That she wasn’t a burden, even with her fibro.
Sinking a little lower in the tub, she took another sip of her tea and prayed for the pain to ease up.
Chapter Two
Libbie slumped into her office chair and breathed a sigh of relief.
A little after nine o’clock in the morning, and Karen Palmer, mother of the bride, had just picked up their order. It didn’t hurt the woman was tickled to death with the results. And she took a handful of business cards with her to hand out to her friends. She was so pleased in fact that she placed a large order for her ladies’ church group, for pickup next Wednesday afternoon.
A hundred large cupcakes, four different varieties, decorated. Plus three red velvet cakes, two sour cream pound cakes, and a carrot cake.
She’d paid the order in full in advance so she could send someone else to pick it up for her.
Yay. I can pay Jenny today instead of on Tuesday after all the Friday checks clear. Karen Palmer wouldn’t stiff her and write a bad check. And the young mom would no doubt appreciate the early payday with her food stamps not paying out for nearly a week. Jenny never asked for an advance on her pay, but Libbie saw how the woman struggled this time of the month, every month, making sure her kids had good food while she sometimes subsisted on day-olds Libbie gave her to take home.
Grover leaned against the office doorway. “You okay, sugar?”
Libbie nodded. “Exhausted. How are you?” Out in the shop, she heard the bell jingle as someone entered, followed by Jenny’s cheerful voice as she greeted them. Back in the kitchen, Ruth had the giant mixer running as she put together the basics of a cake order going out the next day. Ruth didn’t do the special decorating. That fell on Libbie’s shoulders. But the older woman had a special touch with even the fussiest recipes and rarely ruined anything.
Grover shrugged. “If I wasn’t here, I’d be sitting in my chair at home. Don’t worry about it. But I meant your hands.” He nodded to where she had them clutched in her lap, the apron wrapped around them and the microwaveable gel hot pack she held. “You don’t think I didn’t see you do that, did you?” One bushy eyebrow threaded with grey arched over his friendly brown eyes. “Don’t make me cross-examine you, kiddo.”
She felt her face flush. From the stories her father had told her, Grover had been a formidable trial attorney. “I’ll be okay,” she mumbled.
“You’re this bad and it’s only October. Honey, you’ll be in misery come January and you know it.”
Libbie knew all too well where this conversation was going and decided to head him off at the pass. “I can’t afford to go to Doc Smith.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,” a man said from behind Grover.
Grover turned with a smile and held out his hand. “Hi, Doc.”
Dr. Smith shook hands with him and stepped past him and into the office. “Grover. Libbie.”
She shot a glare at Grover. “You called him?”
He returned her glare with an arched eyebrow. “Of course I did, you stubborn thing.”
Dr. Smith waggled an accusatory finger at her. “How am I supposed to get my morning crullers if my favorite baker can’t make them?”
Dr. Smith was a general practitioner who’d been practicing in Brooksville for over twenty-five years. Thin and tall, he stopped in every morning on his way to his office four doors down from Libbie’s building. He’d been their family doctor when Libbie was growing up.
This also wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion. “I don’t have insurance yet, Doc. Maybe by next spring I can afford it.”
He walked in, sat in the folding chair next to her desk, and held his hands out, waggling his fingers at her. “Give ’em. Hand ’em over, girl.”
With her head hung low, she released the gel pack and held her hands out to him. She winced as he gingerly probed and manipulated her hands before releasing them. She pulled them back and once again buried them in her apron, wrapping her fingers around the still-warm gel pack.
He cocked his head at her. “I can’t force you to come see me. I also keep telling you I’ll make you a special cash deal so you can.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want charity.” She already felt guilty enough about Grover’s insistence on coming in to help without compensation.
The doctor pulled a prescription pad and pen from his jacket pocket. “This isn’t charity. This is self-interest.” He smiled as he scribbled on the pad. “I don’t smoke or drink. Your crullers are the only monkey on my back. Do an old man a favor, would ya?” He tore the sheet off and handed it to Grover, who pocketed it. “And how am I supposed to get my fix guilt-free if I know you’re killing yourself over here?”
She finally smiled, which earned her a pat on the knee. “But I can’t take anything that’s going to make me sleepy,” she said. “I have to get up so early.”
“How’s the fibro fog doing?”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter because I have everything written down and organized so anyone can help me. And I can’t do something stupid like forget.” She had hundreds of laminated pages in several binders in the kitchen, with all her standard recipes in them, so she could use dry-erase markers on them while baking and not miss a step or forget an ingredient.
It also meant anyone, like Ruth or Grover, could do all the prep work for her if necessary, and leave the detailed decorating to her.
And there had been days Grover forced her to sit on a stool at the decorating table and not move from it while he and Ruth did all the other prep work.
Dr. Smith nodded. “Don’t worry, it’s naproxen, not a narcotic,” he assured her. “It’s just a stronger version of what you can buy over the counter. And you can get it in a generic form, so it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. It’ll help you with the arthritis pain somewhat, although it might also give you some relief for the fibro pain. It probably won’t help much with the fibro fog, though. If you will quit being so stubborn and come in for a full workup, I can look at trying you on something like Cymbalta or Lyrica. I have samples of those and a couple others we can try to see what might work. There are even several other drugs we can try that have inexpensive generic alternatives. But I can’t put you on any of those until I get baseline blood work results for you.”
He stood to go and waggled a finger at her again. “Remember, you wouldn’t want to deny an old man his best pleasure in life.”
“Thank you,” she softly said.
“I’ll make sure she gets and takes them,” Grover told him, patting the doctor on the shoulder as he passed. “Thank you for coming.”
“No problem.”
When he left, Grover took his place in the folding chair. “I’ll go get these filled for you.”
She started to reach for her purse, but he put out a staying hand.
“Don’t you dare reach for money or I’ll spank you.”
“But you already do so much. And there’s tomorrow. And—”
“Stop. I’m paying for this one. If I couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t offer.” He grinned. “If they’re cheap, you buy the next batch. But you need something to help you out.” With all his kids grown and away from home, some of them already with families of their own, Grover had turned all his fatherly powers on Libbie.
The only reason she accepted his help was because she suspected he used it to escape his grief and loneliness after Connie died.
It didn’t mean, however, that she didn’t feel guilty about taking it.
She slumped back in her chair and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Don’t you be thanking me yet. Jeneese heard what we were doing and now has her sisters and their men involved. You’re going to have a house full of Johnsons tomorrow.” He grinned. “And I’m bringing the big barbecue cooker. It’s going to be like a family reunion.”