Poppy scrambled back. “Oh, here it is,” Poppy said with a shaky voice. She took a sweater from the rack. “Thanks, Mark, for helping me find it.”
She lowered her eyes and moved toward the door.
“Your father is looking for you,” Aiden said. He wanted to laugh at the shock on both of their faces, but he shuttered his surprise.
“Shit,” Mark blurted. “You should go out the back door.”
Poppy looked at Aiden and then back to Mark before she took off at a near run toward the rear exit.
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” Aiden said to Mark before he turned to leave. As he reached the door he stopped. “My bride is waiting for me in the car. You better not get shot because I’m not covering for your stupid ass.”
Aiden walked out and climbed into the waiting Mustang.
“Everything all right?” Marina asked.
Aiden shook his head, then chuckled. “Everything is perfect.”
A note from the author
Many may ask why this story? When I planted Marina in One Hundred Reasons, I had no idea she’d get her own book. My intent was to show Sage’s compassion. When I placed her in One Hundred Wishes, I knew there was a story to tell when Samantha saw the bruises on Marina’s stomach and assumed they were from abuse. Now we know they came from her self-defense classes.
It was then that I knew Marina was not a victim but a victor. She had gone through hell, but she was determined to save her daughter or die trying.
One Hundred Excuses is a book about triumph over tragedy. About how the human spirit can heal, learn to trust, and love again. How the right people can change everything. I hope you loved this book as much as I loved writing it. As with all Aspen Cove books, it was about finding love in the most unlikely places because in Aspen Cove, everything is possible.
Thank you for reading.
Do you love talking books with other readers?
Join Kelly Collins’ Book Nook for prizes, books, and live chats.
Kelly Collins’ Book Nook
Want to be the first to know about new releases?
Sign up here for members-only exclusives, including advance notice of pre-orders, as well as contests, giveaways, freebies, and special deals.
You can also follow me on Bookbub
Sneak Peek of One Hundred Christmas Kisses
Evan Barkman was an asshole and an awful kisser. He was also Charlie’s boss, which made kissing him under the mistletoe the biggest mistake she ever made. It’s why she didn’t mix Christmas parties with alcohol. That was three days ago and she hadn’t spoken to him since. Well, she’d spoken to him because he was her boss, but their words were purely professional. They discussed puppies, bowel obstructions, and fleas.
“If I asked you to stay would you? I invited you on my trip,” Evan said.
While he locked up the pharmaceuticals, she walked around the operating table to toss the soiled linens into the laundry bag. They’d just removed a balloon from a beagle’s lower intestine and this would be the last laundry pickup before the holidays.
“No, I told you I’m going to Aspen Cove to visit family.” She had been on the fence about going home, but Evan’s badgering made the unpleasant thought of seeing her father more palatable. It had been ten years since they were together in the same room. That room had been the funeral home in Copper Creek. They closed her mother’s casket and she closed that chapter on her life. After eight years of schooling and two years working for an idiot, Charlie was ready to take a step back and re-evaluate everything. Changes needed to be made.
Evan walked around the table toward her, and she moved to the other side to avoid him.
“Why are you running from me?”
“I’m not running.” She made sure to keep at least a three-foot barrier between them. The damn man had long arms. “I told you the kiss was a mistake. It was too many spiced eggnogs mixed with poor judgment.”
The fact that he’d maneuvered her under the mistletoe was another story altogether. He’d been getting friendly over the last few months. Each time he passed her in the clinic, he found a reason to touch her. What started out as a graze of the hands across her back turned into a pat on the bottom or a brush of his arm across her breast. He had a sea of space to walk around, but he always chose the exact place she stood to crowd her.
“I don’t think it was a mistake. The kiss was perfect.” He made it around the stainless steel table before she could outmaneuver him. His hands gripped her shoulders and his lips covered her mouth. Cover was exactly right. Evan Barkman had a mouth the size of the Grand Canyon. It dripped saliva like Niagara Falls.
She pushed at his chest, but he held his position. He pulled back and said, “We’re perfect for each other, Charlie. It’s a match made in heaven.”
She knew that her next move would end everything, including her job. “We’re not a match. You’re a veterinarian and should know you can’t mate a water buffalo with a feline and come out with something good.”
“This could be good.” He pressed himself against her.
She positioned her knee for impact. When it connected to his groin, everything changed. His hands left her shoulders and dropped to his crotch. He stumbled back. “Why would you do that?” His voice had the pitch of a six-year-old girl.
“Because you’re an asshole, and I quit.” Charlie took off her lab coat and tossed it onto the table, walking out of Barkman’s Veterinary Clinic. Her job there had lasted two years. At least it would be a solid reference. She’d make sure to remind Mr. Barkman what a stellar veterinarian she was when she called to pick up her final paycheck and threaten to sue him for sexual harassment.
She stomped straight to her SUV and climbed inside. Her head fell to the steering wheel and she cried. Her tears flowed freely. Wasn’t it time to let all the anguish go? When she finished drying her cheeks with the hem of her pink scrub shirt, she started her car and took off toward home.
As if the universe was pushing her forward, Agatha Guild’s number popped up on her cell. She transferred the call to bluetooth.
“Hey, Agatha, how are you?”
“I’m finer than frog hair split seven ways, sweetheart. Just checking to see if you’ve decided to come for a visit?”
Agatha was her father’s new girlfriend and Charlie wasn’t sure how to feel about the woman who had stepped in to replace her mother. On one hand, she was grateful that her father wasn’t alone. Then again, she didn’t know how her mother could have been replaced. She had to give credit to the woman for being persistent in her quest to get Charlie Parker back to Aspen Cove. She’d called twice a week for the last six months.
“I’m in the car. I have to stop by my apartment and pick up my bag, and then I’ll be on my way. Please don’t tell my dad. I’d like it to be a surprise.” What she really meant was she didn’t want him to be disappointed if she got halfway and turned around because she lost her nerve.
“My lips are sealed. I can’t wait to meet you in person, Charlie. I’ve heard so much about you from your father that I almost feel like I know you already.”
“You do know me, somewhat. You’ve been like a dog with a bone trying to get me there with your calls.”
“There is that.” Agatha laughed. It was a soft trill of a sound that floated through the line.
Charlie knew without a doubt that she’d like her. That made her guilt even worse.
“I’m staying at the bed and breakfast. I’ll call you in the morning when I get up.” She’d made the reservation last week. It broke her heart that Bea no longer owned the place, but people got old and change was inevitable. For those reasons alone, it was time to mend fences with her dad. He was no spring chicken and after he got injured in a fire, which was why Agatha called in the first place, she’d given their situation a great deal of thought.
“Drive safely, Charlie. There’s a storm moving in.”
Great. “No problem. I drive in the snow all the time.” Not exactly a lie, but
the inches they got in Kansas City would never compare to the feet they got in Colorado.
She hung up the phone and zipped by her apartment to change, get her suitcase, and pick up her computer. She’d need it since she’d have to look for a new job. The weather channel put a fire under her bottom. If she hurried, she might be able to beat the storm coming in from Albuquerque. She remembered all too well how the storms from the south brought too much moisture with them.
She grabbed a box of Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies and headed out. If she was lucky, she’d make the near seven hundred mile trip by midnight. Maybe quitting her job wasn’t such a bad thing. It got her finished before noon. Then again, they were closing for the holidays, regardless. Thankfully, Dr. Barkman took two weeks off each year at Christmas to visit his mother in Florida.
Charlie wondered if she’d still get her Christmas bonus. While she wasn’t going to be homeless tomorrow, she would need to find a tenable situation soon.
Five hours into the drive, the flakes began to fall. She stopped for gas and pressed onward.
Had it really been ten years since she’d seen him? When her mother died she couldn’t forgive her father for not saving her. He was like a god in that region. People drove for miles to see Doctor Paul Parker because he always had the answers.
Her anger was the immature thought process of an eighteen-year-old girl who’d lost her mom. At fifty-eight, Phyllis Parker had been healthy as a horse. Not that all horses were healthy, but her mother had never had a health problem until the stroke, which was caused by a brain aneurism. How many people had her father saved and yet he couldn’t save his wife?
The guilt of her decision to pack up and go to college and never look back was what had kept her away. How could she make up for ten years of abandonment? She couldn’t.
The windshield wipers picked up their pace as the snow fell heavy and thick on the glass. Like an old lady, Charlie sat forward with her chin nearing the top of the steering wheel. She slowed to a sloth’s pace. She’d just made it past Denver when a red Mustang whizzed past her.
“Idiot,” she said aloud. “Even I know a front wheel drive won’t make it through the pass.”
It seemed that whoever was in that car was trying to race the storm that was already on top of them. Or he was the idiot of her initial thoughts. She said a silent prayer for the person because she wished no harm on anyone.
After a quick stop for a bathroom break and a coffee, she entered the pass that would take her through the winding mountainside. She halfway considered turning back but didn’t because she was almost there. Almost being a loose term meaning she had less miles to go than she’d already traveled. While the treacherous terrain of snowy, icy roads and idiot drivers were in front of her, there was nothing left behind her. She wondered if somewhere deep inside she’d created a situation where the only path left was forward.
She considered the future and what it might bring. At this point there were three things Charlie needed more than anything in the world. She needed a new job. She needed her father. She needed to forgive herself because, even though she’d blamed her father all those years ago, she truly felt responsible for her mother’s death. They’d fought that morning over where she’d go to college. Charlie wanted to attend college out of state. She wanted to experience life outside of a small town. Her mother had begged her to stay. That was part of the problem with being the only child of a couple who’d struggled to get pregnant. All their hopes and dreams landed on Charlie’s shoulders and it was a weight too heavy to bear.
She could still see her mother’s red face in her memory. And her last words would haunt her for life. She’d told Charlie that she’d just die if she was so far away. While realistically, Charlie knew it was a figure of speech, not more than an hour after their argument, Phyllis Parker was dead.
That was the minute everything changed. She knew that she could never be anyone’s everything. To do so put her heart at risk and she’d never survive anything so heartbreaking as losing someone else she loved. It was why she was on the fence about making up with her father. What if just as she entered his life again, he exited hers? She’d never survive.
Lately, she’d been hearing the whispers of her mother’s voice in her memory. Phyllis Parker was like a white, female Gandhi with all her quips and quotes. Charlie once asked her mother about finding love and was told that you don’t find love, it finds you.
She’d been waiting for years for it to find her. One thing she knew for certain was it didn’t come dressed in a lab coat and give sloppy kisses. If that were her only chance at love then she’d start filling her apartment with cats.
Click here to read more.
Sneak Peek of One Hundred Lifetimes
Poppy Dawson walked into the Sheriff Aiden Cooper’s office with one thing on her mind. If she couldn’t get Mark Bancroft to marry her, she’d have to murder him. The problem with her plan was if Mark Bancroft got anywhere near her outside of work, her father would do the job first.
She took a seat at the corner desk and pulled her notebook from the drawer to jot down reason number 132 for why she loved him. It was the same reason as the other 131 before it. At twenty-eight, she’d never loved anyone else. Since that day on the playground twenty-one years ago when he stopped Brian Decker from pulling her pigtails, it had always been Mark.
Her most memorable moment with the man of her dreams happened just over four months ago when she pinned him against the wall and stole the kiss she’d wanted her whole life.
It was an amazing kiss that lasted at least four seconds. That was when Sheriff Cooper walked into the office, caught them, and said her father was looking for her. That was the last time Mark Dawson’s lips touched her.
She laughed. She didn’t have to kill him herself. All she had to do was tell her dad he kissed her and that would be the end. In truth, she didn’t want Mark in a grave. She wanted him in her bed. Pretending that she hated him was easier than knowing she loved him.
“Hey, Poppy,” Sheriff Cooper said as he entered.
“New haircut?” It wasn’t that she noticed the cut as much as she noticed the smell of the shampoo. The Coopers all smelled like coconut unless Aiden got a trim at Cove Cuts and then he smelled like citrus.
“Can’t be looking like a vagrant.” He took off his hat and set it on the filing cabinet. “Anything hot that I need to know about?”
“Wes called to ask if you could help with the wedding setup. He’s got tables and chairs that need unloading.” Poppy’s groan happened without thought. Some girls were always a bridesmaid and never a bride. Poppy had never been either.
“He wants my help now?” he asked. “Sage and Cannon aren’t getting married until the fourteenth.”
“It’s the twelfth,” she reminded him.
“No kidding.” He shuffled through a stack of papers on his desk that was two inches high. With growth came funding and Sheriff Cooper was filing for everything he could get, from a second deputy to new cars. “I guess I was preoccupied.”
She’d like to believe it was all work, but the sheriff had been married for about four months. He’d been busy with his wife, Marina, and his adopted daughter, Kellyn. So busy that Marina was already two months pregnant. It seemed that as Louise had been pushing her eighth kid out around Christmas, Aiden had been putting one inside his wife. Some girls had all the luck.
“He said he could use a hand or two.” Poppy picked up her Nikon from her desk. “I’ve already got a job. I’m the official photographer.” She’d always loved photography but couldn’t pursue it as a career. She was lucky to have a part-time job at the sheriff’s office. If it weren’t for her mother’s ALS and expensive medications, she’d be stuck at the ranch day in and day out. She let out a sigh that could probably be heard in Kansas.
“You okay?”
She perked up. “Sure, I’m great. How about a new photo for the wall? We should have one of you and Mark. You know, the sheriff and his deputy.” She po
inted to his desk where he took a seat and folded his hands on top.
“Like this?” He sat up tall and gave her an almost smile, trying to look serious.
After a peek into the camera she knew it was all wrong. While he looked professional, the pile of papers on his desk didn’t. She set her camera down and went about setting the stage. Everything looked different from behind the lens.
When she was certain she had it right, she took the shot. “You should give them a hand. I’ll lock up when I leave.”
“Thanks, Poppy,” He pocketed his keys and walked toward the door. “How are your sisters doing?”
She smiled at the thought of Rose, Lily and Daisy. “They’re great. I’m so proud of them.” If it wasn’t for her staying behind and caring for their mom, her sisters would have never been allowed to go off to college, but Lloyd Dawson couldn’t argue when they all received scholarships. Rose was close by at Colorado State, studying agriculture. Lily had ventured further west to Arizona State to study engineering, while Daisy was in South Dakota diving into environmental sciences. She had her heart set on the forestry service. That left Poppy, her brother Basil and her sister Violet to pick up the pieces.
“That’s great news.” He plopped his hat on his head. “Your mom hanging in there?”
“Super, she’s having a really good day today.” She tabled her camera and went back to putting the sheriff’s desk in order.
“Good to hear. Let us know if there’s anything you need.”
“Will do.”
Sheriff Cooper left the office and Poppy to her thoughts. Those thoughts always went back to Deputy Mark Bancroft. She plopped into her seat and scrolled through the forty or fifty pictures she’d taken last week. Seventy percent of them were of him.
One Hundred Excuses (An Aspen Cove Romance Book 5) Page 17