Hidden Falls (2 page)

“He’ll be fine.” Sylvia pointed toward a table away from the door and off the path from the kitchen.

Quinn pulled out a chair, and Sylvia situated herself in it.

“He never brings us a menu.” Quinn thrummed the tabletop.

“Why should he? You always order eggs Benedict for both of us.”

“A person has a right to make a change, doesn’t he?”

“If he brought you a menu, you’d need your reading glasses. I’m willing to bet the cost of breakfast that you don’t have them with you.”

One side of his mouth went up. “If I didn’t like you so well, I’d take that personally.”

Sylvia put her elbows on the table and leaned toward him. “Quinn, it’s going to be a lovely evening. Why don’t you just let yourself enjoy it?”

“All the attention. It’s silly.”

Quinn had been teaching at Hidden Falls High School for more than thirty years. He was the first to volunteer for anything that needed doing around town, and he came up with half the ideas himself. Friendly and approachable almost to a fault, he’d stop and talk to anyone, no matter his own schedule. Traits that normally endeared him to Sylvia at the moment stirred frustration.

“People are fond of you.” Sylvia thumped the table edge with two fingers. “Let them appreciate you.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll behave myself.”

Gavin arrived with a fist gripping the handle of a coffeepot and two mugs hanging from his fingers of the other hand.

“Thank you, Gavin.” Sylvia inhaled the dark roast aroma while the café owner poured. She was due for a booster after the early morning cup in her own kitchen.

“I hear you got a lot of RSVPs from out of town for tonight.” Gavin nudged one mug in front of Sylvia and tipped the pot over the second.

“We did,” Sylvia said. “We didn’t know what to hope for when we sent out invitations, but we shouldn’t have been surprised that former students would want to be here.”

“I heard Nicole Sandquist is coming.” Gavin pulled a rag from his apron pocket and swiped a spot on the table. “And Ethan Jordan. He’s some hotshot brain surgeon or something.”

“You seem well informed.” Sylvia sipped her coffee, feeling the warmth ooze all the way down.

Quinn perked up. “Nicole and Ethan? Both of them?”

Sylvia nodded. “See? I told you it would be nice.”

“Your eggs Benedict will be right out.” Gavin set the coffee down. “I know, leave the pot.”

“I always hoped Nicole and Ethan would be one of the high school sweetheart couples to make it.” Quinn scratched the back of his head. “They were together so long. I know they loved each other.”

“What are they now, twenty-nine? Thirty?”

“Something like that. I haven’t heard from either of them in years. I wonder if one of them found someone else. Or maybe they both did.”

Sylvia allowed her eyes to linger on Quinn’s pensive face. He still had the strong jawline she first noticed when they were both much younger—younger even than Nicole and Ethan were now—but his forehead had taken on parallel creases that never seemed to smooth anymore. She supposed the tiny cracks running out from the corners of his eyes were no different than her own.

Thirty years.

Some of Quinn’s first students had children in his social studies classes now. His tenth grade family history projects had become iconic in town tradition. Children had to interview their parents, and sometimes the parents had to consult grandparents to fill in gaps. Further back than that, it became harder to get reliable information. Every year, Quinn told his students they were one generation away from no one remembering them. Thanks to his efforts, the Hidden Falls Historical Society had copies of essays and family trees that were the subject of an ongoing organizational effort.

And tonight everyone would remember Quinn.

Thirty years.

His hair had been thick and brown, his smile broad and white, his shoulders wide and straight. Teachers came and went through the Hidden Falls school district. It was a good place for a first job out of college, with the ink still wet on a teaching credential. A few stayed as long as five years before moving on to larger school districts with bigger budgets. During Quinn’s first semester teaching, Sylvia, fresh out of college herself, went with her mother to a school open house for her younger brother. She melted under the gaze of the new teacher her brother chattered about with unfettered enthusiasm.

Quinn rapped his knuckles on the table. “Where have you drifted off to?”

Sylvia smiled. “Remembering the day I met you. You were quite dashing.”

“Have I lost my charm along with my hair and my eyesight?”

She still melted under his gaze. “You find it more every year.”

Quinn broke eye contact. “Perhaps if I were less charming, people would not be making such a fuss tonight.”

Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Are we back to that? You’re going to have a good time. You’re going to look as dashing as ever. You’re going to see hundreds of people whose lives you’ve touched. You’re going to see Nicole and Ethan and I don’t know how many other students you helped launch into terrific futures because you cared about them when they were gawky, nerdy, or in trouble.”

“You give quite the pep talk, Mayor Alexander.”

“I’ve learned well from hanging around you all these years.”

“I think I might like to meet this teacher you laud so sincerely.” Quinn refilled his coffee mug. “Do you happen to have an in with him?”

“We go back a long way.”

Once upon a time he held my hand,
she thought.
Once upon a time he walked me home from the movies and took me fishing on the lake. Once upon a time he kissed me in the hollow behind the spray of Hidden Falls. Once upon a time we looked at rings.

Gavin appeared with identical beige ceramic plates and set them down in front of Sylvia and Quinn with precision. “Look around, Quinn. Your gala is good for my business.”

“I’d hardly call it a gala.” Quinn laid a fork on his plate.

“The ladies have an excuse to wear new dresses, and the men will be in suits. It’s a gala.” Gavin pivoted and left.

Sylvia glanced around the café. Gavin was right. Nearly all the tables and booths were occupied. Some of the faces she hadn’t seen in years. “Look, the Gardners are over by the window. They had six kids go through your classes in ten years before they moved away.”

“I remember. We were afraid Number Four was never going to graduate.”

“But he did—because of all that tutoring you did before school every morning.”

A shadow crossed the table and Sylvia looked up. Quinn’s face split in a grin as he scrambled to his feet.

“Cabe Mueller!” Quinn clapped the man on the back. “First-period American history in my first year in Hidden Falls.”

“I’ve been teaching history myself for twenty-five years because of you.” Cabe grasped Quinn’s hand and pumped it hard.

“Look at us,” Quinn said. “I was barely five years older than you when you were in my class. You have no idea how terrified I was. Cabe, this is my good friend, Sylvia Alexander. She’s mayor around here now.”

Cabe nodded toward Sylvia. “I won’t interrupt your breakfast any further. I just couldn’t resist coming over to say hello. I’ll see you tonight.”

After Cabe was gone, Sylvia smiled. “Wasn’t that nice?”

Quinn’s eyes followed Cabe’s path. “He was a good kid.”

“Tonight will be full of moments like that.” Sylvia cleared her throat. “Now. Have you got your tux?”

“Check.”

“Some shoes other than the loafers you live in?”

“Check. I even have black socks.”

“There’s hope for you yet.” She tilted her head to inspect the hair brushing his collar. “Maybe a stop at the barber?”

“On the list.”

“Your speech?”

Quinn picked up his fork and pushed food around on his plate. “Well. About that—”

She cut him off. “Quinn, you must be prepared to say something. Ten or fifteen minutes.”

“I have some thoughts rattling around in my head.”

Sylvia snapped a paper napkin out of the dispenser in the middle of the table and slapped it in front of him. “Write them down. I’ve given enough speeches to know not to depend on memory.”

“I’m a teacher.” Quinn carved off a bite of egg. “I promise to come prepared.”

“Shall I pick you up?”

“I’ll drive. What time do you want me there?”

“By seven at the latest. That will give you time to greet a few people before everything gets under way.”

“Sylvia, you’re an excellent mayor.”

The statement caught her off guard.

“I mean it,” he said, his yellow-brown eyes fastened on her. “You keep this town organized and running like clockwork. We all depend on you.
I
depend on you. Thank you.”

Sylvia moistened her lips. “You’re welcome.”

“You mean a great deal to me. I’m sorry that all those years ago I could not give you what you wanted.”

11:18 a.m.

Liam Elliott put his arms around Jessica McCarthy’s slender waist and welcomed the deepening, lingering kiss she offered while standing in the middle of his living room.

She moved her lips to the side of his neck. “Do we have to go tonight?”

Liam ran his tongue over his lips and stepped back. “I thought you got a new dress and everything.”

“I did.” She laid her hands on his chest. “But I don’t have to wear it. Or I could wear it, but we don’t have to go out. You could come to my place. I’ll cook something better than banquet chicken.”

“We chose the fish, remember?”

“I don’t even know Quinn.”

“But I do.” Liam recognized the pout forming on Jessica’s lips, but he was not going to give in. Not on this. “He was my favorite teacher in high school.”

“That was twenty years ago.”

“I can introduce you. He’s a town legend.”

“I don’t need to meet a town legend. I know who he is. Everybody knows who Quinn is. The crazy eccentric who never leaves the county. Not a single field trip, not even to take history students to visit the state capitol in Springfield. And he calls himself a history teacher.”

“He
is
a history teacher.”

“Why does everyone call him Quinn, anyway? Doesn’t he have a first name?”

“Ted. His name is Ted. Maybe Theodore. He’s just one of those people who goes by one name. That doesn’t make him crazy or eccentric.”

“My point is that you’re the best thing that’s happened to me since I came to this Podunk town.” Jessica expelled a heavy breath, took her hands off his chest, and backed away. “I just want us to have some time together.”

“It’s only a dinner.” Liam paced to the refrigerator and removed two sparkling Perriers. “It won’t be a late evening. Probably two hours tops. We can still do something.”

“We hardly see each other, Liam. You’re always working, and it’s getting worse.”

“I’m only thinking of our future.” He twisted the cap off one bottle and offered it to Jessica across the breakfast bar. “I want us to have a secure financial start when we get married.”

She waved away the water. “I mean it, Liam. I have to know you’re not going to be one of those maniacs who works all the time. If we’re going to have a future at all, we have to see each other.”

If
? They were engaged. She wore a ring with an impressive stone. It seemed to Liam they were past the
if
stage.

“We see each other,” he said. “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

She gestured toward the corner of his living room that he used as a home office. “And look what I found you doing. Working.”

His laptop was open and stacks of papers crisscrossed each other. Six different pens peeked out from beneath the disarray because he could never find the last one he used.

“I’m just taking care of a few things that can’t wait.” Liam took a swig of water.

“You haven’t even showered or shaved. Do you think I can’t tell? What time did you go to bed last night? Have you eaten?”

He looked away from her. “Why does any of that matter?”

“Because I asked you to come in after the movie last night, and you said you had to work. And clearly you’ve been working again all morning. Maybe all night for all I know.”

Liam winced. She knew him too well. He was up most of the night, and he slept—briefly—in the clothes he wore yesterday. “I have a lot on my mind.”

“I can see that.” Jessica sat on a stool. “So give yourself the night off and relax. With me.”

“I explained that my business has had some complications lately.”

And if anybody at corporate got wind of Liam’s complications, he would never work as a financial consultant again. Or in any career. He would be spending too many years in prison to worry about his career.

He could make the money back. He would find a way to cover that it had gone missing at all. He just needed a few new clients and a little bit of time. Ted Quinn was at the top of the list. Already they had met twice to talk about the services Liam offered, even before Liam realized the extent of his crisis. Quinn was interested, Liam was sure of it. In his fifties, Quinn was of an age where he was thinking about the future more carefully. He needed safe investments that would yield reliably as he moved toward retirement—though Liam had a hard time imagining Quinn would give up teaching anytime soon. Liam reasoned that as a single man with no dependents, even on a small-town teacher’s salary, Quinn was doing well. He must have paid for his house by now, and it was worth a considerable sum by Hidden Falls standards. Quinn said he had several accounts he needed to roll over and was looking for some fresh advice from someone he could trust.

Liam wanted to be that someone.
Several
accounts.

“I think Quinn is going to sign with me soon,” he said to Jessica. “It would be bad form if I blew off his big night. Tomorrow we’ll do something together. Anything you want.”

Jessica rounded the end of the breakfast bar and put her arms around his neck for another kiss. “I promised my friend from work I would go to her baby shower.”

“After that, then. You just call me when you’re ready, and I’ll be right there.” Liam cradled her face and kissed her hard.

The doorbell startled them both, and Liam let out his breath. “Come in.”