Christian Romance: Heaven on Earth... [4 Beautiful Christian Romance Stories] by Joanne Sawyer Page A

to see you.”
    “Oh, this young man turned out fine,
didn’t he?” said Rick, shaking Charleston’s hand.
    “Charlie, is it?” Helena
asked.
    The young man smiled courteously.
“It’s Charles, ma’am.”
    “Ah—and is this sweet little Lucy
now?” Margaret chimed. Everyone turned to look at the older woman
and Lucy, who were sharing an embrace. Over his mother’s shoulder,
Lucy met Charles’ eyes and blushed slightly.
    “And Adrian, our son,”
said Helena, not quite pointing but graciously trailing her fingers towards
Lucy’s brother, who stood a bit nervously and nodded.
    “Ma’am. Sirs.”
    “And these are our extended family,”
Helena continued, indicating the rest of Lucy’s party consisting of
two pairs of aunts and uncles and three cousins, all younger than
her, who all gave well-mannered nods, even the youngest, a girl of
only six. “We’re here to celebrate Lucy’s birthday—she turns
twenty-one today, can you believe it? Everyone, this is the Ambrose
family.”
    “Happy birthday, my dear,” said Noah
warmly before giving his regards to the rest of the
table.
    “Oh—happy birthday, Lucy!” Margaret
rejoined, touching her palms gently to Lucy’s cheeks, “Hmm—what a
special age, twenty-one…” she mused, then she too turned her
attention to everyone else.
    As the rest of their assemblage
continued to exchange pleasantries, Charles and Lucy were forgotten
on the outskirts.
    Charles didn’t step closer or
otherwise move, but the space between them felt like it was
shrinking. It was as if an invisible cone had manifested around
them, and beyond this barrier nothing else existed.
    There was only a young man and a young
woman, gazing into one another’s eyes in fathomless
recognition.
    Charles said, “Lucy.”
    Lucy swallowed and replied, “Charles,”
her voice barely a whisper.
    He smiled and finally approached. When
he was only a foot away, he leaned down. Lucy saw what he was
meaning to do and she had had time enough to dodge it, if she’d
wished. She didn’t. She wished the exact opposite. She wished this.
Charles kissed her on the cheek.
    “Happy birthday,” he said.
    It was only a brief kiss. A chaste
kiss. Just his lips brushing against Lucy’s skin in the merest
instant, but for its effect, he might as well kissed her on the
mouth.
    Lucy’s heart began pumping so wildly
she could hear its pounding echoing all throughout her ribcage.
Blood heated up her face, her chest. It heated up her everything.
She thanked the Lord that most of her body was turned and hidden
away from her family’s view. She could only guess what anyone might
read in her carriage alone.
    The kiss itself was brief, but Charles
didn’t immediately draw his face away. He leaned several
centimeters further to whisper in Lucy’s ear, “If it had been my
birthday and I saw you, I’d think it was God’s Own gift to
me.”
    This was the first real exchange they
were having, and it was as if they were both making up for all
those times they might have spoken to each other but didn’t—Lucy
too went straight to the heart of all that needed to be
said.
    “It is my birthday. And it is God’s gift. To both
of us.”
    Charles stepped back and established
proper distance again, but he didn’t take his eyes off Lucy’s
flushed face. He roamed his gaze around it, drinking her in.
Drinking all of her in.
    Lucy did the same. As God was her
witness, she could do nothing less...

Relaxed Nonchalance...

    The very young and very innocent
Lucinda Bright met Charleston Ambrose back when they were sixteen
and seventeen respectively, at a camp in Iowa where both their
families went to for a summer camping trip.
    It had been instant
attraction between them. Their gazes landed on each other across a
whole stretch of clearing, and a link was forged that proved itself
to be nigh unbreakable. Lucy had had some crushes before that—and
perhaps it had only been the novelty of the place or the mystique
of the idea—but