by Kim Amos
“So then the Camaro gets this shimmy, and I bring it back to the shop, and I’m going to work on it, when Shawn says he’s going to take the car for a spin. And I should have told him. I should have said, ‘No, man, there’s a weird shimmy and I need to work on it first.’ But five beers in, I handed him the keys and thought, ‘If you’re so much better than me at everything, you figure out what’s wrong.’
“Only he never came back. The shimmy was a broken strut, which isn’t a big deal by itself. But we were on these crazy back roads. And Shawn, he hit a huge bump on a curve, and he lost control of the car. It flipped and hit a tree. And then he was gone. And I—I killed him. I killed my own brother and now…” He trailed off, pain tightening his chest.
“Now what?” Betty asked, a small tremor in her voice.
“Now,” he said, staring deeply into her blue eyes, “I have vowed to live enough of a life for Shawn and me both. I have begged for Gus’s forgiveness and in the process I promised to let my guilt make me good. I have promised that I’ll never go back to that untamed place again. I’ve promised that my heart will never be wild again. I am frightened of losing control. Of what that can do.”
Betty stilled when he was done with the story. She didn’t move. Their faces were nearly touching, his body was rock hard, tense, and unmoving. He expected her eyes to widen with shock or even horror at what he’d just told her. Deep down, part of him wanted her to untangle her arms from his neck and tell him it was too sad a tale and that she had no need for it. To let him walk to the door and let that be the end of it.
The other part of him wanted Betty to do exactly what she did. Which was look at him with steely determination and redouble her grip. “You didn’t kill him, Randall. You didn’t.”
He shook his head. “I did. After it happened, I went to seminary and became a pastor, to let a higher power take control of my life, but I haven’t let myself feel anything like I did back then. That wild passion. I haven’t known it for a long time. I haven’t wanted to know it. Until…”
He clutched the back of her neck. He tilted her head so they were perfectly aligned, should their lips meet.
“Until now?” Betty asked.
Their breath mingled. Her whole body trembled.
“Until now,” he answered in a whisper.
“Is it so bad?” Betty asked. “This passion? This feeling?”
“No,” he replied, pressing against her so she could feel the hard length of him. She inhaled sharply. “That’s the problem. It’s glorious. And I don’t trust it. I don’t trust myself with it.”
“Even now? All these years later?”
“Even now. Shawn is still dead. And I can’t trust that my behavior won’t lead to destruction all over again.”
“You won’t harm me,” Betty said. She strained under his hand. He could feel desire coiling in her body, same as it was in his.
“I might,” he said, even as his desire heated a few more degrees. It was a wonder the two of them didn’t melt together.
“I’m strong enough to take a chance,” Betty said. Her lips were wet. He wanted to taste them so badly his jaw clenched. “Test me, and let’s find out.”
She lifted her hips against his. “Betty, I don’t—”
“Kiss me.”
His body ached for her. He almost relented. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a pastor. I can’t just…make out with you.”
Her mouth curled into a slow smile. He loved watching the motion. “You’re a pastor, but we’re also two consenting adults. You should kiss me.”
“What if I can’t stop?”
“That’s a question I’m not afraid of. Kiss me.”
His muscles twinged with pain. His body strained. He wasn’t going to make her say it another time.
He brought his lips to hers, hard and determined, in an explosion of feeling. Bright white light blazed behind his closed eyelids as he tasted the woman he’d desired for so long.
Her mouth was hot and alive. She moaned and twined against him. He felt the fullness of her breasts against his chest. He palmed his way from her waist, up her ribs, grazing her sides. She raked her fingers through his hair, pulling hard enough to cause pain. He didn’t mind. In fact, he welcomed it.
“Randall,” she breathed, and his name on her lips sent molten lust coursing through his bloodstream. He kneed apart her legs and hiked up her skirt. The tights were black and thick. He reached for them, wanting to tear away every inch of clothing that stood between them. He grabbed the fabric and wrenched it from her skin, the rip like a sound of victory.
She gasped as his fingers found the flesh of her inner thigh, creamy and white and suddenly exposed. Her body shuddered.
“Touch me,” she said, her back arching slightly.
He inched his fingertips higher, and her body quaked. She clutched his shoulders, her fingers digging into his skin, even through his sport coat.
“I want you,” he said, even as he knew he should profess something besides raw desire. Commitment probably. They should start with that. They should take it slow. He should conduct himself with more integrity.
Nevertheless, his fingertips strained toward her center. She moaned again.
“Tell me how it feels,” he said, sliding the fabric of underwear aside, and touching her. She was soft and wet and he almost lost himself right there. His blood was pumping in a way he hadn’t known for years.
She answered him with a kiss instead of words, driving the motion of it, letting her tongue lead his in strokes and swirls. It seemed impossible that he could want this woman any more than he had previously. But his body was somehow engulfed even more, his brain was filled with her scent, the small noises she made deep in her throat, the solidness of her fingers grabbing at him.
He pushed past her folds, inserting a finger. She threw back her head and gasped. He kissed the exposed arc of her neck, losing himself in the feel of her skin.
“More,” she demanded, and he inserted another finger.
She smiled then—her hair tousled, her eyes bright with want—and an ache spread through his chest. She was beautiful and strong and perfect. He could not hurt this woman. He would not.
His determination to do right by her had doubt suddenly crawling along his spine. Perhaps they should take things more slowly. Perhaps he should take her out to dinner. Maybe go see a movie. But then his eyes landed on her breasts, her nipples straining under the fabric, and his desire erupted anew. His pulse raced.
He wanted Betty Lindholm. And he wanted her now. It was exactly the kind of jarring, overwhelming desire he hadn’t felt in years. It left him tasting fear. And a bone-deep thrill.
He was nearly ready to have her right there on the floor of the shop, when the bell tinkled over the front door. Betty’s eyes widened, and she pulled away from him. He felt the absence keenly, his fingers finding only cold air where her warm skin had been.
“Yoo-hoo! Betty!”
Randall straightened at the voice.
“Shit,” Betty muttered, her face suddenly pale. She tugged on her skirt and tried to fix her stockings. “Shit, shit.”
The next thing he knew, Valerie Lofgren was standing in front of them wearing a plum-colored suit and her customary string of pearls. It only took a moment for the wide smile to fade from her lips as she took in his rumpled hair, Betty’s destroyed tights, and their flushed skin.
“Hello, Valerie,” he said, trying to keep his voice controlled and calm.
Valerie blinked. “I—I just came for my—that is, my markers? Are they in?”
Her eyes flitted briefly to his crotch, where his erection still raged. Her skin flamed crimson.
“Of course,” Betty said, forcing a smile. “Let me just grab them.” Looking like she was scraping together every shred of dignity she had, she went behind the cash register and fumbled for the right box. “They came in just this morning,” she said, her voice tight. “Raspberry scen
ted, like you wanted.”
Betty held the package of markers out to Valerie. “Here you go. I hope you enjoy writ—”
Valerie snatched the box out of Betty’s hands. Her face went from crimson to pale as she fumbled in her purse for cash. She all but threw the money down on the counter.
“Let me get you your change,” Betty said.
“Keep it. I think I’ve taken up far too much of your time today. You’re clearly very busy people.”
Valerie gave Betty a quick once-over that reeked of condescension. Then, turning on her heel, she made for the door, her nose as high in the air as it could possibly go.
Her exit was water on the flame that had been burning between Randall and Betty. He could practically see their passion flickering and faltering, hissing as it faded to cold smoke.
Frustration and embarrassment raged until he realized that maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. Valerie’s interruption gave him a chance to take a breath and think for a second. He willed his heart to stop pounding and his muscles to relax. Easy does it, he told himself.
“So that was awkward,” Betty said, shaking her head. She walked back over to him, and there was a glimmer of laughter in her eyes. He could match it and crack them up all over again, just like with the banner, but he dared not. He needed to feel less right now—not more. He needed time to think about all this.
“I think the word one might use is mortifying,” he replied evenly.
“Screw it,” Betty said, “you want to lock the door and keep making out?” She tilted her head, grinning, and his chest ached with her simple beauty.
His reply wouldn’t come, though. When he didn’t answer after a few moments, she folded her arms across her chest. The playful spark in her eye was extinguished. In its place was doubt. “That look on your face is telling me you want to forget this ever happened at all.”
“No, no,” he said, hating how well she could read him. “It’s not that.” But how to explain that he didn’t want to rush into something that they might regret later? They just had to take it slowly is all. They had to bide their time and not get carried away. They had to be thoughtful. They had to be respectable.
Even though he wanted to throw respectable out the window and pull her to him and kiss her senseless all over again.
He couldn’t, though. Shouldn’t, really. Not when driving headlong down this path might mean feeling that same recklessness he couldn’t control.
“I enjoy your company very much, Betty,” he said, “but I wonder if we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.”
“Seriously?” Betty asked. The mixture of anger and hurt on her face had dread weighting his stomach. “Are you really going to push away something good and right between us because you made a mistake all those years ago?”
“I’m not pushing it away.”
“Well, you’re not about to stick around either. You keep looking at the door like Jesus himself is on the other side. You want to run toward it or just walk quickly?”
He sighed with frustration. He was messing up this moment with Betty and he wanted to get them back on track. Except suddenly they seemed to be going in different directions.
“This is new ground for me. Please, try to understand.”
She lifted her chin. “I am trying. But as far as I can tell, you’re still punishing yourself for something that was never your fault in the first place, and that doesn’t make a lick of sense. Either that or you’re embarrassed because Valerie Lofgren is on your church board and she just caught you making out with me.”
“No,” he insisted, “I’m not embarrassed. But Valerie’s interruption could be a good thing. It’s an opportunity to take a breath and get our wits about us. Here I was, tearing off your clothes and—I’m just saying, let me buy you dinner. Let’s go to a movie. Can we back up a bit here?”
Betty stared at him for a long moment. Under her unflinching gaze, he felt as though all his layers were being peeled back until everything was exposed.
“I’m not interested in dinner,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t want to go to a movie.”
“What do you want, then?”
“I want your heart, Randall. And if you can’t give me all of it because of what happened with your brother—well, then don’t give me any of it.”
His gut twisted. The room heated all over again. He wanted so much to pull her into his arms and tell her he would give her his heart—and his mind and his body and his soul and his very being. He just needed more time. He needed to do it in degrees, not all at once.
“Do you need all of it now? Right this very moment?” he asked.
“I know what I feel,” Betty said, her sky blue eyes as clear as ever, “and I know what I want. If you don’t feel the same, that’s fine. But I won’t be jerked around. You won’t rip my stockings off one minute, then act hangdog the next. Want me or don’t—that’s your call. But don’t give me lukewarm. I can’t stand tepid.”
She turned and, in her torn tights and with her disheveled hair, walked calmly to the other side of the counter, where the register was. She placed both hands on the glossy wood. She looked steely and strong—but he could see her fingers trembling.
He should go to her. He should kiss her deeply and throw caution to the wind and trust that this thing between them was good and right and wasn’t like his battered past at all.
Instead, he gave her a nod and headed for the door. On the other side of the glass, the day had clouded over. He could already see gray gathering in the distance, a pending rain that would strip leaves from the trees and leave the ground damp and smelling like rot.
He pushed the door open, feeling Betty’s eyes on his back. But she wouldn’t call out to him. That much he knew.
He faced the Lutheran church a few blocks away on Main Street. The rain began as he headed toward it.
My God, he thought to himself as he jogged to beat the deluge, what have I just done?
Chapter Five
Betty ripped off her tights and hurled her skirt into the farthest corner of the store’s back room. She stomped to the bathroom and ran the tap as hot as she could stand it, then scrubbed her face until all her makeup was swirling down the drain.
When she’d toweled off, she looked at herself in the mirror—skin pink and raw and shining—and vowed never again to conduct a test about anything with any man ever. Because if you had to go to those lengths to find out how someone felt, then it was probably best to stay away.
She turned from her reflection, disgusted. She was such a fool. She’d let Randall Sondheim kiss her and touch her and she’d been on the brink of surrendering more—surrendering totally, if she was honest—only to discover what a wolf in sheep’s clothing he was.
All that talk about not wanting to feel too much and not trusting his heart, about wanting to slow down when they were just getting started. The hard lights of the bathroom put everything in sharp relief. The dark circles under her tired eyes, the lines around her eyes that got deeper with every year.
In reality, Randall’s words were probably just an excuse. He probably didn’t want to slow down.
He simply didn’t want her at all.
She shook her head, leaving the bathroom in search of the jeans she’d stashed in a back cupboard.
As she slammed around, looking for the denim, she marveled at how easily she’d bought his whole sob story about his brother and the accident and not wanting to hurt anyone else. She’d swallowed the tale whole, never suspecting that he was telling it specifically so he’d have an excuse if he wanted to walk away.
Because surely that was the only reason he had blabbed it at all.
Wasn’t it?
She had never known the pastor to lie, but then again she’d never known him to rip the tights off a woman in the middle of a store in broad daylight either.
She replayed the scene in her head over and over, cringing at the part where she told him she wanted his heart. Instead, she should have been ic
e cold. She should have pretended it didn’t matter. She should have been calm and cool and aloof.
But that wasn’t her style. And damned if she was going to wait around while Randall Sondheim took her to dinner and figured out whether he liked her. She knew the answer. Or at least she thought she had. It was the same answer sounding in her own brain over and over: Yes, yes, yes.
Except clearly she’d been wrong about everything.
She grimaced as she remembered all the other times she’d been wrong, too. Men who said they admired her, who claimed to enjoy spending time with her, only to do the same thing—bail as fast as they could—the minute things started to tip too far into the romantic. They’d all found excuses to be too busy to take her calls, to buy her coffee instead of a drink, to fumble for something in their pocket when she went to hold their hand.
Betty sighed and put her fingers unconsciously to her lips, expecting to feel her teeth jutting. She was tired of the pattern. She was exhausted by being someone’s friend all the time. Her heart ached from it. If a man liked her, he needed to like her. Not pussyfoot around everything, for crying out loud.
But deep down, a cold lump of doubt sat lodged inside her, wondering if Randall was different. If maybe he really did need time, and if maybe she should give it to him. She had never known him not to be honorable. She had never known him to lie.
She pulled on her denim, her mind racing. There was another side of all this to consider as well: her store.
Would he still support her store after this? Would their arrangement with the bulletin and the PR still stand?
She buttoned her jeans and ran her fingers through her hair, mussing it up. Her old work boots were nearby and she pulled them on, savoring the soft, familiar insides.
Her clothes were well worn and comfortable. Her life was well worn and comfortable. She didn’t need Randall Sondheim to make it better.
She told herself she didn’t need him at all.
Because when Pastor Randall Sondheim was ready to settle down, it would likely be with someone like Valerie Lofgren. Lutheran pastors didn’t get joined up with loudmouthed, independent businesswomen. Not for more than a quick fling anyway.