One Hundred Christmas Kisses (An Aspen Cove Romance Book 6)

by Kelly Collins

  “I like cookies, so we have that in common.” He broke the Christmas tree in half and offered it to her.

  “I miss my mother.”

  “I don’t miss mine. I love her, but since my accident, she treats me like I’m handicapped.”

  Charlie cocked her head to the right. “But…” She didn’t want to point out that he was missing part of his leg. Her mother had hovered over her when she got a splinter, so she couldn’t imagine how Phyllis Parker would have behaved if something serious had happened.

  “Don’t say it. I hate being viewed as different from other people.”

  Charlie swiped the rest of the cookie from his hand. “You are different.” She waited to see the frown she knew he’d give her. “You’re tall, hot and sexy and you know what? I didn’t even know you were missing part of your leg until you threw a temper tantrum last night and tossed off the blankets. I enjoyed the show, by the way.”

  He moved closer. “There you go again with the hot and sexy.”

  She leaned in and said, “Don’t forget tall.”

  He reached up and touched her hair. “Does my missing leg bother you?”

  “A lot less than it bothers you.”

  He looked above her head. She turned to watch him reach for the sticky notes and pen. “You’re supposed to write down a wish. I figure since it’s almost Christmas, this should be perfect.”

  He scribbled on the note, folded it in half, and pinned it to the wall.

  She sat and stared at the piece of paper. There were so many things to wish for, but she didn’t need a note to get her wish. She looked around the bakery and hoped no one walked inside. She moved her chair so she sat next to Trig with their thighs touching.

  “I don’t need to wish for what I want. All I need to do is ask.” She turned to face him. “Trig Whatley, show me what a good kisser you are.”

  “You ready for the best kiss of your life?”

  She gave him a subtle nod and then lifted her chin and closed her eyes. She smiled and leaned toward him until his lips touched hers in a feather-light kiss. The soft and supple caress combined with the feel of him being so near created an intoxicating effect. She inched closer and he brought his hand up to cup the back of her head. Her heart beat so hard she was certain he could hear it. Her fingers pressed against his firm chest and she felt his heart keeping beat with hers.

  He pulled away only long enough to look at her lips and kiss her again. Kissing Trig was like nothing she’d ever experienced. It was lust and hunger wrapped up together to create an intense heat.

  Charlie hadn’t known what to expect given her last kiss was so bad, but she didn’t expect to want to reciprocate so enthusiastically. Their tongues touched and tasted and tantalized one another. Without thought, her fingers threaded through his hair.

  Lost in each other, they didn’t hear Katie until she let out a giggle. “Need a room? I’ve got an empty apartment upstairs.”

  Charlie wanted to climb under the table. She buried her face in her hands. “Oh lord, how embarrassing.”

  Trig sat back and smiled. “That wasn’t embarrassing. That was amazing.”

  “But…” Charlie looked at Katie, who had picked up their near empty plate and walked away.

  Trig moved so close their foreheads touched. “I know her husband, and I know they kiss.”

  “On the first date?” She lowered her head until it fell against his chest. When she inhaled, she breathed him in. He smelled like fresh snow, cedar, and something uniquely male.

  “Is this a date?” Trig asked.

  Charlie groaned and pulled away. “Oh hell, I’m sorry. I don’t know what this is. Maybe it’s simply me trying to forget my boss kissing me under the mistletoe at our Christmas party.”

  “Your boss? That must have been awkward.”

  “It was awful, and then the last few days, he’s been chasing me around the clinic.”

  Trig stretched out his injured leg and rubbed where his prosthetic was attached. “I’m a good shot. You want me to take him out or just graze him?”

  “I took care of it.” Instinctually, she reached down and massaged his leg. “I quit.”

  He lowered his hands to hers. She was certain he’d make her stop, but he didn’t; he simply moved her fingers to where his joint hurt.

  “Massage is great therapy. I do a lot of muscle work on animals with torn ACLs and amputations.” She winked at him. “You’re just a bigger animal.”

  “I generally don’t like people touching my leg.”

  “But you’ll let me?”

  He leaned back and picked up his coffee. “We did kiss, so if I trusted you with my lips then I suppose I could trust you with my leg or what’s left of it.”

  “Do most people treat you differently because of it?”

  “You’d be surprised. At first I felt like a circus act. I got used to the stares, but it’s the intimacy that’s the worst. You get to know a girl and then you get to that point where it’s the next step and they can’t handle it.”

  Charlie thought about it for a minute. “I want to ask you something, but I don’t want you to get mad at me.”

  He gave her a cautious look but nodded. “Go ahead, but no guarantees.”

  Charlie didn’t want to ruin what they’d started. While she knew there was little hope of it going anywhere, she’d done a great deal of soul searching since Agatha Guild had reached out to her. She realized that she often sabotaged herself and wondered if Trig did the same.

  “So…do you think it’s their apprehension or because they feed into yours? My father was right last night when he told you to view yourself as whole and no one would ever call you a liar.”

  He smiled. “I hear you have your own issues. Do you want to talk about why you didn’t come home for ten years?”

  “I suppose it’s no secret.” She knew he was deflecting, but she also got the feeling that Trig was the kind of man who would think about what she asked before he had an answer.

  “Seems like you came to terms with it.”

  She looked at her hands resting on his thigh. “Sure. It was like you losing your leg: you accept the loss, but you never truly recover. I was young and stupid. I pretty much lost both of my parents at once. It was unfathomable to believe my father couldn’t save her. I felt so much remorse and guilt for blaming him that I stayed away. On some level, I blamed myself. She got so mad at me that day. Maybe I got her blood pressure up.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. Life happens and death is part of the journey.” He cupped her cheek and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, but one that said he understood.

  “You never really know what you have until it’s gone. One thing I learned from this accident is to appreciate the minutes more.”

  “What will you do with the ones you’ve got? Do you have plans?” She lifted her hand, but he pressed it back to his leg.

  “I left California to find myself.” He pinched her chin gently. “Looks like I found you instead.”

  “Ha. If I remember correctly, I found you and your dog on the side of the road.”

  They both looked toward Cannon’s truck. Clovis was standing on his back legs looking straight toward them. “Speaking of my dog. He suffers from separation anxiety. I should get back to him.”

  Charlie laughed. “Are you sure you’re not his support human?”

  Trig pulled Charlie in for a hug. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  Chapter Eight

  Charlie stood on the sidewalk and watched Trig take off toward the bed and breakfast. She touched her kiss-swollen lips and smiled. Trig Whatley didn’t lie. He was a damn good kisser.

  Agatha stuck her head out the door and said, “I’m making cookies. Do you want to help?”

  Charlie’s heart did a flip. Lots of people make Christmas cookies but that was something she had done with her mother.

  “No, but I’ll come up and watch.”

  Agatha nodded and led her to t
he small apartment above the pharmacy.

  “How long has my father lived here?” So much had changed.

  The older woman moved around the kitchen gathering supplies. Flour, sugar, butter, salt and every color of sprinkle known to man sat on the Formica counter. “He’s been here ever since I’ve known him.” Agatha poured ingredients into the bowl by sight. That was how Charlie’s mother had cooked. It was always a pinch of this and a plop of that but somehow the cookies were always perfect. Just went to show that the recipe for success wasn’t rigid. A person could stray from the intended path and still wind up with something good.

  When the initial sugar cookie dough was finished Charlie stuck her finger into the bowl to grab a taste. It melted on her tongue and left a bittersweet memory.

  “Do you know what happened to our house on Jasmine Lane?”

  “It’s still there. Your father rented it to Marina for a while but she married the sheriff, so they live next door with their little one, Kellyn.”

  “So the house is vacant now?”

  Agatha wrapped plastic wrap over the bowl and put it in the refrigerator to cool. She brought back a bowl of already chilled dough. “Yes, for now, but with so many people coming back to town, he won’t have a problem renting it.”

  “Oh. There did seem to be a lot of growth. I saw the Dry Goods Store is open all year round as well as the diner. Kathy’s Cut and Curl is now Cove Cuts. There’s been a lot of change.”

  Agatha spread plastic wrap on the table and handed Charlie a cold marble rolling pin. She took it without thought and began to flatten the cookie dough on the surface. They worked together much the same way Charlie and her mother had all those years ago.

  “Change is the only certainty in life. That and the fact that your butt will get bigger if you eat too many cookies.”

  “How did you meet my father?”

  Charlie knew the Guilds had a long-term presence in the town but she wanted specifics.

  Agatha sat next to her with an array of cookie cutters shaped in trees, wreaths and snowmen. “I knew him when I was a child but I left town to go to school. I traveled a great deal and when I moved back, I lived in Silver Springs. Your dad would show up to square dancing every so often and I’d always make sure I was his partner, and then one day fate stepped in. Dalton crashed his motorcycle and I brought him back to town so he could see your father for his injuries. That was the beginning of the beginning. Then there was the fire and I took care of your pops while he recovered.”

  Charlie was grateful for the woman’s love and care. Had it not been for her, she might not have known her father had been injured. “Was he a gracious patient?”

  Agatha laughed. “He was as friendly as a cat on fire.”

  “Sounds like you deserve a medal.”

  “Men are an interesting species. They want to be babied, but at the same time, they don’t want you to forget they’re men.”

  After listening to Trig talk about feeling less than a man with his injury, Charlie knew Agatha knew the secret sauce to a man’s heart.

  “Do you love my father?”

  The older woman blushed. “Oh, yes. There’s no doubt. Does that bother you?”

  While she thought it would, it didn’t. How could she expect her father to stay single and lonely his whole life? Hell, she was only twenty-eight and she was lonely.

  “No, I’m glad he found you.”

  Agatha smiled. “I’d like to believe I found him. What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Charlie’s hand went straight to her lips. She closed her eyes and relived the one perfect kiss of her life.

  “No, there’s no one special.” The words felt like a bitter lie in her mouth. She didn’t want to start a relationship with Agatha on an untruth. “I did kiss Trig Whatley today.” She sighed in that dreamy way girls do when their hearts are full. “It was a perfect kiss.”

  Agatha got up to put the first tray of cookies in the oven. On her way back, she grabbed the percolator and two cups. “This story needs coffee and sweets. Tell me more. What made it so good?”

  There wasn’t one thing she could pinpoint, but it had been amazing. “I suppose it was because kissing him was my choice.” She hadn’t considered it before, but Trig didn’t force himself on her like Evan. He merely promised her the best kiss of her life and delivered on that promise.

  “It should always be your choice.” Agatha narrowed her eyes. “Has anyone forced themselves on you? I’ve got a gun, and I’m a very good shot, you know.”

  Charlie laughed. “Now you sound like Trig, and yes, my boss caught me under the mistletoe. It wasn’t pleasant.”

  By the way Agatha pressed the cutters into the dough, it was obvious she wasn’t happy to hear that news either. “You need a new boss.”

  “Yes, I do. I quit my job just before I left town.”

  A smile bloomed a mile wide. “That’s wonderful news. You can stay here and practice. Your father is tired of tending to animals.”

  “He takes care of animals, too?”

  “Not willingly, but when Lloyd Dawson had a breach birth with his prize heifer, he called your dad. Sage had a bird with a broken wing and your father patched that up. Given that the town is full of special needs pets, you’d stay busy here.”

  Charlie considered her statement, but knew it would never work. She didn’t want her father to think she came back to town because she had no other options. She came back because it was time to make everything right again.

  “Otis isn’t the only special needs animal?”

  The timer went off and Charlie jumped up to take the perfectly baked cookies from the oven.

  “Oh gosh no. Cannon has a one-eyed cat, and I swear Bowie’s and Katie’s dog Bishop has ADD or maybe it’s because he’s still a puppy. My nephew and his wife Lydia have a retired police dog who has PTSD and some work-related injuries.”

  “And Clovis has a scratched cornea.”

  “Trig’s fat, squatty dog you worked on at the clinic today?”

  “Yep, that’s the one.”

  There was a commotion on the stairs and a moment later Charlie’s father walked in. He took in the scene around him and smiled. Charlie wondered what he was thinking.

  “What a beautiful sight to see. My two girls chatting it up and making cookies.” He walked forward and took a wreath from the tray. Before he took a bite, he kissed Agatha on the lips and Charlie on the cheek. Somehow it all felt right.

  “Where have you been?” Charlie asked her father.

  He glanced at the living room behind them. Sitting on the floor was a Christmas tree. “I haven’t had one in ten years. I thought maybe…”—his expression softened—“maybe you can help me decorate it.”

  Charlie hated to admit it, but she hadn’t had a Christmas tree either. Her heart ached at the thought of celebrating without her mother, but Agatha was right, change was inevitable and even though she hadn’t had a tree in a decade that was a change from the way she was brought up. She and her father used to trek into the woods and pick their tree while her mom stayed home and made spiced cider and hot cocoa.

  “Did you go to our favorite place and find this one?” Charlie rose from the chair and walked into the living room, where the tree lay on the carpet.

  “Oh, no. I’m too old for a trek into the woods but not too old for a trek to Copper Creek.” He leaned over and lifted the tree to its stand. “This one is compliments of Angels Tree Farm.”

  A feeling of giddiness washed over Charlie. How had so much changed, and yet so much seemed familiar? “It’s perfect.”

  Agatha busied herself rearranging the furniture to make room for the tree. Charlie’s dad set it in the corner and they all stepped back to admire its perfection and breathe in the scent of pine, sap, and love.

  “Charlie, I’ve still got all the ornaments you made as a kid, but I don’t want to stir up memories if you’re not ready for them.”

  She swallowed a lump in her throat. Was she rea
dy? Would she ever be ready? She erased the doubt. Memories were simply a time to reflect on the past. If anything, they would remind her of the childhood she’d had. “Let’s decorate this tree.”

  Agatha bounced like a kid. “I’m so excited,” she said. “I’ll get the cocoa started while you two find the tree jewelry.”

  Her father stood in front of her and smiled. “I’m so happy you’re back.” He looked over his shoulder to Agatha, who was already at the stove pouring milk and cocoa into a pan. “She’s a good woman, but there’s room in my life for both of you.”

  Charlie was certain her father worried that he’d given her the impression she’d been replaced. “Daddy, I like her. She’s so much like Mom and yet different. You did well.” She knew it was silly for her to call her father Daddy, but old habits were hard to break.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent reliving the memories of each ornament. Agatha added her own flair to the tree by draping it with paper chains and strings of popcorn.

  They filled up on cookies and cocoa and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was part of Agatha’s Christmas traditions. By the end of the evening, Charlie was part of a family again. Though she did feel a twinge of guilt for moving on, she realized that it had been a decade-long process.

  “How about breakfast in the morning?” her father asked as he walked her to the door.

  Charlie shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve got a date with Trig.”

  Her father frowned.

  “You don’t like him?”

  Doc Parker shook his head. “I don’t know him well enough to not like him, but I don’t like that I’ve just gotten my daughter back and I might have to share her with another man.”

  Agatha reached over and pulled her father’s ear. “Now Paul, don’t be a hypocrite. Charlie just got you back and she’s sharing you with me.”

  It was funny to see her father blush. “You’re right, lovey. I’ve got to learn to share.”

  Charlie looked at the couple in front of her and said, “Old dog—new tricks.”