“Building was beneath you, and look what you’ve achieved because we guided you. Ava doesn’t know what makes her happy.” His mother’s smile slipped. “And you have no say in this, as she is my daughter.”

“And my sister, and she’s twenty-three years old, no longer a child.”

“You have had nothing to do with her, so my advice is stay out of what does not concern you.”

“She’s still my sister,” he persisted, “and ‘guiding’ wasn’t the way I saw things.”

Her mouth thinned, and then with a little sniff that he remembered as meaning “conversation over,” she went to the stove. He remembered that too; if she couldn’t win, she walked away. However, he was not done talking. There was another matter he needed to raise, and she’d like this topic about as much as the last one.

“I need to talk to you about Joe Trainer and his family.”

She spun on a heel.

“Don’t you bring that family’s name into this house!” She spat out the words, face red with rage.

Dylan got out of his chair slowly and told himself to stay calm as he braced his hands on the back.

Remember you don’t do personal stuff.

“Joe is not to blame for me leaving here and never coming back. Just as he’s not to blame for what I did that night and the shame I brought down on this family. I robbed that store. I did it alone with no help. That was on me.” He placed a hand on his chest. “So whatever grudge you’ve been holding against that family has to stop.”

“They’ve been talking to you, I can see that. Tattling about things that aren’t true. That family’s scum, just like their daddy. I want you to stay away from them. No good can come from you being in their company again.”

She meant it, he realized. Thought she could tell him, her thirty-two-year-old son, to stay away from the Trainer family. A vision of Piper after he’d kissed her came into his head. Soft, wet lips, eyes filled with sultry promise, looking sexy as hell. If he recounted that incident it would probably put Mary Howard in bed for a week.

“Looks to me like Joe’s a good man, and his family seem the same. You also don’t get to tell me who I can spend time with anymore. I’m not a child.”

“They’re bad! That Joe Trainer conned this town into voting him onto the council.”

“Well hell, he should have been given life in prison for trying to support his community.” Dylan tried to rein in his anger in the face of his mother’s behavior.

“They’re bad.” Her face was closed tight.