How do you know it’s not the best thing for you? The words whispered through her heart.
She just knew, that’s all. Quentin had already broken her heart once. Her father had been right all those years ago when he’d called Quentin a loser and said he’d only hurt her. So how could staying here, seeing more of him, possibly be the best?
Trust Me. Let Me guide you. She could almost hear the words spoken out loud, wanted to believe them. Yet how did she know if they actually came from God, or if they were a product of her own wishful thinking?
Trust Me.
Faith. That’s how she knew. Once she acknowledged that, an incredible sense of peace flowed through her.
She was on the floor doing stomach crunches to the beat of “You Walked In,” remembering Quentin singing to the kids tonight and thinking how much he really did sound like Lonestar’s Richie McDonald, when the phone rang. Instinct told her it was Quentin, and she was ashamed at how quick she was off the floor and across the room to snatch up the phone.
Realizing she should have turned the volume down before she answered the phone Amy raced, cordless in hand, across the carpeted room to the tape player. Unfortunately she cranked the volume up instead of down. The din was so disconcerting she almost dropped the phone trying to get the volume down.
“Sorry,” she muttered, wondering if Quentin had any eardrums left.
“I see you haven’t lost your penchant for Lonestar.” He laughed in a way that tickled her ears. “At least I think that was them.”
“Some music was meant to be played loud, Quentin.” She wondered if he thought her less of a Christian for listening to non-Christian music. She didn’t feel like explaining that she also liked Christian music. She just wasn’t listening to it at the moment. That he recalled her habits after all these years, and worse, that he might be judging her for her musical taste, annoyed her for some curious reason. “What do you want?”
He was silent for a moment before answering. “Are you still angry at me over the Nick thing?” His voice was gentle, playing funny little games with her heart, confusing her all over again.
“No. Of course not.” She sank to the floor and leaned against the side of the entertainment center. “I just—we can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“See each other, talk with each other. We have a past, and there’s no going back.” The solace she’d found mere minutes ago faded as soon as she uttered the words.
“Why did you come back here, Amy?”
She swallowed hard. “I told you why. To fill in for Mrs. Baker.” To get you out of my system, out of my thoughts, out of my heart.
“There’s more you’re not telling me.”
“I wanted to check out the town. See if it was the same as I remembered.” That sounded really lame, and she knew it.
“What are your plans after the school year is up? Are you going to stay on?”
“I don’t know. Why are you asking me all these questions? We shouldn’t even be talking to each other.”
“Why not?”
He had her so discombobulated she didn’t even know what she was saying. She leaned toward the couch and grabbed a throw pillow, then placed it behind her back.
“How was youth group?”
“Fine.” He sounded pleased that she’d asked. “They came up with some new ideas for the children’s church.”
“They’re really creative with the puppets and storytelling. I was impressed with the way they, and you, ran the children’s church tonight. You seem to be a good influence on them.”
“Thanks.”
Talking on the phone with him reminded her of those long-ago nights they’d spent burning up the phone lines, whispering lovey-dovey talk to each other. She pulled the pillow from behind her back, threw it in the middle of the floor and lay down. “So what’s this cool idea they came up with?”
“Did I say it was cool?”
“No.” She laughed. “But your tone of voice did.”
He joined her laughter with a low, rich rumble that rocketed through her. “You’re right. It is cool, and I’m excited about it. To a point.”
She listened while he told her about the idea: a time machine. The kids would step through a door, one at a time. The door opened into a dark closeted space. A second door would open to a set constructed behind a partition. Backdrops would depict different Bible scenes. The youth group would dress up as Bible characters and let the children be active observers as the story was acted out.
“Quentin, that’s a wonderful idea.”
“Yeah.” His response lacked his earlier enthusiasm.
“So what’s wrong?”
“These kids are creative as far as storytelling and entertaining goes. But not a single one of them can draw a lick.”
“So? Is there anything that says the backdrops have to be perfect?”
“Not as far as I’m concerned, but they want it to be perfect, or they don’t want to do it at all. Amy, can we get together Friday night?”
The impatience with which he’d changed the subject startled her and she drew in a quick breath.
“There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
She couldn’t see him again. She wanted to, but that wouldn’t do anything to help her move on. “I’m busy that night.”
“OK, Saturday.”
“Quentin we have nothing to discuss. I’ve spied on your daughter for you. Something I don’t intend to do anymore, by the way. She’s a good kid, and I think both of us misinterpreted what she was up to. I’m quite sure she’ll be just fine. So there’s really nothing more for us to discuss. Unless—” She hesitated, unsure if she should even bring it up. “Unless you want to tell me why you never showed up that night.”
Silence hung over the phone, heavy as the fog that frequented Goose Bay.
“I—can’t. I don’t want to discuss it. I—I’ve got to go now.” Quentin’s thick whisper was followed by a soft click.
He’d hung up.
No longer in the mood for Lonestar, Amy popped out the CD and spun it across the room like a Frisbee.
That fateful night seemed to have set the stage for every male relationship she’d formed since then—with the exception of Jared. He was reliable. He was dependable. He would never let her down. But Quentin would. Quentin had broken her heart once, and Amy was determined he wouldn’t get a second chance.
9
“So, what’s the scoop?”
At the sound of Miki’s teasing voice, Amy looked up from her grade book. She took a sip of hot tea, orange spice, her favorite, before answering.
“There is no scoop.”
“A date on Friday and church last night?” Miki tapped her short, neatly kept, maroon nails on the lunchroom table. “Sounds like you’re in denial.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
Miki raised one finely tweezed eyebrow. “Oh? What would you call it then?”
“It was a—” Amy sighed. She couldn’t very well tell Miki the truth, thereby giving her a bad impression of Shayna. Nor could she admit to spying on one of her students. And she wouldn’t lie and call it a date when it wasn’t. “Just call it what you like,” she groused. “I’m beginning to regret ever having come back to this town.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” Miki pulled out the chair across from Amy and sat down, then reached out and touched Amy’s hand. “I’ve been without a friend for quite some time.”
“I know. Me, too.” Amy picked up a plastic spoon and swirled it in her tea. “But there are things that make it complicated.”
“Quentin.” Miki’s voice was soft and she nodded her head as soon as she spoke, as if she knew she wasn’t wrong.
Swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat, Amy nodded. Absently she watched the tiny whirlpool in her cup. Quentin. He complicated everything.
“I knew when I came back that I’d encounter him. I just didn’t know when, and I certainly thought I’d be more prepared.” She reached
for a cube of sugar, plopped it in her cup, and watched it swirl until it dissolved. Then she laughed. “I’ll tell you what. It’s a good thing I didn’t go to church with you the first few times you asked me. I definitely wouldn’t have been prepared to walk in and see Quentin there.”
Why didn’t you tell me he went to the same church you kept inviting me to?
“It was bad enough,” she continued, “that I had a student who looked just like him, who turned out to be his daughter. Bad enough.” For the first time, Amy found herself sharing the details of Quentin’s and her plans to run away and how he’d broken her heart, and that she’d come back after graduation to see if they could work things out.
Miki sighed sympathetically. “I know it was hard for you when you came back after graduation to find that he and Karen had just left on a delayed honeymoon. I honestly didn’t realize at the time how brokenhearted you must have been. It didn’t even occur to me that you didn’t know he and Karen were married not long after you left town.”
“I never saw it coming. Somehow I held on to the thought that he really loved me, that not showing up that night was something that couldn’t be helped and that he’d wait for me.”
Miki furrowed her brow in a thoughtful manner. “You know, thinking back, it was kind of odd. They never dated. Quentin seemed lost without you.”
That little piece of information gave Amy more satisfaction than she cared to admit.
“And then,” Miki continued, “during Christmas break they just up and got married. It was supposed to be a secret ceremony, but word leaked out pretty fast.”
“So I wonder why, if they never dated, he decided to marry her?”
“I don’t know, but there was plenty of speculation. Speculation that never came to pass, if you get my meaning.”
Amy did. It was a thought she’d had many times, but of course Shayna was much too young to have been the reason for the unexpected wedding.
“Then he joined the navy and they left town. He and Shayna only moved back after Karen died a couple of years ago.”
The navy. This was the first she’d known that Quentin had joined the navy. It was also the first she’d known that he hadn’t been in town all these years. But why the navy instead of following his dream of being a photo-journalist for National Geographic or some other wildlife society? And how did he end up in the construction business?
“Do you know what happened to Karen?”
“No, not really.” Miki shook her head. “I heard it was some kind of cancer, but I never heard any details.”
“I never really knew Karen.” Even so, Amy felt sad that she’d died. “I knew she was Quentin’s best friend, but that was as far as it went. She very rarely hung around Quentin when we were together.”
“That might have been because she worked all the time. During the school year, she had two part-time jobs. In summer, she usually had three. I don’t ever remember anyone working as hard as Karen did.”
This was news to Amy, and she felt sad that she’d never taken the time to get to know Karen well enough to know the burden she bore as a teenager. Of course Miki would have known. Miki had lived in town all her life and the locals seemed, at least back then, to know everything about everyone. Except for the reason Quentin married Karen.
“So Shayna lost her mother at one of the most important times of her life.” Amy ducked her head so Miki couldn’t see the moisture gathering in her eyes.
Having always been close to her mother, Amy couldn’t imagine going through puberty and those turbulent teen years without her mother’s presence. And Quentin. It couldn’t have been easy for him, coping with the loss of his wife as well as having to deal with all his daughter’s emotions. She felt such an overwhelming sense of compassion toward him; if he’d been in the room she would have thrown her arms around him.
And that’s all it was. Compassion. Nothing else. At least, that’s what Amy tried to convince herself as she took another sip of her now lukewarm tea.
Miki must have taken that as a sign that the conversation could continue. “They seemed so happy when they left town, it’s such a tragedy that it ended up this way.”
Of course Quentin was happy when he married Karen. Isn’t everyone happy on their wedding day? Still, hearing Miki state the obvious stung, and Amy drew in a sharp breath.
“I’m sorry,” Miki said. “I don’t know why I said that. I certainly didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“It’s OK.” Amy knew Miki wasn’t deliberately insensitive. Still, she decided to change the subject. “Tell me about Nick St. James.”
Miki’s mouth dropped open. “He’s only the most gorgeous guy in town.” She clasped her hand to her chest dramatically. “Those eyes!”
“Yes.” Amy couldn’t help but giggle. “Those green eyes. And those eyelashes.”
“It should be a crime for a man to have lashes like that.”
“It certainly should. But then, life’s not always fair.”
“No,” Miki murmured, “it’s not.”
“Anyway, I met him last night. His little girl is a doll.” Amy swore Miki’s face brightened when she pulled her long dark hair over her shoulders and propped her elbows on the table.
Leaning forward, Miki asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “What do you want to know?”
“Quit looking at me like that. I don’t want to gossip, I just want to know why Quentin called him St. Nick.”
“He owns a tree farm outside of town. Not far from your place, actually.”
“Yes, I know,” Amy said impatiently. “Quentin told me that part. But I don’t get the correlation.”
“OK, it’s cute, really.” Miki straightened and grinned, the corners of her eyes lifting with delight. “Every year at Christmas, Nick has this little display. A Christmas village, I guess you could call it. He has hot cider and cookies and dresses up as Santa when the school kids visit. He even has a manger scene and straps hay bales on his neighbor’s llamas so they’ll look like camels. Kids love it. They look forward to it every year. I guess because of that, someone—I don’t remember who—switched his name around and started calling him St. Nick instead of St. James. And it stuck. They even christened his tree farm St. Nick’s Tree Farm.”
Amy smiled. Curious about him, she’d driven past his place before coming to work this morning. Set back from the road in a grove of evergreens, the only identifying mark had been the sign announcing the tree farm.
“Hey, you’re not interested in him, are you?” Miki looked concerned.
She shrugged and smiled nonchalantly. “He was very nice.”
“And great looking.”
But there was more to a man than looks. Amy certainly knew that well enough. “Are you interested in him?”
Miki flushed and glanced away.
That was all the answer Amy needed. “I have no plans to date Nick, Quentin, or anyone else. I only asked about Nick because I met him last night and was curious. But I won’t deny he’s gorgeous. So,” she took a deep breath and changed the subject. “What’s up in the drama department?”
“Just the usual. Rehearsals, costume design and fittings, temperamental leads, the usual slip-ups. Nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year.”
Amy nodded absently. Miki was referring to the big end-of-year production everyone was looking forward to seeing.
“The one bright spot is Bradley Baxter.”
Amy perked up, suddenly interested. “How so?”
“The kid is a whiz. He not only designed the entire set, he’s constructed it as well. That kid has more talent than I’ve seen since I can’t remember when.”
That was all she needed to hear. Amy jumped up so quickly she almost upset her cup of tea.
“Excuse me, Miki. I have a phone call to make.”
****
“I’ve got some news you’re not going to like.”
Quentin looked up from the house plans he was working on. Russ stood in the doorway, scowling, papers
gripped in one hand. Whatever the news, it wasn’t unusual to be interrupted several times a day with work-related problems. Quentin wasn’t worried about that. It was Russ, and whatever was bothering him.
“What’s up?”
“These were just faxed over. We lost the bid on the new bank.”
A sick feeling stole over him, and Quentin forgot all about whatever was troubling Russ. He had a lot riding on this contract. This was the third major contract they’d been underbid on in the last month. Construction projects were in short supply, and he’d cut back wherever he could. But now it appeared he’d have to make the biggest, most painful cut of all. Staff.
“Any idea who the low bid was?”
Russ scanned the papers. “That same outfit from up north. Integrity Construction.”
Quentin slammed his fist on the desk and stood up. “That’s the third time they’ve underbid us. And our bid was ridiculously low. Check ‘em out for me. Until the first contract they outbid us on, no one had ever heard of them. Find out whatever you can.”
“Sure, Quentin,” Russ obliged. “But what are we going to do in the meantime? The bakery renovation is almost finished, and we don’t have any other projects in the wings.”
“Relax, Russ.” Quentin knew full well he had an entire work crew depending on him. He didn’t need to be reminded of it. “I’ve got a project in the works. Let me do the worrying.” Russ didn’t look any more relaxed, but Quentin was reluctant to tell him more lest the condo project didn’t come to fruition. If it didn’t, he’d more than likely be ruined, taking his employees right along with him.
He’d been thinking about it for quite some time, and now that commercial construction was getting more and more competitive, it looked like the time might be right. He knew residential projects, even condos, were risky. But he’d done thorough research, and it appeared to be sound. It was best not to tell Russ about it yet, though, just in case the loan for the necessary property fell through.
“Whatever you’re thinking about, Quent, I hope it doesn’t go bust like these other projects have. Man, I can’t afford to lose my job. Rusty will be starting college this fall, not to mention graduation and all those extra expenses. Plus Jennifer is getting married in July.”
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