Everything’s Coming Up Josey Read Online Free Page B

just drop the bomb and run.
    Except, why would I give all this up?
    Jas unwraps another gift and holds up a bib. A bib? As a wedding gift? Talk about a hint. It says “Daddy’s girl.”
    Okay, I just found my reason.
    â€œI’m going to Moscow,” I hear myself say. In one move, they turn, all ten heads, as if on a pulley.
    The sudden entrance of Elvis would have produced fewer gasps.
    Now that I’ve tried that on for size, time to get brave. It is now or never. Two years of post-college hiking on the treadmill to nowhere has left me with nothing but a single bed in the upstairs room of my parents’ house, a beat-up Subaru and enough romance novels to paper an American Legion hall.
    â€œI’m going to Moscow to be a missionary,” I elaborate, with gusto.
    My mother clutches her head in her hands, Buddy checks his punch as if it might be spiked and Dad frowns, turning up his hearing aid.
    Chase stares at me, mouth slightly open, wearing an expression of horror that looks painfully reminiscent of the skin-scraping gravel-road encounter.
    Certainly he didn’t expect me to stick around to be his best woman, did he? Drat! Tears glaze my eyes and I look away, down to the green shag, where I know vermin reside. This is not about escaping. Lord, please, wasn’t that peace I felt earlier?
    Grandma Netta to the rescue. “That’s in Idaho,” she announces. “I learned that on Jeopardy. ”
    The heads swivel to her. All except Jasmine’s. She’s got tears in her eyes and the newlywed glow has vanished.
    Suddenly, I wonder exactly what I might be sacrificing.

Chapter Two:
$17.23
    M y father sings. My earliest memory of him is in church, his wide hands gripping the podium, swaying to a rendition of “Fill my cup, Lord.” He has a resonating tenor that wasn’t too bad…until I became a teenager. Then I would slink out of the sanctuary and hide in the library, where I’d bury myself in a book. The only books our church library stocked were commentaries, Old Testaments of the Bible in various translations and missionary stories. Hoping for entertainment, I chose the missionaries.
    Between the chapters on the Maasai tribes in Africa and the starving Ethiopians, I found my refuge. The Iron Curtain. The Siberian wasteland. The persecuted saints of the Soviet Union. They called to me from the pages with their cries for mercy, for justice, for running water. I saw them behind my eyes, wrapped in rags, clutching Bibles to their chests with chapped hands, and thought, now those are the real Christians.
    I say all this to the man with green eyes as I sit nursing a cup of breakfast blend in the Java Cup. I’ve tracked him (I’m an investigative reporter, right?) through my pastor, intercepted his escape from Gull Lake and invited him out for lunch.
    My entire future teeters on his expression. He’s spent most of the meal devouring a Reuben on rye from the deli next door, while I, too nervous to eat (how about that for a divine sign?), convince him that I should go to Russia.
    Something that I’m trying hard to talk myself into at the moment. After Jasmine’s ashen look yesterday, the room resumed the hubbub and—aside from Chase’s less-than-clandestine frown and obvious attempts to get me alone and nail my intentions to the wall—nothing more was mentioned about Russia, Moscow or even Idaho.
    I am Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, adventurer, investigator. I’ve smiled, dodged Chase and tracked down Monty Beecher, missionary and gatekeeper to my future. And now I will woo him with my wit and educational prowess.
    â€œI know that I would be a great asset to your team,” I say, my confidence ringing through the tiny coffee shop.
    â€œIt sounds to me like God has been preparing your heart for years to serve in Russia,” Monty says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Have you ever taught English?”
    â€œI have an