Well, the day is here, everybody.
The One Night to Fall cover reveal.
I am in love with this cover. I am in love with this book. I’m in love with these characters.
Add it to your Goodreads TBR NOW:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36189132-one-night-to-fall
Keep reading for an excerpt!
EXCERPT:
There was a small sliver of hope carrying me through the remainder of my workday. I thought there was a chance that Patrick would forget about the money growing more and more cumbersome in my pocket. Maybe he had gotten the unlikely emergency, calling him away from the going out he had insisted on, and when the old cuckoo clock chimed seven without so much as a rap upon the door, my hope sprang to all-out certainty with the distressing pangs of disappointment pulsing through my chest.
I hurried to lock the door, to flip the sign to CLOSED. Then, just as I was about to walk away, I saw him. He had changed out of his uniform, into jeans and a worn t-shirt that wrapped the slim frame saying he was his father’s son. The muscles it clung to and emphasized said he worked out and liked everybody to know it.
Arrogant Irish bastard.
I pretended to not notice him as I secured the lock, and I continued to pretend as I turned from the glass paneled door. He knew I had seen him, and I knew a smirk would blanket his face as he softly knocked on the metal frame. I wondered for a moment if I just continued to pretend, whether he would eventually walk away. But Patrick was persistent, always had been. And so, with reluctance and niggling excitement, I unlocked the door.
“Good evenin’, Kinsey Kinney,” he said in that gravelly voice belonging to his father, stepping inside as I closed the door behind him.
Locking the door again made me feel trapped, stuck, and like limitless possibilities had been laid out in front of him. But, I followed the rules, and the rules said I had to lock the door when the store was closed.
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
He cocked his head to the side, scratching the back of his neck. “So, you won’t be takin’ my last name?”
My head fell backward with a groan.
“Hey,” he said, shrugging those broad shoulders, “I’m just wondering what I’m supposed to call ya after we’re married.”
“In two seconds, I’m giving you your money, and making you leave.”
He held his hands up in surrender. I stole a glance at his ring finger, and I wondered if he ever missed it: the wedding ring. How long his hand had felt naked without it, if he had agonized over pulling it off and casting it aside forever.
“Okay, okay. Keep your last name. That’s cool. Very progressive.”
The truth was, I was never going to make him leave, and he knew it. Not when his blonde hair was styled like that, like he had just rolled out of bed. Not when his permanent five o’clock shadow clung onto his jawline for sweet life. Not when his holey jeans hung low on his hips and that strip of abdominal skin came into view when he stuffed his hands into his pockets. Not when I missed the way it felt to be so alone with him, so close.
Patrickinney. Peanut butter on the roof of my mouth.
