Finding Family...and Forever?. Teresa Southwick

their missing daughter is alive and well.”

      “I don’t know how they’d feel about that.”

      His eyes narrowed. “You haven’t told them?”

      “Until today, I hadn’t even talked to them.” She took a deep breath. “I ran into Michelle Crawford at the grocery store.”

      “So that’s why you’ve been preoccupied.” Justin’s gray eyes darkened with questions. “How did it go?”

      “She’s very nice. Friendly. And she’d looked sad when Kyle chattered nonstop in his sweet baby way. The encounter shook me. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I needed to see the newspaper accounts of the kidnapping again.”

      “But she still doesn’t know?” When Emma shook her head, he said, “I’m sure you had your reasons for not telling them who you are.”

      “It’s complicated.”

      “No kidding.” His tone was wry.

      “My mother told me where they are and how to find them.” She took a big drink from her glass. “When I got here, the Grizzly Bear Diner was my first stop. Michelle and Alan were there and I watched them interacting with the customers and each other. They’re—” She struggled to figure out how to say they seemed like two people who were content and working at something they enjoyed. It was hard to express, when one picture was worth a thousand words. “They seemed okay. I didn’t want to change that.”

      “And you think finding out their daughter is alive would be a bad thing?”

      “What happened to them was bad.”

      “Can’t argue with you there.” But his eyes narrowed. “Still, you said nothing?”

      “There’s probably no way for you to understand, but I just couldn’t.”

      “So why didn’t you go back to California?”

      There was the burning question, and she didn’t have an answer. “I couldn’t do that, either.”

      “But you needed a job while you figure it all out.”

      It wasn’t a question, but she felt he deserved an answer, anyway. “Yes, and you wouldn’t have hired me if I’d told you all that.”