One More Kiss (11 page)

But maybe Valerie had given him more than just an apology.

If he thought about it, she may have just handed him the boldest, most daring sermon of his life.

He took a breath, and headed for the sanctuary.

Chapter Seven

B
etty was bleary-eyed from too little sleep and too much coffee in the past twenty-four hours, but that didn’t stop her from seeing if she could catch Jessie Reid before the Lutheran church service stared.

Thankfully, the girl’s 1940s up-do was as hard to miss as her sister Olive’s flaming pink pixie cut.

As she wove through the morning service crowd, trying to get to Jessie, she heard the murmurs from the congregants around her. Bits of conversation reached her ears. “Satan” and “darkness” and “not shopping there” had her skin prickling. Her face flamed. She caught Red Updike’s eye, but the old farmer glanced away quickly.
Fat lot of good praying did
was the vibe she got off him.

She willed herself to be strong, to not let her chin tilt anywhere but up. She vowed not to remember the way she’d glanced at the church bulletin this morning, and her body had gone cold with the realization that Randall had pulled any mention of supporting Knots and Bolts. Even in spite of the financial benefit it stood to give him.

The surprise of it had left a bitter taste in her mouth, one she was having trouble swallowing down. But swallow it she would. Because now there was no one left to tell the good people of White Pine that she didn’t pose any Satanic threat and shouldn’t be boycotted.

She had to fix this mess herself.

“Jessie,” she said, slightly out of breath as she caught up to the young woman. They both stopped next to a stained glass window depicting Jesus with a flock of lambs. “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

The young girl’s bright red lips parted in a smile. “Hi, Betty! Of course. If you’re here to ask if we made more blueberry fritters, the answer is yes. Sorry we ran out last week.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Betty said, clutching her phone tightly, the picture from the graveyard cued up in her image library. “I just wondered if I could talk to you about Olive.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “Did she get an order wrong for you? She messed up Arvid Faltskog’s latte on Friday and made it double-caf instead of no-caf, and the poor man e-mailed me at two thirty a.m. on Saturday morning to tell me he
still
hadn’t fallen asleep.” She laughed, deep and throaty, and Betty couldn’t help but smile, too. “I gave him a dozen free donuts to make up for it. And if you need something, too, it’s not a problem.”

“It’s not that,” Betty said, a nervous fluttering in her stomach. She wondered suddenly if she was doing the right thing, going to Jessie about the picture. It felt better than going to the police, or to the girls’ parents, whom she didn’t know. She had a feeling Jessie was the one keeping the closest eye on her sister, and she hoped her instincts were right.

“I’m in sort of a pickle with Knots and Bolts,” she said, hoping she sounded calm and reasonable, “because of all the recent damage to property around town in conjunction with Halloween. Normally it wouldn’t affect me at all, but I had that banner up for a short time—”

“The
Satan is here
one, yeah,” Jessie said, nodding. “I remember.”

“Well, that, coupled with a Halloween display I’d made, has people kind of worried that maybe I’m connected to all the graffiti and smashed pumpkins, and that they shouldn’t support my store.”

Jessie’s eyes were wide in her pretty face. “Seriously? That’s, like, the stupidest conclusion to jump to ever.”

“Tell me about it,” Betty agreed. “So that’s why I decided to see if I couldn’t catch some of the Halloween vandals. Just to prove I wasn’t part of them. If I had a name and a face that weren’t mine connected to the damage, maybe the town would cut me some slack. You know?”

“That makes total sense.” Jessie’s perfect brows drew together. “But I’m not sure what this has to do with me. Or the Rolling Pin?”

The fluttering in Betty’s stomach had become a full-on roller coaster. “I may have had some luck snapping a picture of one of the vandals last night. Does this person look familiar to you?” She handed over her phone, grateful that her hands weren’t shaking too much.

Jessie took the device and her countenance froze. Several tense moments passed. Finally, Jessie looked up through her darkly mascaraed eyelashes. “Where was this taken?”

“At the cemetery.”

Jessie’s jaw clenched visibly. “Were there any others?”

“We saw other shapes, yes, but this is the only person we got on camera. Look, Jessie, I’m not trying to make trouble. And this is only one blurry photo. But I thought maybe you could talk—”

“I’ll get her to stop,” Jessie said crisply. She suddenly looked weary. “One way or another, I’ll work on her. And I’m sorry, Betty. I am. Things are just tough.”

Betty grabbed the young woman’s hand. The organ was playing. Service was starting. “How so?” she asked, even as she knew they should find their seats. “What’s going on?”

Jessie looked off, like she could see through the stained glass window, straight into the bright fall morning. “Olive lives with me now. She was with our mom, but Mom isn’t exactly Mother of the Year material. And I mean—I got her the job at the bakery, and I thought things were okay, but I guess they’re not.”

“They’re not falling apart either, though,” Betty said gently. “This isn’t prison-level stuff. It’s mostly petty. We all did stupid things when we in high school. Frankly, I wouldn’t care at all if my store wasn’t at risk.”

Up in front of the church, Randall was taking his place at the pulpit. The organ was sputtering its last chords.

“She doesn’t always listen to me,” Jessie said, “but I promise I’ll try to get her to stop. And if I need help, can I—that is, would you and the pastor be available? To talk to us, I mean?”

Betty’s whole body surged with longing. She wanted to say yes so badly, to tell Jessie that she and the pastor—
together
—would help her through the tough time with her sister. She could picture Randall and herself, shoulder to shoulder, counseling and helping the good people in this town who needed it. She felt the yearning for it like a blade through her sternum.

But right on its heels was an image of the church program—and the empty space at the bottom where their partnership was supposed to be. If she couldn’t count on him to honor their agreement about supporting the store, how could she count on him to honor any kind of agreement about something so much bigger?

She chewed the inside of her cheek. Last night, after talking with Stephanie and Willa, she’d thought she could give Randall time he needed, that she could be persuaded to slow down and take things nice and easy, at the pace he required. At the pace his
heart
required. Now she understood that things could never be slow enough for him, because when you ran from something like Randall did, every move toward what was true and right would feel like the devil himself was on your heels.

“I’ll be here anytime you need me,” she told Jessie, squeezing the girl’s hand. It was the best she could do for now. Her words felt thin, like old paper—but she meant every one of them.

“Want to sit with me?” Jessie whispered, glancing at the front of the church. Randall had performed the welcome and was already reading the announcements.

A big part of Betty had wondered if she should just skip the service entirely. She didn’t feel like being gawked at as a Satanist, or listening to Randall preach after he’d gone back on his word about the bulletin. But she didn’t want Jessie to feel alone or to feel like Betty was angry with her.

“We’d better find our seats fast,” Betty whispered back, “before the church accuses me of disrupting the service because I worship the Dark Lord.”

They hustled over to a pew toward the back. “I hope the sermon is about guarding our hearts against
satin
,” Jessie giggled, “and the
thread
of his work.”

Betty clapped a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh. “Don’t
cotton
to evil,” she said through splayed fingers.

They finally quieted when two people in the pew in front turned to stare at them. Their dark looks had
pipe down
written all over them.

In spite of the admonishment, Betty didn’t feel her smile fade until Randall opened his Bible at the front of the sanctuary. Her muscles tightened with dread. The last person she wanted to hear preach right now was Randall.

She prayed God would give her the grace to endure it. And runner’s legs when it was over, so she could hightail it out of there.

*  *  *

Randall cleared his throat for the second time. His voice was shaking, even though it had been years since he’d been nervous in front of his flock.

Then again, it had been years since he’d felt this much about anything—anyone, to be clear—and he wanted so badly to get it right. In front of him, his gilded Bible pages gleamed in the light. He’d turned to Matthew, chapter seven, to one of his favorite scriptures about not crawling up people’s butts for things you yourself were guilty of. Not that the Bible used the phrase
crawling up people’s butts
.

It was a good message about fairness, and about not saying one thing and doing another.

Something Randall himself needed to face.

He could see Betty’s blond hair toward the back, her head bent over her Bible. His feet twitched, wanting to carry him off the stage and down to where she sat, but he commanded his body to stay put.

For now.

So he could fix the issue with the bulletin.

“Many of you know,” he said, squaring his shoulders and letting his voice carry though the sanctuary, “that our town has been beset by some Halloween pranksters lately. Many of you also know that one of our local businesses had an unfortunate typo appear on a sign above its door earlier this week.”

He saw Betty’s head shoot up in the back. Her eyes were fixed on him, straight and unblinking. He flattened his palms on the pulpit and continued.

“This, coupled with the same store’s Halloween display, raised speculation that a member of our community was suddenly—shall we say—in cahoots with the dark side.”

There were a few titters of laughter and he welcomed them.
Yes, it’s ridiculous
, he wanted to say. Instead, he smiled at the congregation. “I think it’s natural to want to read more into this than normal, since Halloween can be associated with dark imagery and even danger. But at times like this, it’s important to take a step back and remember that Jesus talked a lot about not making mountains out of molehills. He tells us in John fourteen to not let our hearts be troubled. He tells us in Matthew six not to worry. And he tells us in John seven not to judge by appearances.”

In the back of the church, Betty had gone stone still.
Stay with me
, he prayed silently,
don’t bolt
.

“Our good neighbor,” he continued, “had a string of bad luck with some appearances, but we can’t let that condemn her. Which is why I want you to know the Lutheran church is actively supporting Betty Lindholm down at Knots and Bolts, and that we fully approve of purchases there this Halloween season. There is no darkness in Betty’s heart, and she’s been an upstanding member of White Pine’s community and this very church for years. Anyone who says differently and who jumps to conclusions about Betty and Satan will have me to answer to.”

He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and pushed back the sleeves of his sport coat. “Because here’s the funny thing about appearances,” he said, his heart beating so hard he was worried the alter mic might pick it up. He held up his tattooed forearms above the lectern. There was a small gasp from the congregation. “You can’t trust them.” He turned so everyone in the church got a good look at the phoenix, the tree, and its unusual leaves.

“For so long, I kept my true self hidden. All anyone saw were the parts of me I wanted them to see. I was very careful, very proscribed about the information I put forward. That’s because I felt responsible for a dark part of my past, and I didn’t want anyone to know about it. A part that includes the tattoos you see here today.”

Taking a deep breath, he told the story about Shawn, about Gus’s intervention, and about the accident. He told it fully and truthfully without holding back. He explained his fear about feeling too much, about not wanting to be too vulnerable, because he was worried he’d destroy something he loved all over again.

“Until now,” he concluded in the quiet sanctuary. No one was moving, save for a few congregants reaching up to wipe tears from their eyes. Betty gazed back at him, her blue eyes unflinching.

“I am in love,” he said, his voice thick. He didn’t even care that it wasn’t its usual booming resonance. So be it. His palms were slick as he pressed them against the lectern. A few scattered whispers reached his ear. He ignored them, pressing on.

“Sadly, it’s taken me a bit to realize the true nature of my feelings. I’d asked for time from the person I cared about, to figure out exactly what was going on. I thought I needed to slow the relationship down because I was letting fear rule me instead of hope or even joy. But then I realized that what I needed to do was to take a bold step. To be fearless instead of fear-filled. To do the thing that will show everyone that I’m not hiding who I am anymore.”

The congregation collectively leaned in. Betty’s face was white, her mouth open.

Randall stood to his full height. He threw his shoulders back. “I’m declaring today, here and now, that I am in love with Betty Lindholm. I should have been able to say it before now, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t. But Betty, I will live the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. I’ll never run away from us again. I’ll love you until the day I die if you let me. I’ll marry you—”

He stopped. This part was unplanned. He hadn’t intended on those words, but now that they were out, he knew they were right. He smiled.

“That is, if you’ll have me, Betty, I’d be honored to marry you and be with you ’til death do us part.”