“I did.” He smiled. That wasn’t the surprise. “We’ll get your things later. Come on.”
He opened her door and led her to a path lined with lit lanterns and Mason jars of white flowers. His heart pounded and his breathing was shallow. He’d worked on this surprise longer than she knew. He turned to her. “I love you, Eliza.” He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “Lizzie James. I’ll always love you.”
“I love you, too.” A bit of laughter lifted her lips. “What am I supposed to call you now?”
“Jonathan Ryder.” He winked at her. “But you can call me Jack. It’ll be my nickname. It’s sort of grown on me.”
“Me, too.” She put her hand alongside his face. “The candles… the flowers? How did you do this?”
“I had help.” He took her hand in his and they walked down the path and out onto the sand, where four people sat in white wooden folding chairs, two on each side of a white cloth runner. They faced the water and a white gazebo.
Jack smiled. Just like he had arranged.
“What… Jack, what is this?” She looked at him. “Who are they?”
He hugged her. “It’s okay. Just some friends of mine.”
They took off their shoes and walked barefoot in the sand.
Then from one side of the aisle, a woman stood. She had long brown hair and the same face as Eliza’s. A second later, the young man next to the woman also stood, and when he turned Eliza gasped.
She held on to Jack so she wouldn’t fall to the ground. “Mama? Daniel?”
Jack felt his eyes well up. He waited until Eliza’s mother reached her, then he stepped back. The love of his life had longed for this moment since she was a small child. He couldn’t believe God was letting him watch it play out.
“Lizzie! My baby girl, you’re alive!” Her mother wrapped Eliza in her arms and both of them held on to each other. The way the children of soldiers hold on when their parents return from war. “I can’t believe it. After all this time. My precious girl.”
“They told me… you drowned.” Eliza clung to her mother and then turned to the young man. “Daniel. My brother.” She took hold of him. “Is it really you?”
Jack watched from a few feet away. This was the greatest gift he could ever give her. And it had almost not happened.
Her brother put his arm around Eliza’s shoulders. “Lizzie.” Tears streamed down his face. “I’ve missed you every day. Father told us you had drowned, too.” He held her close, like no time had passed. Then the three of them formed a circle and held each other for a long time.
Daniel stepped back first. “Jack found us. He sent an agent to Lancaster.” He touched Eliza’s face. “I never stopped believing you were really alive. You were out there somewhere, looking for us.”
“Jack?” Eliza still had one arm around her mother and the other around her brother. “How did you…？ When…？”
He could watch Eliza with her family for the rest of the afternoon, but he tried to find his voice. “It was your great-grandfather, Lizzie.” He looked from her to her mother and brother. “He believed you were all alive. After talking with him, I couldn’t let the idea go.”
He could tell her later how he hadn’t gotten word that her mother and brother were found until three days ago, when he returned home from Honduras. CJ, his undercover agent friend, was working a drug ring in eastern Pennsylvania when he got a tip on her family.
Jack hadn’t been sure it was them until he flew there and met with the pair himself. He needed only one look at Susan James to know without a doubt. This was Eliza’s mother. She looked like a carbon copy of Eliza, a little older, darker hair. But the same blue eyes, same smile.
And since then he had come to learn something else about the woman. She and Eliza had the same heart. Her brother was twenty-one, and Jack could see the resemblance in him, too. So he had flown her family here for the moment that was about to happen.
As they reached the aisle, an older man stood and took his place near the gazebo. He wore a suit and he nodded at Jack.
“That’s the pastor,” Jack whispered near her ear. “The woman is his wife.”
“I can’t believe this.” Eliza looked like she could barely feel the sand beneath her feet.
Her mom hugged her again and stared at her. Like all she wanted was to stare at Eliza as long as she could. Finally she stepped back. Tears still shone on her face. “I have something for you.” She walked to a bag behind the folding chairs and returned with a simple bouquet of white stars, a flower native to Belize. “I think you might need this.”