Read Online Christian Romance: Heaven on Earth... [4 Beautiful Christian Romance Stories] by Joanne Sawyer - Free Book Online Page A

find an opening to even approach them
with the menus let alone ask for their orders. “If you would like
to merge your parties, I believe we may be of service and
accommodate it. Would this be agreeable?”
    “Well, what do you say?” said Rick
jovially to the other couple. “Come on, then! Let’s celebrate
together.”
    “Oh, yes, please ,” added his wife.
“Do join us.”
    Margaret looked at her husband with
moist eyes. “Noah?”
    “Why don’t we ask our celebrants?”
Noah said. “Both of them?”
    All eyes then alternated between
Charles and Lucy. Lucy thought it would be doubly foolish to look
at Charles at that moment, but she felt his gaze on her and so she
turned too. He was smiling at her with nothing but politeness, but
with those ears he couldn’t possibly fool her. He was nervous about
this game of detachment they were playing, but he looked like he
was enjoying it too. Especially since Lucy was nearly hopeless at
it.
    “I think Lucy should
decide,” said Charles. “It is her special day.”
    “Oh, no, please,” Lucy replied at
once, blushing prettily, her eyes wide when she was not blinking at
Charles. “I’ll have other birthdays, but yours is… it’s an
achievement truly worth celebrating, Charles. It’s… I think it’s
very remarkable. O-of course, we don’t wish to intrude if you wish
to celebrate as a family, but… please know you’re more than welcome
to join us.”
    Even as she was speaking, Lucy wasn’t
sure for whose benefit her words were. Certainly not for Charles’.
He already knew what Lucy thought, already knew what she wanted.
For starters, she wanted for them to never part as strangers again.
This was another chance God Himself had given them. She was
determined not to lose it without a fight.
    After confirming with his parents that
it would really be alright, Charles agreed to join their party and
share both their celebrations. The waiters went to work at once,
expanding the space they occupied and placing more chairs and table
settings.
    When they were all seated—the Ambrose
family at the makeshift space at one end of the now very long
table, the son in between the parents—the waiters could finally
hand over the menus and wait for their orders.
    “Speaking of children who aren’t
disappointments…” Rick began as he let his extended brood order
first.
    “Rick ,” his wife said in admonition, not liking his
wording.
    “Oh, you know what I mean, darling.
Well, our Lucy doesn’t have all that—” Rick gestured at Charles, at
nothing in particular and everything at once “—under her belt,
though I’m sure come graduation time next year we’ll be pleasantly
surprised with a thing or two.”
    He winked at his daughter who smiled,
albeit nervously, and said, “Dad.”
    “But I’m a simple man,”
Rick went on. “And small things make me happy. Most fathers would
start growing bald after their daughters reach a certain age, but
I— I never had a
problem with my Lucy, not one. She’s got good grades at school,
keeps good friends—she spends most of her free time volunteering at
our church, and the rest she spends at home, just reading the hours
away—and not with trash novels or magazines either. She
reads textbooks .
She claims they’re fun . Well, and who am I to slam?” Rick said with a chuckle
before taking a sip of water, then he became serious. “I count
ourselves very fortunate that our Lucinda doesn’t ‘go out’, or
party, or drink, or do any of those ‘experiments’ children today
are so enamored of, God forgive their souls.”
    Rick made the sign of the cross and
his wife echoed him. The rest soon followed, even the people
farther away at the table who hadn’t known what it was for. Some of
the younger ones looked around, thinking their food had arrived
when the waiter hadn’t even finished taking all their orders
yet.
    “Well,” Helena said with a
wry smile. “While I’m not discounting any of that, I for one am
beginning