Chapter 198

“Hurry up!” Padgett zoomed in on the photo with his phone, squinting at the screen. Owen hadn’t exactly nailed the shot, and without his reading glasses, Padgett could barely make out anything.

Thankfully, Owen didn’t argue. He dug out the glasses and handed them over.

“Grandpa, who is she?” Owen asked.

Padgett slid his glasses on, peered at the girl in the photo, and his whole face changed. “Melissa… Melissa’s come back p>

My Melissa. The words caught in his throat as he pressed a hand to his chest. Owen just stared, stunned silent. Was that really Melissa? Unless she’d somehow turned back time, it couldn’t be possible.

“Call your dad and Norris. Get them home. Right now,” Padgett ordered.

No one dared hesitate when he spoke like that. Owen called his dad, Norris, and even made sure to get his other brothers on the line. If he could’ve, he would’ve fetched the family dog too.

“Norris, Phil, Melissa’s back,” he announced as soon as they answered.

Norris and Phil dropped everything and rushed home. At first, they were thrilled, the kind of excitement that makes your heart skip. But when they walked in and didn’t see Melissa, the feeling faded.

“Where is she?” Phil asked.

“Here,” Padgett said, holding out the phone.

They crowded around, peering at the photo.

“She really does look like Melissa when she was younger,” Phil said, “but she reminds me of someone else, too p>

He and Norris locked eyes. There was no need for words they both knew.

“She looks like Agassi,” Norris said quietly.

“Yeah. That guy ran off with Melissa and then vanished,” Phil grumbled.

Neither brother had ever forgiven Agassi. He hadn’t come from much, just a student who’d traveled to Cabinda. But there was something about him-something that drew Melissa in. The problem was Melissa was already engaged. Padgett hadn’t been totally against breaking off the engagement if Melissa truly loved someone else. He just wanted to make sure her feelings were real.

In the end, Melissa and Agassi packed up and disappeared. Twenty years had passed without a single word.

“I’d know Agassi anywhere. Even if he turned to dust,” Phil muttered.

Norris scowled. “That jerk. Find out which flight Melissa’s daughter came in on. We have to bring her home p>

She looked like Agassi, but there was so much of Melissa in her too. She’d made it to Cabinda. That meant she was family. There was no way they’d let her slip away.

“I’ll do it! I’ll check right now,” Owen said, raising his hand like a kid in class.

He was sure—the girl was Melissa’s daughter. The niece they’d spent years hoping to find. Melissa had always been beautiful. Why else would Owen have spotted her in the middle of a crowded airport?

“Alright. You go. With all your connections, you’ll track her down faster,” Norris told him.

“Dad, Grandpa, Pearce, I’m heading back to campus,” another young man said as he grabbed his backpack.

Norris worked as a math professor at Cabinda University. In that way, he was exactly like Melissa-brilliant with numbers. Phil was just like their father a natural businessman. Owen was still figuring out who he wanted to be.

“Go on, then,” Norris said, waving him off.

Padgett was practically glowing. “She’s really Melissa’s daughter? Melissa has a daughter so why hasn’t she come home p>

That question took the air out of the room. Norris and Phil exchanged a heavy, worried look.

Why hadn’t she come home?

The three Churehill siblings had always been close. Even after that fight with their father, it wasn’t like Melissa to just disappear for years. The possibility they dreaded most, the one they’d pushed away for so long, suddenly felt impossibly realit hurt more than either of them wanted to admit.

On the other side of town, Claire finally got a ride from the airport and made it to

campus, only to be hit with some news that made her blood boil.