A Time to Fall (Love by the Seasons Book 1)

by Jess Vonn

  BY JESS VONN

  Book 1 of the“Love by the Seasons”Series

  About A Time to Fall:

  If you were to dig out the to-do list from beneath the clutter covering Winnie Briggs’ desk at the newspaper where she works, it’d probably read something like this:

  Politely inform Esther Hoffman that you will not be writing a feature story about her abnormal squash

  Cupboards are bare: Pick up some Pop-Tarts for dinner!

  Figure out what on earth is happening with this absentee mayor

  Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE make contact with your landlady’s criminally sexy son

  Told through a dual perspective, A Time to Fall is Jess Vonn’s debut novel, and the first in the “Love by the Seasons” series about three childhood friends living in a small Midwestern town. After an unfortunate discovery involving her boyfriend and a blonde and a glass-walled shower, Winnie Briggs is bolting from her Chicago-based life in search of a fresh start as the editor of rural Bloomsburo’s newspaper. Winnie’s only desire is to put all of her energy into her writing—well, that and to officially retire her lady parts in an act of self-defense.

  Unfortunately, as scandal unfolds in her new community, her closest ally comes in the form of delicious-smelling Chamber of Commerce director Cal Spencer, who also happens to be the son of Winnie’s benevolent (if meddling) landlady. Cal is a serial non-committer, yet his electric attraction to Winnie’s curves and quirks has him contemplating breaking his iron-clad commitment to never mix work with pleasure. The couple’s sexual chemistry escalates alongside the town’s drama, leaving both of them wondering if they can survive the fall with their jobs, their hearts, and their pledges of non-commitment intact.

  © 2017 Jess Vonn

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Amazon-issued ISBN 13: 978-1975925512

  Amazon-issued ISBN 10: 1975925512

  First Printing September 2017.

  Cover design and author photo by Jess Vonn. Cover photographs used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  For George, the hero I had to nab as quickly as possible, lest he slip away. Thank you for being my corresponding shape.

  Chapter 1

  Winnie Briggs gasped in disbelief as she pulled up to her new home and put her 12-year-old car, Fiona the Ford, into park. She did a triple-take at the GPS to make sure she hadn’t messed something up and accidentally pulled into someone else’s driveway.

  221 Lily Lane, Bloomsburo. This had to be it.

  She’d seen photos of the place prior to signing a lease via fax, but that hadn’t done it justice. She glanced up again, taking in the cozy butter-yellow cottage before her, with its autumn wreath on the red door, white shutters, and hanging plants bursting with red and orange blooms. Fairy lights dotted the roof of the porch, which sheltered two white rocking chairs and a small wicker table.

  If it weren’t so big, the cottage could have easily passed as a picture-perfect dollhouse.

  Not that the cottage was in any way big, but she knew that its tiny size would suit her perfectly. As a single woman in a new town, she didn’t need much, and downsizing had made it that much easier for Winnie to pick up her entire life and start a completely new existence in Bloomsburo.

  A completely new existence.

  The weight of those words felt like lead in Winnie’s stomach, ushering in a now familiar wave of anxiety. She closed her eyes and slowly breathed in through her nose, allowing her lungs to fill so full with air that it almost hurt. With a slow exhale, she willed away the anxiety. She breathed in the earthy smells of early autumn foliage and the sound of the first crisp leaves rustling on the branches. She breathed out fear.

  There were lessons to be learned from autumn, Winnie mused, about how falling can be transformational. About how growth so often must be preceded with breaking down, with dissolving into something different entirely.

  She shook away the melancholy thoughts and looked once more at her new, picture-perfect home. Today was for unbridled possibilities. For forgetting who she was, and for creating who she wanted to be. And all of that started in this adorable little cottage. Tomorrow she’d start her new professional life as the editor of Bloomsburo’s twice-weekly newspaper, but today was for homemaking.

  Winnie stepped out onto the gravel driveway, eager to stretch out some of her stiffness from the morning’s 343-mile road trip from Chicago. The Les Misérables soundtrack and a steady supply of Dr. Pepper had helped to ease a bit of her boredom during the long drive, not that she was lamenting an uneventful trip. She sent up a silent offering of gratitude that Fiona had completed the journey without incident. Given the fact that the car had spent the better part of four years tucked safely away in a downtown parking garage, Winnie knew she was pushing the old gal to her limits with this relocation. Now that her automotive anxiety about arriving in one piece had passed, she could soak in the details of her new home.

  Walking up to the porch, Winnie peeked beneath the largest bush in the landscaping and found the tiny cast iron turtle that, as promised by her new landlady, housed a key to the cottage. As she slipped the key into the lock and pushed open the door, delight flooded her heart and the tiniest of squeals slipped from her lips. The inside of the cottage was somehow even more darling than the outside. The online advertisement that led her to the space had specified that it came fully furnished— all the better for Winnie who’d gladly said goodbye to the thrift store furniture she had dragged around since her college days. But she wouldn’t have dared to dream of something so cozy. So homey. She felt like she stepped into a Mary Engelbreit drawing.

  Honey-hued wooden floors covered the entire space, and abundant windows, including a skylight, flooded the cottage with late-afternoon sunshine. The tiny but tidy kitchen featured a small marble counter top, a round table with two chairs, and a compact stove and fridge that would be more than suitable for cooking for one, especially when you factored in that Winnie didn’t know how to cook.

  Just past the kitchen was a tiny living room area and in the back corner of the small, loft-style space stood a tall four-poster queen-sized bed covered by an intricate quilt and a half-dozen throw pillows in an array of colors and patterns. In the other corner, beneath one of the windows that looked out onto the flower-studded lawn, a simple wooden desk and chair and a tall white bookshelf stood just next to the entrance of the smallest bathroom Winnie had ever stepped foot in. But with a toilet, a sink
and a slim stand-up shower, it would surely cover her basic needs.

  Covering her basic needs. That was what she was here for, right? Wasn’t that why she had, at twenty-six, decided to flip her entire life on its head? Sure, a fantastically disastrous break up had technically prompted the move, but in re-envisioning her new life, Winnie ensured that she wasn’t just running away from something, but also moving toward something new. She created two simple goals for herself: to focus on her journalistic skills and to avoid men.

  Courtesy of an unfortunate discovery involving her long-time boyfriend Anthony, a blonde intern, and a glass-walled shower, Winnie was the proud owner of a new chastity pledge. No dating. No hand-holding. No whispering of sweet nothings. No kissing. She was going full Duggar.

  Winnie could still hear her best friend’s voice in her ear from the night she made the decision to pick up her life and restart, and the memory of the way Bree’s voice had cracked with emotion when she’d said the words brought Winnie fresh tears.

  “You’ve got to find yourself again,” Bree had told her. “And I think you’ve got to get out of Chicago if you want to do it right. It’s time to put Winnie first.”

  And so, in climbing out of the rubble of what she thought was going to be her happily-ever-after, in her attempts to re-center herself and remember who she was before she had lost herself in an unhealthy relationship, Winnie also had to say goodbye to her very best friend in the world. The friend she’d made the first day of college orientation almost exactly eight years before.

  The woman who, Winnie knew at the core of her being, had saved her life during their junior year of college when Winnie’s parents and only brother were killed in a car accident. Bree was Winnie’s true touchstone, and now hundreds of miles separated them. The women both agreed to go a month without talking, texting, or emailing, just to give Winnie time to settle into her new life in Bloomsburo without getting too hung up on the past.

  Winnie scanned the room, contemplating where to begin decorating. Despite the built-in furnishings, Winnie knew that she could put her own impression on the cozy space with the personal effects stuffed into Fiona’s trunk. Really, though, there was no question where she would start: the mantle. She’d always wanted one. Instantly she could picture the exact knickknacks she’d adorn it with—a shimmery red scarf, her favorite hour glass filled with sparkly yellow sand, her goddess-shaped candle holders with the honeycomb candlesticks, and the tiny Lego robot that her little brother Johnny made more than a decade before.

  Infused with a sweet rush of adrenaline, Winnie’s fingers twitched at the thought of unboxing some of her favorite possessions in the world. She skipped to the front of the cottage, swung open the screen door, and, after stepping onto the covered porch, ran directly into the broad, sweaty chest of an unexpected male visitor.

  Something between a scream and a yelp flew from Winnie’s mouth as she pushed herself off the man, her back slamming against the screen door.

  She scanned him over, taking in a dozen details in an attempt to make an assessment of his character in milliseconds. He was a bit older than her, but not by much, and taller than her, by quite a bit. Rounded biceps peaked out from the tight grey T-shirt he wore, which was covered in patches of sweat where it strained across his broad chest.

  Confusion and annoyance clouded over his face, which was almost enough to distract from how devastatingly handsome he was.

  Almost.

  Unethically long lashes fringed his intelligent green eyes. Sweat darkened his slightly shaggy honey blonde hair near his temples, and golden-red afternoon stubble scattered across his strong jaw line.

  He was primal. Vital. Muscular. Confident. The kind of man that made a woman’s brain simultaneously whisper “get closer” and “stay away.”

  And he did not look happy to see Winnie.

  Well, she was hardly thrilled herself. This porch was only supposed to be for delivering pizza, not eye candy. Seeing how her entire life reinvention hinged on her pledge to avoid men, it was beyond aggravating that just ten minutes after pulling into town, she couldn’t even manage to accomplish this task at its most literal. No, she had to go and accidentally chest bump one of mankind’s sexiest ambassadors right on her own front porch.

  “Who are—?” Winnie started, struggling to compose her thoughts into steady, convincing words. She felt as if she’d been dunked in a pool of icy water, with every inch of her body prickling in awareness of the man before her. “What are you doing here?”

  The man’s eyes finally locked into hers, and the intensity of his gaze made something in the vicinity of Winnie’s stomach unravel.

  “Funny, I came over here to ask you the exact same thing,” he said, his voice steady and commanding. He held up a sleek smart phone. “And just in case I don’t like the answer, I’ve got my friend, the police chief, on speed dial.”

  Chapter 2

  Now that Cal Spencer could see the woman up close, she clearly posed no threat, but her unexpected presence at the cottage on his mother’s property had been enough to spike his adrenaline to unprecedented levels.

  And her curvy body slamming into his at twenty-five miles-per-hour sure didn’t help to calm him down, either.

  He liked to think of himself as a man of routine. A man who cultivated a predictable and consistent life. And since it was the weekend, he stopped by his mom’s house, just as he always did on his longest weekly run. The place stood exactly 3.5 miles from his own house, which made it an ideal water break during his weekend runs. He would jog to his childhood home, help himself to a glass of water, and then turn back around and run the same route back for a smooth seven-mile circuit.

  At least that’s how it typically worked. But today, as he’d caught his breath and grabbed a sip of water at his mother’s kitchen sink, he’d glanced out the back window and noticed movement in the souped-up shed his mom kept on the far end of her property.

  Knowing that his mom was out of town for the weekend, Cal’s protective instincts went into high alert and he made his way out the back door, jogging across the two hundred feet of well-maintained gardens that separated the structure from his mother’s main house.

  He wanted to just barge right into the shed (the “She Shed,” his mother had always— absurdly—called it) but something in his gut told him he should knock. Before he’d had the chance to do so, however, the cottage’s screen door swung open and a woman slammed into his chest with all the grace of a Mack truck.

  She had pushed herself off him and backed herself up against the screen door, unabashedly surveying his face, his chest, his entire body, surely trying to determine who he was, what he was doing on the porch, and if he posed a threat to her.

  Which of course, he didn’t. He didn’t want to scare her, and the panic washing over her rankled him. Yet he felt more than ready to hear her explanation for what the hell she was doing here.

  “So, do I need to call Chief Conrad, or are you prepared to explain your presence on my mother’s property?” he asked, his tone uncharacteristically firm as he waved the phone in his hand.

  She winced. The woman was clearly unaccustomed to law-enforcement related threats, which he’d now hurled her way twice in twenty seconds. A twinge of guilt tightened his chest, but he shook it off, seeing as how he wasn’t the one trespassing. Even if the woman didn’t pose an immediate threat, he’d demand an explanation for her presence in the She Shed. Cal looked after his family at any cost. As the oldest and the only son, that had been his role even long before his dad had passed away.

  The woman before him was as harmless as she was surprising. His eyes briefly flickered over her, giving her the same superficial assessment she’d just given him, and he might have smiled at the sheer unexpectedness of the woman had he not been trying to ever-so-slightly intimidate her.

  She was a quirky thing, at least half a foot shorter than his six foot two inches. A curvy, solid woman with lots of dark hair tied back into a few messy buns on either side
of her head. Her fingernails and toenails appeared to be painted about six different colors, perhaps to match her unicorn-print leggings. Her black tank top, featuring what looked like a trail of Cheeto dust where it stretched across her full breasts, declared in flashy silver print: “I’m Sorry For What I Said When I Was Hungry.”

  Any amusement inspired by her eclectic style, however, quickly evaporated after she explained her presence.

  “I’m Rhonda Spencer’s new renter. I’m supposed to move in today.”

  He felt his blood pressure rise at her words. His mother’s new renter? What in the hell was the woman talking about? His mother hadn’t said anything about renting out her damn She Shed. Surely she wouldn’t try to pull off such a stunt without so much as a word to her oldest child about it.

  Questions flew through his mind—how could she have coordinated this without his knowledge? Did his little sisters know about this, deciding collectively to leave him in the dark? Where had his mother found this mysterious renter, and had she carefully vetted this woman before handing over a key?

  He didn’t have any answers, but if he knew his mom as well as he thought he did, she probably just thought up this plan on a whim and hadn’t bothered to mention it to anyone. Rhonda Spencer seemed to have a deep, intrinsic need to surprise the people in her life from time to time.

  “Her renter?” he repeated, unable to formulate a more intelligent response.

  “Yes,” the woman said firmly, her brows narrowing as she watched him with suspicion. He ran his hands through his hair. God, he forgot what a sweaty mess he was after running in the unprecedented September heat. This woman probably thought him unhinged, and he couldn’t very well blame her.

  “She didn’t mention anything to me about renting out the She Shed.”

  At his words, the panic momentarily vanished from the woman’s face and he watched it transform into something brighter —something beautiful —which somehow managed to annoy him even more.