The last strains of “Happy Birthday to You” are buried under the cacophony of the entire family laughing and whistling and generally cheering Poppy on into the next century of his life.

Almost the entire family, anyway. Even Liam and Archie and Mrs. Foster have joined in the festivities.

Dallas, however, is conspicuously absent.

As the clapping fades, Poppy grins at all of us—toothless because he spit his dentures into the sand this morning and Becca says they’re still disinfecting—and then holds out his arms so that we can each come in close for a big birthday hug.

I go after my mom, and as he hugs me tight he thanks me for the giant book of old Times crossword puzzles. “I figured after all this time it would be like doing them for the first time,” I tell him.

He taps my nose. “And that’s why you’re such a smart girl.”

I step away so that my great-uncle can move in, and take a look around, partly so I can decide who to visit with next, but mostly because I’m looking for Dallas. He, however, is nowhere to be seen.

We’re on the patio by the pretty, grotto-style pool, with Poppy in the place of honor at the big outdoor dinner table. My mom has wandered off toward the fire pit and Liam is chatting with his mother. I want to talk to him, but I know they spend precious little time together these days, so I head over to join my mom, since I don’t see her nearly enough, either.

“Hey, sweetheart.” She smiles at me and holds out her hand. “Did you have a relaxing time on the beach yesterday?” She pokes my shoulder, testing for sunburn. “You wore sunscreen, at least.”

“Always.” My fair-skinned mom is what they sometimes call a Georgia peach, and she’s drilled the need for sunscreen into my head since birth.

“Were you able to chat with Dallas at all?”

I frown. “What?”

“Yesterday, when Daddy and I bumped into you. You said he was busy on a call.”

“Oh. Right.” I shrug and hope that my guilty expression isn’t visible to Mom-radar. “To be honest, I still really want to talk to him about some stuff. Do you know where he is?”

“He joined Poppy for breakfast—gave him an amazing book of old Times crosswords,” she adds with a small smile. “You two always did think alike.”

“Breakfast? Why? Where is he now?”

“Back in New York handling some sort of problem at work,” she says. What I hear is, He wanted to get away from you.

“Oh. Well, I guess I’ll just have to catch him in the city.” I try to keep my voice light. As if this is no big deal. As if Dallas and I don’t have huge things to talk about.

“So does the fact that you went to his bungalow and are planning to see him in the city mean that things are getting easier for you two?”

And isn’t that a loaded question?

“Easier,” I say, letting the word sit on my tongue while I try to figure out how to answer. “A little. Maybe. I mean we’re trying. Or, at least, we’re trying to try.” I lift a shoulder. “We miss each other a lot, we really do. But I’m starting to think that we’re never going to get past what happened.”

“You two used to be so close,” she says with a sigh. “Two peas in a pod. And then—well, it’s just so unfair that something neither of you had any control over could change the direction of your lives like that.”

“Yeah, but not much about a kidnapping is fair.”

“Mmm,” she says, and for some reason I get the impression that we’re talking at cross-purposes.

But before I can press, Mom hooks her arm through mine and starts heading to the boardwalk. “I hope you know how proud I am of you.”

I grin up at her. “Is this our annual mother-daughter talk?”

She bumps me with her hip as we walk down the boards toward the beach. “Don’t be impertinent when I’m being serious.” She pauses and draws me to a stop with her. “You’ve had to overcome a lot, baby. And I know that Eli and I weren’t—”

She cuts herself off and frowns as she closes her eyes, takes a breath, and then begins again. “The kidnapping destroyed your father and me, too, and while that is no excuse, I know we weren’t there for you as much as we should have been afterward. I still look back on those days, and all I recall is feeling numb.”

“Do you think I don’t understand that?”

“I just—I just wanted to say that at the time I was hurt when you wanted to leave and go away to school. And that was unfair of me. I was still raw from the battle with Colin, and I knew he hated me for asking the court to terminate his parental rights. And then just three years later when I wanted you home where I could pamper you, there you were asking to go live near him. I was angry and I was confused and I was hurt.”

“Mom.” I swallow. I’ve sort of known all that, but she’s never outright told me before. “I just couldn’t be around Dallas. Seeing him every day. Remembering every day.”

I drag my toes across the sand-covered boards remembering how I’d snuck into Dallas’s room the first night he’d been home. I’d spooned against his back and just held tight. I’d wanted more—so much more—and I know he did, too. But when I’d whispered his name, he’d shaken his head. “I can’t,” he said. “We can’t.”

He’d rolled over to face me, and I saw the pain in his eyes. “What we had inside, we can’t have it anymore. You know we can’t.”

“I know,” I’d whispered. “But—”

He’d shut me up with a kiss. Our last kiss for a long, long time. “It has to stay locked up, Jane. If our parents found out . . . hell, if anyone found out.”

I closed my eyes, but I nodded. Because he was right. We were free, and that was good. But what we’d shared had been left behind, locked up inside those dank, gray walls. And that simple truth had come close to destroying me.

The next week, I’d begged my mom to enroll me in boarding school near Colin. And, thankfully, she’d reluctantly agreed.

“It was never about getting away from you and Dad,” I tell her now. “You know that, right? It was just that Dallas—”

“Was a reminder. I understand. I do. I did back then, too. And I wanted the best for you. I was glad you could get away, go to a place where you could heal. But sometimes even when we know we’re doing the best for our kids it still hurts. I wanted to be the one to kiss you and make it better.”

“Mom.” I blink away tears. “You always do.”

She starts walking again. “I really didn’t bring any of this up because I thought we needed an emotional cleansing. I just wanted to say that now things are different. For me, I mean. I understand that Colin was there for you in a way I couldn’t be. And the truth is that I will always be grateful to him for that. He could have walked away. From you. From all of it. But he didn’t. He stepped up to the plate. And even though he and I don’t talk anymore, I thought you should know that I am grateful to him for that. And that I really am glad that you and he have a relationship.”

My chest feels tight, and I nod, afraid to speak in case I start to cry.

“You okay?”

“I love you, Mom,” I say and start leaking tears.

“Well, good.” She hugs me, and I cling tight. “Because I love you, too.”

When we break apart, we walk off the boardwalk and onto the sand. She points north, up the beach. “Walk with me?” she asks. “We can look for seashells.”

“I’d love to,” I say. And even though I know that my mom may never know all the secrets of my heart, I don’t doubt that she loves me. And in this moment at least, I’m content to do nothing more than hang with her for a while.

I’m tossing the last of the toiletries in my weekender bag when Liam calls from the front of the bungalow where I’ve left the front door open for him, as he’d promised to swing by with a couple of beers.

“Back here!” I reply. “Open me one, would you, and I’ll be right there.” I zip up my bag, glance around the room to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything, and head into the living area to meet him.

He greets me with an ice cold beer, and even though I’m much more of a wine girl, when I take a swallow I can’t deny that it feels good on my throat. I sit down on the couch and he sits next to me, and I realize that I’m grinning.

“Something funny?”

“Not a thing,” I admit. “I just haven’t seen you in ages.” I hugged him earlier, but I do it again now. “I wish Dallas was here,” I say without thinking. “The three of us together would—”

I cut myself off, then shrug. It’s been a long time since the three of us have hung out like we used to.

“Did you talk to him at all while he was here? And do me a favor and answer that without chewing my head off.”

I raise my brows. “Why would I chew your head off?”

“Because there’s a lot of that going around.” He stands up to get another beer from the fridge where he stashed the six-pack.

“You’re going to have to give me a little more to go on.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you and our boy, Dallas?”

I cross my arms over my chest, because that is a hell of a broad topic—and not one I’m keen on getting into with a helicopter on its way.

“It’s just that I went over to his bungalow last night, mentioned you, and the fucker practically bit my head off. You two have an argument?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it that. But I’m pretty sure he left this morning because of me. Not because of a business thing.”

Liam looks straight at me. “What’s going on, Janie?”

“Not a story that’s mine to tell,” I assure him. “Let’s just say that I’d hoped we could maybe stop avoiding each other. But I think we’re back to square one. Or maybe square negative one hundred and one.” I shrug. “I texted him earlier today to check on him. No reply.”

“Gotcha.” He leans forward so that his elbows are on his knees and his beer is held tight in his outstretched hands. His head is down, and he looks like a guy who is thinking deep thoughts, or wrestling with a sticky problem.

When he looks up at me, I can see that it’s the latter. “What?” I ask.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Do?”

“You guys are trying to work it out. Trying to repair a friendship or a family quarrel or whatever the hell you want to call it. And he just up and runs away. What are you going to do?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Then you’re a lame-ass friend, baby girl.”

I leap to my feet. “Dammit, Liam. It’s not just—”

“I don’t fucking care about your excuses, do I?” He stands, too, completely dwarfing me. “Because it’s not about excuses. You have one question to ask yourself, and that’s ‘Do I want that boy in my life?’ ”

He grimaces in that cocky way he has. “Right now, he’s acting like such a prick that I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer is no. But if it’s yes—” He takes a breath, and I watch as he visibly calms. “If it’s a yes, you fight for him.” He pulls off his ball cap so he can rub his hand over his buzz-cut head.

“I lost a lot of friends in Afghanistan, you know. Really lost ’em and can’t get ’em back no matter how much I might want to. Don’t lose one of the people who matters most in your life, Janie. Not if you can help it.”

Tears sting my eyes as he looks straight at me. “And if that means you fight, then fuck it, that’s what you do. If you think he’s worth it, then you have to go to the mat.”