She turned back to Tate, throat dry and brain as helpless as sand against the tide. She’d tried rehearsing this on the way over. But it wasn’t that long of a drive and with thoughts of Neil and Micah churning . . .

You have to talk, Syd.

She wetted her lips. “Like I said, I’m sorry this is out of the blue, but . . .” There was nothing else for it. She pulled the photo from her purse and awkwardly thrust it toward the man. “Is this you?”

His light brows slanted into a V, his attention remaining on her even as he took the photo. He must think her loony. Or maybe . . . maybe he saw something in the shape of her face or the look in her eyes.

But then he turned his focus to the picture. The incline of his brows deepened. He looked up. “Where’d you get this?”

Her voice dipped into a whisper. “C-CarleeAnn Picknell.”

His gaze was once again glued to her face, the shift in his brown eyes happening so slowly she hardly realized it for the dawning it was—not until he lifted his hand to rub his dropping jaw and she saw his shaking fingers. “I think I’m going to need another cup of coffee.”

Tate Carter, Jr. set a mug in front of her, the smell from it pulling a gurgle from her stomach and reminding her she’d never eaten that scone—and had probably had too much coffee already.

But Sydney was just as fidgety as the man currently stirring half-and-half into his own cup. She needed something to do with her hands. Might as well be this. She lifted it for a sip.

“I guess I’ve stalled just about as long as I can.” Tate had yet to take a drink. Or look at the photo again. Or look at her again.

“I was confused for a little while. I thought it said JP on the back. So I was looking for the wrong . . .” Why had she started there? Why would he care about some misunderstood letters when she was pretty sure he’d figured out who she was?

Whose she was.

“So then . . . you were looking?” He finally met her eyes again.

If only she could decipher what it was she was seeing in them. Intense discomfort, certainly. But there was something else, too. Almost like . . . no, it couldn’t be yearning. But maybe, at the least, interest. “I wasn’t looking until recently. Actually, it was Maggie Muir who came looking for me.”

His brow scrunched all over again. “Oh.”

“She’s been searching for her missing granddaughter, you see.”

“Oh, of course. I heard Monroe was still working on that.” His fingers cupped his coffee mug. “I have to be honest . . . I never thought I’d . . . that this would . . . or even could be possible. I made a whole heap of mistakes, horrible mistakes, as a teenager. But letting her leave with . . . you—that was, by far, the worst.”