Break (Lakefield Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Coming Soon!

  Break

  By Jennifer Vester

  Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Vester

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is intended for mature audiences only.

  Cover design by: Marianne Nowicki www.PremadeEbookCoverShop.com

  Proofread by: Donna Hokanson at End Line Proofing

  Author Website: https://www.jennifervester.com/

  Digital book(epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  Coming Soon!

  Chapter One

  This was getting ridiculous. I needed another job.

  I stirred the tea in my oversized mug around for the fifth time, then tossed the spoon in the sink to prevent myself from doing it again.

  Taking a hesitant sip, I breathed in the minty smell of it. My tongue was nearly scorched on the rim of the cup.

  Perhaps a little too hot.

  I looked around the clinic’s breakroom. There weren’t any other staff members strolling around. Tuesdays were meeting days for upper management and doctors. That left the room quiet around ten in the morning each week. Something I enjoyed taking advantage of when we didn’t have any appointments in my department.

  Wandering around with my cup of tea, I looked at the multitude of magazines, books and manuals strewn across the tables.

  As a physical therapist’s assistant, I worked hard at the clinic. Which meant I didn’t have the responsibility of managing the patients but I did help them with different physical tasks assigned to them. It could be anything from stretching to walking around. Most of the patients were generally veterans with physical ailments but on occasion we would also see private appointments.

  I wasn’t sure how those got through, but I suspected they were approved by Mr. Latimer or Dr. Matthews personally. Those patients didn’t talk much. It was a little weird.

  I sat down in one of the plastic chairs near a table stacked with books. I set my cup down, hoping it would cool before I tasted it again. My fingers ran down the spines of the tattered pile.

  Milton, Salinger, Twain, Dickens. It was a classic literature graveyard of sadly used novels.

  There was a note on top that indicated they were giveaways. It was no wonder with the sorry state they were in.

  I picked up a book on the side and started thumbing through the pages.

  Hmm. Jack London.

  The door behind me opened and then shut.

  “Hey Kate,” a woman’s voice said.

  Turning around, I saw my good friend Andi strolling in. She was sporting some dark red hair this week. I wasn’t quite sure what her original color actually was. She said dark brown, but I had yet to see it. Last month it had been blonde.

  Regardless, the one thing everyone noticed about Andi was her hair, no matter what color it was. When down, it hung to the middle of her back. Today it was up in a sloppy bun.

  She was wearing scrubs that looked like they had seen better days. She worked in the exam rooms and had to clean up a lot of things that would make other people vomit. Andi, though, seemed immune to it and liked the hard work. She was curvy but tall and had a killer personality. She reminded me of my friend Julia in a way but Andi was a lot more blunt. Which wasn’t sometimes a good thing.

  She sat down with a dramatic sigh, put the back of her hand to her forehead and made a show of things.

  I giggled.

  “Aha!” she snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “You’ve been frowny for two days. That’s like the first laugh I’ve heard in a while. What gives?”

  Grimacing, I gave her a look.

  Generally, I was upbeat and pretty happy. My philosophy was life was what you made of it, but lately it had become harder to hold on to that.

  There was nothing particularly wrong. I had a home, my cat Bells, a semi-functioning car, and my job. I had dates every once in a while and had made some amazing friends over the summer. Not just amazing, but fantastically amazing friends, that I was surprised even liked me. One of which was Julia Saunders, who was a famous singer and through her, a menagerie of other interesting people. Her friend Olivia, was the wife of the owner to the clinic, Aiden Latimer.

  Basically, everything was good. Or it should be.

  Except for Dr. Logan Matthews and my crush on him.

  I wasn’t sure at this point whether it was a crush or just infatuation, but it was really messing with the balance of my life. I felt off kilter ever since I met him several months ago. It was like the fates had aligned to test my patience.

  He was gorgeous. Black hair, blue eyes. To me it was the perfect combination. If that wasn’t enough, he was also tall, fit and obviously had some muscle underneath the dress shirts he wore to work all the time. He wasn’t the body-builder type, but there was definitely a strong male-ness to him that reeked of sex. I could see women’s eyes following him in the hallways and knew for a fact that a lot of other women thought as I did. The fact that he was an incredible doctor, extremely nice to everyone, and gorgeous just made him even more perfect.

  However, he was bad luck. For me anyway.

  First, I had killed my lavender bush in the backyard. No clue how, but after fertilizing it, the thing had withered and croaked. I was good with plants. It had never happened before.

  When I thought back on it, it was like a sign or an omen. The week before my plant died, I had bumped into Logan in the hallway. My feet had tangled because of a loose shoelace and I had toppled on top of him. Or maybe he had caught me. Regardless, as soon as I looked into those blue eyes of his, I was sucked in to some sort of realignment of fortune.

  Things had been going crazy ever since.

  The second odd thing that happened, was my car died out of the blue one morning when I was leavi
ng for work. Not a thing wrong with it. Okay, a lot of things wrong with it, but not up until then. I had to take a bus, was late, and when I squeezed into an overcrowded elevator at work I found myself smooshed against him.

  Large, musky, male chest was all I saw for two floors. It was a nicely dressed male chest, but it was still his, which made it different from all the other male chests in the world. He had touched my hip, I think accidentally, and I nearly caused a stampede when I had jumped back. The whole episode was utterly embarrassing.

  Then there was the one time in my kitchen several months back. He had come over with Mr. Latimer, Liv’s husband, to check on Julia when she had been at my house. She had been hiding from her husband, Holden, and I had volunteered a place for her to stay.

  Why he had come over at all was still a mystery to me. I knew that Aiden Latimer, Logan, Brock, Holden and another man named Cade were all good friends. They had all served together in the military according to Julia. I could see why Liv’s husband might show up but Logan’s presence wasn’t really necessary.

  He had acted like he was angry about something as soon as he had arrived. I had been greeting Liv’s husband when Logan had interrupted and asked for some water.

  Accidentally touching his arm while moving around my kitchen had caused him to react weirdly. He had cussed and jumped back, knocking a cup off the counter. At the time, it had felt like to me, that he was offended by my touch. So, I had blown my top and told him he was stupid before stomping off to my bedroom. It wasn’t the best moment of my life.

  The last time I had tried to get him to notice me was at Aiden and Olivia’s wedding. I had worn what I thought was a pretty pink, empire waist dress that I thought looked great on me. He had scowled at me and suddenly it was so clear that he just didn’t like me. I was sitting right next to his friend Brock, who admittedly, was and still is a huge flirt, but he looked like I was offending him with my presence.

  I had never cried over a man. Ever.

  Not like there were many to cry over but he was the first one. To top it off, he seemed to find a girlfriend every other week these last few months. At this point I could admit to myself that I did indeed have a crush on him. I didn’t know why, but I did. And, I never wanted to see him, ever again.

  I needed a new job for that though.

  Clamping my teeth together, I gave Andi a huge smile. “Nothing is wrong. I’m good.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “You realize that you just went through about a hundred different facial changes before you decided on that answer, right?”

  I grimaced again and took a sip of my tea. “I’m just not happy with some things lately. I’m good though. Nothing big.”

  She gave me a sympathetic nod then laughed. “Yeah, maybe you should see a doctor.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a cow.”

  She leaned back and smirked. “So what did he do today?”

  “Nothing!” I defended. “He just brought his latest bimbo up to the fourth floor and gave her a tour. I need to stop thinking about him. He’s not interested, never will be, and he hates me.”

  “Did he say anything when he was up there? Did he see you?”

  I huffed. “Yes and yes. I guess tall, blonde, and vacuous wandered off. He came into the room I was helping in. I was doing some stretching techniques with one of my regulars. He stood at the end of the mat while I was showing him a hamstring stretch, then he started telling my appointment what muscle groups the stretch also helped.”

  “Okay,” she prompted.

  “So, I’m trying to ignore him. I stood up and gave him some room since he seems to have an aversion to even being near me. I have this stupid smile on my face, trying not to even look at him. Then he says my name, I turn to him and he scowls at my leggings! Then he says I should try some nurse’s scrubs because they’re less tight. Do I have jumbo thighs or something?”

  Andi chuckled then started laughing.

  “What? What is so funny about that?”

  She snorted and started laughing harder.

  My fingers tapped on the table while I waited for her to finish.

  She wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, you. You are too fucking cute sometimes. Have you called Julia yet and told her? You should. We should go drinking again.”

  I look at her like she’s nuts. “It’s only Tuesday.”

  “So what? You’re off tomorrow. Who says there’s some specific day you’re supposed to drink? Let’s go to Muse.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was up to it. The last time we had gone out to drink, Andi had dumped a beer on some guy and Julia had nearly caught her sleeve on fire trying to “experiment” with one of her shots. Olivia had tried to get me drunk all evening. Both Julia and Olivia’s husbands sat and scowled at us from across the room for most of the night. They were like overprotective apes.

  Andi bat her eyes at me and pouted.

  “Uhg, okay, I’ll call.”

  I got up from the table and took my drink to the microwave. It was now cooler and not the hot tea I craved. I popped it in and dug my cell out of my jacket that I had laid down on the counter earlier.

  I called Julia.

  “What’s up?” she answered.

  “Hey, it’s just me. Sorry to call you so early.”

  “I’m good. What are you up to this morning?” she replied.

  I eyed Andi who was doing an enormous pout at the table. She was being extremely dramatic.

  “Uhm, well Andi and I wanted to know if you would like to go have a drink with us later. I know it’s only Tuesday but we thought we might go out.”

  She laughed, “What happened?”

  “What? Nothing. Just hanging out.”

  “Uh-huh. You sound miserable. Totally not you.”

  I grimaced as Andi walked over and grabbed the phone. “Hey!”

  She began to relate the events with Logan earlier and I heard a screeching laugh over the line. Then Andi started laughing again.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. Amazing friends. I was regretting my thoughts earlier. They were both terrible.

  Andi wiped her eyes again. “I know! Okay, tonight, Muse. See you then.”

  She hung up and handed me the phone. Then she gave me a huge hug.

  Pulling back she said, “Okay, all set. Wear something sexy. It’ll make you feel better. The black dress we picked up last month.”

  I rolled my eyes at her and heard the microwave ding.

  “Yeah okay. I’m glad you two find this hilarious. That dress is a little short for October don’t you think?”

  She shook her head. “It’s Texas. It’s warm-ish through November. Except for the occasional freak snowstorm in the north before Halloween. We’re good here. Oh, and I’m not happy that you’re unhappy about all of this. It’s just that Logan—”

  I waved her off and got my tea out of the microwave. “I don’t care. I’m not going to let it hold me up. Maybe I just need a new job.”

  I heard the door close to the breakroom behind me.

  “A new job?” a distinct and familiar male voice asked.

  Crap.

  Andi stared over my shoulder. “We were just discussing if Kate wanted to find something else to do. To expand her horizons in another field.”

  I stood immobile, not wanting to look at him. It would be rude if I didn’t though. Manners were always important especially at a workplace, but I really didn’t want to face him.

  His voice got closer. “Why? We have an incredible program here for people wanting to go into that field. Kate?”

  I turned slowly to face Logan.

  The man was far too gorgeous. He had grown out his hair a little over the past few months. Not much, but it was longer than the cropped haircut he had when I first met him.

  His jaw was square and he was sporting some stubble on it lately. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to look older or younger, since it was in fashion now to have a bit of a beard. I knew his age though, so my guess was that it wa
s an attempt to look younger. Maybe he just didn’t like shaving.

  He was wearing one of his nicely pressed dress shirts today. Blue, with a black tie. He had some cologne or aftershave on that I had noticed earlier in the rehab room. It seemed like I would never forget that smell no matter how many times I tried.

  His blue eyes looked deeply into me and he frowned. “I thought you liked the clinic.”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I loved the clinic and I liked what I did. But who would want to be around someone they really liked day in and day out, that didn’t like them back?

  It was selfish in a way but I didn’t want to hurt. I wasn’t going to tell him that though.

  “Kaitlyn?” he asked again.

  I hastily and mistakenly took a sip of my very hot tea to buy some time in answering him. I hadn’t counted on it being a scalding temperature.

  “Ouch!” I cried out, removing the cup from my lips. Some tea spilled over the side onto my hand which hurt as well. My mouth was nearly numb with the burn.

  Logan reached out and grabbed the cup, quickly discarding it in the sink. “Jesus, Kate. What the hell?!”

  Andi grabbed my shoulder to look at my lip. “Aww, geez. It’s red. Are you ok?”

  I nodded. I didn’t want her to worry, but the tingling on my lip and tongue was truly feeling awful.

  I ran my tongue over my lip. It felt puffy but it may have just been from the sensitivity.

  Turning to the sink, I saw Logan digging something out of the freezer. I started some cold water flowing from the tap and put my hand under it. It looked red and aggravated.

  Logan spun me around by my hip and crowded into my space. My back ended up against the sink.

  His hand took hold of my jaw and when I looked at his face he seemed angry. He eyed my mouth, then held up an ice cube to it. It felt good on my lip, even though I was feeling overwhelmed by his proximity. Other than the time I had accidentally tripped into him, the kitchen incident, and the elevator, I hadn’t been this close to him at all.

  His nostrils flared with, I assumed, some unspoken irritation.

  He rubbed the ice gently over the sore spot, back and forth. His eyes were concentrated so much on it that I couldn’t really fathom what he was thinking. I took a deep inhale of his scent. He smelled clean, with a mixture of antibacterial soap and his signature cologne.