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"Hey, Rachel," I say as she gets closer to where Quinn and I are sitting. "Quinn, this is Rachel, my saving grace of a secretary. Rachel, this is Quinn Lawson."
"It's nice to meet you, Rachel," Quinn says, holding her hand out to shake Rachel's.
"Yeah, it's nice to meet you too, Quinn. Are you new to Sonoma? I don't think I've seen you around before."
"I just moved here from New York, actually. My grandparents, Dan and Carla Johnson, lived here, and I inherited their house when they died. One day, I got the harebrained idea to get out of the city and come home, so here I am," Quinn says, and it sounds like a spiel she's given several times since she's moved here. I can't imagine how many times she's had to tell it to all of the nosy townspeople.
"Oh, interesting, New York is quite a long way from here," Rachel says.
"We are very lucky to have Quinn here. She's an artist and is working on a painting of the lake," I tell Rachel.
"I don't know about lucky, but I am working on a painting of the lake. It’s my favorite place here, and Cooper was kind enough to show me around," Quinn says, blushing at my praise. It seems like she may not believe we're lucky she's here. Maybe I’m just lucky she's giving me the time of day.
"That's interesting. Well, I should get going. See you tomorrow, Cooper, and good luck on your painting."
"Oh, sure! See you tomorrow, Rachel," I say.
"It was nice to meet you."
"Yeah, you too," Rachel says with a half-wave.
As we watch her walk away, I tell Quinn, "Rachel was a huge help to me when I was transitioning from deputy chief to chief of police a couple of years ago. She's been my secretary for over four years now, I think."
"I bet it's nice to have someone solid like her to rely on. What's it like to be the police chief? What does a normal day look like for you?" Quinn asks.
"Well, most of the time, it's a lot of paperwork, but I take calls from dispatch and still get to be out on the street a lot. We've recently had a string of break-ins in the next town over we've been helping out with. That's taken up quite a bit of my time, lately."
"I like that the neighboring towns work with each other on this kind of stuff. It doesn't seem like the area has much crime," Quinn says.
I feel a little guilty about downplaying the seriousness of the B and Es, but I also don't want to scare Quinn when I'm not sure if she should be scared. Besides, it's not like I have a lot of information I can tell her anyway.
"Yeah, it's been a lot of extra work, but we're happy to be able to help Westlake.” It's starting to get late, and as much as I don't want this night to end, I need to get home to Piper. "You ready to head out? It's starting to get late and, unfortunately, I have to work tomorrow," I say as I gather up our trash.
"Oh wow, yeah, I had no idea what time it was," Quinn says as she gets up from the table. After dumping our trash, I hold my hand out and she slides her hand in mine, fitting together like a puzzle piece. I hold on tight as we walk to the truck and reluctantly let go so she can get in.
"Okay, most embarrassing moment of all time?" I ask Quinn once I’m in the truck. I turn the key, and the rumble of the engine fills the space.
“Oh, yikes! You’re really digging in there,” Quinn says, and if it wasn’t dark, I bet her cheeks would be pink. “Ugh, I don’t want to tell you this but I’m going to anyway. One time, in New York, I was walking with Hailey, not paying any attention to where I was going, and walked straight into a trashcan, falling face-first into the trash.”
“Oh no,” I say, feeling awful for her but also really wanting to laugh.
“I smelled awful the entire day, even after showering and scrubbing my skin until it was raw,” Quinn says.
I’m silent while I try to hold in my laughter when Quinn says, “It’s okay, you can laugh. It wasn’t at the time, but it’s pretty funny now.” Not being able to stop it, a chuckle burst from my chest at the visual I have.
“I’m sorry, I just have this visual of your long legs sticking up out of a trash can, and I can’t keep it in,” I tell her as she starts to giggle.
“You’re not far off,” she says. “Tell me your most embarrassing story.”
I sigh, “Okay, here goes. Todd and I were goofing around one night when we were teens and got the big idea to jump the fence around the baseball fields. We wanted to race the bases to see who was the fastest.
“Now, Todd has been tall since the minute he hit puberty, so he cleared the fence with no problem. Me, on the other hand, not so much… So, instead of clearing it, my pants got stuck at the top, and instead of ripping like you think they would, they got hooked, and I was stuck there hanging from the top of the fence by the back of my pants.”
“Oh my god,” Quinn says with the cutest giggle. I glance over at her and see that her eyes are wide and she has the biggest grin on her face. “How did you get down?”
“Well, Todd tried to lift me up, but he wasn’t strong enough, so he ended up having to call my dad. When he got there, I thought he was going to be so pissed at us, but he stood there and laughed at me for a solid minute before he helped me down. He then proceeded to tell everyone we saw afterward. I think that was my punishment, and it was worse than a grounding would have been.”
“I think I would agree. If Hailey ever talked about my trashcan mishap, I would be mortified,” Quinn says as I pull into her driveway and park the truck.
