He turned to walk away but Vesper stopped him. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Come inside and eat. I am sure Val has many stories to tell.”
McCloud shook his head. “You and I have made our peace, but Val and I have not. Let him have this time with his family. I will be here when he is ready.”
Vesper wouldn’t let him go. “Papa, youarefamily. It is true that you and Val did not part under the best of circumstances before he went to Ireland, but time changes men. I am sure he will be forgiving of your past sins. As he has been given a new start in life, a new chance to redeem himself, you must be given the same. You must at least give him the opportunity to do so.”
McCloud could see the wisdom in her words. Although he was reluctant, he very much wanted to reconcile with his old friend. He was, after all, family and McCloud had come to realize that family was the most important thing of all.
“Very well,” he said, forcing a smile as Vesper began to pull him along towards the keep. “Val is my son now, through you. I should like it if we can become friends once again. Do youremember, long ago, on the first night you met Val at Selborne Castle? I told you that food and wealth were the only things of importance when considering marriage. I believe I was rather cruel about it.”
Vesper thought back to that night, so long ago. It was the first night she realized that she felt something for Val. “I remember,” she said. “You told me that Val was trying to woo me and I did not believe you.”
He looked at her. “Do you believe me now?”
Vesper laughed softly. “I do.”
McCloud could see how very happy she was, happier than he’d ever seen her. Before them, the keep of Holystone loomed like a great big box against the sky. So much had brought them to this point in their lives and not all of it terrible. There had been some good mixed in with the bad. But the bad was a faded memory, like a terrible dream from long ago. McCloud patted her hands, looped through his elbow.
“I am glad you let him woo you,” he said. “But not for wealth and food. I am glad because there is no finer man on this earth than Val de Nerra and he is the only man, in my opinion, worthy of you. I thought you should know that.”
Vesper paused at the base of the stairs that led into the keep as she faced her father. A man she had once distanced herself from but a man now who had redeemed himself much as her husband had. Men who had once been in pieces, now made whole again by the power of love.
At least, that was how Vesper looked at it.
“Why don’t you tell him that?” she asked.
McCloud did.
No finer man on this earth….
*THE END*
