Page 7 of The Wedding Twist

The sides of her mouth turned up slightly, ramping up the nerves in the pit of his stomach. “I need to take this accounting class. Or I’d think about it,” she said. “Good night,” she added and waved before leaving him standing alone in the empty classroom.

The evening had gone well. Really well. It was too bad his class might be canceled now that Celeste was dropping out.

Maybe he could convince one of the regulars down at Hank’s to register. He’d go down there in the morning and drum up another student.

Before locking up the classroom, he looked out the window and saw Celeste getting into an SUV, her giant bag barely making it through the passenger-side entrance. He couldn’t help but smile to himself, picturing her out on the river, her dress tucked into neoprene waders and a ball cap over her thick, glossy hair.

He shook his head.Your students will always keep things interesting, he heard his mom’s voice in his head.

Celeste McCarthy? She was interesting, all right.

Just the kind of interesting he needed to avoid.

Chapter Three

“You’re late,” Celestesaid, sliding into the passenger seat of her Jeep Compass. Quinn sat at the steering wheel, a lollipop stick hanging out of her mouth and Ella Fitzgerald blaring from the speakers. Quinn’s car was a vintage 1967 Mini Cooper in British Racing Green, which not only broke down every few months but could only safely operate on the roads from May to October when there was no snow on the ground, so in the in-between season she was always borrowing Celeste’s or their parents’ vehicles.

“It’s 8:08,” Quinn said.

“Class ended at eight.” Celeste reached over and turned down the music.

“Does that mean I can’t take your car next week?”

“Well,” Celeste said, tucking the kit of materials into her tote bag, then pulling on her seat belt, “I won’t be coming next week. Here, at least. Ava scheduled me for the wrong class.”

“Oh no,” said Quinn. “She’s always in such a rush.”

It was true. Despite Ava’s brilliance, she had a tendency to quickness which sometimes made her overlook details—everywhere except for in her spreadsheets.

“So what did you do, just sit there? You could have called me.”

“It’s all right. I knew you were busy.” Quinn had met up with her knitting group at a café in Canmore. She often got a ride with one of the others in the group, but Elsa had just undergone a hip replacement and was still in the hospital. “I stayed in the class I showed up to. It was pretty random.”

Someone exiting the building caught her eye. It was the cute instructor, carrying a milk crate with the materials from the class. “That was the teacher, actually,” she said.

Quinn slowed the car to a stop and craned her neck. “Ohh, he’s dreamy,” she said. “He’s giving me Cary Grant vibes,His Girl Fridayera.”

“Drive,” Celeste said, laughing. “He’s going to see us.” She glanced back at Jack, watching as he balanced the milk crate while he fiddled with his keys, then put everything into the passenger side of his truck. He looked up as they drove by and gave Celeste a quick wave, the corners of his mouth turning up in a delicious grin. She waved back, the buzz of attraction that had struck her the moment she’d walked into the classroom showing no signs of fizzling out. Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t going to be her instructor. She’d have a hard time being a focused pupil.

Quinn navigated onto the main highway leading back to the lodge. Daylight savings time meant the clocks had moved forward an hour a few weekends before, so the unseasonably warm early-spring days were blessedly longer now, and the tree line glowed tangerine with the late setting sun. “What was so random about it?”

“Two words: fly-fishing.”

“They teach fly-fishing at the college? Thatisrandom.”

“No, not the actual fishing. It’s a whole class on making these doodad fishing-tackle thingies. Here,” she said, digging hers out of her pocket.

Quinn glanced away from the road, and her eyes widened when she saw Celeste’s fly. “OMG! I love that! Those feathers are gorgeous.”

“I knew you would. I told Jack.” Celeste rolled her eyes.

“Jack.” Her sister made an exaggerated kissing sound. “Can I put it on my Insta when we get home?”

“Knock yourself out,” Celeste said. Quinn ran a popular social media account called For Old Times’ Sake, which partly focused on DIY in the old-timey—timeless—way of doing things, like making soap, using sourdough starters, and darning socks, and profiling her love of all things vintage and old, from movies and music to antiques and trinkets to old-school table etiquette. It blew Celeste’s mind that Quinn had over one hundred thousand followers, but she was proud of her sister. If it weren’t for the fact that she was glued to her phone most of the day, she might have been mistaken for someone who’d been plunked down in the twenty-first century by a time machine.

“But seriously, that guy was hot,” Quinn said. “Debonair meets outdoorsy. Like an L.L.Bean model or something.”

Celeste had to agree with her sister, even though she didn’t say it out loud. Jack was handsome, in a just-rolled-out-of-bed-but-owning-it rugged kind of way. And she liked the way his eyes looked like he was always smiling, even when he wasn’t.

---