San Francisco Series- Complete Edition Read online

  SAN FRANCISCO SERIES: COMPLETE EDITION

  by Nicole Pyland

  List of included books:

  • Book #1 – Checking the Right Box

  • Book #2 – Macon’s Heart

  • Book #3 – This Above All

  • Series Finale – What Happened After…

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2019 Nicole Pyland

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949308-17-4

  BY THE AUTHOR

  Stand-alone books:

  • The Fire

  • The Moments

  • The Disappeared

  Chicago Series:

  • Introduction – Fresh Start

  • Book #1 – The Best Lines

  • Book #2 – Just Tell Her

  • Book #3 – Love Walked into The Lantern

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  San Francisco Series:

  • Book #1 – Checking the Right Box

  • Book #2 – Macon’s Heart

  (recommended to read after Keep Tahoe Blue )

  • Book #3 – This Above All

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Tahoe Series:

  • Book #1 – Keep Tahoe Blue

  • Book #2 – Time of Day

  • Book #3 – The Perfect View

  • Book #4 – Begin Again

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Celebrities Series:

  • Book #1 – No After You (Release date in 2020)

  • Book #2 – All the Love Songs

  CONTENTS

  SAN FRANCISCO SERIES: COMPLETE EDITION

  CHECKING THE RIGHT BOX

  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

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  EPILOGUE

  MACON’S HEART

  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

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  EPILOGUE

  THIS ABOVE ALL

  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

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  EPILOGUE

  WHAT HAPPENED AFTER…

  AFTER… THIS ABOVE ALL

  AFTER… MACON’S HEART

  AFTER… CHECKING THE RIGHT BOX

  CHECKING THE RIGHT BOX

  San Francisco Series Book #1

  Emma Colton left her life behind when she moved from Chicago to San Francisco. She has a new job at the Health Department, a tiny apartment, and has dealt with being unlucky in love for most of her adult life. She’s hoping a new city and a fresh outlook will help her find the woman she’s been waiting for.

  Keira Worthy has had a rough few years. She lost her best friend and business partner almost immediately after starting their dream event planning company. She’s barely hanging on financially and takes a job for the Health Department in hopes of landing more customers if it goes well. When she meets her liaison, Emma, under not the best circumstances – sparks fly. And not the good kind of sparks.

  When they bump into one another at a lesbian singles night, they have to decide if they want to take the chance on something that could possibly be forever.

  To contact the author or for any additional information visit: https://nicolepyland.com

  Copyright © 2018 Nicole Pyland

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949308-10-5

  CHAPTER 1

  Emma Colton was the new girl in town, and she didn’t like it. She’d only been the new girl once. That was when she went away to college at Rutgers, leaving Chicago and her entire life there behind. She’d returned to Chicago after college. Things had been good for her there. She had a good job. She had great friends. But, unfortunately, she also had a terrible love life and no family after the death of her father.

  Emma had fallen for her first girlfriend, Hailey, again at just the wrong time. Hailey was falling in love with someone else. That woman, Charlie, was now Hailey’s wife. When that hadn’t worked out for Emma, she’d fallen for Elizabeth. Eli, as she preferred to be called, was amazing. She was mysterious and outgoing. She’d never met a stranger. Emma fell for her instantly as many other women likely did. Unfortunately, Eli cheated with her ex for months and broke Emma’s heart. Emma had then crushed on Summer Taft, the Silicon Valley start-up millionaire and friend of Charlie and Hailey’s. Again though, Emma’s timing was off. Summer was interested in someone else.

  Summer and Lena were engaged now. Charlie and Hailey were married. Her other friends, Ember and Eva, were married and thinking about having their first child while Hannah and Alyssa, who Emma had o
nly begun to get close to just as she moved away, were thinking about having a third one after their twins.

  Emma remained the only single gal in the bunch, and it was that along with the amazing job opportunity in an exciting city that had her considering the change. As she watched all her friends meet or acknowledge love and couple off, things had only gotten harder for her. She wanted her friends to be in love and make their lives what they wanted for themselves. Emma was just ready for that herself.

  She’d thought this chance in San Francisco might be the opportunity she’d been waiting for. She’d be a Director in the Health Department, which was a promotion, and she’d be teaching a night class at a local community college in Public Policy. It was something she could do on a Monday night to get her out of her new and tiny studio apartment.

  ◆◆◆

  Monday morning, Emma woke up and dressed in her business casual attire, which she hoped would be appropriate for this office. It had been for her previous one, but she was in a different city and was a Director now. Still, she thought it best to be comfortable on her first day. And in her plain dress khakis and a navy blue button-down, she felt comfortable. She pulled her hair up in her patented ponytail and headed out the door. She’d used trains in Chicago, but San Francisco was different. She hadn’t taken nearly enough time to try to figure out BART and regretted it when the train she was supposed to get on went by without her on it, causing her to be about ten minutes late for her first official day as Director.

  “Emma, welcome. You made it in okay?” Her new boss, Ivy Beasley, met her near the elevator.

  “I did. I missed my train. Sorry, I’m a little later than I’d planned.”

  “No problem. I’ll get you to your office so you can get settled. I’d like to introduce you around to everyone, grab lunch after, and we have a staff meeting every Monday,” Ivy rattled all that off so quickly, Emma hadn’t even taken a third step yet.

  Ivy was a no-nonsense kind of woman. Emma appreciated that. She also seemed to be a take charge kind of person during Emma’s three interviews with her. Emma liked that too. Ivy was in her mid-forties and had worked for the city for a long time. She knew the politics and had the contacts to get things done. Emma knew she’d need someone like Ivy to be truly successful since half of the job was getting stuff done through the people you know that owe you favors.

  “Sounds good,” Emma replied.

  “We have a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the event in a couple of weeks.”

  “Right.” Emma had no idea what Ivy was talking about.

  Something she’d noticed about Ivy during the second phone interview was that she had a way of talking to you like she expected you to know what she was talking about. Even though Emma didn’t, she didn’t want to betray that on her first day.

  “We’ve hired a company for the whole thing. That took forever to get approved because of budget cuts, but at least that makes things easier for us. Two insurance companies are going to subsidize it with their sponsorships. Plus, it’s a good thing, right? Get people up, moving and eating healthy. The press will eat it up,” she explained.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Emma answered as Ivy approached what Emma knew would be her office.

  “Here you go.” Ivy motioned with her arm toward the open door. “This is you. I’m down the hall on the right if you remember.”

  “I do.”

  “Great. You share an assistant with Joanna. His name is Mason. He’s been with us for a few years now. He’s good,” Ivy explained. “Mason?” Ivy said a little louder in the direction of the middle of the floor.

  Offices lined the walls of the fourth floor of the building, but cubicles occupied the entirety of the middle of the floor.

  “Hi.” A man about 6’2” with short dark hair and green eyes stood. He was on the skinny side and his shirt, which he had tucked in, looked a little too big for him. Emma wondered if he’d just picked out clothes that were too big for him or if he’d lost weight recently. “Mason.” He left his cubicle and approached her with his hand outstretched.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Emma.”

  “Ivy told me you’d be coming,” he replied. “Joanna is out this week, so I’m at your service.” He gave a shy smile. “Do you want to meet later to go over your calendar and expectations?”

  “Can we do that tomorrow?” Emma asked and wondered if that looked bad in front of Ivy, but she’d never had an assistant before and wasn’t prepared to have a sit down with one on her first day. “I think I’ll be a little busy today getting introduced around and settled in. I want to make sure I can focus.”

  “Of course. I’ve got enough to do today for the event anyway,” he replied.

  “Great.”

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got a meeting. I’ll swing by around soon to grab you,” Ivy said.

  “Okay,” Emma replied.

  Ivy walked off in the direction of her office, leaving Emma and Mason standing in front of one another like awkward prom dates waiting for mom to get the camera and take the pictures so they could leave.

  “So, do you need lunch ordered in?” Mason asked.

  “I think Ivy and I are going to lunch today.” Emma watched as Ivy entered her office. “Hey, what event?” she half-whispered conspiratorially to Mason.

  “Sorry?”

  “The event I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Oh, the big health fair. We do one every year. It’s a big deal. It’s in Golden Gate Park. And, normally, we put it on ourselves, and it’s big. But this year, we were able to hire an event planning firm to help us out, so it’s even bigger, but it’s been easier on our end this time,” Mason replied.

  “When is it?” Emma asked.

  “It’s in two weeks on that Saturday. Chris was pretty involved in it,” he said about the man who Emma was replacing. “He was in charge of it the past two years. I think that’s part of the reason we were able to get approval for the event planner. He retired earlier than expected because of the heart attack. There wasn’t anyone to take it over.”

  “So, I’m probably going to be involved in it?” she asked.

  “You’d have to ask Ivy.” He leaned against the side of his likely unsteady cube wall. “I think it’s mostly set with the plan anyway. You might need to help make final adjustments, and I know she’d want you to be there.”

  “Thanks. I’ll talk to her about it.” She leaned against the wall next to the door of her office, mirroring his posture. “By the way, I’ve never had an assistant before. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Mason laughed and replied, “Joanna was new to the whole thing too. I’m mostly just here to help with whatever you need.”

  “I’m kind of used to doing things for myself. It might take a while to get used to having you do stuff. I don’t want you to think that has anything to do with you though. I don’t want to give you too much to do and become a slave driver or something.”

  “I’ll tell you if it’s too much for me and you give me a chance to help out. I think we’ll be good then.”

  “Deal.” Emma held out her hand for him to shake.

  “I’ll be at my desk if you need me.” He turned around and re-entered his cube.

  Emma nodded and entered her new office. She hadn’t brought anything outside of her laptop bag to decorate. The office was sparse. It had an old wooden desk that Emma guessed had been there for at least fifteen years. The chair behind it had probably been there almost as long, and as she sat down in it and attempted to recline, she knew she’d need to buy a new one for herself as soon as she could afford it. There was nothing on the desk save the old-fashioned desktop her predecessor must have preferred to a laptop. The front wall was made of glass, so she could see the cubes outside and the small break area directly on the other side of them. The wall to her right was completely bare but did have a four-drawer filing cabinet with a set of keys on top. To the left, there was a bookshelf with three shelves. There was nothing
on top of it, but on the first shelf, there were several books relating to healthcare and policies. The other two shelves were empty. Behind her, there was a small window off to the left and nothing but a blank wall the rest of the way over. She couldn’t work in a plain space like this for long without going crazy. She’d have to add a splash of color to the walls with some artwork, maybe some functional shelves and definitely a plant or two to bring in some life. Emma turned and stood to stare out her window to see if she had any sort of a view. She didn’t. It was a brick wall about twenty feet away from the building, and an alleyway with a dumpster was right underneath her.