Lantern Lake Winter Collection: Books 1-3

by Gretchen S. B.

  Looking at the phone, he could see it was Max, clearly checking in again to see how Jared's patient was doing. Since he knew Claire was waking up, he put the phone on speaker and laid it on the island.

  "Hey, little brother, how goes things in the city?"

  There was a snort. "How about how goes things for Claire first?"

  Jared glanced over to see her sitting up and stretching her arms above her head. He looked away as her shirt began to ride up at the bottom. He looked down and concentrated heavily on the sausage he was cooking.

  There was some patter of her feet and her voice from the other side of the island but instead of stopping, Claire moved around the counter. Jared remembered he had coffee sitting in the coffee pot a second before he heard her rustling through the cabinet next to him to get a cup. Her being this close made his skin itch.

  Not in an uncomfortable way he normally felt when he was too close to people, but he wanted to turn around and touch her which was insane. Not only because he never wanted to be near anyone, but because she was spoken for. He knew she was spoken for. Almost immediately after meeting her, she mentioned a boyfriend. Here he was letting her ping his radar. It was stupid and foolish, and he wasn't in a place where he could see her even if she was single. Not to mention she wasn't even from here. She lived over an hour away.

  "She's okay," came Claire's voice as she plopped down on one of the stools, finally on the other side of the island from Jared. "My left knee is very stiff and a bright array of colors. My neck also hurts a little, but at least I don't have the massive headache I had yesterday before I took painkillers. My muscles in general feel tight, nothing terrible."

  After a beat of silence, Max made a humming sound. "I would still feel better if you would go to the walk-in clinic connected to the hospital in Lakeside. I'd rather a professional look at you. On the plus side, it looks like that might happen today. We only got a heavy sprinkling of snow and most of the roadways have already had it melt off. By midafternoon the plows will be heading toward the roadways outside the city. I would say by three you'll be able to make it into town. Which means Jared, you’ll want to call Bud this morning to get on his schedule. If you wait too long, the car won’t get to the mechanic in time."

  "Will do." No other response seemed necessary. He had the mechanic’s and tow company’s numbers on the fridge, and he would simply hand them to Claire and she could make the call before breakfast. It was her car after all.

  "All right, if you have no questions for me, I have to get ready for work." When no one said anything he gave a quick, "See ya." Before hanging up.

  Jared moved to the fridge and slid Bud's card off before sliding it across the island to her.

  "That's the local tow truck driver. Even though you're going to want it to go to Sophie's shop, Bud's the main tow truck in the area. You have a better shot at having him tow it there than having Sophie try to wrangle one for you."

  "Thanks."

  A moment later he heard a phone dialing on speaker. "Bud Sanders Towing, how can I help you?"

  If Bud was answering phones himself, they must be busy. He only answered phones when his office manager couldn’t get in from where she lived on the far side of Bunny Ridge.

  "Hi, Bud; my name is Claire. I was given your card by Jared McAllister. My car hit a tree outside of town and I am hoping to get it towed to Sophie's." Her voice had a question to it and Jared felt bad.

  Swinging around, he set the spatula down and leaned over so Bud could hear him in the speaker.

  "Hey, Bud. This is Jared. Claire was on her way into town the night before last when a crazy person swerved, and she ended up getting run off the road and her car plowed into a tree. I want to have Sophie take a look at it and see if she can take care of it. She's on the main road out to the cabins, you can't miss it. I know the plows aren't out yet, but I want to get on your schedule."

  There was a pause and Jared knew from experience Bud was writing it down. "All right, I got you on the schedule. I can't guarantee we’ll get there anytime soon, but I'm guessing we’ll get to it by the end of today. Is this the number you want me to call you back on when he gets to Sophie's?"

  "Yes, please," Claire responded.

  "Will do." The phone went quiet.

  Jared grabbed the next card off the fridge and showed it to Claire. "She's the best mechanic. Sophie is a miracle worker. You definitely want her working on your car. If anyone can fix it in a timely manner, it's Sophie and her team. She's on the other side of the city of Lantern Lake. So, she's at least in the same city you'll be staying in."

  Claire nodded and as he finished breakfast, she made the call into the mechanic and began explaining what exactly could be wrong with the car. Then texted Roland the update, as small as it was.

  ~~

  After breakfast, the two of them rolled into a working rhythm, neither of them talking to each other. It was a companionable silence and one that Jared appreciated. Not only because he wasn't used to having people in his home, but because he enjoyed his work and appreciated that Claire was someone who felt the same way. There was one thing he remembered irritated Lilianna: she hated that he would get so absorbed in work that he would lose track of time. All of the puzzles associated with his job meant he could lose hours and she would be furious. Claire didn't seem fazed.

  Even though that was the case, he set himself a timer for his phone to vibrate it two. The last thing he wanted was to get absorbed all day and then Claire not be able to make it to her hotel for a second night because he'd waited too long to see if the roads were clear. He knew better than to drive on the roads at night.

  When the buzzer went off, surprising him, he picked up the phone and called one of his neighbors in the cabin closer to the road. Ruby and Jim had purchased their cabin soon after Jared bought his, within days of each other. Both of their numbers were in his phone. He knew Jim traveled for work, so he opted to try Ruby.

  She picked up after one ring. "Hey, Jared, what can I do for you?" As always Ruby's voice was jovial; the retired teacher clearly kept a smile in her voice.

  "I was wondering if you could see the road from where you are and whether they'd been plowed or not. I have a guest over here that needs to get back into town."

  "Oh?" What he loved about Ruby was before he could get irritated at the curious tone to that one word, she moved past it as if she knew it was none of her business. "I can, actually. I went to the grocery store about an hour ago. I had to wait at the entrance because the plow was on the roadway and had dumped into the driveway. Luckily, I still had that small shovel in the back of my car and cleared enough of it to get out. I still had to wait behind the plow for a little bit but I'm sure if you head out now it should be fine."

  "Thanks, Ruby, I appreciate it. You have a good afternoon." Jared was surprised the phone call worked. He knew Ruby, and Jim when he was home, headed into town more often than he did, but what were the odds they would've tried to go an hour ago?

  "No problem, sweetie, you have a good day too."

  When he hung up the phone, he spun in his computer chair to see Claire looking at him above her laptop questioningly. "What's the verdict?"

  Jared couldn't help the small smile that slid onto his face. She looked pretty cute sitting on his couch with her legs propped up and her hair back in a messy bun that she had clearly done just to get out of her face not caring what it looked like. She also, as it turned out, had a pair of glasses she tended to wear after looking at the computer too long.

  "It sounds like we’re good to go. I can take you into town now. But remember, I'm not taking you straight to the hotel. I am taking you to the clinic because you really need to get checked out. My conscience would not be clear if I took you to the hotel and it turned out something was wrong."

  Claire rolled her eyes at him and made a few clicks before closing her laptop. "I get it, I get it. Give me about five minutes and I'll have everything packed up."

  Watching her, Jared deci
ded he'd probably need to add another two minutes with how stiffly she was walking. At least it looked better than it had last night but she still wasn’t walking normally. Hopefully she would take it easy when she got home, though he didn't like the idea of her driving all the way back to Seattle like this.

  Ten minutes later, they were in the garage and Claire hopped up in the truck. That seemed to be when she finally heard Newt's whining on the other side of the garage door. He was whining up a storm, which he tended to do sometimes when Jared left. Not all the time, just when the dog felt cooped up and didn’t like the idea of Jared going on adventures without him.

  Jared watched as Claire's heart seemed to break for his fuzzy companion. "Let him come with. I can move my bag under my feet and keep my laptop in my lap. He could sit in the middle. It's not like we’re going anywhere he could get into trouble."

  Jared snorted but Claire was already moving stuff out of the way, so instead of arguing he shook his head in defeat, hopped out of the truck and opened the garage door. The expression of doggy excitement on Newt's face was laughable. Jared never knew what Newt was thinking when he hopped up into the truck, but he was darn excited about it every single time. As Newt wiggled himself into the middle of the bench, Jared could see Claire on the other side realizing she had underestimated the amount of room the large dog would take and was trying to readjust accordingly. Newt sat in between them looking out the front window leaning slightly on Jared as a show of affection.

  "We all ready?" Jared asked as he buckled his seatbelt.

  He got an affirmative sound from Claire and some tail thumps from Newt as he pulled out the truck and started driving into town.

  It seemed as if everyone decided to be on the road at once, now that the snow had been cleared, so traffic was heavier than Jared was used to. It was something akin to Lantern Lake’s rush-hour, which he knew was nowhere near as bad as the west side of the state, but it still wasn't pleasant. Once they were in the area with reception, Claire called her boyfriend at the hotel to let him know that they were going to the clinic. Jared had to repeat where the clinic was twice before the guy on the other end of the phone was able to find the address on his GPS. Jared wondered what the man had been typing in before that since there was only one hospital in the tri-city area and two clinics.

  Jared silently questioned why Claire would be with someone that was so rude and demanding.

  What should've been a twenty-minute ride, ended up being thirty-five. Jared had to keep reminding himself driving into the city for his monthly meeting was worse, but that didn't make him less irritated with traffic. By the time they got to the clinic he was ready to get out of the car. As Claire did so, Jared popped open the glove box and grabbed the spare key to the truck on a ring by itself and put it into the car so the heat would keep going. He pulled out the note he’d typed up years ago and put one copy on the driver side window, on the inside, and one on the windshield. Both notes said that the car was warm and comfortable, and that Newt was completely fine.

  Claire watched him do this with a look of amusement on her face when he patted Newt on the head and shut the door, locking the dog inside. She chuckled at them.

  "I can't believe you did that. Are you really that concerned about people calling the cops or breaking into your vehicle?"

  He snorted as he came up to stand beside her and the two of them walked into the clinic. "It actually happened to someone I knew in high school. The dog was in the car in the middle of summer. To be fair, the air conditioning wasn't running properly so the dog was a little hot. I’d rather be safe than sorry. I know in actuality within five minutes Newt's going to be asleep on the bench stretched out and no one will even see him walking by but better safe than sorry."

  She gave him a funny look that Jared couldn’t comprehend before she went to check in at the front desk. The waiting room was about half full. Jared went to the far corner, which wasn't that far since the space was just a rectangle with the check-in desk along one long side. A few minutes later, he was joined by Claire with a clipboard full of paperwork. Neither spoke as she filled the pages out but afterward, she checked her watch and scanned the room.

  "How long does it usually take to get from the Lantern Lake Inn to here?"

  Thinking about it a beat Jared adjusted for weather. "I would say about a half hour. The way Lantern Lake is, the cities of Lantern Lake and Bunny Ridge are almost even with each other across the lake and then Lakeside is in between them on the other side from where my house is. We came from one far side and Reginald is coming from the other. While he's not having to fight with the roadways out of town he'll have to deal with as much if not more traffic."

  "Roland, his name is Roland," she responded with no malice in her tone.

  He’d said the name wrong on purpose. He knew it was petty, but he didn’t like the other guy. The two of them sat in a companionable silence for another fifteen minutes before she was called back. Jared knew at that point he could leave but he wasn't comfortable leaving her alone in case Mr. High And Mighty didn't show up. He wanted to make sure Claire got to her hotel, so he figured he would stay until either she got out of the clinic or until Mr. High And Mighty showed up.

  It was another fifteen minutes before he strode in the door, which baffled Jared. It meant Roland hadn't left soon after he got the call from Claire; he’d stopped to do whatever it was guys like that did. Jared couldn’t understand that. If Claire was his girlfriend who'd been in a car accident and out in the cabin stranded for days, he would've headed out immediately. He would have wanted to know how she was doing. This guy was a weirdo.

  The only reason he knew for sure it was Roland was because when he stepped in, Jared had never seen him before. The man was about five-foot-ten-inches and although he was wearing jeans and a pullover, they looked much more expensive than anything anyone in town would wear out in the mucky snow. Jared couldn’t help the frown on his face as he raised his hand to wave the guy over.

  His distaste for the man only solidified when Roland sauntered over and slid into one of the seats across from Jared, sneering. "I take it you are the individual who kidnapped my girlfriend."

  Letting all of the more acidic comments wash through him at first, Jared raised an eyebrow and paused before answering, "If by kidnapped you mean by picking her up on the side of a deserted road and taking care of her because her car was totaled and she couldn't get back into town, then yes, I'm Jared."

  "That's the thing about small towns, never fully equipped for anything."

  Temper flaring, Jared stopped himself from trying to rip apart the man in front of a room full of people. The sneer was something he imagined a petty prince would've made in the Middle Ages when he knew he only had power because of who his parents were. All Jared wanted to do was rip that expression off Roland’s face, but he knew better. He stood up; he didn't have to take this attitude especially since Newt had already been in the car for over half an hour and that was stretching it a little even by his standards. "As fun as this is, I don't have time for it. But you know, you're welcome for taking care of her. We really should be questioning what kind of man lets his girlfriend drive into a snowy area in that little car of hers in the winter at night, alone when it's snowing? And she had to have passed through the city to get out to my place, so clearly, she was lost, and you didn't think to check on her. I think you've got bigger problems than me, buddy." With that said, he didn't give Roland another glance. Instead he strode out of the clinic and headed to his car, where he saw Newt stretched out on the bench seat sleeping comfortably.

  Jared couldn't help cursing as he opened the truck door, effectively waking Newt. It had been lightly snowing when they'd walked into the clinic, but now the flakes were thicker and clearly sticking to the roadways. He’d walked into the clinic almost an hour ago and he was willing to bet in the half an hour it would take to get out of the city again the roadway to his house was not going to be great. They had barely done a decent plow job to
day. Some spots were still iffy. They'd clearly done a once over and Jared didn't know whether they were expected to come back tomorrow or what, but he was willing to bet it was probably safer to stay, not something he wanted to do but he didn't want to end up like Claire stranded on the highway either. He turned on the truck and called his little brother, Robert.

  The vet picked up after three rings and sounded a little rushed as if he heard the phone from across the clinic he worked at. "Hey, Jared. What's up?"

  With a heavy sigh, Jared leaned back in his seat. "I'm in Lakeside and I was about to head home when I realized the snow has been sticking to the roadway for a while. Can Newt and I crash at your place tonight since I'm judging by the next half hour to an hour the roadway to my cabin is probably going to be shot."

  Robert snorted. "Yeah, we've got about an inch on the roadway at the moment. I am willing to bet farther out than where you are it's probably worse. Feel free, glad you at least have Newt with you, so he's not stranded out there by himself. I know you have a key so let yourself in; I'll be home about seven-fifteen if we don't end up closing up early due to weather. The storm is insane. Herb says we haven't seen this much snow in about twenty years, and I think he’s right. I vaguely remember missing four days from school due to snow before Thanksgiving one year."

  Nodding, Jared responded, "Yeah, poor kids now are stuck with snow days during their winter break, so it does them no good whatsoever. At least we missed school."

  "Yeah, well, I’ll let you go. Supposedly there's a border collie coming in in the next ten minutes and I want to be up front to get them out of here as soon as possible. I'll see you tonight."

  Once he hung up with his brother, Jared threw his phone into the glove box with the spare key and scratched Newt behind his ears until the dog was looking at him, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

  “Well, boy, looks like no good deed goes unpunished. Did you know it was going to snow? Is that why you were whining so much? Did you know you would be stranded out there by yourself?"