Page 27 of Wish You Faith

Say it isn’t so.

There was no way to prevent men from talking with Rosie, especially since she was the tree farm manager. Many employees and volunteers and seasonal workers came and went through Christmastown.

However, Evan wanted Rosie to prefer him over all others.

It was hard for him to fall in love first. Rosie probably had no idea that he’d lost his heart to her.

He rolled the wheelbarrow away, silently praying for God to show him what to do next. He feared losing Rosie before anything even happened between them.

She had allowed him to hold her hand back at the tree farm. She hadn’t said anything about it afterwards. Perhaps to her holding hands was nothing. After all, some Christians held hands with strangers when they prayed at some churches. Evan recalled his grandparents requiring everyone to hold hands when they prayed over their meals.

Still, holding hands might mean nothing to Rosie. However, it meant a lot to Evan. It meant acceptance and welcome.

Ah, he was probably reading too much into it.

He drew a deep breath and filed this morning and early afternoon away into a “think about this later” mental file folder.

He left the wheelbarrow in the toolshed and then returned to the garden. Rosie said he could take a break. He sat on a wrought iron bench and watched Rosie and the man with her join a group of Christmastown workers wearing red caps as they lined the stone path with candy cane lights.

Rosie was smiling and laughing. Evan didn’t think she was putting on a show as they all clapped happily when they tested the motion sensor lights and music.

Rosie looked around, spotted Evan, and motioned for him to join them.

Was his five-minute break over? He ambled over there.

“Check this out. Step forward.” Rosie pointed to the stone path.

As Evan walked on it, sensors played “Away in a Manger.”

However, when Rosie jogged past the sensors, the music that filled the afternoon air was “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.”

“Interesting.” Evan turned around. “So the music changed according to the speed of the walker. If you’re strolling, it plays one type of music. If you walk faster, the music is more upbeat.”

“Right, so the time signature is mapped to walking speeds.” Rosie seemed happy that they had done this.

“Did SSLR pay for all these?”

“Yes and no. SSLR gets a discount for letting us test new things at Christmastown. All these are free because we’re innovating,” Rosie said. “This motion-activated Christmas caroling is the invention of our resident electronic expert, Daryn Newbury, who works at the Christmastown warehouse.”

A colleague.

“He also runs the sound system at Riverside Chapel on Sunday mornings,” Rosie added.

Oh. So she knew him from church.

“Plus, he’s reviving the Christmastown Carolers, which Cyrus started informally three years ago when he took a group of people to sing Christmas carols at Amy’s apartment. Isn’t that romantic?”

Romantic?

Not a word Evan wanted to hear Rosie say in front of another man—especially one who wasn’t wearing a wedding band, like this man right here.

As Evan shook Daryn’s hand, he realized that he wasn’t a college kid. He only looked like one from afar. Maybe it was his haircut or something. Standing face to face, Daryn looked like he was in his early thirties. Perhaps this was what people meant by “boyish good looks.”

Rosie pointed to the trees and other parts of the garden. “All those lights are annual lights and SSLR paid for them.”

“And all this time, I thought you just worked in the tree farm,” Evan said to Rosie.

“While Christmastown warehouse handles indoor decorating, our tree farm actually handles everything outdoors—plus provides live plants as needed indoors.”

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