One Hundred Choices (An Aspen Cove Novel Book 12) Read online

  One Hundred Choices

  An Aspen Cove Romance

  Kelly Collins

  Copyright © 2019 by Kelley Maestas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Victoria Cooper Art

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Sneak Peek at One Hundred Decisions

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  Chapter One

  A woman should never let a man take away her choices. That was Trinity Mosier’s mantra. She’d told herself that a thousand times, and would tell herself a thousand more, but saying, wasn’t the same as doing.

  She fisted the check she found on her kitchen table. The edge of the paper cut into her palm as she marched into the barn looking for Blain. Her old boots thumped against the dirt while they ate up the distance between her bungalow and the stable.

  When she turned the corner, she expected to find him but came upon a stranger reaching into the stall of her horse.

  “Get away from there!”

  Little Ms. Skinny Jeans and Plaid Shirt reached up to touch Pride, but she dropped her hand and backed away. “Sorry, I hoped to get to know her better before I strapped on the saddle and took her for a ride.”

  The woman’s words were like a fist to Trinity’s chin. Her head snapped back from the force.

  “You’re not saddling this horse. You sure as hell aren’t riding her.” Trinity marched forward until she stood a foot away. “Who are you?”

  The woman wiped her hands on her jeans before holding one out in greeting. “I’m Tracy Smith, the new horse trainer for Wallaby Ranch.”

  Tracy’s words sent a sharp slice to Trinity’s heart. Now she understood the reason the check said final pay.

  “New trainer?”

  “Yes, I arrived a few minutes ago and saw the barn. Thought I’d give the place a look before I talked to Blain about the details.”

  “Blain hired you?”

  “Yes, he wants his daughter saddled with a winner.” She opened her mouth to say something else, but Trinity turned and walked away. “Don’t unpack, you’re not staying. I’m the trainer here, and I don’t need your help.” She stomped out of the barn and up the hill to the house.

  When she got to the large rancher with the wrap-around porch, she stopped, but only for a moment. It was customary to knock, but desperation coursed through her veins. Adrenaline rushed forth and made her burst uninvited through the front door.

  “Blain Wallaby, where are you?” she yelled. She blazed from room to room until she found him in his office at the end of the hallway.

  “I see you found your severance pay.” He sat at the big desk with his boots kicked up to rest on the burled wood surface. His salt and pepper brows came into points in the center like he was sprouting horns. The man was Lucifer in a Stetson.

  The check, in her hand, was all but forgotten until a paper cut sent a zing of discomfort up her arm. She unfurled her fist and dropped the slip of paper on his desk. The blood from the cut pinked her palm.

  “We’ll talk about the money in a second. What I want to know is why there’s a woman named Tracy Smith in my barn? She says she’s a new hire.”

  He kicked his feet off the desk and let his boots fall to the marble floor with a thud.

  “Darlin’, she is the new trainer. You tried and failed.” He pointed to the chair in front of his desk.

  She shook her head and stood her ground. She’d been in this position once too often. How many more times would she have to stand in front of a man while he told her she wasn’t wanted or needed? The sad thing was, they always said it with a smile on their lips and a word of endearment spilling forth.

  There was a time she loved to hear a man call her darlin’. That was before she realized that fifty percent of the time, it was condescending. Darlin’ get me a beer. Be a darlin’ and sit on my lap. Oh, darlin’, you thought I loved you?

  She crossed her arms over her chest and stomped her boot. “You brought me here to train your horses. I’ve done a great job with your stock.” The sun peeked in the eastside window. Refractions of light danced around the room. “I’m happy where I am.”

  He smiled. “I’m not happy.” He picked up the crumpled check and straightened it on the edge of the desk. “Angel still hasn’t won a competition.”

  Trinity wanted to reach across and choke the man. “It’s not about the horse.” His daughter hadn’t won because she had no skill. “Don’t fire me, fire your daughter’s trainer. Don’t blame the horse when it’s the rider.”

  “Have you seen Angel on a horse? She’s a wonder to watch.”

  “Yes.” Trinity rarely spoke out because no one listened, but she couldn’t hold her tongue this time. “It’s a wonder she can stay in the saddle.”

  He twisted his lips so tight they looked like a puckered anus. “And that’s why you’re leaving. You don’t trust my judgment.”

  “You’re right. I don’t because it’s clouded. When you look at Angel, you see a girl with unlimited possibilities. I applaud you for that. I wish my father had looked at me that way, but be realistic and take off the blinders. Horses are your thing, not hers. She’d rather be hanging out at the mall with her friends on the weekends. Instead, she’s riding a horse she couldn’t care less about.”

  “What do you know about my daughter?”

  She wet her thumb and rubbed at the dried blood on her hand.

  “Nothing really. Remember, I don’t train her, I train her horse. But I was a daughter. Like Angel, I didn’t have many choices, and I resent that to this day. How different would my life be if someone took the time to ask questions and listen?”

  No one had ever asked what she wanted. Poor Angel was in the same saddle. With men like Blain Wallaby running the show, not much would change.

  She picked up the check and shoved it in her back pocket. It wasn’t much, but it would help.

  “Your new trainer is in the stables.”

  It knotted her gut to be so easily replaced even though she knew without a doubt everyone was. Even her own mother had replaced her and her brothers with a new family when she left them and moved to Florida. Trinity was too young to remember, but she’d heard the stories of how Sally Mosier packed up the car on a snowy day. She climbed inside, started the engine, and left in search of sunshine.

  “This isn’t personal, Trinity.”

  “It is for me. You never came and talked to me. Never asked me what I thought about Angel and her chances of winning.” She pointed
at herself. “I trained champions before I came to work for you.”

  If she thought her insides were boiling earlier when Tracy touched her mare, she was on fire now.

  “You’re making a mistake. If you want Wallaby Ranch to have a win, I’ll get back in the saddle and bring you one.” She’d retired at twenty-eight. It wasn’t the competition that did her in. It was the circuit. Constantly on the go with no place to land wasn’t the life she dreamed about. At least working for Blain made her feel like she belonged somewhere, but she didn’t. She never had, and she never would. That reality sat like a boulder on her chest.

  He leaned his elbows on the desk and cradled his chin on the tops of his hands. “I’m sorry, Trinity.”

  She pressed her fingers against her temples, certain the throbbing was a sign her brain would explode.

  “It would have been nice to have some warning. Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Doesn’t your father work at McKinley’s?”

  “Yes, he does.” Blain didn’t need to know she was persona non grata at that ranch. She’d left there years ago when another man not too different from Blain pointed at the door and told her to leave.

  “You have options. You’re good with horses. Surely someone can use you.”

  “Yep.” She took a step back. “Someone always does.” She patted the pocket holding the check. “How long do I have before you want me gone?”

  He glanced out the window. “You’ve got until sunset. Tracy needs a place to sleep.”

  If a heart could tumble out of its bone enforced home, she was certain hers was in the toe of her boot. “What about my horse?”

  He leaned back and chuckled. “Your horse?”

  “You gave me Pride when my horse Bliss got put down. Pride is my horse.”

  He stood and walked toward her. “She was yours while you were here. You get to leave with what you came with.”

  She’d been compared to a storm at times. Her brothers called her a tornado. Right then, she could feel the force of her anger ratcheting up. The longer she stayed to argue her point, the less likely it would end well for either of them. “I’ll be gone within the hour.” She turned on her heel and strode to the door but stopped and looked over her shoulder. “You’ll be begging me to come back.”

  He tipped up his chin to dismiss her. “We’ll see.”

  Each step she took weighted her down. The goodbyes always gutted her. The last time she said goodbye, it was to her father and her brother Cade. She left McKinley Ranch not because she wanted to but because someone had lied, and everyone believed them.

  She reached the barn and followed the ray of sun that led her through the door on a direct path to Pride.

  Tracy leaned against the wall, waiting. “Did you get it all straightened out?”

  Trinity gave her a sideways glance and nodded. She focused on her horse. “Hey, sweetheart.” The dappled mare nuzzled her neck. “Looks like I have to go.” She moved to Angel’s horse, Triumph, and turned to Tracy. “She’s got a suspensory ligament injury on the front right. Rest, ice, and compression is what she needs, not more training.”

  Trinity moved back to Pride because leaving her was equal to abandoning a child. She was well versed on that subject. She kissed the muzzle of the horse she thought of as hers and walked away. Several minutes later, she entered her home—a guesthouse on the property that sat several hundred yards from the bunkhouse.

  She pulled her suitcase from the closet, laid it open on the bed, and searched her drawers.

  Blain’s words rang in her ears. “You can leave with what you came with.” The drawers overflowed with clothes. Things she hadn’t purchased herself but gifts she’d received since her arrival. She dug through the neatly folded piles and found nothing from her past.

  The only items that were rightly hers were the boots on her feet, the hat hanging from the bedpost, and an oiled jacket she’d brought from Wyoming.

  She closed the suitcase and pushed it to the hardwood floor. She picked up her backpack and filled it with her toiletries and two pictures she had on her dresser before heading out the front door.

  Standing on her porch was Trigger. She didn’t know his real name, but he’d been at the ranch long before she arrived.

  “I see you’re heading out.”

  She wanted to cry, but she’d learned long ago that tears never helped. “My replacement showed up.”

  “Come next month, you’ll be one of his many regrets. Where you headed?”

  Months ago, she wouldn’t have known, but that was before both of her brothers settled in a small Colorado town called Aspen Cove.

  “I’m heading north. Do you think you can give me a ride to the bus station?” She had limited funds. She’d never been much of a saver; then again, she didn’t earn much to save. When her SUV broke down, Blain gave her a ranch truck to use. At the time, he appeared to be her chance at freedom, but he was just a stopgap to this point in her life.

  “I always knew Wallaby Ranch wouldn’t suit you long-term. You’re too good for us.” He gently took her elbow and led her behind the bunkhouse, where they stored the old equipment. He walked to a tarp-covered vehicle and yanked the fabric off.

  She gasped. “My SUV.” Surprise filled her voice. “How? I thought Blain had it hauled away.”

  His gummy smile warmed her. Trigger could have been anywhere between forty and a hundred. With his sun-leathered skin and his salt and pepper hair, it was difficult to tell.

  “He told me to do something with it. I did. I fixed it up and stored it away until you needed it.” He reached into the open window. When he lowered the visor, the keys dropped out. “You climb in and find somewhere to belong. Someplace where people know your value.”

  She found it ironic that he knew exactly what her heart longed for. A place to fit in.

  She tossed her backpack into the passenger seat before she threw her arms around him for a hug. “You were always good to me, Trigger.”

  “Darlin’, you’re the daughter I never had.” He opened the door, and she climbed inside.

  When she turned the key, her old beat-up 4Runner purred to life. “You’re my hero.”

  He shook his head. “Nope, I’m just a man who wants to do right by you.”

  “You’d be the first,” she said and fastened her seatbelt.

  She drove out of the old barn. The dirt road wound around the acreage until she hit the highway. She took one last glance in her rearview mirror. Texas would soon be behind her.

  She didn’t call her brothers to tell them she was on her way. It would give them too much time to hide or move.

  She turned on the radio and headed north.

  “Aspen Cove, here I come.”

  Chapter Two

  Wyatt Morrison was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He never mixed business with pleasure. A man didn’t get where he wanted to be if there was a woman in his path waiting to trip him up.

  “Do we understand each other?” Lloyd asked.

  “We understood each other weeks ago when you sent me to live at Cade’s ranch. I’m not interested in your daughter. Never have been, and never will be.”

  Lloyd nodded and walked out, leaving him alone to care for both horses.

  “Why the hell did I sign up for this shit?” He offered water to Lloyd’s horse first, then moved to Rex. “I thought things would be different for us.” He pulled off his gelding’s saddle and brushed him down. Rex had been with him for years and was a good listener. “I came here for an opportunity. Look at where I’m at now.” He finished grooming his horse, then moved him into a stall where fresh water and hay waited.

  He tugged on the reins of Lloyd’s horse, Hellion, and moved him closer so he could brush him down. He grabbed the bucket of grooming supplies and got started.

  “Maybe I should have stayed in Montana.” He moved the brush over Hellion’s coat and growled. The sound startled the horse, who sidestepped him as if trying to escape.

  “I
get it. You don’t want to be here either.”

  Wyatt had moved from Bozeman when he heard about the job in Aspen Cove. A small cattle farmer named Lloyd Dawson was looking to expand and needed a righthand man. That meant he wanted a foreman, which was all Wyatt wanted to be. It wasn’t Lloyd’s fault Wyatt hadn’t asked the right questions, or enough questions. He had been ready to leave Montana and jumped at the first chance he got.

  He’d packed up his things and moved to Aspen Cove to make his mark on the world, but things at the Big D Ranch weren’t exactly as he’d hoped.

  “Hey, man.” Basil, or Baz as he preferred to be called, moved his horse inside the stable. “Thought you’d have left by now.”

  “I’ll be gone as soon as I’m done grooming Hellion.”

  “That used to be my job.” He chuckled. “That is until you came along.”

  “Yep, earning my keep.”

  “Hardly. If you ask me, I think you’re getting the prickly point of the stirrup.”

  The kid was right. That was another piece of information Wyatt didn’t have until he drove onto the ranch. Lloyd had a son. A son who was the acting foreman. It chapped his ass to fall under the supervision of a kid who was barely out of diapers when Wyatt made his first cattle drive.

  “It’s all good.” It wasn’t, but work was work, and until something better came along, he’d have to tolerate the situation.

  “You mind grooming Titan when you’re finished with Hellion?” Baz looked at the clock hanging from the barn wall. “I’ve got a class at Dalton’s. We’re making chicken cordon bleu tonight, and I don’t want to be late.”