“Mr. Maior?”

I glanced up from cleaning paintbrushes in the child-sized sink at the back of my classroom and found Janice Turner watching me, her brown eyes amused and mildly annoyed, like she’d been saying my name for a while and I hadn’t responded.

Not a huge surprise, since I'd been pretty distracted since the meeting two days ago.

“Principal Turner,” I said, clearing my throat. I turned back around and switched the water off, drying my hands on a paper towel. “Sorry. This is my, uh, unofficial, end-of-week meditation hour.”

Cleaning brushes was one of those mindless tasks that I found really calming. There was something about watching the color swirl down the drain, rinsing until the water ran clean, and knowing that there was a specific, measurable point when it would be finished, unlike so many of the things that filled my life. I tended to get really into it, to zone out and ignore my surroundings, which was why I saved it for the end of the day on Friday.

A smile ghosted across the woman's lips. Her eyes roamed the classroom, surveying the little displays of artwork I’d set up, while I stood awkwardly crumpling and un-crumpling my paper towel. Ms. Turner was the sort of person who seemed born to be a teacher - friendly, authoritative, and just a tiny bit intimidating. She was maybe forty years old but looked closer to thirty, and though she’d instructed me to call her Janice numerous times, I just couldn’t. Not even in my head.

“You’ve had a busy year already,” she remarked.

I nodded. The woman didn’t know the half of it. I felt like I’d lived three lives since coming to O’Leary. Hell, I'd lived two of them just this week, especially after Karen had dropped her little bomb at the meeting the other night.

“I remember thinking, when I spoke to you on the phone last month, that you weren’t particularly excited about the idea of teaching this year, especially younger students.” She shot me a look I couldn’t read and walked toward the bulletin board I’d lined with pictures of leaf rubbings my second graders had done. “I was glad you’d said this would only be a year-long commitment.” She traced a finger down the line of a leaf.

I stood a little straighter and hid my clenched fists behind my back. It wasn’t like the classroom was my private space, obviously, and none of the projects lining the walls were my own, but I still felt protective of them. The kids who’d worked on them — the insanely talented ones, the ones who insisted on drawing cats with two legs, and everyone in between — had worked hard. If she wanted to judge my lack of teaching ability, I’d be really pissed if she picked on the kids’ work in order to make a point.

“But I was wrong, Everett. And I hope you’ve changed your mind about teaching,” she continued, turning on her heel to give me a bright smile. “Because if you leave, I will never hear the end of it.” She scooted herself onto the edge of a short desk and braced her hands behind her.

“Wait, what?”

“The kids don’t stop talking about how cool you are, the parents are crowing that the art display at Lilac Day will be leveling-up this year, you bought the teachers’ affection with pastries from Fanaille…”

“That was only one time.”

“We’re a bunch of pastry whores, Ev. It doesn’t take much.”

I threw the paper towel in the trash and leaned against the edge of my desk. My stomach fluttered with leftover anxiety and acute relief. “I figured you were coming in here to fire me or something.”

She laughed out loud. “Please. The parents would fire me first.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not, but only because no one else would take the job.” She winked. “So, tell me. Are you enjoying the kids?” She looked pointedly around the empty classroom, and stage-whispered, “You can speak freely. This is a judgement-free zone.”

I laughed. “No, I do. I really like it.” I was surprised how much. I’d assumed I was coming here to teach a bunch of backwoods philistines and instead, I was the one getting schooled. “I appreciate you pulling strings and helping me figure out how to qualify for the transitional teaching certificate. I never would have figured it out on my own.”

“You’re very welcome. And I really hope you’ll consider finishing your certificate and staying on, even after the year is over.”

I hesitated. Staying in O’Leary? Even semi-permanently? The idea didn’t fill me with panic the way it might have even a few weeks before, which clearly showed that the town’s cult-programming was both subtle and effective. But a permanent thing, when in just two weeks I'd already managed to become an emotional wreck in my personal life? I wasn't sure that was a good idea at all.

Then again, maybe it was a small victory that I kind of had a personal life again.

Maybe.

“Don’t give me a decision now,” Principal Turner said. “You have months before you need to decide. Just, you know… meditate on it.” She winked toward the sink in the back of the room.

“I will,” I promised.

She jumped off the desk. “Alrighty then. I’m going to get ready for dismissal. Make sure the fourth and fifth graders lived through their assembly and no one died of boredom.”

“Which assembly was that?” I asked. “Oh, please don’t tell me it was the reproduction talk.”

She laughed. “No, that one comes later in the year and you’ll know when it happens. Mara usually has us over to her house afterward for a debrief… and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” I told her. And I thought maybe I sort of would. “And it was nothing about this issue with… missing people?"

Principal Turner rolled her eyes. “God, no. But I forgot! You were at the meeting the other day, weren't you?” I nodded and she shook her head slowly. “I have never seen my brothers as livid as they were when they heard what Karen had done. Dare and Mitch were both ready to spit. And I heard Silas was…”

“Irate?” I suggested. “Oh, yeah.” I hadn’t known he was capable of anger like that.

After he’d mostly quieted the crowd in the diner enough for them to hear him speak, he’d reminded all of us that there was no evidence of a crime concerning the camper, and if there was a public safety concern, Mitch would be the one to tell us. “The worst thing we can do right now is stir up more rumors. Everyone needs to sit tight and let us do our jobs,” he’d insisted.

It had almost seemed to work, in the moment. But for the past two days, the only thing anyone was talking about at Fanaille, or in the staff room, or at the hardware store, was what had happened to John Carpenter and Elliot Marks, The Missing Camper and The Missing Ranger.

She sighed. “Dare’s taking it really hard. Elliot Marks has worked with him for years. The guy called in sick Monday, then Dare didn’t hear from him at all Tuesday. Went to check up on him Wednesday, and Elliot’s landlady said he hadn’t been back since Sunday night.” Her mouth twisted. “Now Dare’s thinking if only he’d followed up sooner.”

I shook my head. “That’s crazy.”

“Yep. But guilt usually is.” She shrugged. “Anyway, we definitely won’t be talking to the kids about any of that. Today’s assembly was just a drug resistance talk.”

“Huh.” I rubbed at my chin, noticing the stubble that was already back after just a few hours. “Drugs? I wouldn’t have thought that would be a problem here,” I told her. “I mean, O’Leary’s so isolated, and everyone seems so…wholesome.”

She looked at me pityingly. “Ev, honey, just because there’s no decent Thai restaurant for miles doesn’t mean we get a pass on crime. And it’s not just the newcomers to town, either, no matter what Karen Mitchener-Martin says. Sometimes the very fact that we’re so tight-knit makes it harder to spot."

“I can see that," I agreed. "I was just telling…um, someone… recently that when you’ve known a person their whole life, you might tend to be a little blind.”

“That’s for sure. Anyway, you get back to your meditation. Staff meeting Wednesday?”

“I’ll be there,” I said as she walked out and I returned to the sink and the brushes. My meditative mood was gone, though. All I could think about now was the idea of staying, listing all the logical reasons why a permanent place in O’Leary would probably drive me insane, and trying to push down all the reasons why my gut said insanity was tempting.

“Ev?” Si said, hesitant and cautious.

Now that was a voice that would never have to say my name more than once to get my attention. My stomach flipped as I turned my head.

“Hey. What are you doing here?”

“I was at the school for the drug presentation. But, uh… if you mean here in this room? I dunno. I just wanted to see you, mostly.”

Damn if that didn’t warm my shriveled, angry little heart.

Silas looked tired. Don’t get me wrong, he also looked every bit as good as he always did. His tight black uniform pants bulged around thick thighs, his red O’Leary PD polo shirt pulled tight across his shoulders and displayed the forearms I’d drooled over like an idiot, and his wide black belt held a variety of implements, like handcuffs and a badge, that should not have been sexy, but were. His eyes were dull, though, and his shoulders slumped. I wanted to give him a hug.

I turned back to the sink. “How’s it going?”

Silas and I hadn’t spoken at all since his attempt at apologizing the other night had gotten so thoroughly derailed by Karen’s interruption, and I’d been in this weird state of suspended animation ever since. I was still hurt by what he’d said last Sunday, and yeah, a half-apology didn’t change that. But seeing him like this, worn and worried, melted away a good part of my anger.

Okay, fine, almost all of my anger. I was mostly just sad.

“It’s been busy,” he sighed, and by the scrape of the metal chair on the linoleum floor, it sounded like he’d sat down. “Exhausting.”

“Any word on the missing people?”

“None.” He exhaled, a sound of frustration, and the words started pouring out of him. “Of course, that means jack shit. You can’t prove a negative. I mean, these guys could be in Syracuse eating ice cream right now. Or one could be in Nepal and the other at the bottom of a ravine.”

I shut off the water and turned around, drying the brushes with a towel. “But you don’t think that, do you?”

“A smart guy recently told me that where there’s smoke there’s fire,” Si said with a whisper of a smile. “My gut says they're connected. But I’ll be damned if we know what’s happened to them, or what the connection is.”

“Besides the woods, obviously.” I lifted a brow when his blue eyes met mine. “I mean, they’d both been in the woods. A ranger and a hiker.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “But if that’s the connection, I’m connected too. So are you, Daniel, Dare, Grace, Carmen, Mitch, Frank, Julian, Shane, Jamie, and my own father,” he counted on his fingers. “And dozens more we can't even know about. Plus, both of the missing men had been in Goode’s Diner and Fanaille and Hardison’s Drug store in the last two weeks, and they drive the same kind of car.”

“Wow,” I said. “You have been busy.”

He smiled at my surprise. “Yeah. Just a little. The thing is, these men are completely dissimilar. One is a complete novice hiker. Shiny new boots and backpack, didn’t know how to light a fire or read a trail map. The other is an experienced ranger who’s been trained to handle all kinds of terrain. One disappeared from the campground, and the other was last seen at his apartment in Camden on Sunday night.”

Si leaned back in the kid-sized chair, his legs stretched out ridiculously long in front of him and his hands laced together on his stomach. My fingers itched to paint him this way, even though I hadn’t had the urge to paint all week.

Si’s face was tilted up to the fluorescent lights on the ceiling, his forehead creased like he couldn't calm his mind, even here, and as mixed up as my emotions about him were, I wished he could find a way to forget his troubles, even temporarily.

God. I was such an idiot.

It was like watching the half-naked cheerleader in some old-school horror flick skipping out into the dark to investigate a wounded kitten, all obvious sympathy and zero sense of self-preservation, when you just knew she was gonna end up skewered by the pointy end of someone's hook-hand.

Except in this case, I was the cheerleader. Tra la la.

But I couldn't ignore someone who was so clearly in distress and pretending not to be. And Jamie's words from the other night drifted across my brain, about how Si retreated into his calm persona when he was upset, pretended he didn't need help when he did.

“You want a pumpkin bar?” I offered, dumping my brushes on the counter and moving to my desk. “I got a couple this morning and didn't eat them. Or an apple, if you'd rather.”

“I’ll take the pumpkin bar. Thanks,” he said, taking the white paper bag from my hand when I offered it.

I nodded and propped myself against the desk, like watching him eat was my new favorite entertainment.

The hook was coming. I could feel it.

“With everything going on, Dare hasn’t had a chance to touch the giant weed-circle or the chimes. Might end up waiting until next spring at this rate, sometime before they start construction on the new visitor’s center,” Si said around a big bite of Cal’s latest fall treat. He paused and looked at the rest of the frosted square in his hand. “Holy shit this is good.”

I smiled. “Is it? It looked good.”

“You didn’t try it?”

I shook my head. “Wasn’t hungry.” If I was being truthful, my appetite had been shit for days.

“Here. Have a bite.” He held the bar out casually enough, but then his eyes fixed on my mouth and he swallowed.

And suddenly it was like the past six days had never happened. It was Saturday again, and I’d just dropped to my knees in the woods. I hadn’t overheard him talking to Dare, I hadn’t spent nearly a week with my stomach in knots of confused hurt. His eyes were locked on me, flashing with heat, and I leaned forward to take a bite right from his hand.

His breath hitched, his pupils dilated.

I wanted to kiss him so badly.

My pulse sped and I cursed myself for being an idiot, for falling for his charm once again. The push-pull of feelings between us was like an electromagnetic force, and I couldn’t imagine he didn’t feel it too on some level, even if he was choosing to ignore it. Even if pretending it didn't exist was the smart, simple thing to do.

You are such an idiot, Everett.

“Did you hear what I said before?” Si said. “They didn’t move the chimes. I… I thought you’d be glad about that.”

“What? Oh. Yeah, no, I am,” I lied. “The weeds can go, but I liked the chimes.”

An awkward silence fell, maybe the first one I could remember between us. I wanted him to come closer to me, oddly. I hadn’t realized just how badly I needed a hug until I had his arms in my field of vision.

The trouble with opening myself up to Silas was that I couldn’t control the outcome. I couldn’t say yes to the belly-flips and the easy attraction, the comfort and laughter, and shut off the part that would worry and ache and get so pissed off I wanted to scream. I couldn't shut off the part that was really crushed my freak-out had ruined things for us, and wanted that look in his eyes to mean maybe they weren't ruined permanently.

It was scary as hell.

“So, how’s Hen?” Si asked easily, not recognizing that I was in the middle of a transformative moment just then. “Did I miss any more clandestine Romeo and Juliet scenes?”

I took a deep breath and glanced up.

“Silas, what are we doing here?”

He licked a crumb of pumpkin bar off his lip and swallowed, watching me warily. “Talking?”

“Not good enough.” I looked around at my little classroom, decked out in leaf prints and primary colors. It was an unlikely scene for life-altering revelations and a really inappropriate scene for this showdown.

But I was starting to realize that nothing ever happened very neatly, at least not for me. And that was okay.

“What is it that you want from me?” I demanded. “What is it you want for us?”

He swallowed again and his eyes flared.

“The other day in the woods was…” I glanced at the open classroom door and the totally-not-private hall beyond. “It was great. And I know I totally spoiled the moment afterward…”

“You didn’t.”

I shook my head. “You know I heard what you said to Dare. And I thought maybe you wanted to apologize just to be a nice guy. So we could be friends. If that's what you want, tell me.”

Silas braced his hands on his knees and stood, walking toward me in slow motion while our eyes locked. It was hot as fuck. “I-If you forgive me, I’ll apologize,” I stuttered.

He smiled, this slow, warm glow stealing over his face. “In that case I forgive you.”

“What?”

He lifted his hand to my jaw and I froze. “God. You’re so fucking cute, even when you’re not trying to be cute,” he mused, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “Okay, listen up, Everett Maior, because I was all prepared to do this Wednesday and I got upstaged. Ready?"

"Maybe?"

"I am an asshole. And worse than that, I’m a coward. Okay?”

“I guess?” I could feel my heart beat in every part of my body, nervous and excited at once. Surely that couldn't be healthy?

“You didn’t ruin a damn thing. I ruined it. Because I'mfallingforyou.” He huffed out a relieved breath, like he’d just completed a Herculean task.

“Wait… what?”

“I’m falling for you,” he repeated, and it was no less unbelievable, even when he enunciated. “And it scared me out of my mind, so I said a lot of stupid and patently untrue things. Like that I wasn’t into you.”

I frowned in confusion. “Nope. Still don’t understand. You’re commitment-cautious.” Just like I'm risk-averse.

“Yeah. I am. But then this incredibly hot, overly-suspicious smart-ass moved to town and apparently I couldn’t resist.”

“Me?”

He smiled and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “No, the other incredibly hot, overly-suspicious smart ass.” He put a hand at my waist and pulled me into him. “Yes. You. And if you didn’t realize it, you’re the only person in town who hasn’t.”

“But… but you said…”

His fingertips traced the curve of my eyebrow. “You’re the only thing I’ve been able to see or think about for weeks.” He pushed his fingers back through the hair above my ear and cradled my head with his strong hand. “I thought maybe if I denied it, I could stop it. But the truth is, I was in free-fall the moment we met… and I just keep falling.”

His blue eyes shining down at me looked a little scared and a lot turned on, which was pretty much exactly how I was feeling, too.

My poor little not-so-risk-averse heart stuttered in my chest.

“Please forgive me for what you overheard the other day, because that was bullshit. It was me being afraid of this. Of you. Of how you make me feel.”

Ugh. That scream you heard was me losing my grip on the last vestiges of my anger and letting myself get lured out of my hard, protective shell.

Hook-Hand claims another victim.