by Lynn Donovan
Contents
Book 1 Wendy & Dillon
Dedication
Synopsis
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Sneak Peek
About the author
Thank you
Appreciation
Review
Java Break
Java Cupid Series
Book 1
By Lynn Donovan
© LynnDonovan 2017
Cover Copyright © 2017 George McVey
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To my real life friend and muse for this story, Wendy Ashton Chesnut.
Java Break
Synopsis
Wendy Ashton and Dillon Cayne were both inspired by broken bones of their own. She to become an orthopedic nurse, he an engineer, designing more efficient and effective equipment for those recovering from orthopedic incidents. Their two paths so closely aligned, yet never intersecting.
Until a mysterious message appears in heat sensitive ink on Wendy’ coffee cup. A message of love that makes her take notice of the handsome barista who must have written it. Brought together by the message, their lives begin to merge. Could this be true love?
Together they learn that his dad is dating her mom and Dillon worries about the stigma of dating his possible step-sister. Add a crazy ex-girlfriend who won’t take no for an answer and a misunderstood phone call, the trust issues become almost too much to bear.
What will it take to bring these two together? Can the Java Cupid show them their Happy Ever After? Or was it all a mistake? Will broken bones turn into broken hearts? Answers can only be found with a Java Break.
ONE
Welcome to Java Cupid Coffee Shop
We Coffee!
“I don’t wanna get back on the horse, Dad!” Wendy Ashton precariously held her cellphone against her cheek with her shoulder and opened the glass door to the coffee house. It was crowded today, but she didn’t care. Caffeine and peace was all she sought and the Java Cupid Coffee Shop had both.
“Look, I know what you’re saying.” She sighed and took her place in line to order. “I know you want what’s best for me, Dad. But I’m not going skiing with you or anybody else.” Shifting her Med Surge Nursing textbook and sliding her purse back onto her shoulder with a groan, she took one step forward. “I know you love me, Dad! I love you, too, but I’m not—“
A young bus-boy bumped against her hard enough to cause her to stumble out of line. He held his dish-tub with both short-fingered hands.
Wendy’s breath escaped in an agonizing huff.
He looked at her with terrified, bulbous eyes. “I so sorry, ma’am.” His words were thick and slow, high pitched for his gender.
She recognized he had special needs and smiled graciously at the young man. “It’s all right.”
In truth, the misstep and stumble shot a stabbing pain from her knee to her hip and into her lower back. The doctors told her bone pain after a bad break like hers would always be present. In fact, they had prescribed a lengthy physical therapy which included sixty percent biofeedback and pain management.
Her physical therapist, Royce Rogers, told her more than once—in fact, he literally drilled it into her thinking at every session— “The last thing you want is to become addicted to pain meds. Learn to manage it through meditation and biofeedback, and life will be much more productive and healthy for you, Wendy.” His words rang through her mind even now.
But, oh, what she wouldn’t give to be able to pop a couple of pills and have the pain float away on an oxycodone cloud of bliss. Royce and her doctors made sure she didn’t have access to those drugs once she left the hospital. Royce was as much of a cheerleader and aerobics enthusiast as a physical therapist. To be honest, she would feel like she let him down if she resorted to narcotics to manage her life.
As she considered the bus-boy, empathy washed over her thoughts. He quickly cleared the table beside her. She touched his shoulder to get his attention. He jumped slightly.
“I’m sorry.” She spoke softly, the way she would speak to an injured patient. “Are you all right?”
He smiled a crooked smile. His lips seemed swollen, his teeth oversized, and his mouth small. “Yes” —he nodded vigorously— “I all right.”
She smiled back and observed as he resumed clearing tables, assessing if what he said was true. Assessing a patient’s words versus reactions was one of the skills she had been taught in nursing class.
The tiny voice of her dad called her name from the phone on her shoulder. “Yeah, Dad. I need to let you go.” She moved two steps forward. “No, everything’s fine. I bumped into the bus-boy that’s all.” She glanced over her shoulder to see his progress but he was gone. An empty sensation filled her. Diligent worker, he was. All the tables were cleared off and he must have scurried to the back. She smiled with that thought and took another step forward. “Dad!” she returned her full attention to her cellphone. “I’m at the coffee shop, I’ll talk to you later.”
Two more people ahead of her, she moved up one step. “No, we won’t talk about this then. I’m not going skiing! Dad, you don’t understand. I can’t do anything like that, ever again. It’s not a matter of getting over my fear. It’s all I can do to manage the pain I have now. You really want me to make it worse—?”
She lifted her eyes. The two ahead of her were gone. Nothing, or no one, stood between her and the barista. He rather patiently leaned on the serving counter waiting for her to place her order. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Heat flushed her face as she hurried the two steps to stand at the counter. She didn’t mean to say that where everyone, especially this super cute barista, could hear. She tilted her head and considered him. For some reason he seemed familiar. Where did she know him from. Had to be here. She never went anywhere, except school, the hospital, and here.
“Welcome to Java Cupid, where we heart coffee.” He smiled graciously with perfect teeth and a perfect face. “What can I get you?”
Wendy lost all thought. His blonde curls made her fantasize tangling her fingers through it. His aqua-blue eyes washed the words out of her mind. She glanced at his name tag. Dillon. “Um, good morning, Dillon.” She stalled for the words to come back to her.
She ordered the same thing every morning. Usually it rolled off her tongue. What was wrong with her today. “I-um. I’ll have a tall red velvet… caramel drip… cake latte with whip.” Was that right? Her brow drew together.
It didn’t matter. Caffeine was caffeine. Why couldn’t she think of her normal order? “You know what?” She called to his back. “Just make it a cappuccino, something chocolate.” She reconsidered, that still didn’t sound right. “With a caramel drizzle… I think.”
He smiled and nodded. “No problem.” Turning to fill her order, he poured out the beginnings of her latte and tossed the cup in the trash, lifted another cup and began making the cappuccino.
She stared at his back. His nice-fitting jeans revealed an athletic build. His shoulders stretched the top of the white company t-shirt, but fell loose at his waist. Wonder what he does for fun? Lift weights, play spor
ts, swim? He had a swimmer’s build. She started and glanced around. Did anyone notice her perusal of his body? Heat filled her cheeks again. She needed to get a grip!
“Here you go.” He set her cup on the counter. “One tall chocolate caramel drizzle cappuccino with whip.” He smiled.
With a painful groan, she shifted her book to drop her purse off her shoulder to pay. Between the befuddling effect of his eyes and the leg pain dominating her ability to think, she fumbled with her card to swap it and enter her PIN. Frustrated she slipped the card back in its slot in her wallet and handed him a five dollar bill. “Please, keep the change.”
She couldn’t handle putting anything in her coin purse right now anyway. One last glance at the so, so cute barista and a grateful smile for his service, she took the coffee and limped away to find an empty booth. She needed to meditate a moment to get the pain and her functioning brain to where she could concentrate on her studies. Royce had taught her how to tune everything out, including the belligerent pain, and concentrate on what was important. In this case, that wasn’t his attractive backside, it was studying. She shook her head to clear those thoughts.
The coffee shop had the perfect environment for her to meditate and study. She just needed to take advantage of the atmosphere. The chatter and swooshing of the coffee machines blended in her hearing and quickly faded into venerated white noise where she could focus on her readings. The nursing books were huge and the classes required hours and hours of study. But it was worth it. She’d be an RN by this summer. Just one and a half semesters to go and the State Test.
Then she’d be independent of her parents, and they could stop hovering over her life. Oh, they meant well. Ever since they divorced when she was thirteen, they had been trying to make it up to her with gifts and vacations. But then two Christmases ago at the Vail Ski Resort with Dad, she took a horrible tumble and severely broke her leg. Her dad took on a double dose of guilt. He couldn’t believe it happened on his watch. She tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. Accidents like this happen all the time. “Just watch any movie about a ski resort, and you’ll see somebody sitting in front of a blazing fire with their leg propped up in a cast.”
The open comminuted-spiral break, as bad and painful as it, the surgery, and recovery had been, and still was, it had been a cosmic blessing. Because of her experience in the hospital, Wendy decided to become an orthopedic nurse.
Some of her nurses were amazing and she loved them. Other nurses where mean, non-empathetic, and impatient. They had no business caring for people with broken bones. It truly took having the experience to understand and have empathy for a person who struggled with recovery. It was not a walk in the park. It took will power, determination, and a caring nurse who didn’t push too hard, yet encouraged just enough so the patient would get up and exercise when all they wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep through the pain.
Those uncaring nurses were why Wendy wanted to be a nurse. She didn’t want anyone to be treated like she had been treated. Anybody recovering from an orthopedic incident deserved an empathetic nurse and she had the experience of being the patient to be that kind of nurse.
After the accident, her dad became worse than her mom, smothering her with tender loving care. He owned a fourplex where he lived in one unit, rented the other two, and let her live, rent free, in the fourth. She accepted his kind offer while she attended college but tried to make him understand, as soon as she had a job, she would either start paying the same rent as his other tenants, or move to another place.
Her mom, who seemed to be competing with Dad’s generous rental offer, bought her a used Jeep Wrangler and paid the insurance. The Jeep was bought outright, no loan, but the full-coverage insurance was paid every six months.
She appreciated the help. Really she did. But emphasized with Mom the same conditions: Once she had a real job, she’d pay for her own insurance. They dismissed her insistence to take over expenses, which frustrated her. She didn’t want them supporting her for the rest of her life. It was embarrassing. Sweet, but embarrassing.
The Med Surge Nursing textbook was a huge tome. She opened it and leaned over the pages to read. The assignment was five chapters and class was at ten o’clock. She had read three last night after work but fell asleep. She worked at the hospital as a CNA after school until nine at night. The hours were flexible enough to work around her schedule but the pay was minimal. It gave her food, gas, and utilities money. Frankly, she didn’t know how her co-students made ends meet if they were on their own. She had to admit, with her parents’ help, she wasn’t suffering at all, as a student. Still, she looked forward to a real salary. And independence.
Drool stained the page of her textbook. The ink had bled into the wet spot like a watercolor stroke. She had two more chapters to go this morning and she’d be ready for class. Piece of cake. Piece of red velvet cake, she mused at her jumbled up order when Dillon asked her what she wanted to drink.
She lifted her cup and took a sip.
Something caught her eye. She held the cup out and really looked at it. A message slowly appeared just above the heat shielding sleeve. It was like the secret agent kit she had as a kid with lemon juice and a candle flame to reveal the mysterious spy code. Someone must have written it with a heat sensitive pen—was there such a thing?—because it wasn’t there a minute ago. The words turned burnish against the white paper cup.
“I’m… broken… without… you.”
She stared at the handwritten message. Did Dillon write this while his back was turned to her? She glanced at him across the room. He busily wiped the counter between customers and flashed a quick glance toward her. Their eyes met and he paused.
The chatter and the machine’s noise faded, as did the people, the tables, the coffee shop. There was nothing—but Dillon and her.
He smiled at her and tossed his cleaning rag down on the counter to wipe a spill. His eyes followed the rag. The spell broke and all the chatter and swooshing resumed. He continued wiping the counter and then spoke to the next person in line.
She continued to stare at him. What just happened? She lowered her eyes to the cappuccino. The message faded to a yellow-brown. Wendy considered the words. Broken without you.
How did he even know her? Although he did look familiar! Why would he write this message to her?
Why was he broken?
Later that afternoon, Wendy changed out of stark-white student scrubs into work scrubs and headed to work. A six hour shift at the hospital gave her more than a small paycheck. The RNs and LPNs she worked with knew she was a second year nursing student and let her participate in procedures most CNAs couldn’t care less about. Of course she also did the usual CNA duties, bathing, bed changes, answering lights. But when she had the opportunity to observe wound care and assessments, she eagerly attended. The nurses liked her attitude. And she appreciated their willingness to teach her.
A light buzzed and Wendy scurried down the hall to see what the patient needed. A maintenance closet door opened and she veered left to avoid running into the huge door. A guy stepped out as Wendy dodged. He slammed into her and she staggered backward. Pain shot through her right leg and into her pelvis. She stood statue still and closed her eyes, allowing the pain to exist and then letting it go, like a surging roll of a timpani drum that eventually crests and fades away softly.
“Oh! I’m so sorry,” the man said quickly.
Slowly she opened her eyes. Everything had gone out of focus with her deep concentration on the biofeedback technique. His tall form stood before her. She blinked purposefully and waited for her eyes to adjust. Dillon!
“Oh, Hi,” she stammered. “I knew you looked familiar this morning.”
He smiled. “Yeah, you too.”
Did he mean it or was he just being nice. But then again, there was the message. I’m broken without you. Did he write it?
The second buzz from the patient’s room broke through her thoughts. “Oh, I need to see to this.”
“Sure.” He stepped around her. A tool belt hung low on his taut hips. He rested his hands on the handles standing in the slots. As a barista he was attractive, but as a maintenance guy, he was gorgeous. What was it about tool belts that made a man so sexy? Like a military uniform, it accentuated their best features.
Wendy shook her head to snap out of her stupor. A patient needed something and she needed to find out what.
After three hours had passed, Wendy could finally take a break. It was a welcomed rest in the nurses’ lounge. She heated up a Lean Cuisine dinner and scarfed it down, while sitting as much as possible. Two Tylenol, okay actually four, would get her through the rest of her shift. She closed her eyes and visualized the pain as a black liquid in a hollow tube inside her leg and hip. She visualized the liquid draining from to bottom of the tube and running down into the earth to be absorbed by the ground. Then she imagined the tube refilling from the earth with a light blue liquid. It swirled with a pearl-essence until the tube had completely filled to the top.
Opening her eyes, with the intent of drinking down the bottle of water she had brought, she started. Dillon stood across from the table with a ladder hung on his shoulder. He seemed to be watching her. “Oh! I didn’t know you were there?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He genuinely seemed concerned.
“I wasn’t scared.” She giggled. “Just didn’t know you were there.”
“What were you doing, just then?” He didn’t move from his spot.
She cringed inside. “It’s called biofeedback. I use it to…” why was she telling him all this? “To manage the pain in my leg. I broke it a couple of years ago, skiing with my dad, and it never really stopped hurting. They tell me bone pain is the worst.”
“Tell me about it.” He stepped away and set up his ladder.