Read Online The Perfect Blend by Allie Pleiter - Free Book Online Page A

the toad in my pond any day.”
    As quickly as family courtesy will allow, I gather up my stuff and head for the door. As she’s letting me out, Cathy drops the all-too-intuitive-big-sister bomb. “Mags,” she says, catching my elbow.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œDon’t pretend you hate it so much. It’s nice having someone watch over you.”
    I gape at her for a stunned moment, mumble goodbye and take her front stairs at a run.
    I hate big families. Too many people who are way too familiar with you.
    Â 
    Later that night, Diane stares at me over a large purple sweatshirt. “You really told him off like that? Was that a smart idea? Given who he is and all?”
    I tie a pair of knee socks together in a vigorousknot. “I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly, I was so…I don’t know, agitated…that it just sort of jumped out of me. I hate it when people coddle me. He was just the last straw of coddling in a very suffocating week. I apologized…twice…but I don’t know.”
    â€œWell, mouthing off at your loan officer sounds like good business practice to me. And really, I just hate it when a man gets honorable and defends you. The nerve. ”
    I launch into a full five seconds of “You got it sister,” before I realize she is being totally sarcastic. I stare her down. “Fine, Diane, you go after him. People get hurt playing rugby all the time, I’m told. Go watch a game, catch something with your own face and I’m sure you’ll have a serious relationship before your wound even scabs over.”
    â€œI can’t.”
    Oh, I do not like the way she said that. “And why not?”
    â€œBecause you like him. And I’m too good a friend for that.”
    â€œI do not. ” Too much emphasis. We both instantly know it to be an outright lie. With one look, Diane reminds me that in the six years I’ve known her, I’ve never been able to keep anything from her. It’s why she’s the only person on the planet who knows my coffee-bar plans.
    The only person except for Will, of course. Can I run away now, please? Be a missionary on a shade-grown organic coffee plantation somewhere in the southern hemisphere?
    â€œWell,” I relent under Diane’s truth-extracting stare. “I can’t. Like him, that is.”
    â€œAnd why can’t you like him? He’s got a list of very likeable qualities.”
    Of course, if you’re Diane, single and male is as long a list as you need. Let’s just say that while Diane is a fine and compassionate Christian, she’s way too fond of the male population. Being as cute as she is just feeds the impulse. Don’t get me wrong: Diane’s not promiscuous or anything, it’s just that she seems to like every single guy she meets. Every guy. Any single guy. You get my drift.
    â€œOh, for starters, he’s my loan officer. He’s stuffy and formal and proper. He’s rigid and foreign and…”
    â€œAnd you like him and it’s making you nuts.” Diane jabs a finger at me, her hair swinging with all that emphatic pointing. “What? You think the phrase opposites attract popped out of thin air?”
    â€œIt’s a bad idea. A whopping bad idea. If I want to get this coffee bar open, he and I can’t happen. And that’s only one of about sixty reasons I can think of why not to get things started with Will Grey. He could have only asked me to say grace because he read about my Christianity on my loan application. Allowing grace over dinner doesn’t make him a man of genuine faith. Why are we even discussing this anyway? It’s not worth discussing.”
    Diane puts a final sweatshirt into a box and closes the lid. “Okay, Maggie, why do you want to open this coffee bar, anyway?”
    Start with the easy questions, why don’t you? “Because I need to.” It’s so much more complicated than