Love Blossoms: 7 Spring-Fresh Christian Romances

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  Peter glanced at Marin; she didn’t blink as she listened to Luke’s words. She tugged on Peter’s sleeve. He leaned closer.

  “Mommy believed, didn’t she?” Marin whispered.

  He nodded. “Yes, she did.” Tears stung the backs of his eyelids. He knew, he believed, but Marin needed to believe for herself. Maybe this was one step.

  Sadie sat on one of the benches, across from him. She wore warm gloves and a scarf, her breath making puffs in the still-chilly air.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Marin whispered again. “I didn’t want to lose Mommy.”

  “You’ll never lose her, as long as you remember her, just like Miss Jayne remembers her mom.”

  Marin nodded, then leaned on his arm.

  The rest of the service unfolded as the sun rose, its first golden rays slanting across the pond and lighting up the little garden.

  The McSweeneys shared the final song. Sean strummed an old classic called “He’s Alive.” As the couple jubilantly sang the chorus of a song about the Apostle Peter’s denial of Christ, then Peter’s reunion with the risen Lord, joy bubbled up inside Peter. Not bubbled, but rushed like a roaring river, breaking free of the ice that once hindered it. Winter had gone; spring had come.

  Lord, You do make all things new.

  He joined in the chorus, even though he didn’t really know the song.

  Marin looked up at him and giggled.

  When Luke dismissed the service, he reminded everyone of the brunch that waited for all of them back at the inn.

  “Join us, Peter and Marin,” Jayne said. “We have a ton of food.” She glanced at Sadie, who stood near Marcella.

  “We will,” Peter replied. “Marin, you go with Miss Jayne and the family. I’ll be along in a few moments.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  He turned and headed across the granite pavers in Sadie’s direction.

  *

  “That’s a beautiful song you sang at the end,” Sadie said to Marcella.

  “Thanks, it’s what my mother would call an oldie but a goodie.” Marcella smiled, then glanced across the small garden area. “Um, I think someone wants to talk to you.”

  Here came Peter, striding toward her. The rest of the group already started the short hike back to the castle.

  Sean had just finished packing his guitar into its case. “You ready, babe?”

  “Sure am.” Marcella gave Sadie a departing smile. Before she walked off, she whispered, “Barmcastle Inn is a special place. It changed my life, too.”

  The sun had crested the edge of the trees, and Sadie squinted at Peter. “Hey, good morning. Happy Easter.”

  “Same to you.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, then glanced toward the pond. “No more skating on that.”

  “No. Definitely not.” Somewhere, a bird called. “So, you didn’t wait until everyone was gone to talk to me about skating on the pond, did you?”

  Peter shook his head. “I—Sadie, I don’t want you to leave.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, not at all.”

  She pondered his words. “What’s changed, Peter, from yesterday to today? I plan to stay, at least until summer. Jessica thinks an ideal position will open up for me at her company by then. They’re restructuring in a good way.”

  This was the closest she’d ever come to seeing him squirm, at least for the first time since childhood.

  “You’re not making this easy on me.” He stepped closer, reaching for her gloved hands.

  “Making what easy on you?” He’d begged her to stay.

  “I—I love you, Sadie Barncastle. I want you in my life. You can’t go.” He touched her face, his hand lending some warmth to her cool cheek.

  “But Marin?”

  “She might not think so now, but I know she’ll grow to love you.”

  Sadie nodded. No, she hadn’t expected Marin to embrace her, literally or figuratively, right away. This was a start.

  “I…” Could she say the words aloud? He’d already risked them.

  “You what?” Now he encircled her with his arms, his breath warming her now more than his hand did.

  “I love you, too. Probably ever since way back when. I loved Peter the boy, and now I love Peter the man.”

  Then he kissed her, and her heart sang. He loves me, and I love him…

  “Tell me you won’t leave.” He pulled her closer and she leaned her head on his chest.

  “I won’t leave.”

  “And I’ll tell you this: I’m one hundred percent in favor of you and me, together.”

  “I like the sound of that, Applejacks.” With that, she kissed him back.

  The End

  About Lynette Sowell

  Lynette Sowell is the author of more than 20 titles for Barbour Publishing, Heartsong Presents, and Abingdon Press. Her work has finaled and won ACFW’s Carol Award and has appeared on the ECPA best seller list. When Lynette’s not writing, she works as editor of her city’s newspaper. Her weekly column, My Front Porch, has won awards from the South Texas Press Association and the Texas Gulf Coast Press Association. Lynette was born in Massachusetts, raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, but makes her home on the doorstep of the Texas hill country with her husband, their Texas heeler, and a duo of cats. She loves traveling, reading, cooking, watching movies, and is always up for a Texas road trip.

  *

  For more information:

  @LynetteSowell

  LynetteSowellAuthor

  www.amazon.com/author/lynettesowell

  Books by Lynette Sowell

  Lone Star Hearts

  Catch A Falling Star

  Counting on Starlight

  The Sweetheart of Starlight

  Scents of Murder

  A Suspicion of Strawberries

  The Wiles of Watermelon

  The Perils of Peaches

  Seasons in Pinecraft

  A Season of Change

  A Path Made Plain

  A Promise of Grace

  Other Titles

  Tempest’s Course (Quilts of Love Series)

  A Grand Teton Sleigh Ride

  Sundays In Fredericksburg

  WALK YOU THERE

  Savannah Sweethearts Book 5

  Jan Thompson

  She wants to save history.

  He wants to raze it all.

  Tamsyn’s Troubles…

  Tamsyn Pendegrast’s troubles can be summed up in one word: Ryan.

  Okay, three words: Ryan Ruttledge V.

  A nightmare to her historical preservation efforts, an enemy of her fledgling Tamsyn Tours travel agency and tour company, Ryan seems to have it all: funding, support, awards, and the deeds to half the properties on Rosa Pendegrast Lane in old town Savannah. Only three historic homes remain unsold. One of them is the Pendegrast family home where Tamsyn has lived since she was a baby.

  Savannah residents will not take this destruction sitting down. Tamsyn is sure of it. No way will they let Ruttledge Yamada Urquhart Commercial Properties turn her nineteenth century city block into a ghastly sprawl of glass and steel sculpture. It’s Tamsyn’s duty to Savannah history and to the memory of the Pendegrast family to educate that Ryan dude on why he should just leave the past alone.

  There. Her task is set.

  If only he weren’t so charming…

  Ryan’s Ruckus…

  Three more houses to buy, and the city block will belong to his commercial property company. Then he will reshape the area into a modernist architectural creation. One more award to win, and one more plaque to hang on the wall of his Atlanta office. Easy peasy, right?

  All he has to do is get past Tamsyn Pendegrast. That small town tour guide has a property he wants. One house. How hard can it be to get one house? If she sells her ramshackle old house, her two neighbors will follow.

  Why is she holding out? His company has offered Tamsyn three times the value of her property. That worn and weary Queen Anne style Victorian house isn’t going to last t
hrough the twenty-first century, anyway. Its foundation has been reinforced twice, and no amount of paint will restore it to its old glory. Tamsyn is simply holding on to a past that cannot be regained. She might as well give it up.

  And yet, Tamsyn’s tenacity intrigues him. It’s messing with his mind.

  And heart.

  Uh-oh.

  *

  WALK YOU THERE is Book 5 in Jan Thompson’s Savannah Sweethearts series of clean and wholesome contemporary Christian romance celebrating faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ. Four books precede WALK YOU THERE. Three more books are coming soon to complete the Savannah Sweethearts series.

  Savannah Sweethearts: JanThompson.com/savannah

  Walk You There: A Clean and Wholesome Multiethnic Contemporary Christian Romance Celebrating Faith, Hope, and Love (Savannah Sweethearts Book 5)

  Copyright © 2016 Jan Edttii Lim Thompson

  Jan’s Mailing List: JanThompson.com/newsletter

  Jan’s Books: JanThompson.com/books

  Jan’s Website: JanThompson.com

  Published by Georgia Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, persons, places, events, and things are the product of the author’s active imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Scripture quotations are from the public domain King James Version of the Holy Bible. Wherever applicable, extracts from the Authorized Version of the Bible (The King James Bible), the rights in which are vested in the British Crown, are reproduced by permission of the Crown’s Patentee, Cambridge University Press.

  First eBook Edition: January 2016

  To my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to save me from my sins and rose again from the grave to give me eternal life in heaven.

  Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

  ―I JOHN 4:10

  Chapter One

  “Tamsyn Tours. How may I help you?”

  The sweet, euphonious voice filled Ryan Ruttledge’s ears. He blinked. His talking points were at the tip of his tongue, but now they had vaporized.

  What did I say her voice was?

  “Hello?”

  “Um… Is that Tamsyn Pendegrast?” Ryan asked. Um? Was that the best he could do?

  Silence.

  “This is Ryan Ruttledge. May I speak with Tamsyn?”

  More silence.

  “Hello?” Ryan tried again.

  Click.

  Actually, it sounded more like someone had just thrown her cell phone across the room, but then again, that couldn’t possibly be the case since the Tamsyn he had interacted with via emails, phone calls, and videoconferences the previous few months seemed to have a sweet smiling nature, except when he had infuriated her.

  Which had been about once in every conversation.

  More so in the two weeks since Ruttledge Yamada Urquhart Commercial Properties had purchased half the rundown city block where Tamsyn lived in old town Savannah.

  On the phone a minute before, she had seemed to be back to her sweet self before she found out it was him on the other end of the line. He had his caller ID blocked, but the moment he had spoken, she had reacted.

  Until then, her voice had been soothing to hear.

  Euphonious—

  Uh, did I say euphonious?

  Ryan frowned. He couldn’t remember the last time he used that word to describe a woman’s voice on the phone.

  He growled. “No one hangs up on Ryan Ruttledge V.”

  Across the room, between two large display tables featuring the talents of RYUCP, his business partner and architect laughed like a hyena.

  “Not helping, Hiroki.” Ryan sank into his two-thousand-dollar task chair. He crossed his feet at the edge of the table.

  “Last I checked, plenty of women hung up on Ryan Ruttledge V,” Hiroki continued.

  “Not when I’m offering them a sweet deal.”

  “Sweet? You want to raze her precious city block down to the ground and build a glass tower. That’s not sweet to some people.”

  “It’s a great deal. It’ll revitalize that entire area,” Ryan reasoned, almost to himself, but more so as a rehearsal to present to the people of Savannah. “I want that city block.”

  “She’s in the way.”

  “She and that Save Old Savannah group of theirs. Who funds them, anyway?” Ryan crossed the plush carpet to his cappuccino machine.

  Hiroki Yamada was on it, swiping here and there on his iPad. “Mostly themselves and local residents, perhaps. No famous families listed—Wait! I spoke too soon. Here are a couple. Cavanaugh. Matheson. Old money.”

  “I’m not familiar with those names,” Ryan said. “What about her own family? What are we up against?”

  “Pendegrast? Not much information about them. We do know that Jerome Pendegrast owns two riverboats. He donated one to a church a while back.”

  “Riverside Chapel or something.” Ryan made himself a small cup of hot cappuccino. “Want a cup?”

  “Nope. Had too much today.” Hiroki grinned. “Wouldn’t Satan revel in the day that two Christians fight each other to the death over a bunch of dilapidated nineteenth century buildings.”

  Ryan bristled. “Tamsyn and I are not fighting per se. We just have a disagreement—uh, many disagreements.”

  He was lifting the cup to his lips when it came loose from his fingers. The hot liquid splashed on his hand. He yowled.

  Now there was a dark, hot mess on the camel-colored carpet in the open office.

  Hiroki was on it with gobs of paper napkins.

  “No, no.” Ryan told him to get up. “My mess, my cleanup. Go compile the lowdown on the Pendegrast family. Something I can use to get Tamsyn on my side. She’s the only one standing between me and our next architectural award.”

  “Just so you know, I’ve never been one for awards,” Hiroki said.

  “I know. You love the work. The work is its own reward, blah, blah.”

  Hiroki handed Ryan more paper napkins and walked back to his workstation in the big room. “Do you want me to call housekeeping?”

  “Later. I don’t want them in here right now while I’m plotting the demise of Tamsyn Tours.” Ryan dabbed the carpet. The patches of spilled coffee were still somewhat dark.

  He made himself a fresh cup of cappuccino.

  “How hard can it be?” Ryan asked no one. “They’re just a bunch of no-name tour guides.”

  “Tour guides with backing from the Savannah people and some well-to-do families,” Hiroki reminded him. “Old money dating all the way back to Charleston, in the days when it was known as Charles Towne.”

  “Was it?” Ryan sat down, savoring his caffeine. He had flunked American History in college, but managed to pass the third time he had taken the class. It had helped that he had an easygoing teacher in the summer.

  Hiroki nodded. “Don’t mess with old money, is all I can say. They have staying power.”

  “Money can run out.”

  “That too.”

  “Seriously, she can’t be that hard to knock down.” Ryan logged into his laptop and browsed through the Tamsyn Tours website. “She’s a small fry.”

  “Why did you say that?”

  “She answered her own phone. Control freak.”

  “How do you know she’s a control freak?” Hiroki asked. “Have you ever met her?”

  “No, but all those videoconferences—”

  “They mean nothing. You need to meet her in person.”

  “But all signs point to that. Her pretty voice, the way she sounds so pleasant on the speakerphone. All for show.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  Sweet.

  Euphonious.

/>   Noooo… I will not fall for that.

  Hiroki spun around in his task chair. “There’s only one thing to do, Ryan, old friend.”

  “What?” At this point, Ryan was out of options.

  “You have to take a vacation in Savannah.”

  “Whatever for? I can buy that city block from here.”

  “But in your ivory tower, you can’t see what the little people want.”

  “The peasants.” Ryan began to get it.

  “When you’re on the ground, you can find out what the fuss is about. You know, why she’s been hating you for the last two months or more.”

  “Might be something I said.”

  “You think?”

  Ryan brushed him off. He warmed up to the idea of a vacation on the coast of Georgia. It was April, and the weather would be nice. He could take a walk among the azaleas, get some photographs of those flowers his mother loved.

  He had been so busy lately that he hadn’t gotten back to his photography hobby. With Savannah’s collection of architecture, there should be plenty of buildings to photograph and to identify for a buyout.

  It would be a change of scenery for him from this landlocked Buckhead office.

  Ryan sighed. “I hate that woman.”

  “But you’d love to have that corner property,” Hiroki countered.

  “Yeah. You’d think by the way she’s taking this, she’s protecting her family farm.”

  “She is. That house has been in her family since the late nineteenth century. The road was renamed after her great-grandmother, remember?”

  Rosa Pendegrast Lane.

  “She’s not going to give it up,” Ryan concluded.

  “Conceding already?” Hiroki laughed. “Face her like a man, Ryan.”

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. We’ve been business partners for a long time, and you know I speak the truth.” Hiroki waved his iPad in Ryan’s face. “There’s a public meeting tonight at seven o’clock at the riverboat. Just be sure to go to the right riverboat. Not Riverside Chapel. The other one. It’s called—”