by Rachel Hanna
She was so embarrassed. Everyone had looked at her like she’d pushed the Pope off a cliff or something.
“I’m Brad Parker,” the man said with a genuine smile.
“Any relation to Addison?”
Brad smiled again. “Yep. She’s my sister.”
“Nice to meet you,” Laura said as they stepped a few feet away from the front desk. “I’m Laura Bennett.”
“Sawyer is one of my oldest friends.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. How bad is it? It was an accident. I looked at my GPS for a second…”
Brad chuckled. “I once pushed him off a roof when we were thirteen. He’s fairly tough even though I tell him he’s a wuss most of the time.”
Laura’s anxiety lessened a bit as she finally took in a real breath for the first time in hours, it seemed. “So he’s okay?”
“Why don’t you come on back and see for yourself?” Brad said.
“But I’m not family.”
“Neither am I, Miss Bennett.,” he said with a wink. Jeez, were all the men in January Cove so good-looking? She thought for a split second about Carrie and how she would walk around this town with her tongue hanging out if she were there.
Laura followed Brad through the double doors as the girl behind the front desk gave her some serious “side eye”. The hospital wasn’t state of the art by any means. It was a bit old-fashioned with big cream colored tiles on the floor and wood paneling on the lower half of the walls. But somehow it felt comfortable and safe, unlike the hospitals she’d been in with her mother for so many months. They felt cold and lonely no matter how many people were around.
They turned left at the small nurse’s station, and Brad pushed open the cracked door to reveal the man lying in the bed, his leg elevated and in a brace of some kind. He had his eyes closed, but there was a scrape just above his right eye and his right arm was in a sling.
“Oh my God. I did that to him?” she whispered to Brad.
“He’s going to be okay, Laura. The doctor said he’ll be out of commission for a couple of weeks. He didn’t break any bones, but it did some damage to one of the ligaments in his leg. The doc explained it, but all I know is he’ll wear that brace for a few weeks and maybe do some rehab.”
“And his arm?”
“Just a sprain. He’ll be out of that in a few days, most likely.”
Her face contorted as she looked at him. She felt horrible for the pain she’d caused him, and she kind of wanted to slink back out of town before everyone realized what an idiot she was.
“They gave him some pretty powerful pain pills, so he might be out for awhile. You’re welcome to wait, if you’d like.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Brad walked toward the door. “By the way, welcome to January Cove,” he said with a chuckle before shutting the door behind him.
What a welcome it was.
It was dark. He could hear it coming. Was that a train? He could feel the reverberations of it on the ground beneath his feet, but he was stuck in quicksand. He pulled and tugged but couldn’t release its grip on his feet. The sound was coming ever closer. He could feel it about to hit him and…
“Stop!” he screamed, waking himself up. A hand touched his arm, and then brushed across his forehead.
“It’s okay,” the female voice soothed. “You’re okay…”
He struggled to open his eyes. Why was he so dang tired? His eyelids felt like they had lead weights on them, and his throat was dry as a bone. Where was he? And why did he feel tied down?
Finally, he willed one of his eyes to open. It was bright, wherever he was. He could hear a machine beeping somewhere off in the distance, and his leg was caught. When he tried to move it, pain ricocheted through his body like a ping pong ball.
“What the hell…” he mumbled, gritting his teeth through the pain. Then he heard a bit of commotion, a door opening, felt a warmth through his arm and then no more pain.
Was he dead?
He wasn’t going out like this - a quitter? No thank you. He willed his other eye to open. Everything bright. Everything blurry.
“Where am I?” he managed to mumble. A figure came into view, although blurry. Female, he thought, but he couldn’t tell much more.
“You’re at the hospital, Sawyer. But you’re going to be fine, okay?” the woman said, again stroking her hand across his forearm. Even in his current state of confusion, it felt good. Her touch felt natural. She was a good nurse, whoever she was.
“Light. Too bright.”
His eyes started to focus when she turned down the sun-like beacons above his head. He could see the shape he was in now. Leg elevated in a brace. Right arm in a sling. Nurses milling around on the other side of the window.
Turning his head, he saw her. The “her” who had put him in this predicament in the first place. That was a face he’d never forget.
“Who let you in here?” he demanded, his throat constricting from the dryness. She turned and filled a small cup with water and put it in his left hand.
“Brad let me in,” she said softly. “I came to check on you. And apologize. I’m so very sorry for what happened.”
He took a long sip of the water and wondered if this was what people lost in the desert would feel like having their first drink in a long time.
“Please leave,” he said after downing the liquid and regaining most of his voice.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t want you here.”
“But I wanted to apologize.”
“And you did. Now please leave before I have to call security.”
“Dude, calm down. Jeez,” Brad said as he appeared in the doorway.
“Why did you let her in here?” Sawyer said, obviously angry at his friend. “I told you I wanted my privacy.”
“Because she wanted to see how you were doing, man,” Brad said, a hint of warning in his voice. “You’re being rude.”
“Are you freaking serious right now? She put me here!”
“Sawyer…”
“Excuse me. If you two don’t mind, I’d like to get a word in here,” Laura said. Both men stopped talking and looked at her incredulously. She moved to the side of Sawyer’s bed. “Look, I made a terrible mistake today. I glanced down at my phone for a second and you were standing in the middle of the road. I didn’t see you, and I caused these injuries. I’m very, very sorry. I will pay your medical bills, or you can file charges and send me off to your local jail if you’d like. But, I would also like to point out that you were standing in the middle of the road. I’m not from around here, but where I live people don’t just stand in the middle of the road staring at the sky like that.”
“So this is my fault? Is that what you’re saying?” Sawyer asked through partially gritted teeth. The nerve of this woman!
“Yes. Partially, anyway. I take my part of the responsibility, but I think you also have to take yours.”
Brad struggled not to laugh, and the sight of it was irritating the crap out of Sawyer. He wanted to come up out of the bed and slug his friend, like he had many times in their youth, but his list of injuries was preventing that at the moment.
“You’ve said your piece. Now can you please leave?” Sawyer said softly without looking at her. If he was honest, he had a hard time looking at her. She was beautiful, but in that “girl next door” sort of way. Her long neck was distracting, and her emerald green eyes looked lost and alone.
Without a word, she gathered her purse from the chair and walked out the door. When Sawyer looked at Brad, he stood there with his arms crossed.
“What?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Brad said with a sly smile.
“Oh really? And what is that, genius?”
“Why did the hottest new woman in town have to hit me with her car?”
Sawyer sighed. Brad knew him far too well.
Chapter 5
No one was more surprised than Laura when she got word that Sawyer wasn’t press
ing charges against her. She hadn’t seen him since the hospital fiasco two nights before, but Addison had told her that he was home now, at least. Her plan was to stay as far away from him as possible, and maybe he would leave town before their paths accidentally crossed again.
Her focus now had to be on her new business. Hitting the hot guy with her car was but a minor blip in her rearview mirror now, she thought, and then felt bad for the pun.
“Where do you want this?” the man asked as he wheeled in another refrigerated display unit. The place was coming together, and she would be opening in just a few days.
“Right over there. Against that wall,” she said.
“Ma’am? The sign is ready to go up,” another man said as he poked his head through the front door.
Many sleepless nights and phone calls with Carrie had finally led to the name of her new bakery - “Sweetcakes”.
“Let me grab my phone so I can take a picture,” Laura said, fully knowing she couldn’t advertise her new business on social media without her aunt getting wind of it. She wanted to achieve some success before anyone close to her found out about her new venture.
As she watched the big sign go up on the side of the brick building, she couldn’t help but feel some anxiety. This had been her dream for so many years, and now it was a reality. She owned a bakery. Her success - or failure - was in her own hands now.
But then she thought about how Ted hadn’t believed in her, and that set a small fire inside of her belly. She wanted word of her successful bakery to get back to him one day.
“A bakery, huh?” Brad said as he met her on the sidewalk.
“Yep. Cupcakes mainly, although we’ll do some special order cakes too. Opening this week,” she said with a smile.
“Love the name.”
“Thanks. Listen… how’s Sawyer?” Why was she tugging at that string?
“He’s better, but he needs help.”
“Help?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t start rehab just yet, and he’s having some trouble taking care of himself. Cooking. Cleaning. That kind of thing.”
“Surely he could hire an in-home nurse or something?”
“Too stubborn for that,” Brad said with a laugh. “I just came from seeing him, actually. Took him twenty minutes to open a can of soup.”
“Well, did you help him?” Laura asked, her hand on her hip.
“I tried, but the guy gave me attitude so I let him do it. Ended up with chicken and rice all over the table.”
Laura felt her stomach churning. She caused this. The poor guy was sitting at his house, probably covered in soup.
“Listen, can you give me Sawyer’s address? I’d like to have something delivered.”
Brad smiled. “Of course.” Why did she feel like he was up to something all the time?
After getting everything done at Sweetcakes for the day, Laura headed back to Addy’s. When she walked inside, there was a buzzing of activity she hadn’t seen before. Addison was running around, talking about an octave higher than normal. Clay was furiously packing things into a diaper bag.
“Everything okay?”
“Oh. Laura. Sorry. I didn’t see you there,” Addison said with a big grin on her face. “My sister in law is in active labor, so we’re heading to the hospital.”
“Jenna, right?” Laura was trying to remember all of the major players in the large Parker family, but there were quite a few of them.
“Yes. She’s bringing my beautiful new nephew into the world before this day is over!”
“Oh, how exciting!” Laura said, trying to match Addison’s elevated level of enthusiasm.
“I made a casserole and a salad, so it’s in the fridge if you get hungry. I’m not sure if I’ll be back for breakfast in the morning…”
“No worries, Addy. I can feed myself.” Addison giggled.
“Okay. I just like to take care of my guests.”
“You go. This is such a magical time for a family. Take all the time you need.”
Moments later, Addison and Clay were out the door, along with their little girl, and Laura was left alone. She’d been so busy since arriving in January Cove that some alone time was certainly in order, but when she sat on the front porch to try to read her book, her mind was distracted. She couldn’t stop thinking about Sawyer and his soup stained shirt.
“Breathe, Jenna. Come on, honey, you gotta stop holding your breath, okay?” Kyle said as he held his wife’s hand. Her forehead was sticky with sweat, and her face was red from the intense contractions. The doctor said they would be pushing sometime soon.
“I’m trying…” she mumbled between the tough contractions.
Jenna loved the Parker family, and she’d been a part of them for most of her life. But right now all she wanted was her husband, so everyone else was banished to the waiting room.
Adele Parker had arrived in town just in the nick of time. She and Harrison, her new husband, sat with all of the other Parkers as they nervously awaited the arrival of the newest family member - Mason James Parker.
Jenna had insisted they call him Mason, but Kyle was partial to “MJ”. They would argue about that later, she had decided.
“Are you ready to start pushing, Jenna?” the nurse asked as she started preparing the area for a new arrival.
Jenna nodded and took a deep breath between the contractions. “I’m ready.”
Kyle looked down at his wife, the love of his life and his high school sweetheart. “Then let’s get ready to bring our son into this world.”
Laura sat on the front porch of Addy’s Inn and surveyed the main drag of January Cove. Only two cars had passed in the last hour, so she could see how Sawyer felt safe standing there in the middle of the road.
The place was quiet, with only the sound of her classical music playlist and ocean waves crashing in the background behind her new bakery. She couldn’t wait to set up a few bistro tables on the back deck so that customers could stick around and watch the ocean rolling into shore while they enjoyed one of her homemade strawberry cream cupcakes. The thought made her smile as she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath of the salty sea air.
She was startled out of her pleasant thoughts by the sound of a man clearing his throat nearby. When she opened her eyes, she was shocked to see Sawyer standing there on his crutches, his lower leg in some kind of an air cast and his right arm still in a sling. How he had managed to balance on crutches with a sling on one arm was beyond her.
“Sawyer? I didn’t see you there.”
“Seriously. Maybe you need to get an eye exam. Or maybe I’ve got some kind of invisibility super power around you?”
She wanted to laugh at that, but he wasn’t cracking a smile. For such a good looking man, he sure was serious.
“Here. Have a seat,” she said, standing up and pulling another rocking chair close by. Surprisingly, he didn’t argue and eased himself down into the chair while Laura held it.
His brow was covered in sweat, and it was very apparent that he had struggled to get himself over to Addy’s. It was almost nine o’clock at night, so she wasn’t sure why he was even out of his house right now.
“It’s awfully late for you to be out walking around on crutches, isn’t it?”
He chuckled, mostly to himself. “Am I supposed to be a hermit now that you’ve maimed me?”
She opted to ignore his sarcastic comment. “Did you receive my delivery?” Proud that she’d sent a week’s worth of dinners to his house from a local chef, she hoped that he would see that as an olive branch and a real apology for what she’d done.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way here…”
“I don’t need your charity.”
Now she was getting irritated. “Excuse me?”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Oh really? How was your soup today?”
He cocked his head at her. “How did you know about that?”
/> “I have my sources.”
“Brad. I’m going to kill that guy.”
Laura smiled, although he couldn’t see her on the darkened porch. The light from the front door was just enough to illuminate his strong jawline and the stubble around it. And she could barely see the light shining through his ocean blue eyes that were framed by the most amazing black eyelashes she’d ever seen.
“He was just trying to help. And so was I.” Sawyer said nothing. “Look, I know that I made a huge mistake. I was exhausted from driving way too long without a break. I was lost in this little town, as hard as that might be for you to believe. And I only glanced at my phone for a second. I just didn’t see you standing there…”
“I shouldn’t have been standing there.”
He said it so softly that she barely heard it. “What?”
“You’re right. A grown man with a brain should not stand in the middle of any road.” She thought she saw a bit of a smile on his sexy face. Nice. “I came here to say thank you for the food and that I accept your apology for almost killing me.”
Laura laughed. “I think that might be overstating it a bit. But thank you for not welcoming me to town by sending me to jail.”
“What kind of music is this anyway?”
“Um, classical. Surely you’ve heard of it.”
“I thought only old people and elevators played it, though.”
“Nice,” she said, rolling her eyes. Why didn’t people understand the beauty of classical music? “It’s really all I listen to. It calms me.”
“So is that your new business across the street?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Sweetcakes?”
“It’s a bakery. Mainly cupcakes.”
“Do I get free cupcakes since you almost took my life?” He craned his head toward her, an actual smile on his face. Dang it, he was bad news. That was a sexy smile. A sexy, country, Southern smile.
“Sure. Every time I almost kill you, I’ll give you one free cupcake.”
Sawyer laughed. “Where’s everybody tonight?”
“Addy and Clay left a few hours ago. Apparently Jenna was in active labor, but I haven’t heard an update since they left.”
