She knows it's him from thirty feet away on the packed beach. Five years, sun-bleached hair, and a beard do nothing to disguise him from her. He turns his face towards her, away from the child throwing sand in his face and it's like a physical blow to her body.
There he is. A few yards away is the man she's been wondering about for years.
He'd sent her postcards—to a post office box under a fake name—but they'd come less and less the last few years and the last one had come six months ago, postmarked Jamaica.
She told herself that wasn't why she'd decided to vacation here. That there was no way that she would be able to find him so she wasn't even going to bother looking, well not more than a few detailed check, but when that didn't pan out she had forced herself to let go of the idea.
She walked towards him, covering half the distance before stopping again. It i had /i been 5 years. What if he was with someone? What is he didn't want to see anyone from Neptune again? What the hell was she doing?
Before she could make another move, either way, he turned and looked straight at her. His eyes widened and slowly, so slowly, his mouth spread in a huge grin.
Choice out of her hands she ran the rest of the way towards him and his arms caught her….just as they always had.
They held each other, neither wanting to let go until Veronica felt someone tapping her leg. She pulled back to look down and saw her best friends eyes looking back at her.
"Who are you?" the little girl asked.
"I'm, uh…"
"She's a friend of Daddy's" Duncan interjected for her, looking down at his daughter, "And Mommy's. I haven't seen her in….." he turned and looked back at Veronica, "A very long time."
She smiled at the warmth in his voice, "You stopped writing."
His eyes flitted away for a second, and then back, "I just thought, maybe it was time. Figured it wasn't right to keep popping up in your life."
"I liked knowing you were okay. I liked knowing…"
"I missed you."
The words stopped her flat and she felt tears well up despite her best efforts to stop them, "I missed you too."
They stared deeply into each other's eyes for a moment. She rose onto her toes, he leaned down, mouths a breath apart when they stopped suddenly. She looked down at his daughter who was watching everything with wife eyes, "She's beautiful."
"Thank you. It's almost time for her favorite TV show. Want to come back with us? We could talk."
"I would like that," she said. She watched him father his daughter up in his arms and then he stretched out a hand towards her. Slowly she reached out and twined her fingers with his.
Felling lighter than she had in years she squeezed his hand and followed him home.