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 the usual 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 is blue anyway?”
“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.”
Crystal sighed and shook her head. She could always tell when April was lying, and she clearly realized her friend wasn’t being as honest as she could have been.
She never did call April out, though. April appreciated her discretion.
Sometimes, you had to fool yourself into being happy during a rough time, and April was uniquely skilled in that regard.
“Take one to go.” Crystal handed her another cupcake. “Hide it in your locker or it’ll be gone by the end of the day. These are too good to label with your name and expect them to be left alone. Once word gets out about how good they are, they’ll be long gone.”
“Thanks, Crys.” April took the cupcake and put it in her locker. “This will come in handy around midnight when I need a sugar high.”
Nathan laughed and stood. “Sweetheart, you are a walking sugar high.”
“Thanks!” April took Nathan’s comment as a compliment because why the heck not?
She stopped by the front desk to grab her list of patients on her way to the waiting room.
She’d only been working with the clinic for three years, but already the building felt like a second home.
She knew its pale pink color scheme and bright lights, the cheap mauve end tables next to pleather couches and chairs with material easy enough to wipe down and sanitize at every lull in traffic.
It was a good clinic, she thought, and she was proud to work there.
The staff was definitely the highlight, with everyone from doctors to receptionists equally warm and welcoming.
April always thought that, if she were ever going to get sick enough to use a facility like this, she was glad it would probably be this one.
She called her first patient with a smile and led him back to his assigned exam room. She recorded his weight and blood pressure and asked all the appropriate questions before wishing him well and letting the doctor know he was ready.
Then, she moved on to her next patient. April went out and called their name, but no one responded right away, so she got a chance to look over the waiting room and note the people who were there that evening.
It was busier than usual—that was for sure.
For the most part, it was the usual types of people, a few repeat customers, and one surprise.
Sitting in the corner of the waiting room, about as far from everyone else as they could get, were a man and child.
The man held the child on his lap and attended to him more gently than she’d ever seen any father attend to their child in this waiting room.
The poor kid looked pale and exhausted, but his father?
His father was a massive man with naturally red hair and a well-trimmed beard that filled out his face.
He was the sort of man April would have avoided just walking down the street.
He looked dangerous. At the very least, she was sure the guy could pick her up and throw her over his shoulder with one arm like some sort of prehistoric caveman.
As hard as it was to tear her eyes away from the man and child in the corner, she had work to do. She called her next patient and took them to their room. On the way back, Crystal caught her eye, and April quickly asked, “Did you see the waiting room?”
Crystal nodded.
“Do you know who the stranger is?”
“What the lumberjack with the little kid?” Crystal said, arching one eyebrow.
April nodded. “I haven’t seen them before.” After three years of living in Summit Falls, April felt like she knew just about everyone. If someone new moved to town, she knew exactly which house or condo they had bought and what their new address would be. But this guy was a mystery.
“I haven’t seen them either,” Crystal said. “Do you think they’re out-of-towners?”
“Why would they come to our clinic then?”
Crystal shrugged. “Maybe they were on the road when the kid got sick. I don’t know. But they’re here now, and I’ve got to say, the lumberjack isn’t so hard on the eyes, if you know what I mean.”
April giggled a little. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”
Just then, Nathan happened by and stopped. “What are you two gossiping about now? You’re not leaving me out of anything exciting, are you?”
They both led him to the window in the door to the waiting room and pointed out the mystery man in question. “Oooh,” Nate said. “I see.”
“Have you seen him around town?” April asked in a whisper.
Nathan shook his head. “Nope. He must be from out of town.”
“That’s what I said,” Crystal added. “Like maybe the kid got sick on a road trip.” She paused, and they all watched the man and his boy for a little while, collectively cocking their heads in the same direction.
“I gotta call my next patient,” Crystal finally said, and she walked out into the waiting room with her clipboard.
Nathan stepped away from the door and gestured for April to follow. “Let’s see who he is,” he said. “Is he on your list or mine?”
April let out an awkward laugh. “Why do you care?”
“Because I’m giving him to you if he’s on my list.”
“Yeah, you’re really not supposed to—”
“It’s your birthday. And that man looks like a gift to me.”
April shook her head. “Really, I don’t need you to set me up.”
“Don’t be taking away all my fun now,” he said. He traced down his list with one finger until he came to the only name he presumably didn’t already know. “Nolen,” he said at last. “Owen. I assume that’s the kid since his father looks healthier than a stallion in springtime.”
“Stop!” April slapped him on the arm.
Nathan chuckled. “Call him if you want to. Or don’t. You’re the birthday girl. I won’t get to him for a while, so you’ve got some time to decide.”
After that, every time April went out to call another patient, she took a moment to look at the boy and his father.
Owen. Cute name, she thought. The boy looked normal enough, aside from being a little under the weather.
His father, on the other hand, looked deeply uncomfortable.
April had to wonder why. She took the patient she had just called back to an exam room and began taking her blood pressure.
“Did you see the stranger?” the patient asked.
It was someone April knew, a young woman who worked at the local grocery store, who always liked to chat whenever April was checking out with her.
She’d come to the clinic with a mystery rash that looked to April like an allergic reaction.
“It’s like, where did he come from? Why is he here?
There isn’t an event in town or anything, and we never get out-of-towners for no reason.
He must belong to someone in town, but who? Do you know?”
April shook her head. “I haven’t seen him before now. We were thinking he must have been passing through when his kid got sick.”
“Poor man,” the patient said. “He looks terribly uncomfortable out there. People keep staring. I’m sure they’re just curious, but from his perspective, it probably feels like judgment.”
When April had finished with her patient, she went back to the waiting room and watched.
The big guy was definitely all tensed up.
She could see the protectiveness toward his son, but there was also discomfort in his movements.
He must have felt awful, she thought. Maybe Nathan was giving her a birthday present by offering her the chance to work with this particular patient, but April decided the gift would really be for the man in the corner.
He needed a little respite from the curious people in the waiting room.
She stepped from the door and cleared her throat. Then she called out, “Owen Nolen?”