon ran a hand over his stomach as nerves fired underneath his skin, the jittery equivalent of about six cups of coffee. He was mad when he left the Rossis-mad at being blindsided. Angry at Giavanna Rossi's nosy approach to motherhood. And most of all, pissed at himself.

But he hadn't gone more than a few blocks when he realized his error. Daphne's mother hadn't influenced their conversation the night before. If he'd gotten off his self-righteous high horse, he'd have realized that before heading out. He'd been the one to tell Daphne about his past. About that night.

And he was the one who needed to find a way past it.

She could help. She could be there for him. But the work still left to do was all his.

Funny how it all came clear as he walked through the neighborhood on a hot summer morning.

He'd bottled it up and attempted to toss it out, but nothing would move him forward if he didn't do the hard work of moving on. Life had handed him the catalysts for change, and if he were honest with himself, it had started before Daphne came into his life.

He'd spent half his summer angry with Louisa over an affair that had happened in another time, in another place. Her actions-and the realization that the woman who had rescued him was human-had been hard to swallow. But now he finally understood those actions weren't the problem.

He was.

The small row home was neat, the front porch swept clean of debris. Two lawn chairs were set up to face the street, and a small cactus sat between them, obviously thriving in the summer sun.

The front door was open, and he looked through the screen. Amber stood at the kitchen counter, her back to him. He took a moment to look at her, the t-shirt and shorts reminiscent of so many summers of his childhood.

From this distance, with her back to him, he could almost believe he was back there. Back to that time and place, when she was his entire world.

He knocked on the screen and she turned, a slight jump in her skin before she smiled and waved him in. Landon hesitated for the briefest moment, but pushed on inside. He could keep running from this-keep bottling up the anger-but it wasn't going to leave him alone. The metaphoric genie was out of the bottle with her return, and she wasn't going away.

And no matter how hard he tried, he wasn't able to shove her into a corner of his heart any longer.

"I came to see how you were doing this morning."

"Fine. I'm good." She ran a hand through her hair, shifting from bare foot to bare foot. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

He followed her into the small kitchen, glancing around as he went. The home was small, and he'd already seen an extra door around the side that indicated someone rented the top floor.

She poured him a mug and handed it over. "I don't know how you take it."

Landon stilled at that. Louisa knew how he took his coffee. A dumping of milk or cream-whatever was available.

"I'll take some milk if you have it."

She grabbed a small container from the fridge. "Cream okay? That's what I like in mine."

He doctored his coffee, the memory of the creamer that used to stand sentinel in their fridge door coming back to him.

They settled into a small, drop-leaf table she had positioned at the end of her counter.

"I'm glad you're here."

"Sure." He nodded. "Are you okay after last night?"

"I'm fine. Moe made good on his promise. He refunded me on my tips and also put me in a cab home."

"Good."

"He kept apologizing. Said how sorry he was for what happened." She shook her head. "It's funny to be on the other side of that."

"Funny?"

"Weird. Strange." She shrugged a shoulder. "I've spent so long with my head down and my focus on what I needed to do to stay well that I hadn't ever considered what it would be like to come out the other side."

"You think you have?"

"Some days. Others I think I haven't moved at all from that night."

Since that night was determined to drag at his heels, he decided to face it head on. "The night that set you free, you mean."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I know it was bad and all, but I get how it goes. You must have seen Louisa as your savior."

The nerves that had carried him to her place were nowhere in evidence. Instead, all that was left behind was a white-hot fire and a desperate, determined need for answers. "Hey, it was an unpleasant situation, sure, but one bad night and it gave you a clean chance to dump the kid."

"It wasn't like that."

"You sure about that? You had an opportunity and you took the easy way out." Even now, after all these years and the life he had and the love he shared with Louisa, Nick, and Fender, that fact stung.

No, it hurt.

Raw, open, and festering, the wound hadn't ever really healed. Ignoring it hadn't made it go away, nor had pretending he was okay with his mother's decisions.

"No, Landon. It was your way out."

"My what?"

"I've thought about that night so many times. What I did to you. What I exposed you to, both that night and so many others that might have had less difficult outcomes but which were horrible all the same. I can't change that. I can only live with the reality of what I did."

"What you chose to do."