Ink By Numbers
A Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs Romance
Carrie Ann Ryan
Contents
Praise for Carrie Ann Ryan….
Ink by Numbers
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Epilogue
A Note from Carrie Ann
About Carrie Ann
More from Carrie Ann
Excerpt: Whiskey Secrets
Breaking Without You
Delicate Ink
Love Restored
Ink by Numbers
A Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs Romance
By: Carrie Ann Ryan
© 2019 Carrie Ann Ryan
ISBN: 978-1-947007-58-1
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Cover Art by Charity Hendry
Photograph Sara Eirew
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person or use proper retail channels to lend a copy. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
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Praise for Carrie Ann Ryan….
“Carrie Ann Ryan knows how to pull your heartstrings and make your pulse pound! Her wonderful Redwood Pack series will draw you in and keep you reading long into the night. I can’t wait to see what comes next with the new generation, the Talons. Keep them coming, Carrie Ann!” –Lara Adrian, New York Times bestselling author of CRAVE THE NIGHT
“Carrie Ann Ryan never fails to draw readers in with passion, raw sensuality, and characters that pop off the page. Any book by Carrie Ann is an absolute treat.” – New York Times Bestselling Author J. Kenner
"With snarky humor, sizzling love scenes, and brilliant, imaginative worldbuilding, The Dante's Circle series reads as if Carrie Ann Ryan peeked at my personal wish list!" – NYT Bestselling Author, Larissa Ione
"Carrie Ann Ryan writes sexy shifters in a world full of passionate happily-ever-afters." – New York Times Bestselling Author Vivian Arend
“Carrie Ann’s books are sexy with characters you can’t help but love from page one. They are heat and heart blended to perfection.” New York Times Bestselling Author Jayne Rylon
Carrie Ann Ryan's books are wickedly funny and deliciously hot, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. They'll keep you up all night!” USA Today Bestselling Author Cari Quinn
"Once again, Carrie Ann Ryan knocks the Dante's Circle series out of the park. The queen of hot, sexy, enthralling paranormal romance, Carrie Ann is an author not to miss!" New York Times bestselling Author Marie Harte
Dedication
To Chelle.
You know why.
Ink by Numbers
Kaylee knows art, friendship, and love. And because she’s known love, she wants nothing to do with it ever again. She likes her life just the way it is. Her art and her Brushes with Lushes classes keep her sane and happy.
Landon spends his days with numbers and financial spreadsheets. At night, he just wants to relax, but the only way he can do that is with a woman. But these days, not just any woman will do.
Kaylee and Landon do an excellent job of dancing around each other, but no matter how much desire burns between them or their own personal hang-ups, they’ll need to make a choice: life as they know it, or a life that could be so much more.
Chapter 1
One night a month, Kaylee knew she’d laugh, maybe get a little drunk, and fall in love with art all over again. It didn’t matter that she was constantly surrounded by it, or that she worked with it and lived in it daily.
She knew she’d found her calling when she watched those who might not know art or those who thought they were horrible at it, fall for art, stroke by stroke, sip by sip.
So, yes, her monthly fun evening of Brushes With Lushes rejuvenated her, even if it might sound silly to anyone in the so-called upper crust of the art world.
And didn’t that just make her roll her eyes?
She’d lived in that world for far too long. The elegant suits and dresses, the perfectly coiffed hair, the lifted chins and lowered eyes. She’d had all of that—the money, the style, the levels of society, and the expectations.
She’d been born into that, had been taught to thrive in it, but she had broken from it when she realized that she didn’t like the Kaylee she’d become.
Kaylee had run away from that life as soon as she was able to. She was still her mother’s disappointment, but that was something she was used to. Her mom hadn’t wanted her to be an artist, hadn’t wanted her to do something that made her happy. Honestly, Kaylee wasn’t sure if her mother wanted her to be truly happy in any sense of the word.
Because happiness wasn’t a family name, it wasn’t becoming what or who her family was destined to be. It didn’t lead to the next connection, didn’t strengthen the bonds between those who made money, and those who elevated their statuses.
Happiness wasn’t any of that.
And being an artist, daring to explore creativity in anything other than a hobby wasn’t something Kaylee’s mother could comprehend.
Kaylee had fallen in love with the idea of art, had fallen for the idea of what art could be. It might not make sense to others, but it made sense to her. She usually threw the parts of herself that didn’t make sense on canvas and prayed she could find a resolution. It didn’t always work. One person in particular in her life, someone not her mother, never came out on the canvas the right way.
But Kaylee was an artist, she was a believer, and she was free.
What she loved most about it was that she could just be without thinking about what her mother might want her to be. And she didn’t need to think about the expectations that she had clearly given up on long ago.
Tonight, though, was not about memories, it was about making memories. Tonight, she would not think about her mother, she would not think about the life she’d left behind—and good riddance, thank you very much. She would not think about any of that.
She would not think about her ex-husband, she would not think about the other men that her mother had wanted her to marry after that. She would not think about the list of eligible bachelors that her mother routinely sent to her.
Mailed, not emailed. Not sent by carrier pigeon, not even by text. No, her mother painstakingly hand-wrote every single name in the most perfect cursive ever, almost calligraphy, and sent Kaylee the names of who she thought her daughter should marry next.
It was bad enough that Kaylee was a divorcee, but in her mother’s eyes, she could not remain single at her old age.
That age only being in her thirties, but that wasn’t something she was going to talk about. She wasn’t vain, but she did not like talking about her age. It wasn’t as if she were old, but her mother made her feel that way every time she sent along a new skin cream for Kaylee to try. A fancy night cream to help with those wrinkles. Wrinkles she wasn’t sure existed yet, but they were waiting, lurking under the surface for her to stop paying attention.
But she would wear them as a badge because it told her that she lived…even while they told her mother that she was old and dying and still childless and unwed.
And, here she was, thinking about everything that she’d told herself she woul
dn’t think about.
Tonight was about art. She wasn’t going to be making her own art per se, but she was going to be watching her friends and those who came in using a coupon or just walked in for the experience of making art. This was one of her favorite nights of the month. This is when Brushes With Lushes truly came to life.
She hadn’t been the first person to come up with the idea of drinking a little wine while hanging out with your friends and painting a picture. It hadn’t been her original idea to stand up in front of a crowd and show them exactly how to do it, almost as if it were Paint by Numbers but not quite. Because every single canvas ended up individual in the end. Every single painting was unique to the artist. Every moonscape was somewhat different, every tree angled slightly differently. And that was what she loved. Because even those who claimed they didn’t have a shred of artistic ability in their bones still ended up with art at their fingertips.
Art is what she craved, and that is what made her evening.
Because while she could expunge every single ounce of who she was and throw it on a canvas, sometimes, she just needed to breathe. Sometimes, she just needed to experience the energy that came from those who also wanted to show their art, or those who were too afraid to pick up a brush before. Showing others that they could be creative was what made her creative. At least, in a sense.
So, maybe she sometimes felt like an emotional vampire by doing these things, but she truly loved doing it. All over the country—and even in the world now that she thought about it since her friend had started one in Paris—people were holding events like this. And she loved it.
As she walked out into the main area of her studio that she had redesigned into a Brushes With Lushes storefront, she smiled. People walked in and out of the rows and around the easels, talking with each other and pouring wine. Kaylee’s two assistants helped with that, making sure that everybody was happy—but not too happy if they were the ones with the car keys.
There would be no drinking and driving when it came to those who created in her store. Because while she would allow them to expel some of their emotions onto a canvas—even if her mother would say it was merely a moonscape—there was no way she was going to allow any of them to get into a car and possibly end up hurting themselves or someone else because of stupid decisions.
So, most people had a designated driver in their group, or they used a car service. In the age of the apps where with just two little presses of a finger, a car would come to you, there was no need to indulge and then get behind the wheel.
At least, that’s what Kaylee hoped.
“I can’t wait for tonight,” Roxie said with a grin. Roxie Marshall, formerly Roxie Montgomery-Marshall smiled up at her, and Kaylee couldn’t help but smile right back. Roxie was gorgeous, just like the rest of the Montgomerys. She had long, dark hair, but hers was a little lighter than the rest of her siblings. Her wide, blue eyes glinted with a bit of wickedness and a whole lot of happiness, something that Kaylee had not seen in her friend’s eyes for far too long.
But now Roxie was happily married, she and her husband making it through their rough patch.
And the woman actually looked excited to paint. A far cry from her trepidation of the past.
Kaylee tapped her chin. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard you say that and mean it while in my studio.”
Kaylee leaned over and hugged Roxie close, kissing her friend on the temple. In some respects, Kaylee was still new when it came to hanging out with this group of friends. She had met them because of Brushes With Lushes, and though she had met lots of women and men in her studio, it was the Montgomerys and their close-knit group that she had been drawn to.
And now she was one of them, and she loved it.
“I’ve been happy when I walk through these doors. I promise you.”
“You say that, but you never looked very excited to paint. Aren’t you the one who always says you can never get it just right?”
Roxie blushed and shook her head. “Yes, I’m a little anal when it comes to making sure I get the brushstrokes right. But Carter is making sure to tell me every chance he gets that I’m perfect just the way I am. And that I don’t have to constantly compare myself to my siblings. Which isn’t easy, but I’m doing better.”
“And you have no idea how happy that makes me. Because I’ve always told you that you can do anything you want to, that you can be anybody you want to be inside this studio. The paintbrush is just the tool to show you who you are, and I know that you’re an artist. You don’t have to be the same kind of artist as your sisters or your sister-in-law or even your best friend. You can be your own artist.”
“And I think I’m finally listening. I’m sorry that I didn’t before.”
Kaylee just shook her head and then hugged Roxie again as the other Montgomerys and their friend Abby walked through the doors.
“I’m just glad you’re here. And I’m glad that that smile is in your eyes. I think I’ve missed it. No, I know I’ve missed it.”
Roxie blinked away tears and just kept smiling. “You’re going to make me cry, and I have mascara on that I’m not 100% sure is waterproof because it’s a new one that Abby let me try.”
“You’re wearing that mascara? No, it’s not tear-proof. Sorry. But it does make your lashes look beautiful. Just don’t cry.” Abby bounced in and hugged them both, and Thea, Adrienne, and Shea came up, as well.
Kaylee was now a part of this large group of women. She wasn’t on the outside looking in anymore, she wasn’t alone, waiting to find friends.
She had them.
And her mother would hate them.
And though that might be a plus for Kaylee, it wasn’t what she’d been searching for when she found her friends. It was just an added benefit.
“So, what are we painting today?” Adrienne asked, putting her coat on the rack next to their row.
“Today, we’re going with another treescape, although this one will have a few more branches for you to play with.”
Adrienne was a tattoo artist—one of the most talented ones in the United States if you asked Kaylee. Adrienne’s cousins and her brother were also up there in the rankings, but Adrienne had a special place in Kaylee’s heart. The woman had done the long row of flowers of all different kinds, climbing a trellis on Kaylee’s side and hip. It wasn’t completely finished yet because both of them were artists, and their ideas sometimes clashed when it came to exactly what Kaylee wanted to put on her skin. Kaylee had done the initial drawing because she couldn’t help herself, but Adrienne had been the one to make it come alive.
It was a melding of both of their talents, both of their minds. And it was exactly what Kaylee wanted.
Only one other person had seen it, and though she tried not to think about that, he had loved the design, as well.
But she wasn’t going to think about him. She wasn’t going to think about anything like that right now. Because tonight was about art. It was about friendship and wine.
Everything was better with wine.
“We need to get started. But, Adrienne, you’re going to come by later this week, right? I know that you wanted to try that new canvas I bought.”
“Oh, yes, I’m thinking oils this time. I’ve done watercolors and acrylics, but I’ve never worked with oils.”
“I think you might like them. I know it’s completely different than what you do with your tattoos, but maybe this outlet will help you push your art in a new direction and enhance what you already love doing.”
“I love when you guys talk art, it makes me so happy. Because sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing,” Thea said, setting her stuff down next to her chair.
“I’ve seen the way you decorate cakes,” Kaylee said, leaning against the table. She did her best not to put all of her weight on it because she knew it might topple over if she did. She had strong tables, but the last thing she needed was all the easels and wine falling to the floor. Not that sh
e had done that before or anything.
Thea shrugged. “Yes, I play with frosting. But it’s not really the same as working with oils or anything like that.”
“I don’t know what it is with all you guys thinking that what you do isn’t amazing and worthwhile. You need to stop comparing yourselves to each other and just love what you do.”
“We’re working on it,” Abby said, her voice a little soft. Abby was the gentlest of them. She had been through hell and back, had lost everything she loved, save her daughter, but now she was in a new relationship with one of Kaylee’s good friends. Abby and Ryan were adorable together and were steadily moving into something far more serious than just dating. Kaylee had a feeling that there would be wedding bells soon, and not just for the Montgomerys.
So many weddings, so many loves, so much emotion in such a short time.
But Kaylee was just fine being alone.
She wasn’t going to think about that man. Wouldn’t think about his face as it flashed in her mind. She wasn’t going to think about Landon.
Damnit, she’d thought his name.
No, she wasn’t going to think about it.
Shea came up and kissed Kaylee on the temple. “Do you want to talk about what’s on your mind?” the other woman asked.
Shea was married to the Montgomery girls’ brother, Shep. They had moved from New Orleans and were now raising their little girl up in Colorado Springs. Shea was an accountant just like Roxie, and Shep owned the tattoo shop with Adrienne. It was all one big, happy family. But Shea sometimes saw far too much.
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