To Fall for Winter

by Kelsey Kingsley

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE |

  CHAPTER ONE |

  CHAPTER TWO |

  CHAPTER THREE |

  CHAPTER FOUR |

  CHAPTER FIVE |

  CHAPTER SIX |

  CHAPTER SEVEN |

  CHAPTER EIGHT |

  CHAPTER NINE |

  CHAPTER TEN |

  CHAPTER ELEVEN |

  CHAPTER TWELVE |

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN |

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN |

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN |

  EPILOGUE |

  TO FALL

  FOR WINTER

  A NOVEL BY

  KELSEY KINGSLEY

  COPYRIGHT

  © 2017 Kelsey Kingsley

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  thekelseykingsley@gmail.com

  Cover: Danny Manzella

  Editor: Jessica Blaikie

  For Danny—

  My kind of crazy.

  TABLE OF Contents |

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION |

  A LETTER FROM ME TO YOU |

  PROLOGUE |

  CHAPTER ONE |

  CHAPTER TWO |

  CHAPTER THREE |

  CHAPTER FOUR |

  CHAPTER FIVE |

  CHAPTER SIX |

  CHAPTER SEVEN |

  CHAPTER EIGHT |

  CHAPTER NINE |

  CHAPTER TEN |

  CHAPTER ELEVEN |

  CHAPTER TWELVE |

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN |

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN |

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN |

  EPILOGUE |

  A NOTE FROM ME TO YOU |

  LAST CHANCE TO FALL EXCERPT |

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR |

  A LETTER FROM ME TO YOU |

  Dear Reader,

  You might be new to me, you might be an old friend. Either way, hello! Glad to have you here with me in the next installment of the Kinney Brothers series.

  So, I wanted to sit you down and give you a little look into who I am as a person. Now, before you roll your eyes and skip through this stupid little letter, let me just say … I promise I won’t be long.

  I’m not what you’d consider a conventional person.

  I am tattooed. I am pierced. I wear combat boots. I collect skulls. I have only ever owned black cats. I live for Halloween. My favorite poet is Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King was my first literary hero, and my favorite movie is The Crow. I love vampires and ravens and loud music and … you get the point.

  But then … Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, and I strongly believe we need more Audrey Hepburns in this world. I am absolutely obsessed with Frasier and Outlander. I have a soft spot for gentle love songs, and I really, really love a good romance novel.

  Oh, and I also write romance novels. In case you weren’t already aware.

  Which, by the way, not many people expected me to do. Because people tend to judge by the cover, don’t they? They take a look at someone, and they think they know everything there is to know by that first glance. They make their assumptions. They decide they know what’s right with you, and what’s wrong.

  I wanted to break those rules with this book, by creating Ryan and Snow. People with a tough exterior, with all of the insecurities and deep thinking you’d expect from someone … softer. To maybe show another side to those unconventional people, to show that there is more to them beyond all that ink and metal.

  There’s love, there’s pain, and maybe a touch of crazy. Not quite there.

  But maybe that’s all life is about. Finding your own flavor of insanity.

  Maybe this book is yours.

  Sincerely,

  Kelsey

  PROLOGUE |

  GOOD BROTHERS & CATS

  I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter to me. I tried so feckin’ hard to tell myself that Cheryl kicking me out was the right thing. Because, well, she had said it herself—I couldn’t be domesticated.

  But who the hell was I kidding?

  My chest hurt. My body hurt. My heart hurt.

  Everything hurt.

  The letter in my hand didn’t help at all. Hanging from my fingers like a used, wilted tissue. Some stupid analogy about our relationship, about me, about every aspect of my feckin’ life.

  Patrick’s truck pulled up to the curb and my older brother climbed out. He approached me slowly, as though I were about to lash out at him, but let’s be honest. I didn’t have the energy to lash out. Not after beating my fists against Cheryl’s door until they were bruised. Not after dropping to my knees and begging her to just open the feckin’ door and talk to me.

  And nothing drained me more than calling my brother and admitting I needed help.

  “Hey,” Paddy said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. I glanced momentarily at his face, but there was sympathy there and I didn’t want it.

  I got to my feet, grabbing a few bags that Cheryl had so lovingly packed for me, and threw them into the bed of the truck. Not caring what was in them, not caring if I was breaking anything. I grabbed two more, tossed one in, and when something shattered from inside the bag, Patrick grabbed my arm before I could throw again.

  “Ryan, let me do this, okay? Just get in the truck.”

  “I got it.” My voice was graveled from all of my shouting earlier. It was a miracle the neighbors hadn’t called the cops.

  I attempted to pull my arm back to toss another bag in, but Patrick held strong and with a hard, angry stare at him, I dropped the thing to the ground. He picked it up and placed it in, and then pointed his finger at the cab.

  “Ryan, just get in the goddamn truck, okay?”

  My chest tightened, my throat restricted, and I turned to look at the house I had lived in for six months of my life. I hated that I felt the overwhelming urge to cry. I hated that, after everything, I was ready to run back up that walkway and beat my fists against the door until they were bleeding.

  Patrick touched my arm. “Come on, Ryan,” he said, talking to me the way he talked to his daughter in the middle of a tantrum. I was caught between appreciating it and wanting to punch him in the throat as I sighed and turned toward the truck.

  I reached for the rusted handle on the door, and I remembered one important thing Cheryl hadn’t tossed to the curb. My breath hitched in my throat, and I spun around to look at Patrick with wide-eyed panic.

  “She has my feckin’ cats,” I somehow managed to croak around the blockade in my throat. One stupid tear broke free, sliding over my cheek and into my beard.

  He came to me, gripping my shoulders in his hands. “Get in and don’t move. I’ll go get them, okay?”

  I nodded and obeyed, opening the door and sliding into the cab as he walked up to the house with that authoritative gait he had learned from years on the force. I watched him knock, and although his voice didn’t quite pass through the closed window, I heard him say something. Probably to tell her it was only him.

  That she didn’t have to be afraid, that it was safe.

  Because it wasn’t me.

  ❧

  Sitting on the porch with three cat carriers at my feet, I listened to the murmurs of my parents and older brother coming from inside the house.

  At least they weren’t fighting. That was a good sign.

  That’s what I had expected when Patrick suggested we go to Mam and Da, to see if they could give me a place to stay. I expected a big fat NO, after everything I had put the two of them through. But they were speaking calmly in there, and that had to be a good sign, right?
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  The door opened and Da walked out onto the porch, the hinges creaking behind him. He sat next to me on the wicker couch and tilted his head toward the cigarette between my fingers.

  “Would ya mind?” he asked, and without saying a word, I put it out in the planter to my right. With a sigh, Da pinched the space between his eyes. “I keep tellin’ your mother we need to get somethin’ if you’re gonna keep up with that habit.”

  I shrugged apologetically. “I could quit if—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t quit on my account. Do that for yourself.” He tipped his head back, looking out at the nighttime River Canyon sky. “There’s a lot of things ya gotta want for yourself, Ryan.”

  “What does that mean?”

  One hand gripped my shoulder. It was a small gesture, but my throat clenched with unexpected emotion. It had been years since I had allowed myself a conversation on the porch with my father, or either of my parents, for that matter. I was always on the move. Always doing something stupid. Always getting in trouble.

  Why did it have to take getting my arse kicked to the curb to sit down with him?

  Da shook his head. “Son … your mother and I have tried to figure ya out since ya were a wee lad. It’s not even the tattoos or all these, y’know …” He pinched a piercing-free spot on my ear and tugged gently. “It’s not that. We could deal with all that. But when you started gettin’ into all that drinkin’ and partyin’, and y’know, those, ehm, instances with the drugs …”

  He sighed heavily, and I remembered those moments: getting caught, getting arrested. I’d been reprimanded, and I had fought back, insisting that it wasn’t that bad because it was just weed.

  Why hadn’t I taken anything more seriously?

  “I know, Da,” I mumbled, pushing a hand into my hair.

  “We really hoped that, ehm …” He shifted uncomfortably beside me. Something told me he was about to bring her up, and he did. “Well, we thought that Cheryl would be good for ya. Seemed to work for a time, but …” His shoulders slumped, not exhuming the energy to shrug.

  His hand touched my back. “So, what happened?”

  “What happened?” I shot at him. He removed his hand, and I tried hard not to focus on the lack of touch. How empty it made me feel. “I’ll tell ya what happened: I happened, that’s what. She got me that feckin’ job at the feckin’ vet’s. They said they needed a groomer, and what did they have me doin’? Cleanin’ cages, because they didn’t want me dealin’ with the public.”

  His brows lowered. “They said that?”

  “You bet your arse they said that, and when I said somethin’ to Cheryl about it, all she said was, ‘Well, what do ya expect, Ryan? Look at you.’” I swallowed twice before I could encourage myself to push forward. “Anyway, they finally fired me yesterday.”

  “She kicked ya out because ya got fired?”

  I gave him a half-hearted shrug. “I think it was a combination of that, and gettin’ drunk and breaking a couple things on my way into the house last night.”

  I sighed and slumped into the couch, resting my head against the hard wicker back. “I tried to find another job today, came up empty, and when I got back home, there was a note on the door and my shite was on the lawn.” I swept my hand in a gesture toward the cat carriers at my feet. “Except the cats. Paddy had to get them.”

  “Ya have a good brother,” Da said.

  I hung my head and nodded. I really did—two of them: Patrick and Sean. Hell, my entire family was good. Supportive. Accepting. They had saved me from a lot of shite in the past—jail, trouble, booze, drugs, ex-girlfriends.

  Maybe they could save me from myself.

  Pushing both hands through my hair and holding them around the back of my throbbing skull, I planted my elbows on my knees.

  Taking my pride and setting it aside, I found the courage to say, “Da, I need help.”

  Da’s hand was against my back again. “You can’t change for someone else, son. You have to want it for—”

  “It’s not for her,” I spat, staring at my boots and the three cat carriers.

  I needed it for me. I needed it if I was ever going to be good enough for someone like her. I needed it before I was too lost in my own mess, and God knows I couldn’t clean it up myself.

  Da nodded, patting my back.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  ❧

  And for two years, I was convinced I was cured.

  Until Snow came to town.

  CHAPTER ONE |

  CIGARETTES & SNOW

  Snow came to River Canyon on the first day of winter.

  Ha. It’s only hit me, just now, how absolutely feckin’ absurd that sounds. And actually, now that I think of it, absurd is the perfect word to describe it all.

  She walked into the clinic—the River Canyon Animal Clinic—completely by accident, thinking our door was the entrance to Canvas & Ink, or so I thought at the time. I looked up from the reception desk, disturbed from a rousing game of Solitaire and time with the sketchbook in my lap, and immediately, that didn’t matter, because …

  Well … Holy Hell.

  She had on this loose-fitting black sweater, tight black jeans, and these combat boots that I would’ve begged to have my arse kicked with. The whole outfit matched her long hair and smudged eye makeup: jet black.

  Everything was black, except for her lips. Her lips were full and pink, and they looked feckin’ soft. A gothic princess with that one hint of femininity.

  I wanted her.

  Instant attraction, that’s exactly what it was. An immediate surge of blood flow from my brain straight down to my crotch and thank the baby Christ for desks.

  Before I could say anything, she had strolled in with those boots, bouncing their rubber soles against the bleached linoleum. She took a quick look around, then settled her black-rimmed eyes on me, and laughed.

  Immediately my eyebrows shot upward, and then furrowed. Anxious paranoia crept up from the neck of my scrubs, spreading a radiant heat over my face, and I stupidly wondered if she had actually seen my erection through the desk.

  “What’s so—”

  Her hand covered her mouth, her muffled giggles persisted. “This definitely isn’t the tattoo shop.”

  And yeah, I guess that could explain the laughter. So, I shook my head, loosened my brow, and relaxed a little. “Nope, sorry to disappoint, but hey, if you need dewormin’, you’ve come to the right place.”

  She looked me over with a slight tilt of her head and stepped forward slowly; walking in this way that told me she held the reins. She was looking me over with a cocktail of lust and assertiveness, and when she reached the desk, I noticed just how crystal blue her eyes were. The woman could have sucked the soul from the Devil himself with eyes like that, and it was all I could do to not offer my body up for sacrifice.

  “I’ve never seen a male secretary before.”

  The comment was so blunt it startled me, and I laughed. “Well, I’m also the resident groomer.”

  One side of her pretty mouth quirked, pulling it into this little half-smile. Her pierced nose wrinkled just a little. “Yeah, okay, but I’m more intrigued by the secretary part. Is this town really so small that you can’t hire anybody else?”

  I met her eye with my own lopsided smile, challenging her. “Why bother slashin’ my paycheck if I can manage to do both?”

  She nodded, and pursed those lips, putting them on display. “I suppose you make a compelling argument,” she said, but then she tilted her head, her questioning eyes lingering just a little too long.

  “What?” I asked, feeling too on the spot for my liking.

  She smiled with just the slightest shake of her head. “Nothing. It’s just … Well, I just wouldn’t have expected a guy like you to be sitting behind a desk … taking orders.”

  I knew from the moment she walked in that she would be trouble, and that comment was all the clarification I needed.

  “And what would you kno
w about a guy like me?”

  “Well … I know from looking at you, and from that motorcycle sitting outside, that you’re a badass. I know from the way you’re looking at me that you don’t like someone else having the upper hand. But … then again, maybe you like letting someone else take control.” I watched her mouth form that word: control. Watched it pass through her puckered lips.

  God, why did they look so feckin’ soft?

  “Maybe I do,” I quipped, and immediately wondered why the hell I had to reply at all.

  “Hmm …” She took a step backward, watching me with her ethereal eyes and coy smile before turning to venture around the room. She strolled, taking in the posters of cats and dogs, pictures of my boss and I. She pointed to a framed photo of the clinic from when I first started working, two years ago.

  She turned to me. “This is you.”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “And this studious looking fellow is your boss?” She tapped the glass with one black fingernail.

  “Business partner,” I falsely corrected, raising my level on the food chain just a bit. Even if it was total BS.

  Her eyes were lie detectors, and she smiled as though she were about to chastise me, but her eyes glinted with the slightest touch of sympathy. “His name is on the door though, unless you’re Doctor Matthew Sinclair.”

  “No, I’m not,” I replied, focusing on that sympathetic flicker that kept passing over her gaze. It left me shaken, and I shifted in my seat.

  “I know,” she chided, pointing at the picture. “You’re Ryan, says so right here. Ryan Kinney.”

  Well, so much for introductions.

  I shrugged. “We run the place together.”

  “Oh, I doubt that, but even if you are telling the truth, you’re replaceable, Mr. Secretary; he’s not.”

  My jaw clenched, and I dropped my gaze back to the game of Solitaire on the screen, clicking the mouse to appear busy. Obviously, I had some super important secretarial work to tend to. You know, appointments to book, vaccines to schedule. Strange, nosy women to ignore. Nosy women with soft looking lips.