Page 5 of The Wedding Twist

Chapter Two

After distributing thelast of the pheasant feathers onto the desks arranged in a semicircle around the classroom projector, Jack Wallace glanced at his watch and guesstimated about fifteen minutes until his students would start trickling in.His students.He had to laugh. For many unsuccessful years his parents had encouraged him to go to teacher’s college and join what they, and his many aunts and uncles and two brothers who were also teachers, called the “family business,” and now he was finally fulfilling their wishes, though maybe not for the reason they’d wanted him to.

He ripped his golf shirt free from the waist of the khaki pants he’d bought earlier that day from Sporting Life and felt a fleeting moment of relief. Jack knew very well there were different classes of outdoorsmen—outdoorspeople, he reminded himself—and that this nook of the world sometimes attracted some of the douchier ones, but he didn’t care. He knew with 100 percent certainty that he was more experienced than anyone who was about to walk through that door, so whether he was wearing a penguin suit or boxers and a T-shirt, he was in charge of this space.

So why did he feel like he was about to vomit up the Subway sandwich he’d wolfed down on the way over?

He cleared his throat, then picked up a printout of the class list Oakview College had emailed him a week earlier. There were six people signed up for his course in classic fly tying, about six more than he’d anticipated when he’d pitched the course to the college a few months earlier. Six was also the minimum number that he needed to be able to run the class, so he had to knock this intro session out of the park and make sure everyone came back next week.

He passed out the remainder of the materials onto each student desk, then picked up a whiteboard marker to write the agenda for the class on the board, as his mother had suggested in an email with unsolicited classroom-management advice.Your students will always keep things interesting, she’d signed off. Whatever that meant.

Why people would register for this course was beyond him. Fly tying was an art form that he’d learned from his grandfather growing up, but there was an instructional video for pretty much everything these days on YouTube. But he wasn’t about to complain about the much-needed revenue stream, which would fill in some gaps in what was so far shaping up to be a slower-than-usual spring for his fly-fishing expedition business.

And some people, Jack figured, just wanted to get out and socialize.

He couldn’t relate.

A man with a silver ponytail and a blue parka popped his head into the classroom. “B107-A?” the man said. He was in his mid-fifties, bearded, and wearing a T-shirt advertising a local craft brewery, exactly the clientele Jack had expected to attract.

“You got it,” Jack said.

“Bryant Harris,” the man said.

“Jack Wallace. Welcome.” Jack gestured toward the semicircle of desks, each one laid out with the materials they’d need to make their introductory fly, the Silver Blue, a great option for fishing in shallow waters like the nearby Bow River. Over the three classes, he planned to show them the Leadwing Coachman, a Hare’s Ear Parachute, maybe a Smokejumper or a Skirrow’s Fancy. Depending on the enthusiasm, but mostly the skill level of the group, maybe they’d attempt a Jock Scott for their final class or at the very least he could show the group some samples from his collection.

Shortly after, a father-and-son combo arrived and took their seats, followed by two other men he was pretty sure he’d seen the other day at Hank’s, the tackle shop attached to the diner in Keystone Ridge, where he’d driven out last week to staple an advertisement for the class to the bulletin board.

Jack pretended to busy himself at the front of the classroom while the students chatted easily among themselves, comparing recent expeditions and favorite spots to fish. He glanced at his watch. They were only missing one person, but it was already two minutes past the hour, so he figured he’d get the class underway and the late student could catch up on arrival.

He cleared his throat. “All right, I think we’ll get started,” he said, clapping his hands together. He surveyed the room. The five students staring back at him looked exactly like the guys who patronized his fly-fishing expedition business: Seasoned pros visiting the Bow River to access what was widely considered one of the best fly-fishing locations in North America. Eager newbies wanting to learn a skill and get a trophy shot that would garner some likes on social media. Bachelor parties where the focus was more on the beer than on the fishing itself. Jack always appreciated the fraternity in those groups, especially when it meant he could quietly do his thing without the pressure to fill in the gaps in conversation.

“I’m Jack Wallace. I own Wallace Expeditions, and I’ve been fly-fishing since I could stand stabilized in the Athabasca,” he said to a few chuckles. “Over the next three weeks, we’re going to learn the basics of a few classic flies. Obviously you can buy all of these premade,” he said, gesturing to an image from a local provider’s website projected on the whiteboard, “but there’s something really satisfying about making one on your own. And you can’t beat the quality.” He moved to pick up the vise from the instructor’s desk and noticed a few of the students’ attention had shifted to the entrance of the classroom.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jack heard from behind him and turned toward the classroom entrance to find a woman who seemed to be doing her best to enter the room with as little fanfare as possible. She had dark, wavy shoulder-length hair, deep green eyes, and carried a giant handbag and an almost equally giant purple travel mug with a pink straw sticking out of it. She slid into the chair at the closest desk to the door, which was not one of the desks Jack had set up with class materials. Flashing him a quick, apologetic smile, she started to unload various items from her Mary Poppins bag.

He glanced down at his class list for the only remaining name. “C. McCarthy?” he asked.

“That’s me,” she said. “Celeste. Sorry—my sister dropped me off at the wrong building, so by the time I figured it out and called her to come back, I was already late. I’m all set, though,” she said, motioning toward the entire suite of materials she’d set up on her desk—a tablet with a wireless keyboard, a notebook, a graphing calculator—none of which would be required for the evening’s session.

Jack cleared his throat. “All right,” he said, sensing the rest of his class’s impatience and amusement. “Glad you could join us.”

This was not the C. McCarthy he’d pictured when running through the list only moments ago. Maybe a Chris, a Cameron, a Carlos, or a Cooper. He tried to mask his surprise and reminded himself not to make assumptions. While most of his clientele were dudes, over the years he’d seen a big uptick in women signing up for his tours too. He was happy to see the sport diversify and hoped it continued to do so. Who wouldn’t love being out on the river, surrounded by sparkling water and the possibility of a great catch?

Still, this seemed like a bit of a stretch. Celeste appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and in a dark blue dress that cut off right above the knee and a pair of ankle boots that didn’t look anywhere near weatherproof, she wasn’t really dressed the part.

Jack ran his fingers through his hair, then returned to where he’d set himself up for instruction. He’d just started to relax, and now he felt his nerves getting all whipped up again under his new student’s expectant gaze. “Come on and join us over here,” he said, motioning toward the empty station. “I don’t think you’ll need any of that stuff.”

He cleared his throat again to address the larger group. “So, I’ll just start with a brief history of the craft, just to, uh, give us some context.” As he spoke, Jack watched out of the corner of his eye as Celeste peered over at the small piles of hooks, different-colored feathers and string, her pretty features all scrunched up with confusion. “The earliest-recorded flies date back to 200AD, but the major advancements in the tradition were from nineteenth-century England.” He moved a slide forward to show the cover ofThe Way of a Trout with a Fly, a classic guide from the 1920s. For a second Jack felt kind of teacherly and knowledgeable and would have likely been starting to relax if it weren’t for the pair of big green eyes looking at him as though he were nuts.

“Excuse me—sorry,” Celeste interrupted. She looked around at the group apologetically, then back at Jack. “But what does this have to do with accounting?”

He paused as the man with the beard chuckled. “Uh, this has nothing at all to do with accounting,” Jack said. Five minutes into class and he already had a troublesome pupil. Why his family did this for a living was beyond him.

Celeste narrowed her eyes. “But that’s the course I signed up for.”

Now the calculator made sense. “Well, you’re in the wrong place,” Jack said.

With her lips pursed, she tapped her phone, then crossed the classroom and flashed the screen at him. “Here’s my registration confirmation.” Celeste was standing close enough that he could pick up on the notes of her perfume or shampoo or something really nice smelling. Whatever it was made him take a deep, steadying breath in.

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