Harbor Street (Cedar Cove #5)(63)

Corrie didn’t, either, which was the main reason she hadn’t informed him.

“I think it’s time we were honest with each other,” she said.

Her husband’s eyes flared. “I’ve never been dishonest with you.”

“Perhaps not openly, but it’s clear you were trying to get me out of the office this afternoon and I need to know why.”

Roy sighed deeply. “Okay,” he said with resignation. “I wanted to make a few calls and find out what I could about our…other daughter.”

“Without telling me?”

He shook his head. “I was going to let you know what I found out.”

“Eventually,” she said.

He hesitated, then admitted it. “Eventually,” he echoed.

“That’s what I thought. But why? Do you think I’m emotionally unstable? Did you assume I couldn’t deal with whatever information you unearthed?”

“No,” he denied hotly. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Then what possible reason is there for keeping me in the dark?”

“We have a daughter who’s thirty years old,” he said thoughtfully. “A daughter we know nothing about.”

She stopped herself from reminding him that, until recently, they hadn’t even known their first child was female.

“All these years, I worked hard at pushing every thought of her—the baby—from my mind. I was comfortable doing it. I didn’t want to know—and yet I did. We’d vowed never to mention it again but now…now she’s out there and she refuses to be ignored.”

That was painfully obvious to Corrie, as well. “You wanted to find her yourself. Contact her and then bring me in on what you’d done.”

“I need to find her,” he corrected. “I’ve gone into the adoption registries and entered our names.”

“Why exclude me?” Corrie blurted out.

“I’ll explain that in a moment. Like I said, I went on the Internet.”

Confession time for her, too. “I did the same thing.”

Her husband’s eyes connected with hers. “She hasn’t registered.”

Corrie knew that. She didn’t understand it. By whatever means, their daughter had been able to track them down without any of the adoption advocacy groups. And yet…

“That’s why you’ve kept me out of it,” Corrie murmured. “Because you’re not sure of her motives.”

Roy nodded. “If she wanted us to find her, she would’ve registered, but she didn’t. That tells me all of this isn’t as innocent as it might seem. She found me, but doesn’t want to be found herself. She’s content to mail anonymous postcards, send flowers. She’s taunting me. This is all one big game to her, and for some reason she seems to have more of a problem with me than with you.”

“I wonder why,” Corrie mused aloud, “but I think you may be right.” Her husband had always been cautious, and perhaps more importantly, suspicious. He considered every angle of a situation, methodically catalogued each detail. The way he worked reminded her of people who did jigsaw puzzles, carefully studying every piece.

“The adoption laws in California are different from those in Washington,” Roy added. “I was thinking—”

“California?” Corrie broke in.

Immediately Roy had that chagrined look—he’d said more than he’d meant to. “Yes, California. That’s where the final adoption took place.”

Corrie hadn’t noticed where the baby’s home would be as she signed her name. Perhaps the attorney had told her, but if so, she had no recollection of it. “I don’t suppose you happened to notice the date, did you?”

“No, why?”

She swallowed hard and shook her head. “No reason.”

“Corrie?”

She glanced down, forcing back emotion, unwilling to say.

“I was wrong not to tell you everything I found out.”

“You mean there’s more?” she snapped. She felt angry that Roy had gone about this investigation and left her out. Yes, she was guilty of the same thing. But she had a good reason. Roy had claimed he didn’t want to know; he’d refused to discuss the subject, so she’d had to learn what she could on her own.

“No. I couldn’t find anything else. I’ve hit a brick wall with the California records. Only Alabama, Alaska, Kansas and Oregon are ‘open records states.’ The reason I was able to find out as much as I did was through an old friend who works for the California state government.” Looking at Corrie, he narrowed his eyes. “How did you discover we had a daughter?”

She gazed down at her folded hands. “My mother’s diaries. I have them and I looked up the year and month. She knew. She never said a word to me, but she knew we’d had a daughter.”

“We’ll find her, sweetheart, and when we do we’ll explain everything.”

Corrie just hoped it was enough for this child to know she was loved and always had been, despite the fact that she’d sent her out of their lives.

Thirty-Two

Allison Cox marched into the living room and sat down across from her father, who was in his recliner reading the paper. She waited patiently for him to lower it, which he did after a few minutes.