“I’m not,” Cal insisted. Then he corrected himself. “Maybe a little, but that’s because we’re going into town, and I don’t like going into town.” He sat in the driver’s seat and started the truck. “I’m not worried about you. I know you’re going to be fine.” One lie to comfort the boy wouldn’t be so bad, he told himself. “I just need some help to get you feeling better more quickly. So don’t worry, OK? We’ll get ice cream afterwards. Just look forward to that.”
They didn’t talk much for the rest of the drive into town. Cal was focused on doing what needed to be done, on not panicking, on not thinking about that time he frantically drove Owen’s mother to the hospital. These were memories he fought to keep buried so he could give her son a life that didn’t revolve around her loss. She would have wanted it that way. She would also have insisted on taking her son to the doctor when his fever didn’t go down. Cal told himself this as he parked his truck and carried Owen into the only urgent care clinic in Summit Falls.
CHAPTER 2
APRIL
To Nurse April Fuller, today wasn’t busy at all. Her coworkers seemed to feel differently, but she was used to a much more frantic pace. In fact, she’d moved to Summit Falls to get away from the busy loneliness of city life. In a small town like this one, she’d thought, she would finally be able to make connections, maybe even have the time she needed to find a life partner.
What she hadn’t accounted for was the significantly smaller size of the dating pool in a town like this one. Apparently, she had to choose between college kids who still had no idea what it was like to deal with life as an independent adult, or jaded older men who seemed to despise women in general and blamed all their problems on their absent mothers.
On the plus side, having little to no social life left her wide open for night shifts, which paid better, if you could hack it. And April could definitely hack it.
After her dinner break, April changed back into scrubs and went to the break room to prepare for the rest of her shift. The break room was tiny but sufficient for a small staff. There was theusual always-full coffee pot, white-tiled floor, and round table. Usually, there would be two or three people sitting around the room, sipping from mugs or gossiping about the day’s patients. But today, April’s two favorite people happened to be there, standing behind a pyramid of blue and yellow cupcakes. The single cupcake at the top of the pyramid had two lit candles in the shape of the numbers three and zero.
“Happy birthday!” her friends shouted, and April had to hold back tears. Small town life, as much as it may have failed in the realm of romantic love, had been absolutely wonderful when it came to giving her the best friends she’d ever had.
The first friend she found had been a woman named Crystal. She was a spunky but sarcastic person with a huge personality that April couldn’t get enough of. Later, the two of them included Nathan in their social strategizing. He was the sort of person who loved to gossip, and he was loyal to a fault. Once he was a friend of yours, you had a friend for life. Both people adored April, and she adored them right back.
“Well, blow out the candles,” Nathan said with a massive grin on his face. “You’re the queen of the hour.”
“I can’t believe you guys did this for me,” April said, grinning right back at him.
Crystal responded with her usual dry humor. “We didn’t. We did it for us. We were craving blue cupcakes.”
Nathan added, “And we expect repayment on our birthdays.”
April laughed. “Got it. Blue cupcakes for both of you. Hey, what flavor isblueanyway?”
“They’re the flavor of love.” Nathan walked around the table to give April a tight hug.
“Really, I think they’re just vanilla,” Crystal said, sucking a bit of blue frosting off one of her fingers. “Maybe there’s some citrus in there. Nate, come taste this and tell me what you think.”
“Patience, serf,” Nathan said. “The queen hasn’t even blown out her candles yet.” He gestured to the pyramid and made way for April to approach it. “Make a wish.”
“But no wishing for a man,” Crystal interjected. “We all want to wish for a man in this town, but we all know it would be a total waste of a wish.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Nathan said.
“Make this one count,” Crystal instructed.
They were all laughing too hard for April to successfully blow out her candles on the first try, but she managed it eventually. It didn’t matter, really. She hadn’t made any kind of wish. The truth was, April was perfectly content as she was. Her life was good, her job fulfilling, her friends the best in the world for sure. The only thing she felt was really missing in her life was a family. By thirty, she had expected to already have one, but she wasn’t even dating seriously. She was happy except for that. Everything was perfect… except for that.
“We get ten minutes to eat as many of these as we can,” Nathan said. “Then we have to share with the other children.”
“But I’m on the clock starting now,” April said.
Crystal pulled out a chair for her. “Sit, birthday girl. The boss says we get to have a brief celebration on the clock. If you take that away from Nate and me, we may never forgive you.”
“Never,” Nathan echoed.
“OK, OK.” April sat and grabbed the cupcake from the top of the pyramid. She pulled the candles out of it and sucked frosting off the bases of each of them. Her friends joined her, Nathan taking more than one cupcake, which she should have expected. The man had an appetite, though he must have had a metabolism to match it. He never seemed to gain a pound. Crystal was actually taller than he was, but she ate like a bird. April was the curviest of the bunch, short and soft with blond curls and cheeks that always appeared to be blushing. She never needed to apply makeup to get the look, which she supposed was something to be grateful for.
She’d been unhappy with her appearance when she was a teenager, but she’d grown into it as an adult. The attention she got from men when she lived in the city did a lot for her confidence. More than once, she’d been told she was beautiful, and eventually, she almost believed it. Although few had done more to give her that much-needed self-esteem than Crystal. She was the type of girl to tell April a man wasn’t good enough for her without flinching.
“Well, happy birthday anyway,” Crystal said again after April finished her cupcake. “How’s the day been so far? We missed the first bit.”
“It’s been…” April hesitated. She didn’t want to be negative. It just wasn’t in her nature, but her day had not been great. She’d overslept, spilled on herself during breakfast, and forgotten to eat lunch. Then she’d lost track of time and had almost been late for work. And even though it shouldn’t have bothered her, her own mother had forgotten her birthday. But all that April pushed aside as she answered, “It’s been a wonderful day, you know? It really has.”
