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She said yes. The entire time he was talking, from the moment she suspected the question that might be coming, she’d planned on telling him something different. Wait. Or you should ask my stepdad. Or I need to pray about it first.
Instead, she’d opened her mouth and said yes. Ignoring the small applause from the few other diners in the restaurant who’d watched the intensely personal exchange, she threw her arms around his neck and repeated that small, beautiful word.
“Yes.”
He stood and picked her up by the waist, swinging her in a circle. “Really?” He let out a full belly laugh. A glorious sound. “You mean it? You’re saying yes?”
She laughed again while tears of both bittersweet sorrow and joy mingled down her cheeks. “Yes,” she repeated. She’d say it a hundred times if she had to. The word itself felt so freeing, so powerful.
He kissed her cheek, his scruffy stubble scratching her skin. “I can do that now because we’re engaged, can’t I?”
She still hadn’t stopped laughing. Hadn’t stopped repeating that magnificent word. “Yes.”
He kissed her again, this time on the corner of her mouth.
“And that one was ok, too?”
“Yes.” A hundred times, yes.
“Well now, what about this?”
When she’d thought about kissing someone for the first time, she’d been afraid she’d have no idea what to do, but this kiss was fresh and pure and tender.
She wanted more.
But he put her down, collapsing breathless into his seat. “I’m going to love you for the rest of my life. You know that, don’t you?”
Susannah looked around her as if for the first time. A painted picture of a bullfighter hung just to the right of Scott’s shoulder. On the other side of him was a still-life vase full of flowers. So many colors. So much life.
So much joy.
He took both her hands in his, but all she could think about was that last kiss.
“It’s getting late,” he told her. “We should probably start walking back if we’re going to get to the general session on time.”
His voice sounded as if it were traveling through water. Her pulse surged through her ears. She’d never known you could hear your own heartbeat that clearly without a stethoscope.
He glanced at her half-eaten burrito. “Do you want to pack that up and save it for later?”
Food? How could he think about eating at a time like this?
What was supposed to happen next? Would they hold hands like this for the rest of the night? Would he kiss her again before they got back to campus? Would he sit through the general session with his arm wrapped around her waist?
What would Kitty think when Susannah came home engaged? What would the people at Orchard Grove say? Would they gossip about her for daring to find joy after her mother’s death? Would Derek understand, or would he regret sending her off to the conference?
And in the end, did it really matter? She had prayed for this for months. Even those times when she was trying to voice a prayer of surrender, in her heart, this is exactly what she’d been asking God for.
And he answered.
Gloriously, powerfully, miraculously, he answered.
Susannah didn’t know what would happen next. Would they have a short engagement like her mom and Derek’s? Would they be separated again for months before Scott could make it out to Orchard Grove? Would they move right into her mom’s house or look for a place of their own with room for Kitty? Would he keep on traveling with Kingdom Builders? Would she ever find the opportunity to go on mission trips with him?
She didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. All she knew was that God had peered into her heart, understood her most secret desires, the ones she didn’t even dare express, and he’d poured out more blessings on her than she have imagined.
As she and Scott walked side by side into the dusk on their way to worship God with twenty thousand other believers, Grandma Lucy’s words played through Susannah’s mind:
The Lord is faithful, and he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.
‘Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?’ says the LORD. ‘Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?’ says your God.
Joy swelled up in her heart. She was glad that the general sessions always started with a time of worship and singing or else she was certain her spirit couldn’t contain all the gratitude and praises ready to pour out of her.
You’ve seen the sacrifices she’s made, and in your good plans you will restore all that was once lost.
God had done that and infinitely more. It didn’t matter that the future was still uncertain. It didn’t matter that she had questions about how she and Scott could care for Kitty and continue serving God with Kingdom Builders.
All that mattered was God had seen her in her deepest sorrow, and in the soil of her grief had planted seeds that now sprouted and bloomed into the most beautiful, glorious harvest of joy she could have dared hope for.
She stopped walking. Looked up at Scott with a heart bursting from happiness.
“What is it?” he asked, matching her grin.
He was too tall. Even on tiptoes, she couldn’t reach him unless he bent down. “Come here.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. Pulled his face down toward her.
“I’ve always loved you,” she whispered the moment right before her lips melted into his.
And she would continue to love him for as long as they both should live.
***
THANKS SO MUCH FOR taking the time to read What Dreams May Come! I really hope you enjoyed it.
Did you hear that Susannah and Scott’s romance is based off the real-life story of how my husband and I met? It’s not every couple who manages to fall in love before they’ve even seen each other face to face.
Our love story is so unique, our friends begged me to turn it into a novel.
Which is the book you just finished!
The question readers ask the most is which parts of What Dreams May Come are based on our real story and which are fiction.
My husband really was my missionary recruiter, and we really did fall in love a full year before we met at the Urbana Missions Conference. Would you believe that the first time I saw him, he had my engagement ring in his pocket!?
Some parts of our love story, however, are quite different than what Scott and Susannah went through in What Dreams May Come. But I don’t want to get bogged down in all the details and keep you from your to-be-read list!
The next novel in the Sweet Dreams Christian romance series is one reviewers call “a beautiful love story,” “another wonderful book by Alana Terry,” and “pretty much impossible to put down.”
In What Dreams May Lie, you’ll read about Susannah’s childhood friend Ricky and the sweet (sometimes funny) lengths he goes to in his search for true love.
You’ll also find another note at the end of the novel from me where I’ll tell you the real reason my husband and I broke up before we’d even met. (I can tell you this: it has nothing to do with medical issues or family tragedy.)
So jump into another sweet, inspiring romance (and find out more about my real-life love story) when you buy What Dreams May Lie today!
Get your copy here or scroll ahead for a sneak peek!