Break (Lakefield Book 3)

by Jennifer Vester

  “You’re right and I just reached mine.”

  I switched off my phone. Hopefully that got rid of any GPS signal he could use. They were all really nice but they didn’t understand.

  Just like you couldn’t make a flower become a tree, the same held true for people. You couldn’t make people like you just because you wanted them to. Even if you could, would you be able to tell if it was because you made them, or if it was free will? It was just a sad fact of life that not everyone was meant to be together. Or maybe they were for a time, then they moved on.

  Even though his friends seemed to think it would make a difference if I hung around, to me it wasn’t worth risking. So, he asked for a background check. It wasn’t like he acted on it once he did.

  I saw him laughing in my head again.

  Turning the knobs on the stereo, I tried to find a channel to listen to before I took off again. Nothing but talk radio and garbled country songs.

  My location was like a dead zone for good music. Giving up, I drove in silence and tears instead.

  Chapter Eleven

  December was cold in the mountains. Some of the long-time residents were predicting that we would get a large snow again soon. Thanksgiving had been bad enough. A foot of snow had covered the landscape making it nearly impossible for me to travel down my short dirt road to the county one that connected to the town a couple of miles away.

  Luckily, I had Peg and Sam living in close distance to my cabin. Their land abutted mine on the south side. They had been taking care of the property for years so they knew what needed to be cleared and what didn’t. If it hadn’t been for them in the first month of living in the mountains I wouldn’t have made it.

  At first, they weren’t quite sure what to think of me. They were older and had lived in their house for the last thirty years. I had showed up in the middle of the night on their front porch, after getting lost at least three times, with my papers and keys to the cabin. I was tired, filthy, and in desperate need of a bathroom. They had been wary for good reason but pointed me in the right direction.

  My grandmother had been one of their favorite neighbors when she had visited during the summers. When she took over my care, she had stopped making those trips and had shut the cabin up. She had written them regularly over the years though and had still maintained their friendship. They had showed me old postcards and penned notes with photos of me as a child. Going through them had been like getting to know her again. Peg and Sam had kept all of them and packed them in the attic of the cabin, just waiting for me to discover.

  The first week I had cleaned, then cleaned again. Then I cleaned some more. It was therapeutic in a way so I didn’t mind the hard work. I had to remove some old boards on a window one day and that’s when Sam had shown up. He was an extremely handy man. He removed the boards, then gave me a tour of everything outdoorsy. It had taken some time and a lot of patience on their part, but I had eagerly listened and learned.

  Peg was a retired teacher, so much of her time was spent with her church groups and, according to Sam, dreaming up projects to do around the house. Which Sam generally ended up doing but only with the bribe of sweets. According to Peg he liked anything with chocolate.

  Sam was still working and hadn’t quite decided whether he was going to retire anytime in the future. He sold medical insurance policies for some big company to prospective buyers. It sounded completely boring to me but Sam seemed to like the travel to other states.

  The first awful snow I thought I had prepared for. No such luck, and I ended up stuck in the house for a day until Sam had plowed the driveway.

  Then there had been a family of racoons that had made a home in my shed. Although cute, they had driven Bells crazy and had gotten into my sealed trashcans several times. Once again, Peg and Sam to the rescue.

  But for as much as they did for me, I made sure to do things for them when I could. I made a turkey for them on Thanksgiving. It was a little dry but they had eaten it anyway. It took the load off Peg, who had been sick with the flu for a week and made Sam happy. I helped them clear wood and chop it. Mainly so that I could learn but also to help take some of their chores for them. It made me happy to do it because they were incredibly kind people.

  The small town I had moved to was named Hope ironically.

  It boasted of a grocery store, a diner, a gas station, a bar and a few other small local shops. For the most part though, it was a tiny blip on the map compared to the larger cities on the main highway.

  They had a small clinic that handled minor medical things that came up. The doctor had retired years ago, and even though he was getting quite old, he was still practicing some family medicine for the residents. I worked with him part-time during the week when I wasn’t helping the local greenhouse.

  The greenhouse wasn’t terribly busy this time of year, but kept a heated environment to grow different plants in every season. By the time spring rolled around, they would be fully stocked on plants that grew well in the area and would sell well to the local area. They had even let me set up a small vegetable garden in a corner of the building just for my private use. They hadn’t branched out into vegetables yet and they wanted to see if it worked.

  There was some tourism, with a few RV and camping places. In the summer, they even had a seasonal shop to rent canoes at. The town’s main attraction was the multiple lakes in the area that weren’t close to our lands, and kept most of the traffic and visitors far away.

  One of the really great features of the land that Peg, Sam and I occupied, was a small shared pond. It was fed from a small stream that meandered through the area. Sam had said there were even a few fish.

  My front porch wrapped around to one side of the cabin and was extremely enjoyable to spend time sitting on just watching the area. The covered roof made it perfect in good or bad weather. I loved wrapping up in my blanket in the mornings to sit and just enjoy the view of the forest. The landscape was always changing and no two mornings were the same.

  There was some loneliness but it was overridden by the peacefulness in some ways. Whenever it was too much to bear, I would just make the small trek through the woods to Sam and Peg’s house.

  The cabin itself was a small A-frame. It had a small loft bedroom upstairs and a small bedroom downstairs. The bottom floor felt roomy enough for Bells and I. The kitchen was open to the living room and the bathroom was big enough for two people to easily use. The washroom was tiny and it was a squeeze to get into for laundry but it was just right for me. The interior was all wood and even had a small fireplace. It was rustic and charming in its own way, even though half the appliances were thirty years old. The best part was that it felt like I was home again.

  I watched Bells take a couple of tentative steps onto the porch. Her paws made impressions in the light dusting of snow that had settled overnight. She looked at me, swished her tail and promptly retreated back to the front door.

  “Okay, okay, Miss Prissy. Too wet for you?”

  She turned her back to me and waited while licking her paw.

  I opened the door and walked in with her. She laid down on the couch and became absorbed with cleaning herself.

  My ginger tea was ready in the microwave when I opened it. I had been having the worst reaction to something I had eaten recently and was pretty sure I either had the stomach flu or was just getting some bug. Ginger tea seemed like the only thing that would settle my stomach. I was going in to the clinic today to work and would ask if the doctor had any suggestions.

  I had resolved to go through a couple of my grandmother’s junk drawers for a couple of hours. She seemed to keep every little thing and had stuffed it everywhere. Thus far I had found multiple pressed flowers, glittered pine cones, letters from my mother, door fixtures, tools, yarn, games, puzzles and pictures. It was a menagerie of odds and ends.

  Opening one of the drawers, I found the paper pile I had been working on a few weeks ago. My old cell phone was sitting on top and I frowned at
it.

  Hmm.

  I turned it on just to see if it still worked. I could probably reset it and sell it to someone local. It beeped several times when it finally came on. Several voicemails had been left that I probably didn’t want to listen to and my email synced.

  There was one text message from Logan. My finger hovered over the delete button. I was a sucker for punishment though because I opened it instead.

  Logan: Please come back to me Kaitlyn. I need you.

  It had been sent two weeks ago. My heart clenched.

  I had spent the first month at the cabin mourning him. Although he wasn’t dead, it had still felt like a tiny part of me had died the day I had left.

  What did he expect me to do? Run back to him? I deleted the text.

  My phoned beeped suddenly. Incoming picture from Brock.

  I opened it. It was a satellite picture of the cabin.

  Brock: There you are. Nice to see you again.

  I shut off the phone. Stupid Brock. Now I knew why Julia and Liv had complained about him so much. I missed all of them, especially Andi, but she knew where I was. Brock apparently hadn’t gotten wind of my location from her.

  An image of Logan laughing went through my head.

  My stomach churned and I raced for the bathroom. I heaved into the toilet a couple of times. My body, completely empty again, felt worn out.

  Crackers. I really needed to get crackers in town today. Cereal was apparently not going to cut it for breakfast anymore.

  I sat on the floor for a while and let my stomach settle again. Then I took a warm shower and got dressed. I almost felt chilled. Not feverish, just not good.

  The next couple of hours I ate bread and drank a lot of water while I dug through more drawers. I was making a pile of what to keep and what not to.

  Once I finished my chore, I loaded up the car and drove to town.

  I arrived at the clinic at noon. Doctor Fuller was busy with a patient and the other assistant looked bored. She was twenty, brunette and cute although not terribly smart. Maybe I was being judgmental but the girl had trouble alphabetizing much less holding a conversation that didn’t involve the latest in shoe trends.

  She was studying to be a certified medical office assistant so she could escape town according to her. What she actually did all morning was questionable. Every time I came in, there was a stack of things to be filed or things to go through. She seemed to spend most of her time on her phone or reading fashion magazines.

  She smiled when I walked in and already had her purse in hand.

  “Hey Kate! Had a slow morning so you’ll probably be bored the rest of the day.”

  I nodded at her. “Hey Becca. I’ll be fine. Heard we were supposed to get more snow tonight. Are you going out?”

  “Nah, the girls and I are going to hang out at the house and drink. Roads will be too slick to do anything else. That guy they have doing the plow is HOT. Have you seen him yet?”

  I chuckled. “No, I haven’t. Sam always does my drive and by the time I get here in the mornings the roads are already clear. You should ask him out.”

  She got a dreamy look on her face. “I wish. He goes over to the diner sometimes around noon. I’m headed there now.”

  “Good luck!”

  “Hey, I’m sure Dr. Fuller wouldn’t mind if you came with us for thirty minutes if you want to come.”

  I shook my head and put my purse under the table. I was eyeing her unfinished stack of filing that I would have to get to.

  “No, I’m not really into dating right now.”

  She sighed. “I know, everyone knows. You should though. You know there half a dozen guys that would totally go for you.”

  I arched my brow at her. “And half of them have already asked. I think Sean Taylor may have actually stabbed himself in the leg with a screwdriver just to come in and ask me on a date.”

  She shrugged. “Probably. He’s that stupid. You should date though. People like you is all.”

  “Thanks, maybe someday.” I gave her a small smile.

  She tilted her head at me. “Someone broke your heart. Right?”

  I shrugged. “Have fun catching the plow guy. See you soon.”

  The last thing I needed was Becca to know anything about my personal life. She and her friends were like the town gossips as it was. Anything missing from some medical file, she and her friends could fill me in on. For instance, whose kid was illegitimate, if someone had a heart attack five years ago, who had impotency, who had gotten food poisoning and to what. The detail they went into was both scary and slightly impressive. So, I kept my mouth shut and kept my business to myself.

  She started toward the door then she snapped her fingers and turned back. “Oh hey! Did you hear they found a body dumped out on the highway this morning? It was a few miles from here but the FBI was crawling all over the place.”

  I gave her a grimace. “How did you hear about it?”

  She shrugged. “The usual. My friend Amy was driving in this morning and passed it then she talked with some people over at the diner, who called around to see what was going on. Then one of those agents went by the café and boom.”

  “So, he told the entire café about it?”

  She made a face. “Of course not, but by that time Beth over at the state police office had called Tommy over the garage, who called Harris, who just happened to be sitting and eating breakfast beside Amy.”

  This was exactly why I didn’t need Becca knowing anything about my life. The grapevine of gossipers and nosey people would have half the state informed by the time I finished telling her anything about my troubles.

  “Interesting,” I replied, and waved at her as she left.

  I started clearing the desk, one file at a time.

  Dr. Fuller walked into the front room. “Hey there Kate. Nice to see you. Did Becca just leave?”

  He was wearing a bright orange tie today. He had dozens of colors, all different patterns. It was fun for the patients to talk to him about and entertaining with the kids. He was getting into his seventies, wore thin glasses and his hair was completely white. The cold weather bothered him, he said, and occasionally I would see him rubbing his hands together from joint discomfort. Despite his age, he still had an energetic feel to him and was always extremely nice.

  “Yeah, there was some guy she was going to go drool over at the diner.”

  He pointedly looked at me. “Why aren’t you over there with her?”

  I gave him a huge smile. “Because my favorite guy is standing right here and I would miss your company.”

  His cheeks reddened and he laughed. “Well just don’t tell Mrs. Fuller. Then she’ll be up here every day with those ridiculous dogs of hers and neither one of us would get anything done.”

  I winked at him. “I won’t. Oh! I almost forgot. Do you have time to see me today?”

  He frowned. “Of course. We don’t have anyone coming in for the next hour. What’s wrong?”

  I slid a file off the desk and put it into a drawer. “Uhm, I think I have a stomach bug or something. I’ve been a little nauseous for a couple of weeks and this morning I threw up. No fever, no other symptoms. Just a bad tummy.”

  He pursed his lips. “Hmm. Did you have something to eat that disagreed with you?”

  I laughed. “Besides Peg’s famous cheese casserole? No.”

  He made a face.

  Peg had gotten half the congregation of the one small church in town sick from her casserole one year. The doctor had been extremely busy for a week. It hadn’t improved with time either and yet she still made it. Unfortunately, I hadn’t known and had eaten some a month ago. Then had called in sick for three days.

  He tapped the wooden desk. “You know the drill kiddo. Urine first then we’ll do a blood draw just in case.”

  “Gotcha.”

  I went to the back and did what he said. The blood draw took less than a minute and I was back at the desk when he stepped out for lunch.

&nbs
p; My phone beeped in the middle of trying to decipher Becca’s handwriting on a note intended for someone’s file.

  Unknown Number: When you run off people get worried.

  Kate: Who is this?

  Unknown Number: Brock. How’s the food there? Looks like the smallest town I’ve ever seen in my life. Do they even have a burger place?

  Kate: How did you get this number?

  Unknown Number: Magic.

  Kate: Brock cut it out. And lose this number. And stop spying on me. It’s weird.

  Unknown Number: Just checking in with my favorite girl. It’s good to know you’re alive.

  Kate: Of course I am! Just because I moved doesn’t mean I’m dead.

  Unknown Number: He’s better. You should give him another chance.

  I grimaced.

  Kate: No. I don’t want to know. I’m ditching this phone.

  I turned my phone off.

  Grr. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about him. I didn’t need this today.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. Then I saw Logan’s face when he kissed me in the kitchen. His blue eyes had bored into mine before our lips had met.

  My eyes popped open and I growled.

  I grabbed the next file off the desk and shoved it in the drawer with a little more aggressiveness than necessary.

  Dr. Fuller came back in half an hour later, patting his stomach and went in the back. He ate the same thing every day for lunch at the diner. Meatloaf and cherry pie. Which seemed to be a local favorite for everyone for some reason. I thought the meatloaf was awful. The pie was decent.

  Pie sounded so good right now for some reason.

  Dr. Fuller came back in with a curious look on his face.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Kate, we haven’t talked much about your background. We have a little but I need some specific information. I can refer you to a different doctor if it’s not something you want to answer. She’s about thirty minutes away on the highway.”

  I frowned at him. My stomach clenched slightly. In my experience, when a doctor didn’t come out with information immediately it was usually a bad sign. I was probably dying of some horrible disease.