by Natalie Ann
“I’m fine. I just feel drugged.”
He let out a laugh. “Because you are. Sleep is the best thing. After you drink some more. Hydration is key. Even if you can’t get food down, you need to drink.”
“Are you going to prepare me a bottle too?”
He wanted to laugh again but didn’t. “If I have to.” They got back to his parents’ house. “Couch or bed?”
“Couch,” his father said. “Why the hell would I go to bed in the middle of the afternoon?”
He was glad his parents’ bedroom was on the first floor. “Because it’s more comfortable and the bathroom is closer.”
His father looked at him like he’d grown two heads. “I’m fine. I’ll nap on the couch.”
Once his father was lying down with a bottle of water next to him, Justin went out to sit on the deck. It was just hitting sixty today and the sun was shining. He needed the fresh air more than he realized. Even the mountains in the distance.
There was a time he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of this small town and now, even though he was taking in the serenity, he wondered how long before he was ready to climb the walls.
4
My Pride
Five days later, Taryn was putting her cake in her SUV along with the two dozen cupcakes all in a Memorial Day red, white, and blue theme motif. The order had come in last minute from someone that saw her card at Cambridge Golf Resort and she’d been thrilled to take it.
She drove the twenty minutes to a house on Saranac Lake to deliver the goods.
When she pulled in, there were a few cars and she started to think she was late. But they’d told her to arrive at two. The party was starting at three and they’d just be setting up.
She went around back where she heard voices. “Hi. I’m looking for Beth Driver. I’m Taryn Miles with the dessert.”
“Oh, hi. I’m Beth. So nice to meet you. Can I tell you that when Linda Cambridge gave me a bite of that cake at the course last week I just about died. It was a day old on top of it and tasted as if it was completely fresh. I could have eaten the whole thing.”
“I’m so glad. And thank you for reaching out to me.”
Beth started to walk around to the front, so Taryn followed. “No problem. Linda and I go way back. I was there with my grandson at the driving range and we got chatting. She knows what a sweet tooth I’ve got. This cake is the same flavors, right?”
“It is,” Taryn said, opening her hatch up. “Cupcakes are chocolate with vanilla frosting.”
“Perfect.” Beth said, then gasped when Taryn opened the box up. “It’s beautiful.”
“Crap,” Taryn said. “It moved when I was driving. I’ll fix that for you.”
“It’s fine,” Beth said.
“No. It’s smudged on the side. I’ve got my blades and frosting and bags with me in case this happens.”
“I think it’s lovely, but if you need to fix it, I understand,” Beth said, grabbing one of the boxes with the cupcakes in it. They were fine as each cupcake was in an individual holder.
“I do. I’m a perfectionist.” She picked the cake box up and carried it to the back, placing it on the table where Beth instructed. “Do you want it in or out of the box?”
“Out if you don’t mind. Since the food is in a tent, I’m not too worried.”
“Perfect.” She reached in and slid the big sheet cake out and set it on the table, then went back to her SUV to get the other box of cupcakes and her bag to fix the side of the cake where it smudged. It wouldn’t take long to do it.
Beth had a couple of tiers out where Taryn assumed the cupcakes would go, but figured she’d wait until Beth returned to do that. In the meantime she pulled out her red and blue piping bags and paring knife she used to scrape the frosting off and adjust it just right.
Ten minutes later, Beth returned. “It looks wonderful. Personally, I can’t wait to just eat it.”
“I’m glad,” Taryn said, handing over the invoice. “Do you want the cupcakes set up over here?”
“Sure. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“I’ll be right back with your payment.”
She went back to work setting everything up and by the time Beth returned she was moving the boxes out of the way and putting them under the table to hide. “Thank you,” Taryn said when Beth handed over the cash. “I think I’ve got change in my purse.”
“No, no. It’s a tip. Thank you so much for doing this last minute.”
“Are you sure?” Taryn asked. It was a thirty-dollar tip since Beth handed over four fifties.
“More than sure.”
“Thank you again. I hope you don’t mind I left a few cards there. I also put some takeaway boxes inside one of the boxes under the table. It makes it easier to send people home with leftover cake or cupcakes.”
“What a great idea. But I’m willing to bet there won’t be much left.”
Taryn smiled and nodded, then grabbed her bag and noticed her knife on the table, picked that up and then left. There were a lot of people moving around and trying to set up and she wanted to get out of their way. “Enjoy your party.”
“We will,” Beth said.
Taryn threw her bag in the back of her SUV and set the knife on top of it. When she lifted up to shut the hatch, her arm jarred the bag, and the knife slid perfect enough to land right in her thigh.
She stared at it and couldn’t believe that happened. Of course, she was the idiot who put her leg out to stop it from hitting the ground and getting dirty even though she’d wiped the frosting off of it when she was done and would wash it again.
Now it was sticking out of her leg above her left knee, like Excalibur in the stone waiting for King Author to pull it out.
But she wasn’t stupid enough to do that nor did she want to go back to Beth’s and bother her.
Since it wasn’t bleeding and she could drive, she figured she’d just go call Riley’s brother Max Hamilton. He was a plastic surgeon in Lake Placid. He’d be able to take care of this, she was sure.
She started to dial and remembered he flew back to Rye, New York, this weekend to visit with his parents. Shit, shit, shit.
Her only other choice was to go to the ER. Good thing she wasn’t that far away.
Justin looked up from the computer when a nurse walked in and said, “This is an odd one. A woman just came in with a knife stuck in her leg.”
“What?” he asked. It really wasn’t so odd to him compared to the things he’d seen in Rochester.
“She has a small knife sticking out of her thigh. Said it fell and she tried to stop it from hitting the floor and it embedded in her leg.”
“At least she was smart enough to not pull it out.”
“There is that,” the nurse said. “She’s in exam room four.”
Here he was on a Saturday of the holiday weekend working in the ER. After his father’s first treatment and sitting on the deck while his dad napped and his mother worked, he was bored out of his mind and knew there was no way he could do this for months.
His mother had come home, he talked to her and told her he’d be back the next morning before she went to work but to call him if there were any issues that night.
Late Monday night his father started to feel nauseous and didn’t want to get out of bed, but he wasn’t actually vomiting, so his mother told him not to come over.
When he arrived on Tuesday morning though, his father had thrown up twice and didn’t want to see him. It’d taken a few hours for him to convince his father to take the anti-nausea meds which helped but made his father sleepy. He reminded his father it was better than throwing up.
By the time his mother came home Tuesday, his father was able to keep food down and wasn’t as grouchy or sleepy, but Justin took his leave with his father telling him not to come back on Wednesday.
He didn’t listen and showed up before his mother went to work, but thankfully his father was much better and since they were gettin
g on each other’s nerves, he left after lunch. His father didn’t need a babysitter and Justin wasn’t signing up for the job if his father was well enough to move around on his own.
So that meant he had ten days before the next treatment and his father had plans to go to the course and try to work if he felt up to it.
After thinking long and hard, he let his mother convince him to talk to the CEO of the hospital here, and now he was on loan for the next several months or until they could find a permanent replacement.
It was his first shift and he’d be on until midnight, then would be back again the same shift tomorrow. His schedule would rotate with the other two doctors and they’d be flexible around his father’s treatments. He couldn’t ask for anything better.
He was working and already knew the ER here was going to be nothing like the fast-paced cases he was accustomed to. But it was better than sitting in his small apartment or going out on the course to shoot a few holes. He could only do so much of that too.
He grabbed his computer and moved to the exam room and then pulled the curtain back to see a cute brunette with soft blonde highlights sitting on the bed with a flushed face. “That looks interesting. I’m Dr. Cambridge.”
She reached out and shook his hand. “It’s my cake knife.”
“So there’s frosting on that knife in your leg?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
“I was delivering a cake to a party. This is the knife I used to touch up the frosting and when I was putting it in the back of my SUV it started to fall. I don’t know why I tried to kick it away. I guess I didn’t want it to land tip down and break. Force of habit if I was in the kitchen.”
“So instead it went tip down into your leg.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not broken this way. At least I hope it’s not broken in my leg. I think it’s just in the fat but didn’t want to move it. I’m kind of squeamish and am trying not to look at it.”
“You did the right thing.” He set his computer down after looking at her name. He was pretty sure this was the woman who dropped the cake off at his parents’ resort the other day but wouldn’t say anything just yet.
“My brother has drilled first aid into my head for years.”
“That’s good,” he said, touching around her leg after putting gloves on. It looked like it was just a flesh wound but would need stitches.
“How bad is it?”
“I think it missed anything important. It’s going to bleed when I pull it out and with luck just went through some fat and I can stitch it up. You’ll have a scar.”
“Oh well,” she said. “Not much I can do about it.”
“We do have a plastic surgeon on call if you’re worried about it or your insurance will cover it,” he offered. Normally he didn’t, but where he worked most got repaired and out the door for the next person. Here he figured he could at least bring it up.
“I tried to call Max. He’s out of town this weekend. I completely forgot. That would have saved me this trip if he weren’t.”
“Dr. Hamilton?” he asked. He’d met the plastic surgeon last week when he was here walking around.
“Yes. Max’s sister is married to my brother.” She looked at his name on his jacket. “Are you any relation to the Cambridges that own the golf resort?”
“I am,” he said. “It’s my parents. I had some of your cake the other day. It’s all coming back to me now. Are you ready for me to remove this?”
“Go right ahead,” she said.
“Why don’t you lie down first just in case you get sick or lightheaded,” he said calmly.
“Good idea.”
She lay back and he grabbed some gauze and pulled over a tray that had been set up with the stitches. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’m going to be,” she said.
He quickly pulled the knife out, then placed the gauze down to staunch the bleeding, while he put the blade on the table. He held his hand there and said, “So I had your cake almost two weeks ago. Absolutely to die for. It was the bright spot of an otherwise miserable day.”
“Sorry about your father if that was part of your day. Your mother and sister told me. And I’m glad my cake helped a little. I just delivered the same flavors when this mishap occurred.”
“Lucky them,” he said, then lifted the gauze. The bleeding wasn’t bad. “Looks like this was clean through. I’m going to numb you and then stitch you up. So it’s going to hurt for a short period from the injection.”
“It can’t hurt any more than my pride.”
He laughed. She had a great attitude, all things considered. He got to work quickly and stitched her up.
“Just five stitches,” he said. “Good thing it was a small knife.”
“Tell me about it,” she said.
He covered her leg with a bandage and then gave her instructions. “You can come back here to have the stitches removed in ten days or if you’d prefer to go to your primary or Dr. Hamilton, you can do that too.”
“Thanks. I’ll probably have Max remove them if it’s all the same.”
“It sure is,” he said, shaking her hand when she was getting ready to leave again. This time he felt a surge of heat up his arm and knew he was losing his mind. He shouldn’t be thinking of how attractive she was. He could only blame it on his current dull existence in Lake Placid and wishing he had some kind of distraction.
5
Embarrassing Thing
“It looks like he did a good job stitching you up,” Max said to Taryn on Tuesday. He’d flown back on Monday and she hadn’t wanted to bug him on the holiday, but unfortunately she couldn’t hide the bandage on her leg and, when she went home on Saturday, Kennedy came up to see her and noticed it. There was no lying about what happened.
Then Kennedy told Trevor, who told Riley, who then called her brother in Rye and told him. You’d think she was dying rather than having five stitches in her leg.
“That’s good to know. He mentioned I could contact you. I was going to but knew you were out of town. I just can’t believe I did that.”
“Things like that happen,” Max said and then put some glue over the stitches and Steri Strips over it. “This will keep it tighter and dry. Come back next Monday and I’ll take them out for you and we’ll wrap it like this again. The scarring shouldn’t be too bad.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” she said.
“Nope. Not at all. And thanks for bringing in the cake. The girls are going to be in heaven.”
“Amber already stopped me when I came in with it. She told me she had to hide it from Rene. I’m not sure I know who Rene is.”
She knew most in the area even though she’d been gone for years. Or she knew their names. Though Amber was older than her, she knew her since she was the younger sister of Sally that worked for Kennedy. She also knew Amber was pregnant with her first child.
“Rene Buchanan, now McGuire. Quinn is best friends with Rene’s sister-in-law, Mallory.”
Quinn was Max’s wife. “So Mallory is the mystery writer, right?”
“That’s her,” Max said. “And Rene is married to Cole McGuire.”
“I remember Cole,” she said. “He’s older than me, that’s Celeste’s twin, correct?”
Celeste had cancer as a child and even though they were older than her, it was very serious and the talk of the area for years. Now Celeste was married with a child of her own and running McGuire’s B&B and a part owner in Max’s cottage that patients stayed in when they came here for surgery to recover in the peace and quiet.
“See, even being gone years you know who everyone is,” he said, laughing at her.
“I’m not so sure about that. I had no idea who Justin Cambridge was, but he’s older than me anyway.”
“I believe he’s just here on loan until they find a permanent replacement at the hospital. He’s helping out with his father during his treatment and most likely killing time and keeping busy.”
“
That’s what family is all about,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she brought Justin’s name up and hoped Max didn’t see her blushing.
The minute the curtain was pulled back days ago, she’d gotten a look at the tall sexy doctor.
Brown hair, dark eyes. He’d smiled a few times and she was sure there was heat filling her face over it.
He was calm and assuring and almost funny at the same time.
He liked her cake and made sure he told her that when he didn’t need to. Or maybe he was just trying to distract her while he looked at the knife sticking out of her leg.
And when he shook her hand again when she left, the heat that filled her palm and shot into her chest made her wonder if she was going to get lightheaded and pass out on him. Nothing like having another embarrassing thing happen.
But she didn’t. He asked if she wanted her knife back and she laughed and said sure. It wasn’t the knife’s fault it got stuck in her leg and it’d taken her a long time to find the one that worked the best.
“It sure is,” Max said, then patted her other leg and stood back. “I think I might need to go steal a piece of cake and hide it in my office or I won’t get any between the three of them.”
“Three?” she asked.
“Dena Winters. Used to be Dena Hall. She is at the cottage doing rounds this morning.”
She couldn’t believe how many staff were here and how busy Max seemed to be, but she’d heard enough that many traveled for his services, taking advantage of getting work done and recovering in the beautiful scenery.
Guess it just went to show her that the area was still thriving. It was a small town feel for the residents and the tourist seemed to love it.
Olympians came here to train all year round. The wealthy from downstate owned million-dollar properties on the lake. The summer was just getting ready to jump into the busy season and would be more so when school was out.
Once July Fourth hit, the area would be hopping like kids on the last day of school waiting for the final bell to ring and then with any luck she could get her name out there more.