Page 30 of Wish You Faith

As a manager at work, she had to deal with company business. Its goals belonged to Cyrus and Amy Theroux, not to Rosie Hamilton per se.

Evan wanted to give Rosie an opportunity to think of herself. To care for herself. How could he do that?

“Let’s leave the future in God’s hands,” the lady sitting on the other side of Evan said. He didn’t recognize her.

“Oh, Evan, meet Dr. Priyanka Jacobs,” Rosie said. “She’s the resident medical director at SSLR. She’s a trained physician herself, but here she is overseeing the physicians on call. She’s married to Hunter Jacobs and they’re expecting their first child.”

“Congratulations.” Evan fist-bumped Priyanka. “When’s your baby due?”

“In six months.” Priyanka beamed.

“Priyanka prayed with Mom and me and helped us a lot because her own mother also passed away from Stage 4 cancer.” Rosie’s voice was quiet.

“It’s a miracle that your mom survived it,” Priyanka said to Rosie.

Rosie nodded. “I thank God every day for it.”

They chatted for just a few more minutes when Lorenzo and his wife had to leave. So did Priyanka.

“Roger is still in his office,” Priyanka said. “I’ll go make sure he doesn’t work too much. Cousins have to look out for one another.”

“He’s a workaholic. Is his wife coming tonight?” Rosie asked.

“Yes, Cheyenne is meeting us at the garden. We’ll see you there. We want s’mores!” Priyanka left.

The round table seemed to seat six people, but there were only five chairs.

“I wanted to save you a seat.” Rosie put her fork down. There was cheesecake left on the small dessert plate. “But someone asked for our chair. We said okay since I didn’t think we’d see you at dinner tonight.”

“I added time for traffic and figured that by the time I got back here, I’d meet you all in the garden.” Evan eyed her cheesecake. “But turned out I was early.”

“Barely. They still have desserts over there.” Rosie pointed in the general direction of the buffet line.

“No, I’m fine. I don’t really eat many desserts anyway. If I do, I’d go for a fruit or something light.”

“Like what?”

“Apples and pears.”

“No wonder you’re in good shape. I need to lose some weight.” Rosie drank some water from a glass.

“I love you just the way you are.” The words came out like that, but they were the truth. As far as Evan was concerned, Rosie looked like she was at the right weight for her height.

When Rosie didn’t reply, Evan reviewed what he’d said, and realized that he had used the word “love” for the first time in a very long time.

He had dated in college, and so had Rosie. It seemed to him that they had both been waiting for each other. In God’s providential timing, they had met.

As far as Evan was concerned, Rosie was the only one for him for the rest of his life.

So confident was he about her that he was prepared to sacrifice whatever he had to in order to stake his claim on her.

He was sure that God had given her to him for a bride.

How to tell her?

Did she feel the same way too? He didn’t want to rush her, but he also didn’t want to lose her. What if Travis appeared again, this time changing Rosie’s mind about him?

Evan had looked up more information about Travis. The man was an upstanding citizen, did a lot of charity work with kids, and owned the highly successful Talon Gym. In terms of his ability to support Rosie, Travis was up to the task.

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