Hidden Falls

  © 2014 by Olivia Newport

  Print ISBN 978-1-68322-065-7

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-68322-172-2

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-68322-173-9

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.biz

  Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Cast of Characters

  Quinn – 55, long-time resident, teacher, and beloved citizen of Hidden Falls.

  Sylvia Alexander – 52, Quinn’s oldest and dearest friend, mayor of Hidden Falls, daughter of Emma.

  Lauren Nock – 28, family ministry director at Our Savior Community Church. Niece of Sylvia Alexander.

  Liam Elliott – 38, investment consultant, fiancé to Jessica McCarthy, brother to Cooper, cousin to Dani Roose.

  Cooper Elliott – 34, works in law enforcement as a sheriff’s deputy. Brother to Liam, cousin to Dani Roose.

  Dani Roose – 32, cousin to Liam and Cooper Elliot, makes her living doing odd jobs, handy person, computer nerd. Loves the lake, fishing, solitude.

  Nicole Sandquist – 30, investigative reporter in St. Louis, Missouri, who grew up with and dated Ethan Jordan.

  Ethan Jordan, MD – 30, neurosurgeon in Columbus, Ohio, who grew up with and dated Nicole Sandquist.

  Jack Parker – 40, lawyer, recently moved his family to Hidden Falls. Wife, Gianna; son, Colin; daughters, Eva and Brooke.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Prologue

  Thirty-one years ago

  Undeterred by the persistent mist that Hidden Falls cast off, she paced a few feet ahead of him. Reluctantly, he’d released her hand when the path narrowed and they could no longer walk side by side. She paused now, and Quinn knew she was taking care with the abrupt nineteen-inch drop that briefly steepened the stony descent to their destination in another twenty yards.

  Sylvia’s head turned and she caught Quinn’s eye. The core of him went soft at the sight. That smile. The flush of pleasure in this day. The way she embraced the beauty of life, whatever it brought. When he touched her, he sometimes thought his knees were jelly.

  He took the deep step off the ledge behind her, and they were side by side again. She reached for his hand, and he gave it. With the other, Quinn patted his jacket pocket, reassuring himself that the small lump he had zipped in was still there. He’d been carrying it around for days, transferring it from one pocket to another. If he was going to remove it, this would be the moment. Neither of them would forget this sunny spring day behind Hidden Falls with full hearts of gratitude for each other.

  Quinn dropped Sylvia’s hand and put an arm across the back of her shoulders to pull her against him, hip to hip, and walk in step these last few yards. Leaning into his shoulder, Sylvia raised her mouth for a kiss and Quinn obliged.

  The spring wind gusted, and the mist felt more like rain as they moved into the hollow of rock behind the tumbling falls. Hidden Falls were not impressively high, but water plunging out Whisper Lake cascaded past this space in a liquid wall before crashing into a bed of rocks below. The winding hike down to the hollow was not one many people bothered with. Tourists were content to hike along the edge of the lake at the top of the falls, and many residents of the town of Hidden Falls were so used to the sight that they barely saw it anymore. With their arms around each other, Quinn and Sylvia tilted their single gaze upward and blinked against the spray that struck their faces from random angles. Sunlight streaming through rushing water danced rainbows around them. Greenery budded with fragrance and promise. Water surged endlessly past them in a vertical river. Though Quinn was only in his second year in the town, he could not imagine tiring of this scene no matter if he lived in Hidden Falls for thirty years. This place had given him a new beginning.

  Quinn nudged Sylvia back a few steps, deeper into the hollow, where they could watch the water and remain dry at the same time. They would hear each other better without competing against the collision of moving water and immovable rock. If the words stumbling around his heart passed through his lips, he wanted her to hear them clearly.

  At the moment, though, Quinn wanted only to kiss Sylvia. Uninterrupted. Ravenously. Repeatedly. Her form molded against his, as hungry for him as he was for her. If ever he was going to share his life with a woman, Sylvia was that woman. If ever he was going to propose, this was the moment.

  “Mmm.” Sylvia broke the kiss, trailing hot breath across his face. “This is a perfect day. You … here …”

  The slits of her eyes widened, questioning. This was what Sylvia’s face looked like when hope hung before her, present yet intangible, dangling yet beyond her grasp.

  Quinn could fulfill that hope. He could give it shape and light. He was certain of the ring in his pocket—they had strolled the shops of downtown Birch Bend together and considered dozens of possibilities. This was the one Sylvia wanted to wear for the rest of her life, eventually with the silver band that would match one on his hand. Had she felt the lump in his jacket during their embrace? Had it stirred her hope of a perfect day? Perhaps it was unkind of him to carry around the velvet box, making her wonder when the moment would rise from ordinariness and lay out her future before her.

  It was the nightmares that held him back. Nightmares was the wrong word, though. While he did wake in the night, sweating and gasping and scrambling to turn on every light in the room, the days also brimmed with grief and violent distraction.

  It still felt fresh and frightening, and Quinn wasn’t sure it would ever change. The holes inside him might be bottomless.

  One moment could change everything.

  Could this exquisite moment on this perfect day, in the safe hollow of Hidden Falls, heal the fracture that ran through him?

  Quinn put a hand in his jacket pocket and wrapped his fingers around the box. Then starting with his thumb and uncurling one finger at a time, he forced himself to open his hand and leave the box where it lay.

  Sylvia knew Quinn more deeply than anyone else he had ever known. But she didn’t know everything. And it wasn’t fair to ask her to share a life of shadows.

  He stroked her cheek and looked into those stunning, deep eyes before kissing her one last time.

  1

  Ordinary Secrets

  Present Day

  Saturday

  9:27 a.m.

  It’s Saturday morning. Get in the car.” Sylvia Alexander gripped the hedge clippers and prepared to forcibly r
emove them from Ted Quinn’s hands.

  “And what if I don’t want to go?” Quinn eyed Sylvia but released the clippers.

  “You said you wanted a normal day. On a normal Saturday, you and I have breakfast on Main Street before I check on the shop.”

  Quinn tilted his head toward the garage. “You know where those go. Give me a minute to change my ratty sweater.” He clomped up the porch steps and into the house.

  Sylvia examined the progress Quinn had made since yesterday on trimming overgrown bushes across the front of the house. He must have been working at least two hours already. She crossed to the open detached garage, savoring the crunch of tumbled maple leaves under her feet, and hung the clippers on their hook between the old-as-the-hills hacksaw and the hammer with the longest handle and widest claw.

  When Sylvia met Quinn, he hardly knew how to grip a hammer properly. Now he owned the most varied tool collection in Hidden Falls. He bought the old house almost thirty years ago and took odd delight in the discovery that one wall of the garage was pegboard. As Quinn remodeled, one room at a time, he added a hook to the pegboard for each new tool.

  Sylvia watched each room take shape, unsure how to interpret Quinn’s invitations for her opinions of his taste before he was too far in to turn back from his plan. Gradually she accepted that her opinions were all he wanted. She would never share his home.

  Then came the preoccupation with landscaping and another class of tools. Even Dani Roose, who did odd jobs around town, knew Quinn owned any tool she needed.

  Sylvia pulled the garage door down, wondering when Quinn was going to give in and install a garage door opener.

  By the time Quinn emerged from the house, Sylvia had her engine idling and her hand on the gearshift. He opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. When had his hair receded another half inch toward the back of his skull? And gone another shade whiter?

  Sylvia put the ten-year-old red Ford Taurus in gear. “It won’t be so bad, you know.”

  “Of course not. Breakfast is my favorite meal.” Quinn turned his head and met her gaze with a smile. “Especially with my oldest and dearest friend.”

  Wistfulness floated through his expression as it so often did. Even after all these years, some days she couldn’t bear what she saw there. Sylvia had stopped asking questions years ago.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it,” Sylvia said. “Don’t change the subject.”

  As mayor of Hidden Falls, Illinois, Sylvia felt obliged to set an example, so she observed the residential speed limit on the two-mile stretch of road that angled from Quinn’s neighborhood of old houses into what everyone called “downtown”—a few square blocks of shops, restaurants, professional businesses, and churches. She eased the car into a parking spot at a right angle to the entrance of the Fall Shadows Café.

  Inside, Gavin Owens gave them a wave from behind the counter. “You’re late.”

  “That’s my fault,” Quinn mumbled.

  “I hope your big day isn’t getting off to a rough start.” Gavin raised a bushy eyebrow.

  “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 ma
king 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.