Page 38 of Wish You Faith (Christmas Sweethearts #1)

“If you need me to pinch you or slap you, feel free to ask.” Rosie chuckled.

He laughed, knowing that she was joking.

“How about this?” Rosie lifted her chin toward his and gently kissed his lips.

Evan took it as an invitation to kiss her back, deepening his kiss.

When they both came up for air, Rosie cupped his face. “Now you know I’m really here.”

Evan enveloped Rosie in his arms. “I also can’t believe you get along with Mom.”

“You asked me this morning about her. I’ll tell you over lunch.” She led him forward. “Pick a place before it gets crowded and we can’t find seats.”

And over seafood lunch as they watched distant ferries on Elliot Bay, Rosie told Evan how it all went down. How Mei showed up uninvited at Founders Row, and how the two moms hit it off over mahjong.

“I’m not surprised that she showed up just like that.” Evan drank some mineral water. “She might not be so brave if Vanda is not with her.”

“Her assistant.”

“She’s also a trained bodyguard,” Evan added.

“That so? I had no idea. She looked like an ordinary assistant.”

“That’s the point. Vanda blends in.”

“I guess safety is always first,” Rosie said.

“That too, but Mom needs a bodyguard because she has enemies.”

“I guess the business world can be vicious.”

“Mom is vicious. She steps on everyone’s toes. She yells at everyone. She fires people on the fly. If you haven’t quit, and you survived, she gives out five-digit bonuses at the end of the year.”

“Oh. She didn’t show that side of her when we met yesterday.” Rosie looked surprised. “In fact, your mom and my mom are now Mahjong Mamas.”

“Yeah?” Evan chuckled. “I guess you broke her hard shell.”

“God softened her heart, you mean?”

“Right.” Still, Evan wondered how long until Mom’s nice behavior would crack. After the honeymoon phase, would Mom show her true colors? Or had she really morphed from mean to munificent?

Time would tell.

“God can soften Mom’s heart, and He can also change her heart,” Evan said. “Right now, Mom’s holding out, not letting me open a Cavanaugh Shipping branch in Savannah. I get it, though. A new company means new expenses. She keeps a tight control over our company finances.”

“Why not take over an existing company already operating at the Port of Savannah or in Georgia?” Rosie slowly enjoyed her crab cakes.

“That was one of the things I said to my parents when I first brought up the expansion proposal. Mom said no.”

“Because?”

“Because the suggestion came from me. Mom always has to be on the opposite side of me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Rosie asked.

That sounded like the first volley of a potential argument—their first quarrel, if it came to that. Was Rosie on Mom’s side? Evan wasn’t sure. He tried not to be sensitive about it, but he did not want Rosie to side with Mom at all. Not in anything. Not ever.

“What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

“Maybe she’s like an insurance company whose default answer is always no? No matter what you ask her, she will always say no.”

“Interesting take.”

“How about finding another approach or angle, and ask again?” Rosie suggested.

“Like what angle?”

“Let’s pray and ask God,” Rosie said.

“Now? We already said grace before we ate.”

“Does the Bible say we can only pray once at a meal?”

Evan put his fork down on the plate. He closed his eyes. “You go ahead.”

He waited.

Slowly, Rosie began to pray. “Father God, thank You again for bringing Mei, Mom, and me safely to Seattle without any flight problems. It’s a beautiful Friday to see Evan again and have lunch with him.

Thank You for the unexpected surprises, including the one coming up on Sunday when we take Mei to church with us. ”

“Thank You, Lord,” Evan whispered.

“Lord, You know Mei’s heart and why she is who she is. You know all about her. She is fearfully and wonderfully made, as Your Word says in Psalm 139:14. You are her creator, whether she acknowledges it or not. You have given her a will to choose and make decisions.”

Evan wasn’t sure where Rosie was going with it, so he waited.

“I pray that You will guide Mei to make the right decision regarding Cavanaugh Shipping. If it’s Your perfect will for Evan to work for this company from Savannah, then I pray that You will work out every detail and move Mei’s heart to match Your plan.

If it’s not Your will for Evan to work at this company, then I pray that You will provide a new job for Evan that he will just love and enjoy getting up every weekday to go to. ”

Evan smiled. It was how he would have prayed.

“Either way, we know that You want Evan and me to be together. Others might be able to live in separate cities while married, but for us two, we want to live in the same house all year round and maybe even carpool to work. I leave it in Your hands, Lord. In Your holy name, I pray. Amen.”

“Amen!” Evan opened his eyes.

After they finished their lunch, Evan shook his head. “I’m surprised you get along with Mom.”

“For now.” Rosie tapped her lips with a paper napkin. “She had a kind heart but a hard shell.”

“How so?” Maybe he wasn’t objective enough, being shrouded in the fog of war with his parents. He had already forgiven Mom on Christmas night, but he still had to deal with matters of emotion.

“She is sweet to my mom, especially after finding out she survived Stage 4 cancer,” Rosie said. “She flew us out here for free and invited us to stay at her house. She even offered to pay for our return tickets, but I turned her down.”

“She thinks she can throw money around.”

“She wants to be liked and loved, you might say.”

Evan nodded.

“But I see it differently. She does all the above not because of Mom or me, but because of our association with you. It’s you she’s doing all these acts of kindness for.”

“Me?”

Rosie nodded. “She can’t do it for you directly because you won’t accept it, so she does it for the people around you. See how much she helps your older brother? She knows that he will be there for you.”

“Are you defending her now?”

“I’m neutral, Evan. That means I can see both sides of the argument.”

Evan sat back in his chair. “Perhaps for such a time as this, God has sent you to be our peacemaker.”

“Your mom and I had a good chat on the flight here,” Rosie disclosed. “She loves you but doesn’t know how to show it.”

“Her standards are too high. I fail it every time.”’

“Is her method of love smothering you?” Rosie asked.

She seemed genuinely interested in his opinion about Mom.

“Sometimes I wonder if I was adopted.”

Rosie grinned. “You know how many times I wondered if my dad wasn’t really mine? Every single time he put me in time out and grounded me and prevented me from dating that soccer star in high school.”

“God was saving you for me.” Evan felt slightly alarmed that Rosie had mentioned a sportsman.

He felt that he was competing with a ghost from the past. Then again, which soccer player in high school didn’t look athletic?

When time fast-forwarded ten or twenty years, people would change as they aged.

“Oh, now you’re siding with my dad?” Rosie laughed.

The server came to refill their drinks, and they ordered desserts.

“I really shouldn’t, but the photographer did such a great job taking a photo of the strawberry shortcake that I have to try it.”

“Shift the blame, why don’t you?” Evan smiled.

“Glad we could share so I can spread the weight to you. Am I generous or what?” Rosie laughed just as her phone pinged. She checked her text message and then replied just as the server arrived with their one giant piece of strawberry shortcake covered with strawberries and cream, and two forks.

“Your mom texted me,” Rosie said. “She and my mom are going shopping for new clothes to wear to church on Sunday.”

“Wow. I think she’s getting serious about going to church.”

“She’s doing it for you, but I pray that as we keep pointing her to Jesus, He will draw your mom to Himself.”

Evan nodded. “Thank you.”

Rosie pointed a finger upward. “Thank God.”

“Yes, thank God.” Evan was glad that Rosie always reminded him about God. Sometimes he’d credit people for things, but it was good to be reminded that God was the one who caused all things to work out for their good, as it was written in Romans 8:28.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Then it would follow that God was also working in his family’s life, for the sake of the two saved people in it: Evan and Connor.

Now God was sorting it out for Rosie also.

Evan hadn’t known how to bring Rosie into his family without incurring Mom’s wrath, since he’d gotten engaged to her without Mom’s knowledge.

Somehow Mom had found out.

“I wanted to introduce you to Mom later when I thought she’d be ready,” Evan said. “She jumped the gun and went to see you without my knowledge.”

“She probably knows all that you’ve done for my mom and me.”

“For you primarily.”

Rosie looked visibly moved. “Thank you.”

“All is well. Don’t worry.”

“On the flight here, your mom told me that she doesn’t think our separate lives in two cities are good for our relationship.”

“She said that?” It meant that Mom cared about Evan’s well-being. In a way, she had always cared. She just never showed it the way Evan wanted her to.

He felt like a hypocrite. He didn’t want Mom to tell him what to do, but here he was wanting Mom to do things the way he wanted.

“That was all she said to me.” Rosie speared a piece of strawberry with her fork. “I suppose she didn’t say much, knowing that whatever she told me might get back to you.”

“I would expect you to tell me.” Evan cut another piece of pound cake from the shared plate.

“For sure. No worries, Evan. God already knows what’s going on. Let’s leave it in His hands.” Rosie smacked her lips. “That pound cake is sweet.”

“Too sweet for me as well, but look at me eating it.”

They polished off the plate.

Evan put down his fork and reached across the table to hold Rosie’s hand. “We can’t break up.”

“Is that in the picture?” Rosie’s eyes widened.

“Mom complained about us being bicoastal.”

“It’s true, but it doesn’t mean we have to break up. We just need to wait and see how God solves this problem.”

Evan gently squeezed Rosie’s hand. “Then we can give all glory to Him.”

“Precisely.”

“Our God gives good things. Whatever He gives is good. Do you remember Jeremiah 29:11?” Rosie pulled her hand away so that she could retrieve her phone from her purse.

“I know the verse.” He recited it as Rosie swiped her phone to find her Bible app.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

“Yes, the major keywords in this verse are peace, future, and hope. That’s what God wants for us. There will be peace. There will be a future. There will be hope.”

“Amen.”

“The next two verses are our action plan.” Rosie read Jeremiah 29:12-13 aloud.

Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

“If we call upon Him and pray to Him, He will listen to our prayers,” Evan said. “If we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him.”

“In the presence of God are all the answers to our problems.” Rosie put away her phone.

“And just like that we had an impromptu Bible study.” Evan smiled. “I want more of these for the rest of our lives.”

“Bible study every day is fine with me.” The afternoon sun shone into the dining room, and put sparkles in Rosie’s light eyes.

Evan reached across the table again. This time they interlocked fingers.

He drew a deep breath. “Let’s get married ASAP.”