That summer day their paths crossed unexpectedly, he told himself he'd take one more chance.

One more chance, that is, to see if there could be something between them. Never mind that things had fizzled out quickly between Heather Stoner and Shawn Barker as teenagers, after a date or two a decade earlier. And never mind that in the present, she didn't seem too keen on giving it another go.

Finally, though, she relented to his persistent text messages and invited him to join her and a friend at the lake. The catch: That lake happened to be three hours away.

She didn't expect he'd make such a long drive on such short notice. But he surprised her – not just by showing up that night but by ultimately changing the course of her life, for better and forever.

Of course, Heather could never have predicted how pivotal their reconnection would be, that day in July 2015 when she happened to spot Shawn dropping someone off at her apartment complex and invited him inside to catch up.

Although it had been 10 years since they’d initially dated, they had crossed paths quite a few times since then and thus had no problem recognizing each other. Shawn made a point to make this encounter less ephemeral, though – texting Heather after their chat with words that might not qualify as obviously romantic but that would go down in history, anyway, as the start to everything that came after.

“Ha, I got your lighter,” he informed her, in a message that’s still saved on his phone. He admits that he had a habit, in his days as a smoker, of picking up any lighter he saw lying around. But when it came to her, his motives in committing petty theft may have had much less to do with the lighter than with its owner.

The texting exchange it sparked didn’t initially get him too far, but finally – after about a week – he received that invitation to join Heather and her friend at Bagnell Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks.

“He didn’t leave me alone until I’d go on a date with him,” Heather says. Once she gave in, though, it didn’t take long for him – with a little help from some cologne that made a good impression that night at the lake – to win her over.

Heather + Shawn

- from teenage dates to tying the knot -

By Erin Wisdom-Watson

“He is the calm, and I am the storm.”

Within a few days, in fact, she was on a road trip with him to Illinois, where he purchased a chipper for his tree-trimming business. And if she needed any more proof of his growing affection for her, the fact that he named this prized new piece of equipment Heather was pretty telling.

Also on that trip, they stopped for “like-Chicago” pizza (which was the closest they could get to the real thing, given that they didn’t quite make it to Chicago). It wasn’t lost on either of them that their first date the first time around – when they were 16 and 19 – had included pizza, as well. But this time, their pizza date signified not something short-lived but something that would pretty soon be serious.

In fact, it wouldn’t be long before Heather – despite her initial reluctance to give him a chance – began telling Shawn he was going to marry her. This was especially significant given that a commitment to him was also a commitment to his three children, which she didn’t take lightly.

“At first, it was scary and overwhelming. I didn’t know if it was what I wanted,” Heather says. “But then I just fell in love with them.”

Given how easily they all fit as a family, making their family status official seemed a natural next step – and proposing when their families were together seemed a perfect time. Thus, after asking her father’s permission, Shawn popped the question during a big Thanksgiving dinner in 2016.

One downside of having such a large audience, though, was that he lost his nerve a little and didn’t go through with the grand gesture of getting down on one knee – which Heather’s mom called him out on. Fortunately, though, he had the full support of her dad, who insisted no one bully his future son-in-law.

And most importantly, Shawn had Heather’s “yes” to his marriage proposal. They also soon had a wedding date – July 27, 2017 – which they later realized will be the two-year anniversary of the day they reconnecting at her apartment complex.

This coincidence alone hints at how meant-to-be they are, but even without it, they have plenty of evidence that they’re a great match.

“He is the calm, and I am the storm,” Heather notes. “He definitely mellows me out.”

She adds that he’s also the whole package: a genuinely good person and hard worker who also happens to be handsome. And on his part, he has similar things to say about her – including that what kept her on his radar for so many years were her beauty and the fact that she’s always polite, not just to select people but to everyone.

In addition, she’s stepped up to help him raise his kids – whom she now considers hers, as well – and to run his business. And as they take the step to become husband and wife, they know this partnership they’ve already formed will give them a strong foundation.

Also in married life, they look forward to adventures like their honeymoon to Mexico and, eventually, family trips to Disney World, the lake and anywhere else they find to spend time together.

Time like this is what they appreciate the most, really. Whatever form that takes, and wherever life takes them, what matters to them both is that they’ll be in it together.

“We’re just a good team,” Shawn says.

“He is the calm, and I am the storm.”