One Little Thing

by Kimberly Lang

  Mr. Shipp took a breath. “As for your other question, you’ll have to ask Mr. Haslett.”

  She felt Quinn stiffen beside her, then heard him curse under his breath. That didn’t make any sense. She cut her eyes in his direction, just long enough to register that he looked miserable.

  Then Mr. Shipp continued. “Young Quinn was the one who ‘went digging,’ as you put it. He uncovered and complied all the evidence. I only ensured that the information made it into the appropriate people’s hands.”

  There was an audible gasp from the crowd, and Sophie’s stomach clenched. Quinn? That didn’t make sense. And Mr. Shipp looked too pleased with himself for that to be true. “Don’t pass the buck. If you want the credit, you’ve got to take the blame, too. But here’s the thing—you failed. Ultimately, whatever your hope was, you failed. My mom’s happy, my dad’s happy, my step-dad”—she saw Mr. Shipp flinch at the term—“is happy, and I’m happy. We’re healthy, successful, and happy. The only thing you managed to accomplish was running off a good teacher and convincing my family to leave town. But now I’m back, so you failed at that, too. That’s C-minus work, at best, Mr. Shipp.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to respond, letting her anger carry her out of there with as much dignity as she could manage. He was a horrible, small-minded little man. But what had she hoped for, really? An apology? An awakening? A promise to donate to PFLAG? Mr. Shipp was an aging good ol’ boy in a small Southern town; the chances of him having some kind of cultural revelation at this point were slim to none. And if he hadn’t been publicly shamed or called out by the citizens of Magnolia Beach by now, her one voice wasn’t going to . . .

  Oh dear God.

  All the hot anger drained out of her, leaving a chill in its wake, and her feet froze to the asphalt of the parking lot.

  What have I done?

  Unfortunately, the answer was all too clear. She’d just made a complete spectacle of herself in front of half the town, ranting at an old man—an old man who’d been a part of this community longer than she’d been alive, and was probably well-liked by the majority of the people there.

  One of her first “public” appearances in Magnolia Beach and she turned into a screaming harpy with a grudge and a bone to pick. Hell of a way to win friends and influence people. She didn’t even have her doors officially open yet, and she’d probably made several enemies who could make or break her business. At the very least, she’d painted herself as mentally unstable. How was she supposed to establish herself as a business owner and make any kind of success for herself when that was one of the first impressions she’d given everyone?

  Visions of a disapproving public boycotting her premises, telling folks to stay away, gossiping behind her back due to her temper and general unbalanced nature . . . Dear God, she’d be bankrupt before Christmas.

  “Sophie!” Quinn was sprinting across the parking lot. It was sweet of him to check on her, but she really just wanted to go hit her head against something hard for a few minutes. She needed to calm down, regroup, and think. He came to a stop, but before she opened her mouth, Quinn said, “Let me explain.”

  At first his words didn’t make sense—so much had happened so quickly that her brain was still processing it all. But Quinn’s words brought one of Mr. Shipp’s remarks—the one that had been seemingly so off-base that her brain had moved right past it—into sharp, glaring focus. It was true, then. Why else would Quinn need or want to “explain”?

  And with that knowledge, her fury returned. “You were the one?”

  “It was an accident, Sophie. I—”

  “An accident? You ‘accidentally’ outed a teacher? How is that even possible?”

  “I thought Mr. Delmarco was inflating the grades of some of the athletes. I decided to play Woodward and Bernstein so I could expose the whole thing as my semester project for journalism class.”

  Confused, she couldn’t make the connection. “David would never do that. He’s a great teacher.”

  “I know that. At least, now I do. At the time, I couldn’t understand why some of the dumbest guys in school were passing physics and I wasn’t.”

  “You were flunking physics and decided to get even with the teacher? Jesus, Quinn. Did you not think to ask David for extra help? Maybe hire a tutor? You decided to ruin his career instead? Good Lord, what kind of journalism class was Shipp running? Did the school board know he was sending students out as spies?”

  “That wasn’t it at all.” He stopped and ran a hand through his hair, then took her hands in his. “The assignment was to do an in-depth article on the topic of our choosing. My ego got the better of me. I wanted something meaty, a real exposé. So I started snooping around, looking for proof of the grade thing, and I didn’t find any.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “But,” Quinn continued, “there was something going on with Mr. Delmarco, something he was hiding, so I kept digging. I found out about your dad by accident. And once I knew that, I quit digging.”

  She jerked her hands out of his. “Because you had your exposé?”

  “It was a project for class. I didn’t find anything, and that left me with nothing to turn in, and no time to start a new project. I was flunking physics already. I couldn’t flunk journalism, too. So even though I hadn’t found what I’d gone looking for, I wrote up my notes, explained my process and steps, and turned the assignment in. I had no idea Mr. Shipp would use my notes the way he did. I was just as surprised as everyone else when it blew up like that.”

  “That was a bit naive.”

  “I was seventeen, Sophie. Of course I was naive. I didn’t know that Mr. Shipp would go on a witch hunt. It spun totally out of control, and I had no idea how to stop it.” His eyes were serious when they met hers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I even started that project, and I’m sorry I didn’t quit after disproving my own initial hypothesis. I’m sorry it hurt you and your family. I swear to you, though—that was never my intent.”

  “You have no idea what’s hurtful.” After the dizzying range of emotions she’d gone through in the last quarter hour, the clarity that her anger was giving her now was a welcome change. “Not only did I just embarrass myself in front of half the town, and not only did I berate an old man in front of witnesses, it turns out that the person truly responsible is the man who everyone knows I’m currently dating. So now not only do I look like an insane harpy, I look like a fool, too. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Quinn hesitated. “Then? Or now?”

  “Now.”

  There was a long moment where Quinn didn’t say anything. “You said you were fine. That you were over it.”

  True, but . . . How was she supposed to know there was a pretty important part of the story she didn’t know? “Well, I’m not.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that. You yourself said you didn’t like it when people stirred up trouble for no good reason. I looked, but I didn’t see a good reason. It was bad, but it was over. As you said, everyone involved has recovered and they’re happy, and there didn’t seem a good reason to revisit the past like that. Mr. Shipp took all the credit for uncovering the affair, and since he and I were the only two people who knew the truth, and he’s an old man living in Mobile now, it seemed unlikely to ever come up. I’m not proud of what I did. I’d love to be able to forget it.”

  “Well, I can’t forget it. And now no one in town will be able to forget it, either.” Her head was throbbing. She couldn’t continue this conversation. Unable to find the right words, she simply turned and started to walk away.

  “Sophie, wait.”

  “I can’t talk to you right now.”

  Quinn stepped in front of her, blocking her way. “Then just listen. The truth is . . .” He paused, then took a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of what you’d do if you found out. The guilt was eating me alive, but I t
old myself it was the price I had to pay.”

  She rubbed her temples. The throbbing was becoming a pounding. “Price . . . ? What are you talking about?”

  “I like you, Sophie. And I think we could be at the start of something really great.” He caught her hands again as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “The past couple of weeks have been amazing. I didn’t want to mess that up. I’m sorry. I should have told you. You certainly shouldn’t have had to find out like this.”

  Like this. In front of half the town, in the most humiliating way possible. How was she going to hold her head up tomorrow? The past was repeating itself. She slipped out of his grasp. “Well, you seem to have a knack for screwing up the lives of the Cooper family, Quinn. Two generations in ten years. That’s got to be some kind of record.”

  Quinn pulled back like she’d slapped him. “Sophie . . .”

  She held up a hand. “Just leave me alone.”

  Quinn’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t try to stop her as she pushed past him. And though she could feel his eyes on her, he didn’t say anything and she didn’t turn around.

  It was a beautiful night for a walk, but she couldn’t enjoy it. Her brain was too busy trying to make sense of everything, replaying all that had been said and examining it from every angle to decide how bad it actually was and trying to figure out a way to salvage what she could.

  The sad truth was, she honestly didn’t know.

  This had not been part of the plan.

  Chapter Eight

  Sophie hadn’t been on her porch the next morning. Or the morning after that. Quinn wanted to chalk that up to the fact that there were guests in her inn and she was busying herself with the preparations for her Open House, but the complete radio silence since she’d walked away the other night dashed those hopes, slim as they were to begin with.

  He could have cheerfully strangled Mr. Shipp the other night for implicating him in that mess. On the one hand, it confirmed his stance that for his sake at least, Sophie had been better off not knowing, and that the knowledge would torpedo their growing relationship. Being proven right on that didn’t change the fact that he was currently living the worst-case scenario and saw no way out.

  He should have known Sophie wasn’t as past it as she claimed—all he had to do was think back to her rant that night she’d been drinking to see how obvious that was. Maybe if she’d found out from him earlier, the shock wouldn’t have been so sharp. And since the knowledge wouldn’t be coming on the heels of her making a public scene, maybe her anger at him wouldn’t have been fed by embarrassment, either. Even the clarity of hindsight was muddied by a lot of “maybes,” but one thing was clear: things with Sophie had been as close to perfect as he could hope, and it had blown up in his face as he stood there, unable to stop it.

  He could forgive the naïveté of a seventeen-year-old on the hunt for his first big story. He was having a harder time believing he could be so naive at twenty-eight as to talk himself into thinking he’d get away with it. And while Sophie was pissed—and honestly, he couldn’t blame her—he had no idea when, or even if, she’d get past her anger and no clue what he could do to make it up to her.

  She’d told him to leave her alone. It seemed she’d been serious about that.

  Frankly, it sucked.

  So his life went back to its pre-Sophie routine, except he started taking Scoop farther down the beach in the mornings, away from Sophie’s. He wasn’t going to be that guy.

  At least it had blown up before he’d gotten too attached to her. Of course, the smart-assed voice in the back of his head reminded him that if he’d fessed up sooner, there was a very good chance he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get attached to her at all. Or maybe he would have. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.

  Ugh. The maybes were killing him.

  But he had gotten attached enough to her to be glad that Sophie was so busy with the grand reopening of her B&B that she wasn’t out and about in town much, thereby minimizing any chance of running into her accidentally. He wanted to be past this stage before that happened.

  There was a poetic justice to this, really. His own little Greek tragedy of being bitten on the ass by past sins. There was probably a moral lesson he was supposed to learn, making him a better person and improving his character.

  But why’d he have to fall for her so hard and so fast first?

  * * *

  This was what she always wanted.

  After so many months of preparation and planning, the actual act of checking in the first guests hadn’t been as climatic as she’d thought it would be, but the reality of a bank balance was not to be ignored. Logging into her bank account and seeing the lists of deposits put a hell of a smile on her face. Not that meeting and getting to know the guests, actually having people staying in her house, enjoying themselves, appreciating the details she’d sweated over, and complimenting her food wasn’t great and satisfying in and of itself, but the bean-counting part of her brain wanted numbers in the credit column, and they were finally there.

  That balance would drop as soon as all those checks she’d just written cleared the account, but at this moment in time, her business was in the black.

  Her first week had been a success. There’d been a couple of hiccups, of course, but all in all, she couldn’t be happier.

  Well, she could, but she was compartmentalizing: her business versus her personal life. Business was good. So that’s what she would focus on, because she didn’t want to look at her personal life too closely.

  She might be proving a decent businesswoman, but she probably couldn’t have screwed this up harder if she’d tried. Anger and frustration and the very real fear she’d screwed the pooch straight out of the gate had fed her for the first few days, and even Alyse’s assurances that it would all be fine didn’t help alleviate it. It helped that Mr. Shipp wasn’t quite the beloved town icon, and he didn’t even live in Magnolia Beach anymore, so other than some tutting over her poor manners and public over-dramatics, the blowback had been minimal, and according to Alyse—because she’d barely had time to leave the building the last few days—that blowback was really only from the older generation and the folks who shared Mr. Shipp’s distaste for her father’s love life in general.

  In other words, she hadn’t shot herself in the foot. At least business-wise.

  Quinn was a different issue. Now that she was calm, she knew that her reaction to his part in this farce was all tangled up in the emotional melee of shock and anger and embarrassment, and well . . . that hadn’t been her best moment.

  Rationally, she couldn’t—and didn’t—hold a seventeen-year-old kid to blame for what had happened. His story was believable on its face, and the ignorance and naïveté of an over-zealous cub reporter was nothing compared to the culpability of the adults involved.

  But she’d blamed Quinn and said some pretty mean things. She wasn’t quite sure exactly what she’d said, as the red haze of her anger clouded her memory, but she remembered the look on his face, so she’d landed the hits, whatever they were. He was obeying her edict to leave her alone, and his silence made it hard for her to apologize. Hell, he wasn’t even bringing Scoop to the beach anymore.

  She’d checked every morning.

  She peeked at the sausage-and-hash-brown casserole browning in the oven and filled the coffee urns in the dining room. While breakfast wasn’t for another half hour, she’d heard some movement upstairs a little while ago, and there was a good chance the need for caffeine and the smell of food would have people downstairs soon enough.

  Jeez, it was just a fight, right? Couples fought all the time and managed to get through it, but she had no practical knowledge of how that happened. She and her ex never fought, and when they finally did, their first fight escalated into their divorce.

  And while her pride might not want to make a bigger fool of hersel
f by apologizing to someone who didn’t want to speak to her now, her common sense told her to swallow that pride and march over to the Clarion office to apologize to Quinn for being such a crazy shrew, graciously accept his apology for not telling her the truth sooner, and then, hopefully, move on.

  Because she missed him.

  She wasn’t lonely—she had Alyse and her employees and a building full of guests to talk to. This was a specific yen for Quinn. His smile, his humor, the fact that he was always hungry . . . She even missed Scoop.

  She refilled her tea and opened the French doors, letting the morning breeze in before the day got too hot. A second later, she heard a thump-thump-thump-thump on the planks outside, followed by a jingle and the unmistakable sound of toenails on her hardwood floors. She turned around just in time to see a wet and sandy Scoop come to a skidding stop and brace herself to shake.

  Right in the middle of her already-set-for-breakfast dining room.

  “Scoop! No!” she shouted, visualizing the potential mess. Scoop sat and looked at her, head cocked to the side like huh? “Out,” she said firmly, pointing toward the back porch. “Now.”

  “Scoop!” That was Quinn’s voice, and Scoop’s tail thumped against the floor in pleasure as Quinn arrived on the porch a second later, breathing heavily from his run after her. “Get over here, you bad dog.”

  Scoop, obviously not believing for a second that she was actually a bad dog, trotted over to his side and sat. Quinn clipped the leash to her collar and gave her a stern look. Scoop yawned in return. “I’m so sorry, Sophie. She made a run for it.”

  “It’s okay. She didn’t track in much.” After thinking about Quinn so much the last few days, now that he was actually here she didn’t quite know what to say, and she felt like an awkward teenager. Meanwhile, having him here, in the flesh, just drove home how much she’d missed him.

  Quinn didn’t seem exactly comfortable himself, but she couldn’t blame him. “How’s everything going?” She had to give him props for trying to make normal small talk. The least she could do was hold up her end of the conversation. “Great. There were a couple of bumps the first few of days, but it’s smoothing out now. The guests seem happy, and that’s all that really matters.”