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I poured her a glass, grabbed a straw, and then set it down in front of her. “It also happens to be your father’s favorite, too.”

Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t believe that she lied to me.”

I crossed my arms and leaned into the counter on the opposite side of her.

“Tell me everything,” I said.

“My mom told me that he died,” she said. “That he didn’t want me, then he died of a heart attack. So I never thought to look for him. But when you brought up the possibility, things started to make sense.”

“What kinds of things?” I asked.

“Well, first off, dying my hair. She let me bleach it and dye it from when I was like nine on. She let me do whatever I wanted to my hair but go back to the original color. Then she let me get colored contacts, and that was kind of my thing. Color. I went wild with it. Until this year when I decided that it was too much work. She got angry. She said that I would be boring. But I didn’t care.” She wrung her hands. “We never stayed in one place for long. Her being a private investigator, I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought that was how she was. A free spirit. But that’s not it. She did this because she didn’t want me found.”

“No, she didn’t,” I agreed. “Your father looked for you relentlessly. About two years ago, a man came into his life that he felt like could find you. But he was scared to take that last step.”

She wiped at her now leaking eyes. “Why?”

“Because I think he thought you might be dead,” I answered. “He’s spent years and years and years trying to find you. If a sheriff with the ultimate connections can’t find you…”

“Then I might’ve been dead.” She nodded. “But Mom was just really good at hiding me. And, eventually, I helped by changing my hair. I was also homeschooled because we moved around too much. I didn’t put down any permanent roots until just this year when I started college.”

That hurt my heart to hear. “Your father never moved from your old house. He hoped that by staying, if one day you decided to come back, he’d be there waiting and you’d know exactly where to go.”

The sob that caught in her throat was actually painful to experience.

“I missed so much because of her!” she cried out. “I hate her!”

My hands itched to pull her into my arms.

I knew what it was like to have a parent that didn’t care. In fact, I had two of them.

I rounded the counter of the island. “Your dad is the greatest man I’ve ever met. You may have missed your childhood and teen years with him, but that won’t matter to him. As long as he has you now, you haven’t missed a thing.”

“I withdrew from all of my college classes.” She leaned into me as she sniffled. “I’m moving here.”

That sent joy throughout my entire body. “That’s the best news I’ve heard today.”

And it was.

After everything that had gone down with my brother, and him admitting everything…I was feeling an out-of-body experience.

Knowing that Black was about to have his world made had me practically giddy with excitement.

“Do you want to go see him?” I asked, looking at the watch on my wrist. “He’s going to be at work for a while yet. He has a lot on his plate, but I’m sure he won’t be very happy if I kept you all to myself a moment longer than I had to.”

She lifted her head from my shoulder, then swiped at her tears with desperate hands. “You think he’d be okay with that?”

“I know he would,” I stated firmly. “You want to ride with me?”

But before she could answer, there was an alert on my security monitor saying someone was at my gate.

Both Shelby and I looked that way, but it was only me who frowned at the unfamiliar car that was at the gate.

There was a woman standing at the gate angrily punching the intercom button and staring at my house like I’d personally done her very wrong.

“What…”

“Oh, no,” Shelby moaned. “That’s my mom.”