Chapter Nineteen

There was something achingly familiar about him.

He looked at her and their eyes met with a recognition that floored her. Greta thought her knees would give way. She held onto the door, just to stay upright.

He stopped in front of her, his brown eyes studying her face. "I don't believe it."

She blinked back tears. "Is it really you?"

"My beautiful little angel."

He'd been the first man to call her beautiful. The man she'd met at the pantry. The man with the sad brown eyes. The man she'd wished could have been her father. "What are you doing here?" She asked, although she already knew the answer, but couldn't dare believe that it was true.

"I'm here to visit my son and his fiancée."

"You're Vance's father?" Greta said, more to herself than to him, as the full picture came into place. Now she knew why Vance had once reminded her of him.

"Are you disappointed?"

"No. I'm so glad." Greta looked at the older man then hugged him. "I always wondered what happened to you."

He hugged her back. "You gave me the strength to go on. Because of you, we didn't go hungry."

Vance came to the door and looked at the two of them, confused. "What's going on?"

"My angel came back to me."

"Angel?"

"Yes. We met more than twenty years ago," his father said, wiping tears away. "You told me so much about her, but I had no idea it was my angel." He gestured to his wife. "Bernice, this is her. This is the girl I told you about all those years back. I never thought I'd see her again. But here she is. My daughter is home." He turned to Greta and started to clap and the others applauded.

Greta felt the wave of love that surrounded her. She looked at Vance's parents, Kojo, Kara and their baby girl, Crystal and Minnie, and knew she finally had the family she'd dreamt of. They gathered and ate and laughed for hours.

***

That evening, Vance and Greta lay in each other's arms, remembering the dinner with fondness. Vance rested his arm behind her head. "I guess we attended a reunion after all."

Greta's fingers lightly cascaded over his bare chest. "I liked this one much better than the first."

Vance covered her hand with his own. "If only I'd known back then."

Greta shook her head. "I'm glad you didn't."

He looked at her surprised. "Why not?"

"Because I didn't like you."

Vance laughed. "True, and I didn't like you either."

She turned and looked at him, amazed by the strength of her feelings for him. "But that's all different now."

His gaze melted into hers. "Yes."

"My grandmother was right."

"About what?"

About telling her to go to the reunion, to keep her heart open and encouraging her to give Vance another chance. But she didn't want to tell him all that. Instead she snaked her arms around him and held him tight, feeling safe in a way she never thought she'd be with a man. "Everything," she said then she kissed him and let her heart say the rest.

 

The End