Beneath a Southern Sky by Deborah Raney

Author:Deborah Raney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Adult & contemporary romance, Religious & spiritual fiction, Fiction - Religious, Christian, Religious - General, Contemporary, General, Romance, Christian - General, Christian life & practice, General & Literary Fiction, Romance - Contemporary, Fiction, Religious
ISBN: 9780307458766
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-15T02:30:44.061000+00:00

Seventeen

Colson Hunter rose at five o’clock on Valentine’s Day to find the countryside buried in a thick blanket of snow. He dialed the Haydon’s number, where Daria was staying, while he measured coffee into the coffeemaker.

Daria answered with an uninterpretable mumble. “Hey, sleepyhead. Do you know what day this is?”

“Valentine’s Day,” she said archly, that impish grin of hers coming through the line as clearly as if she’d been in the room.

“So what do you want for Valentine’s Day?” he played along. But she turned serious. “I just want you. Oh, Cole, I just want you. I can’t wait.”

“Me neither. But, um, have you by any chance looked outside?”

“Why?” He heard her stumbling out of bed and raising the blinds at her window. He waited for her response, fully expecting her to moan in dismay. But she surprised him.

“Cole! It’s gorgeous! What a beautiful day for a wedding.”

“Yeah, if anyone can get there. The roads are pretty bad, Dar.”

“As long as you and the minister show up, I really don’t care if anyone else makes it.”

“Are you nervous?”

“No, just excited. I just want it to be tomorrow!” He laughed his pleasure at her comment. “Well, my love, you just snuggle under those warm blankets for a few more hours. I, on the other hand, have to get out in this white stuff and plow my way through to the clinic. The animals don’t really give two hoots that it’s my wedding day.”

“But Cole, can’t Travis do it?”

“I don’t mind. I’m too nervous to sleep anyway.”

“Are you? Nervous, I mean.”

“A little,” he admitted. “Now go back to sleep. The next time I see you, you’ll be just minutes away from being Mrs. Colson Hunter.”

“Mmm,” she sighed. “I like the sound of that.”

“I love you.”

“Not as much as I love you.” It was her standard response, but he never tired of hearing it.

Still smiling, he hung up the phone and poured himself a cup of coffee. He was almost afraid to think about how happy he was. Since Bridgette’s death he hadn’t dared to hope for this kind of happiness again. And now he’d been blessed not only with the most wonderful woman in the world to love and who’d loved him in return, but with a little girl who called him Daddy. He thought of God’s promise to “restore what the locust hath eaten,” and he was humbled to realize how amazingly that had been borne out in his own life.

At one time he had lost everything that was precious to him. No one, not even Daria, knew just how much he had lost. But he had decided long ago not to dwell on the past. Nothing could ever change the fact that things had happened as they had. It had all been forgiven and mostly forgotten. And now here he sat on a beautiful winter morning about to have the blessing of love restored to him. He felt unworthy. Deep gratitude welled up inside him, and he bowed his head and gave thanks—though it seemed there were no adequate words.

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