Love at First Sight: The Complete Series Read online

  Praise for Love at First Sight

  “Four books about four friends finding love in different places. Loved them all!”

  “These stories are very much in the over-the-top category with great banter and wonderful heat. I enjoyed each one, giving them between four and five stars each.”

  “This box set is truly amazing.”

  “…well-developed, well written, funny, emotionally deep, engaging, passionate, and steamy. The characters you will love; their chemistry is off the charts! Definitely recommended!”

  “Give this series a try. I think you’ll love it! I sure did!”

  “Every single one of these stories is amazing in its [own] way… I loved them and I look forward to reading more books by this author.”

  “A whole ton of lovin’!”

  “I love this series. I love the chemistry between the characters.”

  “This was such an amazing collection of four girlfriends who each get to fall in love at first sight. Each book is a standalone but with each book the characters do come back into the story…. I highly recommend this collection as well as this outstanding author!”

  “This is a great collection of four stories that blend together. I look forward to reading more from this author.”

  Thank you for downloading Love at First Sight

  Four friends.

  Four impossible situations.

  Four reasons for hope?

  Meet Amelia, Hattie, Emmie, and Kate, thrown together by chance and inseparable ever since. Young career women with a lifetime of adventures ahead, they're not exactly looking for love to shake things up. Then Amelia's fiancé leaves her at the altar and everything changes . . .

  Love at First Sight

  The Complete Series

  Poppy Parkes

  Copyright © 2020 by Poppy Parkes.

  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.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities between elements of this book and real places, people, or things is coincidental.

  This book is intended for adult audiences 18 years and older only. All characters are consenting adults 18 years and older only.

  Cover design by Under Cover Designs.

  Contents

  The Oops Club

  Meant to be Yours

  Amelia

  Tatum

  Amelia

  Tatum

  Amelia

  Tatum

  Amelia

  Tatum

  Amelia

  Tatum

  Amelia

  Tatum

  Amelia

  Epilogue

  Love Tumble

  Kate

  Harry

  Kate

  Harry

  Kate

  Harry

  Kate

  Epilogue

  Head Over Heels

  Hattie

  Ben

  Hattie

  Ben

  Hattie

  Ben

  Hattie

  Ben

  Hattie

  Epilogue

  One in a Million

  Emmy

  Oliver

  Emmy

  Oliver

  Emmy

  Oliver

  Emmy

  Oliver

  Emmy

  Oliver

  Emmy

  Epilogue

  A Love Note For You

  Also by Poppy Parkes

  About the Author

  The Oops Club

  Find a typo or grammar error? Let me reward you for your skills!

  Email a screenshot with the circled or otherwise highlighted error and your mailing address to [email protected]. If you’re the first one to find the error, I’ll send you one of my Kindle books of your choice — for free!

  Thanks so much for supporting indie authors!

  With love and gratitude,

  Poppy

  Amelia

  I should have known.

  Now that I look back over the past few weeks, I can see signs of this coming.

  He’d been acting squirrelly, not looking me square in the eyes, keeping our kisses quick and chaste, never quite touching me with the care that he used to.

  I’d thought it was wedding jitters. Our family had begun trickling into Shotgun, our western Montana town, for our big day. That’d be enough to make any groom-to-be nervous.

  But then he’d never showed up to the barn we’d rented for the ceremony and reception. The lofted space filled with friends and family and so many goddamned flowers that he better pay me back for my share of. The attendees grew more and more tense as time ticked by.

  I waited in the cozy outbuilding made just for brides preparing to enjoy their special day, mind refusing to believe what my gut was telling me.

  Randall, the man I thought was the one, the love of my life, the man who’d stand by me forever and always, had left me at the altar.

  Well, not quite at the altar — I never got the chance to make it that far.

  But I made it close enough.

  Close enough for the betrayal to make me feel like my innards were being wrung out like wet laundry.

  My bridesmaids — and best friends — were amazing. When the minutes had accumulated into an hour of frozen-hearted absence and the late afternoon turned to evening, they spun into action. Kate went to tell the wedding guests, and Hattie soon followed, stalking out of the outbuilding muttering promises of what she’d do if she ever got her hands on Randall. Emmy stayed by my side, murmuring words that I couldn’t quite comprehend but that sounded healing nonetheless.

  I felt numb.

  But now that the wedding guests have dispersed and my three friends and I are driving to the closest dive bar at my request, I feel lots of things.

  Hurt. Confused. Betrayed.

  But most of all, I feel like my insides are alight with anger.

  How dare Randall do this to me? Sure, breaking up is hard to do. But turning me into a jilted bride? That’s got to be the very worst way to go.

  Kate’s at the wheel, and Hattie is cycling through radio stations, trying to find the most thumping tunes so I can’t feel the breaking of my heart.

  Next to me, Emmy slips her arm through mine. “What are you thinking about?” she asks.

  I turn to face my friend, not sure if I hate or feel grateful for the empathy brimming in her hazel eyes. “I don’t understand.” I wince at how raspy my voice sounds. I haven’t cried, but I’d bet that I will before the night is over. Even though I don’t want to give Randall the satisfaction. Even though he doesn’t deserve a single salty drop of my tears. “Why didn’t he tell me? Why put me through the embarrassment of not showing up for our wedding?”

  She shakes her head. “I wish I knew. It’s so awful.”

  Hattie spins around in the front passenger seat. “He’s obviously not the guy we all thought he was.” Her pink lips pucker into a scowl. “The pansy-assed fucker.”

  I can’t help but snort. “He really is a pansy-assed fucker.”

  “It’s total shit, what he’s done to you today,” Hattie says. “But at least you know the kind of man he is now, and not a decade or two from now. Good riddance.”

  “Good riddance,” Emmy nods. “But I don’t think that makes it hurt less.” She squeezes my forearm, and I lean into her touch.

  Kate peers at me through the rearview mirror. “You sure that you want to go to Desperado’s tonigh
t? We could have a sleepover at your place, or mine, or go get some food, or —“

  I cut her off with a firm shake of my head. “I’m sure.” I pluck at the skirt of my wedding gown. “I want to get a chance to show off my dress.”

  It’s not a traditional wedding gown. I hate white, so I’d opted for an elegant teal to complement my blue eyes and copper curls. Made of the smoothest silk charmeuse, it features spaghetti straps and a fitted bodice to show off my bust, with a flare beginning just below the hips, the hem falling to my mid-calf.

  My friends’ dresses don’t look like typical bridesmaid attire either. Each one got to wear any dress of her choosing, provided that it was black.

  No one will guess that I’m a jilted bride. Not from our dresses at least. There will be no pitying looks, no awkward comments. Thank goodness. The last thing I need is strangers asking questions that hurt too much to answer.

  “Are you really sure though?” Kate asks again.

  I don’t miss the glance that Kate and Hattie exchange. I know that they’re worried about me — and probably think that my choice of going to Desperado’s is a little off the wall.

  I lean forward. “Hey,” I say, “I look good, feel like shit, and need to blow off some steam. I don’t want to be quiet. I want to make some noise. I want to have a little fun on what was supposed to be one of the best days of my life. I’m going with or without you. So are you in?”

  Hattie grins at me. “Hell yes.”

  “If that’s what you want, then yes,” Kate nods.

  “It’s what I need.” I turn to Emmy. “You too?”

  “Whatever you need. You know I’m with you.”

  Now it’s my turn to squeeze her hand. “I know.”

  Emmy wraps her arms around me as we ride the last few miles to Desperado’s. I rest my head against her shoulder, taking in my three friends.

  We were roommates in college. Chance threw us together, but we’ve been inseparable ever since in spite of our differences — or maybe because of them. Kate’s always been the sensible one, surprising no one when she chose to go on to law school. Hattie’s the rebel, and an outdoor adventure leader. And sweet Emmy, she’s a therapist and our heartbeat.

  As for me? I’m an elementary special education teacher. I rock at my job, but right now I’m tempted to let myself feel like the loser, the reject in all areas of my life.

  But that would let Randall win. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen.

  So I decide right then and there — I’m going to be the phoenix, rising again after the devouring fire that today turned into.

  This might be an end, but it won’t be the end. I’ll come back stronger and smarter than before.

  But first, I’m going to party like the fuming and furious would-have-been bride that I am.

  Tatum

  This is not exactly where I want to be. The wood-planked interior of Desperado’s is hot, packed with Saturday evening party folks. Everyone’s standing too close, talking too loud.

  At least there’s some quality country music, played by a live band. I’m the foreman of a construction crew, but the bar scene isn’t for me — except for the dance floor. I can’t resist a good old country dance.

  Which Desperado’s has got going on, much to my relief. When my buddy Wyatt asked me to come out with him tonight and be his wingman, I’d resigned myself to an evening of boredom, fending off passes from too-drunk women who want nothing of me and everything of my body.

  But line dancing and two stepping and swing dancing and waltzing to some Charlie Daniels and Gretchen Wilson? I love it, and never get enough chances to flex my dance moves.

  Unfortunately, right now Wyatt’s got his arm slung around my shoulder as he talks up a couple of blondes perched on stools on his other side. The music’s calling, but I’m here for my friend. I hope he makes up his mind fast about which blonde he wants, because then I’ll get to make a beeline for the buzzing dance floor.

  Normally I wouldn’t have come out. Not to help my buddy pick up women, at least.

  But Wyatt’s been having a rough time lately. His father recently went into kidney failure, his brother and sister-in-law had a miscarriage, and Wyatt himself had a cancer scare that, thankfully, turned out to be nothing more than a frightening few weeks.

  So when he asked me to accompany him for a night of letting loose, I couldn’t say no. He’s my friend, and he deserves the chance to blow off some of life’s stresses.

  And, hopefully, once he’s found someone who wants a one night stand as much as he does, I can let loose myself — on the dance floor. It’ll be nice to dust off the rusty skills I learned from watching my dad whirl my mom around our family room when they thought all of us kids were in bed.

  Wyatt makes some joke that causes the two blondes to dissolve in drunken laughter. I smile, but my mind is on my parents.

  Growing up, I thought relationships like theirs were the norm. My mother and father were wholly in love with each other, and still are to this day. They met in a bar not unlike the one I’m in. The way they tell it, their eyes met across the room, and that was that. My dad stood up and strode to my mom’s side. The band kicked up with a new song, and he swept her onto the dance floor — and off her feet. They haven’t spent many days apart since.

  It wasn’t until I grew to manhood that I realized that my parents are damned lucky — love like theirs isn’t as common as we’d all like to believe.

  That’s my one regret in life. I love my job, love my family, love living in Montana’s big sky country.

  I just wish I had someone to share it all with. Someone to fall head over heels in love with and stay that way until we’re gray and wrinkled and surrounded by grandchildren.

  Life is too beautiful to walk through it alone. And while I have good friends and family, it doesn’t quite feel like enough.

  I want that one special woman to share it with. I want someone to lay down with and wake up next to. I want someone to have and to hold, to grow a family with, to laugh and sob with until death do us part.

  With parents like mine, I thought it would have happened for me young. But I’m thirty one years old and still very much alone.

  Which is better than the alternative — to be yoked with someone that I don’t love would be far worse. I want real love, gritty and honest, passionate and true, and nothing else will do.

  Still, sometimes I wish my standards weren’t so damned high. I wish I could be like Wyatt and bed a willing woman just for fun.

  That’s not me, though.

  And the right woman? I know that she’ll be more than worth the wait.

  Amelia

  I wanted to come here. I needed to. Getting left at the altar makes you ready to get a little wild. Maybe even really wild.

  But as soon as we cross Desperado’s vestibule and push through the bar’s swinging saloon-style inner doors, all my bravado seems to shrivel and grow cold.

  The bar’s atmosphere is hot and heavy with music, the salty scent of the dancers mixing with the aroma of spilled beer.

  And I know that it must be due at least in part to my imagination, but everyone in here seems so fucking happy. The people on the wood-plank dance floor, the musicians, the patrons crowding up to the bar — hell, even the bartenders look pleased enough.

  I hate it. I want to scream at them, to tell them today that my heart got ripped out and stomped on in front of all the people I cared about.

  “You okay?” Hattie says, breaking through my reverie. I realize that I’m standing frozen just inside the swinging doors. “It’s not too late to go find Randall and slash his tires,” she continues, and I know that she’s not joking.

  With a smile that feels more like a grimace, I shake my head. “Let’s get some drinks.” I don’t really want to be here. But I want to be home even less. Because home is where I lived with the man who apparently cared so little for me that he couldn’t even be bothered to break up with me in private, before we dropped thousands on
a wedding he didn’t want to have.

  I need a fresh start.

  But I know that’ll take some time and figuring out. So for tonight, I’m choosing a change of scenery as a pale substitute.

  “I’m buying,” says Kate. “What do you want?”

  I wave my hand in dismissal. “Anything that has alcohol in it.”

  Hattie snorts, but Kate nods as if I’ve just intoned words of wisdom. “Understood.”

  She takes Hattie’s and Emmy’s orders, then dives into the throng of people waiting to order drinks. I turn away to watch the dancers.

  The thing that I love about western bars is that they somehow attract the most amazing dancers. As if by magic, skilled two steppers materialize on the dance floor, expertly whirling and twirling around each other until the small hours of the morning. It never fails, no matter how small the town or how divey the bar — they always show up in spades.

  And tonight Desperado’s is no exception. Hattie and Emmy can’t help but watch with wide eyes, exclaiming every so often at some daring dip or a toss gone more right than any of us expect.