A Treasury of Miracles for Teens Read Free Page A

daughters were
     rescued by an American. When you returned, several people remembered you. I was hoping to find you here … since this is the
     anniversary of that day. When I saw you, and saw that you were American, I took a chance.”
    Tanner nodded. Her story made sense. He had told some of the people at the resort who he was, and a few of them who had worked
     there that summer fifteen years ago still remembered the incident. There were only five hundred people in the seaside town,
     so it was very possible that Heidi would hear about his presence.
    Heidi was beautiful, but at that moment, her expression grew sad and distant. “I want to apologize,” Heidi said. “For my father.
     He is a very stern man, stuck in his ways. Sometimes I wonder if heeven really cared that you rescued us that day. I know he never thanked you, and all my life I’ve wanted to do something about
     that.”
    Tanner smiled. “Now you have.”
    Strange feelings were beating at Tanner’s heart. Somehow being with this woman made him feel that he’d known her all these
     years. She was young, no doubt. Just a teenager. But she seemed a decade older. “Could you have dinner?” he asked her.
    She grinned, and a hint of red tinged her cheeks. “I’d love to.”
    The two spent the rest of the afternoon talking about the lives they had lived for the past fifteen years. After dinner they
     returned to the beach and strolled along the shore, side by side. Tanner learned that Heidi was a very lonely young woman.
     Her father had never treated her like his other daughter. He had always accused Heidi’s mother of getting involved with an
     American tourist, and he’d decided Heidi was the foreigner’s daughter, not his. It was for that reason he hated all Americans.
    “That’s why he never thanked you.” Heidi hung her head for a moment, her hands at her side. “Sometimes I think he wanted me
     to die that day.”
    “Heidi, that’s awful.” Tanner reached for her fingers and took them loosely in his own.
    In the years since, Heidi’s mother had died, and her sister had married and moved away. Tanner felt his heart going out to
     the young woman beside him. By the time the evening was finished, Tanner hadthe strangest sense that he would someday marry Heidi. He made plans to see her the next day and the next. He stayed long
     beyond the time he’d allotted for his vacation. By the time several months had passed, he shared his feelings with her.
    “I know you’re young,” he told her, taking her hands in his own. “But marry me. Leave this lonely place and come back with
     me to the States.”
    Tears filled Heidi’s eyes and she made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Are you serious?”
    “As serious as I was that day when I rescued you.”
    That evening they shared the news with Heidi’s father. He had no comment other than, “Be gone, then.” He waved her off with
     a brush of his hand. “But if you marry the American, don’t bother coming back here ever again.”
    Heidi was sad but not surprised by her father’s response. Later that week she and Tanner left for the United States.
    Tanner’s family could hardly believe what had happened. Tanner had left for vacation a confirmed bachelor and returned two
     weeks later engaged to a beautiful young woman. But when they learned that she was one of the children Tanner had rescued
     that summer at the beach, they were stunned. And delighted.
    Tanner and Heidi married and in the next few years had a little girl, Amy, who had golden hair andsea-blue eyes like her mother. People who knew the couple often talked about the love they shared, marveling at the way they
     seemed almost a part of each other.
    “Don’t you ever fight with each other or have a bad day?” Erin asked Tanner once.
    Tanner shook his head. “I was thirty when I met her, but God picked her for me when I was just a teenager,” he said. “I guess
     I’m just making up for lost time. I love her