He held the door for her and waited until she tentatively stepped across the threshold. This wasn’t a matter she wanted to bring into the man’s home. It wasn’t something she felt like she could or should share with Sophie. They were new friends. New friends didn’t dump abusive letters from psychotic exes on each other in the early phases of friendship. They talked about nail polish colors and buy-one-get-one deals at the grocery store.

“Hey, Gloria,” Sophie called from the kitchen over the shrill of toddler. “I made some lemonade. Want a glass?”

Cold lemonade on a throat scorched from bitter emotion. “That would be great, thanks,” Gloria called back.

The source of the giggles rocketed out of the kitchen and threw himself at his father’s knees.

“Daaaaaaaad!” Josh Adler was five hundred pounds of energy packed into the wiry build of a three-year-old. He favored his father with dirty blond hair and a dimpled chin. But it was all his mother’s mischief that danced in his bright eyes.

Ty hefted his son high, expertly missing the turning ceiling fan by inches. Sophie breezed into the living room, pretty in leggings and an off-the-shoulder top. She handed Gloria a tall glass of lemonade garnished with a wedge of lemon and sprig of lavender and pressed a borderline indecent kiss to her husband’s mouth.

The irony of wild child Sophie Garrison settling down with ultimate good-guy-with-a-badge Ty was amusing enough to bring a smile to Gloria’s face. Love could heal, Gloria decided, watching the three of them glow together as a unit.

The pang of longing hit her hard, square in the heart. Would she ever have an ounce of that happiness? That belonging? Would she ever have a family? A man who looked at her the way Ty looked at Sophie?

Embarrassed, Gloria looked away. One of the throw pillows on the couch moved, then barked. And she realized it was a tiny dog…with couch stuffing hanging out of her mouth.

“Damn it, Bitsy,” Sophie yelled.

“Damn it, Bitsy,” Josh repeated.

“Nice goin’, Soph,” Ty said, juggling Josh into his mother’s arms. “Why don’t you take our future felon here and make yourselves scarce?”

“Come on, Mr. Parrot,” Sophie sighed, toting Josh up the tidy little staircase. Bitsy followed on Sophie’s bare heels.

“Step into my office,” Ty said, opening his arm toward the couch. “I assume this has something to do with Glenn Diller?”

Gloria nodded and sat on the cushion that hadn’t yet been eaten by the dog. She pulled the letter from her purse and held it for a moment. She was so used to hanging on to her shame, her secrets. It was hard to turn that off. Hard to break open and share that shame.

“I got this in the mail last night.” She handed the envelope, the shame, over to him.

Ty read it, his eyes going cop cold.