They Sent the Quiet Old Woman to the Back of the Ballroom. Then the General Revealed the One Name the Colonel Had Spent Her Whole Life Trying to Forget.
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Chapter 9 / 20
Chapter 9 - Vanessa Faces Her Father's GhostVanessa drove to North Carolina alone.
Samuel's grave lay beneath an oak tree in a military cemetery.
She had not visited in nine years.
She stood before the stone in full uniform.
COLONEL VANESSA STONE.
Everything she once believed would prove she had escaped him.
Instead she felt like a frightened sixteen-year-old again.
"I'm sorry."
Wind moved through the trees.
"I was ashamed of you."
Her voice cracked.
"I thought being poor meant you failed us."
She knelt.
"But you were giving money away."
Tears finally came.
"You idiot."
She laughed through them.
"You stubborn, impossible idiot."
Then Vanessa placed her colonel's challenge coin against the headstone.
May you like
For once, she wasn't trying to escape Samuel Stone.
She was trying to find her way back to him.
Related Stories
Chapter 10 - The Donor Who Wanted His TableTrouble returned when Harrison Aerospace learned why Margaret had been displaced.
Chapter 11 - The Letter Samuel Never SentMargaret found another document.
Chapter 12 - The Scholarship They Nearly LostThe controversy threatened the foundation's largest expansion.
Chapter 13 - Ethan Gets the CallEthan was working a double shift when Vanessa called.
Chapter 14 - The Truth Behind Thomas HayesSix months after the gala, Margaret finally opened a locked metal box Thomas had left behind.
Chapter 15 - Vanessa Returns to Table EighteenVanessa joined the advisory board.
