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“I’m so sorry.” He hadn’t meant to bring back the painful memories, especially not here. There was more to the story, but they could talk about her mother after they learned more about what her father was doing here today and why he’d left the cryptic message.

Since they were here in Seattle, they might as well finish this business and find out what she came to find out. The traffic slowed them down, and he got stuck at yet another light. They’d gotten off track, so he shifted the conversation.

“So, back to your father and the present. You came after him, leaving Hidden Bay when he warned you away. Why?”

“He didn’t warn me away.”

“It kind of sounds like he’s in some trouble,” Cole said, “and didn’t want you involved. He was afraid he might have led danger your way.”

Jo’s features were drawn. “You don’t have to be here with me, you know, challenging my decisions. I need to find Pop safe and sound. Let him explain to me in person. That’s why. Are you satisfied now?”

He suspected that her reaction—needing to have her father explain everything to her face—had everything to do with her stepfather, Dale, leaving her when she was ten.

What more could there be to his story? Cole couldn’t see anyone leaving his child, even after learning he wasn’t the biological father. But people reacted differently.

He looked out the raindrop-studded window. For Jo’s sake, he hoped she would find her father and all would be well. But this kind of start to a day never ended well.

“If it was your father—someone you cared about—what would you do?” she asked. “Call the police?”

“I don’t know. Did you tell the WSP detective about what brought you to Seattle?”

“Not in so many words,” she said.

“And why not?”

“What would I say?”

“I hear you.” He hated saying his next words. “You know for sure this guy is your real father?” The question sounded ridiculous. There was a resemblance, but that didn’t always mean a blood relation. Yeah. Dumb question.

Jo’s face scrunched into a deep frown. “I’m not an idiot.”

He’d said the wrong thing. “Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean to imply you were. But people want something bad enough, sometimes they see something that isn’t real. Isn’t there.” He was digging a deeper hole. He should shut up already.

“Just please explain to me how you met your biological father.” Her mother dies, and then this man claiming he’s her father shows up. Cole believed that he probably was. But how does that happen?

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“That’s right.” Cole braked to keep from rear-ending someone. “I don’t. Please, help me to understand.”

Then he circled the block so he could find a parking spot right on the street, and that was going to be tough, but it would give them more time for this conversation.

She sighed. Closed her eyes. Was he pressing her too much?

Still, he needed the truth so he could better understand what he was dealing with.

“Okay. First things first. That night, after Mom told me the truth about my father, when I was waiting for her at the house, I thumbed through her Bible and found a picture of her with a man. An old picture. I don’t know.

I wondered if he was the one. So when I finally left Michigan, I drove through the Midwest. I was a couple of days into my trip when I stopped in Kansas at a hole-in-the-wall place for breakfast. That’s when I spotted a man sitting in a booth on the other side of the small café.

He was watching me. And I realized, he was an older version of that same man in the picture with Mom.

He didn’t look so different—you know how some people do when they age—that I couldn’t recognize him.

He was in good physical condition but had some gray.

And his brows and eyes were like mine. I don’t know what it is about eyes, but I’m drawn to them—I guess like most people are—and I remember them.

I start there, as an artist, if I can. And I just knew. ”

She looked at Cole with her own big browns, and he knew he’d been a complete fool to even ask her how she’d known. “That he was your father.”

“Yes.” Tears welled in her eyes.

He’d never seen this version of Jo, and right now, he wasn’t sure he’d even known her at all. “Tell me, Jo, what’d you do next?”

“I approached the booth.” She sucked in a breath.

“I can just remember that conversation, see it in my mind as if it happened yesterday. I asked if I could sit down. He replied that he thought I’d never ask.

So I sat and we stared at each other. It was just so surreal.

I said, ‘Are you who I think you are?’ I mean, how bold was that? ”

“And what’d he say?” Cole asked.

“He responded that he thought he might be.” Jo angled her head and frowned. “That confused me.”

“You figure if he was your father, he would know.”

“Right. So I said, ‘What do you mean you think ?’ And he said, ‘You have my mother’s eyes.’ I said, ‘I have your eyes.’” Jo smirked and shrugged. “He has a distinct look.”

Cole smiled. “Like you, Jo.” She really stood out with those almond-shaped, golden-brown eyes. “ You have a distinct look. As for your father, I always saw the resemblance.” But still, he needed to ask about this guy who appeared out of the blue into her life not long ago.

“Anyway, I was still confused and asked him why he never showed up in my life. Why I didn’t know him. Why now? Was he following me or what? You know what he said to me?”

“No idea.”

“He said that he didn’t know about me until a few days before!” Incredulity twisted up her features. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye.

Cole thought for sure she was holding many more of them back. Rather than say anything—because there were no adequate words, really—he kept quiet. Listened.

“I tell you, I don’t understand any of this.

But I asked how he found me. He said he wasn’t even looking.

He said that he’d loosely followed Mom’s career over the years and was sorry to hear about the accident.

He came to the funeral and then figured it would be weird and awkward and so decided to leave before he joined those at the gravesite, and that’s when he saw me.

And he knew that I was his daughter. So, yeah, he followed me until he could figure out how to approach me.

Said he suspected it would all work out, and it did. I approached him .”

Tears leaked out both eyes then. “I had so many questions. I was so mad at my mother. Again. I had so much to ask him. But instead of any of that, I blurted out that I needed to hide.”

Interesting. For all Jo knew at the time, her newly found biological father was the person she needed to hide from. How could she know? Unless she hadn’t shared everything yet, and her mother had told her more. “What did he say then?”

“He told me that he knew a place. Didn’t even ask me questions. He brought me to Hidden Bay, where he’d lived and worked for thirty years.”

Well, that explained a few things. Cole wanted to continue this conversation, but it was after 4:00 p.m., and he didn’t want to lose the chance to get at the security feed. Columbia Center was just around the corner, and he finally found and parked in a spot right in front.

“How’d you get this spot? I had to park in the garage two blocks away and walk uphill in the rain.”

“You didn’t happen to notice I drove around the block a few times?”

Cole pictured her making that hike and could just see her, slipping or maybe tripping a couple of times. She had to be the clumsiest person he’d ever met, and weirdly, it was one of the things he absolutely adored about her. Adored? Yeah ... at some point, he needed to talk to her about...

Us.

We need to talk about us. If there is an us or can be an us. Now who was the clumsy one? When it came to talking to Jo about them , he was the worst with words.

Jo cleared her throat. “Listen, I think ... um ... yeah, you’re here about my mother, officially, and now you’re sort of helping me with my father, unofficially.

But I want to get one thing straight so that this isn’t awkward—at least for me, because it doesn’t seem like it’s awkward for you at all.

But whatever we did before—dated, whatever—we can work together now without any of that affecting our relationship.

So we can keep this completely professional. Deal?”

Aw. Jo...

She thrust her hand out for him to shake, which felt completely off to him, like she was trying too hard. And she was pushing for the exact opposite. Cole forced a smile, more heartbroken than he had a right to be, and then he shook her hand.

“So what next? Should I wait here? I was already inside, and I don’t want the security guard to be suspicious when I show up again with you.”

“It’ll be fine.” He wouldn’t think of leaving her here since they were tracking a man who was involved in something hazardous, and she’d just witnessed a murder. “I know what I’m doing.”

They got out of the vehicle, and the rain had stopped. He might have taken that as a good sign, if Jo hadn’t laid out rules he didn’t much feel like abiding by.

He held the door while she entered the Columbia Center building. Then he went straight for the directory, and she followed him. “Is that the same guard that was here earlier?” he asked.

“No. He’s different.”

Okay. Cole hoped he could work his magic.

No one was required to help him or offer him security feed, and sometimes they demanded a court order, but he had a knack for getting what he wanted, and he had a feeling about this guard.

“Why don’t you sit in one of those chairs over near the bank and wait? ”