Page 74 of Wish You Faith

“Yes, please.” Mom handed Rosie her mug.

Rosie was in the open kitchen pouring coffee and thinking to herself. She was happy to see Evan, but she was surprised—maybe a bit shocked—that he picked her up, that she had probably reacted poorly. What would be a romantic reaction? She had no idea.

She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t realize Evan was standing on the other side of the island counter, staring at her.

“You look lovely without any makeup,” he said. “You really do.”

“Thank you. Mom is even lovelier.” Rosie pointed to Mom in the living room.

Mom pointed her index finger in the air. “All credit goes to our creator God.”

Rosie and Evan both nodded.

He came around the island. “Let me carry the coffee mugs for you.”

“Thank you. The red mug is Mom’s.” How sweet of him to help. “Do you want some water?”

“Water would be fine.”

Rosie poured some filtered water into a tall glass. She followed Evan to the living room. He put the red mug in front of Mom. “Where are you sitting, Rosie?”

“She’ll be on the sofa with you.” Mom took her coffee mug and returned to her armchair by the sliding glass door.

“So you flew all night?” Rosie sat at the end of the sofa, cross-legged and facing Mom and the sliding glass door. She put her Bible on her lap. Evan sat at the other end of the sofa and looked at her.

“Well, I had to work yesterday morning, so I couldn’t fly until the afternoon. But I wasn’t able to find a flight that would take me from Seattle to Savannah in the time frame I wanted. Some of the flights would begin yesterday and arrive later today. That wouldn’t work either because I know you have coffee at seven o’clock and I wanted to be here.” Evan sipped some water. “So I ended up flying from Seattle to Atlanta, and then I drove here.”

His dedication impressed Rosie. “You drove all night from Atlanta?”

Evan nodded. “I had to get a rental car, so I didn’t get out of the airport until way after midnight. It only took five hours to get here. I had breakfast at Waffle House before I came here.”

“Did you get any sleep?” Rosie felt sorry for him.

“I will when I get to my hotel.”

“Hotel?” Mom asked. “There are three bedrooms in this condo. You can take the empty guest room.”

“Well…” Evan looked like he wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I’ve already booked my hotel room and there’s a cancellation fee.”

“Then nap here after we finish reading the Bible and opening the presents,” Mom said.

Evan nodded.

Rosie thought he looked a bit tired, but only because he had said he’d driven all night. Otherwise, she might think he was tired because he worked so hard the last couple of weeks. Or his tired eyes might be due to both.

“We’ve just started reading Luke 2, so we can start over so Evan doesn’t miss anything,” Mom said to no one in particular.

“The way it works is that we take turns reading, one person per verse,” Rosie explained to Evan.

“Sounds good. I’ll just use my Bible app,” Evan replied. “My study Bible is in my duffel bag in the car.”

“Or you can share my Bible if you want,” Rosie said. “We have plenty of Bibles in the old house, but when we moved here, we only brought our own study Bibles.”

Rosie had already told Evan a few days ago that they were going to slowly clean out the old house after the first of the year and put some stuff in storage. The rest, they’d send to the thrift shop. Then they’d repaint the house and update the kitchen, and rent it out. Rosie had no plan to sell it.

As Evan scooted over to her, Rosie uncrossed her legs. Evan put his arm over Rosie’s shoulder. He seemed to be comfortable showing affection to her in front of Mom.

“Who wants to read first?” Mom asked.

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