One Hundred Lessons (An Aspen Cove Small Town Romance Book 15) Read online

  One Hundred Lessons

  An Aspen Cove Small Town Romance

  Kelly Collins

  Copyright © 2020 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

  Chapter 26

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  Chapter One

  Mercy Meyer wasn't looking for Prince Charming. At thirty-five, she'd kissed one too many toads to know he didn't exist. The idiot she married had warts and all and look where that got her.

  Three piles of bills sat on her table. There were those she couldn't pay, those she would pay—eventually, and the companies who could kiss her behind.

  The largest stack was from the first pile. She chipped at them little by little, but each one she sent money to, only opened the wound of her husband's betrayal more. It was a good thing he was dead because if she knew then what she did now, she would consider murder a viable alternative to the pain she suffered.

  The squeak of the chair, grinding against the hardwood, made her teeth clench.

  "How does an insurance salesman have the worst policy ever?" Randy once told her that life with him would always be interesting. She picked up the tallest pile of mail, at least twenty envelopes deep, and tossed them across the kitchen.

  Marriage was supposed to be a partnership where two people worked together for common goals. These days, she worked to avoid late charges and hits to her credit score.

  "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong filled the air, and she picked up her phone. Did Mom have a sixth sense and know when she was down in the pits of despair?

  "Hey, Mom."

  "Good morning, Mimi," her mother said. The nickname came from the first two letters of her full name. Mercy Meyer—me and me, but when you put the two together, you didn't get Mimi but meme, which had a whole different meaning. She tried to explain it to her mom one day, but Milly Meyer lived by her own set of rules.

  "How are you, Mama?"

  "Can't complain. Daddy got me up early." She giggled, and Mercy knew exactly what her parents were up to that morning.

  "You two give me hope."

  How long had it been for her? She couldn't remember the last time she enjoyed herself between the sheets. Although Randy had the perfect name for sexual shenanigans, he was far from perfect at giving her lady bits a thrill.

  Between his "late nights" and "conferences" and "consultations," he didn't have room in his schedule to make love to his wife because he was doing it with everyone else. Where had she gone wrong?

  If she learned one thing during the whole debacle, it was she couldn't trust her judgment when it came to men. For her, it was a game of straws, and she managed to choose the short one each time.

  She pulled her bucket list from the kitchen drawer and added earth-shattering O to the next blank line on the page. That came after finding a good man and becoming a mother. Her priorities were definitely askew. Should the big O really come after finding a man and becoming a mother? She drew an arrow to tuck it between the entries.

  "Are you still there, Mimi?"

  "Yes, sorry. I dropped some mail." She bent over and gathered what she tossed across the floor.

  "Well, I want you to know, you deserve a good man too.”

  "You know any?" It wasn't that she was opposed to trying her hand at love again. She cast her line into the pond a few times, but men were always looking for something different. She was a salmon egg when they were looking for a worm or power bait.

  "What happened to that bookstore owner? I thought you were setting your sights on him." Mama might be getting on in years, but she never forgets a thing.

  Being the youngest of five, Mercy was an oops baby but loved as if she were the first. What her parents had was what she wanted—deep connection, passion, and a family to call her own.

  "He found the love of his life in the diner. Natalie is a sweet girl and deserves something good too."

  "Oh, honey, you deserve a man who appreciates you for who you are and what you offer."

  "My prince will come." She wished she truly believed that.

  "No, baby, don't wait for him to come. You need to get out there and find him yourself. Just set your standards high."

  She turned the page of her notebook. "Okay, Mama, what should be on the top of the list?" She took a seat and readied her pen.

  "Single."

  Mercy swallowed the lump in her throat because single didn't mean faithful.

  "Okay, single and devoted. Who knew an insurance salesman could have groupies?" Randy wasn't a rock star, but there were several women at his funeral that Mercy didn't know, and their tears were too many for a casual acquaintance.

  "Did I tell you about the time I was a groupie?"

  It was hard to believe her mom was anything other than a housewife and mother of the year. "Is this the Kenny Loggins story or the Dan Fogelberg tale?"

  "Both. The point is, maybe you should try being a groupie once. It's very freeing."

  Mercy flipped the page back to her bucket list and put groupie on the top.

  "There is a band living in town." With Samantha's band in Aspen Cove to record a new album, there were options, but she wasn't looking for temporary. She wanted a forever man.

  "That's the spirit."

  "Nowadays, there's more to being a groupie than following the band for a summer."

  Her mother laughed out loud. It was a sound that brought back memories of game nights and firepits and s'mores.

  "Oh, there was back then too. Nothing wrong with having a summer of love before settling down."

  Mercy was done settling in her life. She settled for a lot of stuff, including a small wedding, a used car, and an apartment when she wanted a house. However, the last time she settled turned out to be a blessing in disguise because she would have been saddled with a mortgage payment if she hadn't.

  "I still remember making love all night long on every surface in the room. I swear that's how I ended up with that slipped disc in my back," her mother said.

  "Geez, now I have to wash my eyes out with soap and water to get rid of that vision of you and Kenny I conjured." Now that she thought about it, her older brother, Mike, kind of looked like Kenny Loggins. "Is Michael really Dad's?"

  "Oh, honey, you know better than that. I didn't have Michael until Daddy and I were married over two years. Besides, your father wouldn't le
t me go to a concert alone once he learned of my wild ways, but as soon as your daddy entered my life, there wasn't anyone else I wanted. I mean, Elvis was dead, and Burt Reynolds was taken."

  Why didn't I get Mama's luck and her zeal for life?

  An exciting weekend was canning jam or going to Bishop's Brewhouse for a single light beer.

  "Dream big, sweetie. Life never gives you exactly what you want, but it never hands you more than you can handle."

  She didn't dare dream bigger. At one time, she wanted three kids by the time she was thirty. That ship sailed five years ago, and now her eggs were probably withered and dead, or those that were viable knew it was unlikely they'd ever get fertilized and exited her fallopian tubes on a waterslide to freedom each month.

  "Daddy was a smart man to swoop you up and make you his." If he hadn't, her brother Michael might look like Burt.

  "I tell him that all the time. Anyway, I called to make sure you were okay."

  It had been a year ago today that Randy died in that car accident. At first, she was in shock, but as things unraveled, she experienced more pain than she ever expected.

  "I'm okay. You don't have to worry about me."

  "Oh, honey, you're my baby, and I'll always worry." She growled into the phone. "If that man hadn't had his pecker bitten off during the car accident, I would have severed it myself with that Ginsu your father bought me last Christmas."

  The amazing Ginsu would do it. Sometimes life dealt us ugly hands, and sometimes it meted out justice. For Randy, a road blowie wasn't the smartest thing to do on a winding highway in the Rockies. At least he died on a happy ending.

  "You know, Mom, the worst part was the humiliation. My life was a page right out of the National Enquirer." It was an article in that rag mag called When Biting Off More Than You Can Chew is Deadly. Who knew her entire school district would read it? Their snickers and giggles were poison darts aimed at her soul. It was bad enough her husband cheated on her with a client, but it was the city councilman's wife, and that made the story newsworthy—infamous actually.

  "I'm glad you moved away from there. Silver Springs was never the place for you. Are you still loving Aspen Cove?"

  "Yes, I love it here. Too bad there isn't a school in town. The commute to Copper Creek isn't fun in the winter, but the school district is great, and the people are nice." She lucked into the job when the first-grade teacher at Creek Elementary got married and moved out of state.

  "Are you sure you're okay?"

  "I'm perfect, Mom, really. It's not like I'm mourning the loss. All is good." She was grieving, not the loss of Randy, but the loss of her hopes and dreams.

  "Do you need money? I know they don't pay teachers enough."

  "You're right, they don't, but I'm okay." She never let her family know the truth of it. Randy's insurance barely covered his burial. There were the charges for hotel rooms and fancy dinners he'd put on their joint credit cards. She still owed money on his car, even though it was totaled—once again because of a lack of insurance. Thankfully, she negotiated a lower payoff. Yep, he was right. Life with him and without him was interesting. "I love you so much, Mama, and wish you were here." Her parents lived in Arizona, where the weather was hot and dry and suitable for their arthritic bones. "Talk to you soon?"

  "You know you will. Now go out and live a little."

  "Yep, groupie is at the top of my list."

  She hung up and laughed at the silliness of their conversation. What mother told her daughter to be a groupie? Apparently, hers did. She stared at the list. "Why not?" She'd seen Indigo play on the Fourth of July. The bass player was cute, and so was the guitarist. The drummer was a fan favorite, but not her type. She liked the clean-cut, not so gritty men. Besides, she couldn't fall for a man whose hair was prettier than hers.

  In the living room, her basket of folded clothes sat abandoned, so she grabbed a pair of pink underwear she recently bought from Walmart and shoved them into her pocket.

  There were three new houses built in Aspen Cove. Rumor had it they belonged to members of the band. She knew Axel lived on Rose Lane because Sosie, Baxter, and she had a conversation about tucking underwear into his chain-link fence, and while she said she'd never do it, she would today. Axel, or Alex, his real name, was the least likely to be a problem for her. He was so far from her type, which made him the perfect musician to test out her groupie skills.

  Hopefully, those things were passed down the gene pool because she had no idea what she'd do if she got caught.

  Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, she walked out the door and prowled toward the drummer's house. Could she actually pass for a groupie in her Keds and Life is Good T-shirt?

  The thought made her laugh so hard she snorted. She was a schoolteacher, and bagging a band member was only on her list because her mother told her to try it.

  The extent of her efforts would be to shove her underwear in his fence and call it a day.

  She loved summer in the mountains with the birds singing and flowers blooming. The weather was perfect, with a slight breeze that carried the scent of pine on it. As she neared Axel’s house, her heart raced.

  "You're not robbing the man," she said under her breath as she skulked up and down the block twice before gaining enough courage to approach.

  She spent a moment staring at his house. Though she wasn't up on styles, the word Craftsman came to mind. Though it was new, it blended in with the surrounding older homes. The only thing off was the fence. A white picket would have had more charm.

  Sighing, she shoved the material inside a link and turned to walk away.

  Just as she did, a truck turned the corner and drove past her.

  She'd been caught and needed to save herself, or she'd be known as the pink panty prowler, and one scandal was enough for a lifetime. Tugging the underwear free, she moved down the sidewalk, pulling the other pairs from between the links.

  Of all people to catch her, it was Baxter and Sosie. He rolled down his window and asked, "Everything okay?"

  What could she say? She stared at her hand. How many had been worn? "Disgusting." Her gut response gave her an idea. "Can you believe women leave their underwear on the fence?" She held her hand out like she did a used Kleenex during flu season. "There are children in this neighborhood." She stomped forward, opened the neighbor's trash can, and tossed them all inside. "Somebody has to be the voice of reason."

  "Carry on," Baxter said and drove forward.

  Mercy couldn't see coming all this way to fail, so as soon as the coast was clear, she fished her panties from the trash can and tucked them into the fence before she ran off.

  Her blood pumped so fast she thought she'd pass out. She couldn't call herself a groupie per se but had done a groupie thing and was now part of a crowd that left personal items as a sign of adoration.

  "Oh my God, I'm like a cat who left a mouse on its owner's doorstep." She sped up and jogged toward her street.

  When she walked into her house, she went straight to her bucket list and lined through the word groupie. Her walk on the wild side was over, and all it cost her was one pair of panties and self-respect.

  She texted her mom.

  Checked off groupie from my bucket list.

  She watched the three dots scroll across the screen.

  You are your mother's daughter and quick too.

  If only she were as bold as her mother, she might not have settled for less.

  I didn't sleep with anyone, just put a pair of underwear in his fence.

  The dots scrolled again.

  You're not supposed to put them in his fence; you're supposed to leave them in his room. Do I have to come there and teach you?

  What a conversation to have.

  Nope. I'm in training. You can't expect me to play the guitar if I've never had a lesson.

  Dots and more dots.

  Oh, is he a guitarist? They have nice fingers … skilled fingers.

  He's a drummer, and I don't want to hear abou
t his rhythm or his sticks.

  Scrolling …

  What about his wood? :-)

  Bye, Mom

  She tossed the phone into the drawer and walked into the living room where their last family photo sat on the mantel. Leaning in to look more closely at her brother, she realized he had Kenny Loggins' eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Waiting for everyone to show up, Alex Cruz sat behind his drums and watched the video from the security cameras he recently installed. He promised himself he wouldn't be caught off guard the next time a fan decided to surprise him. He couldn't count the number of times he'd found a naked woman or two in his bed. That was the thing about groupies; they didn't mind sharing.

  In Los Angeles, all it took was a hundred bucks to the right security guard, and they were inside.

  He couldn't fault them. From the outside, his life looked glamorous, and all they wanted was a piece of the action. It was like they had a bucket list, and sleeping with him was at the top of it.

  If he wasn't in town and managed to get into his place, they stole the craziest shit like his soap or his magazines. He'd finally given up wearing underwear because his boxers disappeared faster than a coin from a magician's hand.

  He played the footage of a blonde woman, placing a pair of underwear in his fence and then moments later yanking all the pairs left since yesterday and tossing them into the neighbor's trash can. A moment later, she took a single pair out and put them back in the fence.

  "Ready?" Samantha asked, drawing his attention from his phone.