Free The Reunion: Ashley's Mountain Retreat (Starting Over Series) by Angelina Rose

Chapter 1
     
    As Ashley Tate walked out onto the sidewalk to catch her cab, she thought about the promise that she’d just made with her best friends from nursing school, Claire, Emma and Shelby. The reunion had been a smashing success, and getting to catch up with the women was amazing.
     
    Always the extrovert, Ashley had enjoyed being the life of the party yet again. When she came up with the idea to challenge her friends to finding the men of their dreams within the next two years, she didn’t really think too much about the implications for herself. How in the world was she going to hold up her end of the bargain?
     
    Her friends didn’t know her as well as they thought. After all, she kept a tough outer shell that made people think she was always having fun. In reality, her heart was crushed over the demise of her eight year marriage to Dave Jennings. The worst part was that she wasn’t even allowed to grieve in private. Dave was a well known corporate law attorney in Houston, Texas. When it was uncovered that he was married to Ashley and his wife of fifteen years at the same time, it was splashed all over the news for weeks.
     
    His wife lived in San Antonio, and he stayed most of the week in Houston at his apartment. Ashley had no idea that his constant business trips were actually trips back home to sleep with his other wife. Not only that, but he had three children with his wife. He and Ashley were experiencing infertility, and she often blamed herself for not being able to give him children.
     
    Her whole world had been turned upside down. People looked at her as “the other woman” when she was married to him too. Her beauty and outgoing personality only seemed to make things worse. Now, she was saddled with finding her true love within two years, yet she didn’t know if she could ever trust a man again. What had she done? Why did she concoct this crazy plan?
     
    Maybe she should just email her friends and back out. They would surely understand. But, being the dare devil of the group had always been Ashley’s claim to fame. She wanted to hold on to that part of herself. She had lost so much already, and losing her reputation as the life of the party didn’t seem like a good idea.
     
    As the cab stopped to pick her up, Ashley looked back at the hotel where the reunion had been held. She knew that her friends would be expecting a great story from her in two years, and she was planning to give it to them.
     
    ***
     
    The alarm clock went off way too early. Ashley had been staying out too late for weeks now. She had been to every party and night club in the Houston area, but had not found any suitable candidates for a soul mate. Maybe she was looking too hard? Maybe this whole plan was pure insanity?
     
    As a labor and delivery nurse, Ashley loved her job. Having infertility issues while delivering babies was a tough job, however. She could hear her own biological clock ticking like a time bomb in her head. At forty years old, she was blessed with a young, healthy body but she didn’t want to be an “old” mother either.
     
    Ashley rolled out of bed, hair a mess, and shuffled her way to the coffee pot. She seemed to be running on empty with only wine and caffeine to keep her going for weeks. She wondered if her friends were so stressed out about finding the right man like she was. She was certain that Emma was calm, cool and collected about it, but Emma was also a man magnet with her beautiful blond hair and blue eyes.
     
    The phone rang, and she ran across her small Houston apartment to find it. “Hello?” she said breathlessly as she finally located her phone in her purse.
     
    “Hey, girl!” said a perky woman on the other end of the phone. It was Candice Fremont, her best pal from the L&D floor at the hospital. Candice was one of the nurses that she worked with on a regular basis.
     
    “Hey! What’s up? You don’t need me to take your shift, do you?” Ashley said with a groan.