One More Kiss Read Online Free Page B

chair and shoveling her snow during a recent storm, however, he hadn’t gotten very far.
    Until today.
    It had left him feeling like he’d been punched right in the stomach. In the best way possible, of course.
    But just underneath that was a river of caution coursing through him, reminding him not to lose control. Terrible things happened when he let his emotions get the best of him.
    “I saw that sign,” Jessie said, smiling. “I thought either it was a mistake, or Betty Lindholm had left the Lutheran church for a cult.” She giggled. “It sure seemed to get under Valerie Lofgren’s skin. She couldn’t wait to go over there and give Betty what for.”
    Randall exhaled. For some reason, things always seemed to get under Valerie Lofgren’s skin. The printing on the Sunday bulletins. The choral arrangements for Easter service. Even the art in the children’s nursery. “That 1970s picture of Jesus makes him look like a hippie, don’t you think?” she’d asked him after bursting into his office, her heels like judges’ gavels on the wood floor.
    Valerie was a good fund-raiser, though, and she had secured money for several church projects including a cluster of Habitat for Humanity homes up near Minneapolis and repairs to water wells in Central America. Her organizational skills on the board were critical.
    He just wished her approach was less hammer and more glue.
    “Betty usually gets a blueberry fritter,” Jessie said, “if you wanted me to throw one in with your sour cream cruller.”
    Randall smiled. “Thank you. And two coffees as well.”
    “I’ll put cream in Betty’s. That’s how she takes hers.”
    “I’ll make a note,” Randall replied, then instantly regretted it. He sounded like he might do this again for Betty, or that he was trying to learn her preferences. It was a good thought—a wonderful thought, even—but he didn’t trust himself to believe it could be true.
    He couldn’t let it be true, more specifically.
    The hot excitement he’d felt earlier was seeping away, replaced with cold concern.
    He liked Betty Lindholm; there was no doubt about it. He had admired her for some time now, even talking to her friend Willa at one point in the back room of Knots and Bolts about how best to pursue her. Deep down, there was a part of him that looked at her and pictured a happy future full of kids and love and hope. Outwardly, he’d resolved to declare his feelings, then lost his nerve. Over and over again—a loop of resolution and dissolution.
    Because he didn’t know what would happen if he let himself actually feel something for her. He knew from experience how recklessness could end in disaster.
    He watched the coffee steaming from the Styrofoam cups and worried that his own heart was still smoldering from its fiery past. If that were the case, he’d just have to be careful. Be cautious.
    He simply wouldn’t let himself get carried away with Betty. Nothing about this had to be…overwhelming. For heaven’s sake, it was just fixing a banner after all.
    A flash of pink caught his eye and he realized there was an unfamiliar face behind the counter, and her hair was dyed the color of flamingo wings.
    “New employee?” he asked Jessie as he paid her for the coffee and donuts.
    She smiled. “My little sister, Olive, if you can believe it. I got her a job here a few hours each week. She just graduated from high school last spring, and she’s not so sure about college. I told her if she’s going to live with me while she figures it out, then she needs to work.”
    Now that he looked closely, Olive did have the same porcelain skin and wide eyes as her sister. But where Jessie was long and tall, Olive was compact and muscular. Where Jessie looked classic, Olive was all punk rock.
    He marveled that siblings from the same house could be so different. But then, of course, there was his brother, Gus, a successful doctor at the Mayo Clinic and about as different from Randall as anyone could