Love and Kerosene, page 1
PRAISE FOR WINTER RENSHAW
“My heart is in a tinderbox, and Winter Renshaw has thrown the match! The Queen of Angst blends fire and ice in this five-star, opposites attract forbidden romance!”
—Sosie Frost, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
“Winter Renshaw is the queen of being unpredictable in the best way possible! Angst, chemistry, and all the feels will have you glued to your Kindle.”
—Ava Harrison, USA Today bestselling author
“Winter Renshaw makes my little dark-romance-loving heart pitter-patter with her fast-paced, sultry, intense thrill rides. Her books are addicting, drawing you in with nail-biting suspense and intimacy so hot I usually devour them in one sitting.”
—Angela from Shameless Book Club
“Winter Renshaw is my go-to author when I’m looking for a book with a sexy alpha male and strong heroine.”
—Claire Contreras, New York Times bestselling author
“Renshaw gives us an angsty, forbidden romance full of twists and turns that not only keeps us turning pages but gives us the happily ever after we crave.”
—Kaylee Ryan, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
“Utterly captivating! Renshaw delivers another emotionally satisfying, page-burning romance that kept me up until dawn.”
—Adriana Locke, USA Today bestselling author
“Love and Kerosene is a toe-curling, opposites attract, angsty romance with a unique twist on forced proximity. The chemistry sizzles between Anneliese and Lachlan. If you love broody, protective heroes, Lachlan is the man for you. Both characters have to journey through vulnerability to find each other, which makes it all the more powerful when they do. This story is a slow burn with swoon, steam, and all the feels—don’t miss it!”
—J. H. Croix, USA Today bestselling author
“Love and Kerosene is a multifaceted tale of healing in more ways than one. Readers will adore this angsty romantic page-turner.”
—Alexandria Bishop
“Just like the title suggests, Love and Kerosene weaves an intensely beautiful and explosive love story between Lachlan and Anneliese. Their romance is combustible and heartbreaking at times, but the way their story is told is pure poetry. Another incredibly thought-provoking story by Winter Renshaw!”
—Jenika Snow, USA Today bestselling author
“Renshaw is an incredibly gifted storyteller with astounding insight into the human psyche. She delves deeply into human emotions, keenly understanding our deepest desires and fears. Love and Kerosene is a soul-wrenching story about learning to trust and love again in the wake of tragedy. Highly recommend!”
—Morgan James, USA Today bestselling author
“What happens when fate steps in and provides you with everything you didn’t know you needed? Anneliese and Lachlan find out in Love and Kerosene. Anneliese’s strong resolve and compassionate heart, along with Lachlan’s determination and kind soul, made for the type of characters I love to read about. They had both been through so much at the hand of the same person. Yet, despite having opposite goals, their empathy toward one another provided me with that heart-pumping ache, wondering what would happen next. Winter Renshaw captivated me from the first chapter to the last. I thoroughly enjoyed Love and Kerosene and definitely recommend it.”
—Carina Rose, romance author
OTHER TITLES BY WINTER RENSHAW
THE NEVER SERIES
Never Kiss a Stranger
Never Is a Promise
Never Say Never
Bitter Rivals
THE ARROGANT SERIES
Arrogant Bastard
Arrogant Master
Arrogant Playboy
THE RIXTON FALLS SERIES
Royal
Bachelor
Filthy
Priceless (an Amato Brothers crossover)
THE AMATO BROTHERS SERIES
Heartless
Reckless
Priceless
THE PS SERIES
P.S. I Hate You
P.S. I Miss You
P.S. I Dare You
THE MONTGOMERY BROTHERS DUET
Dark Paradise
Dark Promises
STAND-ALONES
Single Dad Next Door
Cold Hearted
The Perfect Illusion
Country Nights
Absinthe
The Rebound
Love and Other Lies
Exmas
Pricked
For Lila, Forever
The Marriage Pact
Hate the Game
The Cruelest Stranger
The Best Man
Trillion
Enemy Dearest
The Match
Whiskey Moon
The Dirty Truth
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2022 by Nom de Plume LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542038423
ISBN-10: 1542038421
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes
For Lindsay Dickey and Rachel Rongstad, the queens of new beginnings and happy endings
CONTENTS
START READING
ONE ANNELIESE
TWO LACHLAN
THREE ANNELIESE
FOUR LACHLAN
FIVE ANNELIESE
SIX LACHLAN
SEVEN ANNELIESE
EIGHT LACHLAN
NINE ANNELIESE
TEN LACHLAN
ELEVEN ANNELIESE
TWELVE LACHLAN
THIRTEEN ANNELIESE
FOURTEEN LACHLAN
FIFTEEN ANNELIESE
SIXTEEN LACHLAN
SEVENTEEN ANNELIESE
EIGHTEEN LACHLAN
NINETEEN ANNELIESE
TWENTY LACHLAN
TWENTY-ONE ANNELIESE
TWENTY-TWO LACHLAN
TWENTY-THREE ANNELIESE
TWENTY-FOUR LACHLAN
TWENTY-FIVE ANNELIESE
TWENTY-SIX LACHLAN
TWENTY-SEVEN ANNELIESE
TWENTY-EIGHT LACHLAN
TWENTY-NINE ANNELIESE
THIRTY LACHLAN
THIRTY-ONE ANNELIESE
THIRTY-TWO LACHLAN
THIRTY-THREE ANNELIESE
EPILOGUE LACHLAN
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I curled up
with my trauma
and gave it
a name.
It had your eyes,
his hands,
my voice,
your face.
Comfortable
and warm;
an eerily
familiar place.
—Etta Gray
@ettagraywrites
ONE
ANNELIESE
solivagant (adj.) wandering alone
They say everyone has a doppelgänger. Statistically speaking, there could be seven people sharing the same face at any given moment. But the odds of meeting someone’s double are in the neighborhood of one in a trillion.
Highly unlikely.
Impossible, even.
“Anneliese?” Florence, the owner of Arcadia Used Books, waves her hand in my face. “Did you hear me?”
I peel my attention from the brooding man on the sidewalk outside the shop—one who shares the same messy auburn mane, hooded gaze, and chiseled jawline as my late fiancé.
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” she says with a hesitant chuckle as she places her palm over my hand. “Sweetheart, you’re trembling and pale as a sheet. Is everything all right?”
Cool sweat blankets my forehead as I focus on the small stack of used books on the counter. The words on their spines fade in and out, growing blurry before turning clear again.
“Um, I’m sorry. What was the total again?” I steal another glimpse outside. He’s still there—standing the way Donovan used to: one hand in his pocket, the other tapping out a text message with his thumb. Same build. Similar height.
It’s uncanny.
“Fifteen dollars and twenty-eight cents,” Florence says, her stare weighing on me. “You sure you’re okay?”
No. I’m not sure.
“I just . . .” I shake my head, a feeble attempt to pull myself out of this daze, and then I slide my debit card her way. “I thought I saw someone I knew.”
Her crinkled gray gaze drifts to the man on the sidewalk. She squints, but her efforts are in vain. Florence wouldn’t know him from Adam. We’d only lived in Arcadia Grove for two months before his untimely passing. Granted, this was Donovan’s childhood hometown, but Florence isn’t a local—she’s as fresh off the boat around here as I am.
“That guy right there?” She swipes my card and hands it back. “In the brown jacket?”
“Yeah.” I draw in a steady breath. My heart has yet to calm down, but it’s not for lack of trying. “But it’s not him.”< br />
It couldn’t be.
Even if it were, Donovan would never dress in a leather bomber jacket, ripped jeans, and dusty boots. And he certainly wouldn’t leave the house without running a comb through his hair. This guy looks like he’s been riding on the back of a motorcycle for days.
“Well, he is a looker . . .” She slides me a pen and the receipt to sign before placing my haul in a thin canvas bag with have a great day in faded red print. “If I were your age, he’d make me break out into a sweat too.”
Florence winks. Maybe she thinks I was checking him out. Or maybe she’s trying to make me smile.
“I’ll call you when the next shipment comes in,” she says, referring to the vintage and international baby-name books and rare dictionaries she sources for me. As a part-time naming consultant, I’m always looking for new and unusual terms and monikers to add to my arsenal. Florence never fails to deliver.
I wait by the exit, feet frozen on the wooden floor, and watch as the man who isn’t Donovan scans his surroundings, shoves his phone into his back pocket, and exchanges it for a set of keys. A second later, he climbs into an olive green vintage Ford pickup, proving me wrong about the motorcycle. Cranking the window down, he fires up the engine and backs out of the slanted parking spot.
I emerge from Flo’s shop as soon as he disappears over the hill, and I continue my Saturday-morning shopping with that stranger’s image burned into my mind’s eye.
Wandering the flower-lined merchant district of Arcadia Grove, I mostly shop the windows. It’s all I can afford these days, though it’s not like I’m in dire need of a new outfit for a hot date. I’m half-tempted to mosey into a home-accessories boutique to grab something pretty for the house, but then I remind myself I’m putting the cart before the horse per usual. There’s no sense in buying kitchen accessories when my current one consists of a folding table, microwave, dorm fridge, electric teakettle, and single-burner hot plate.
I spot an empty park bench and take a seat, flicking through one of my books. While my eyes scan the words on the pages, nothing registers. It might as well be a jumble of nonsensical letters. I close it and return it to my canvas bag, opting to close my eyes and take a second to simply exist in this moment.
The late-morning sun is warm on my skin, trickling through the treetops and wrapping me in a much-needed hug—something I haven’t had in three months, three days, five hours, and thirty-two minutes.
Not that I’m counting.
Before I met Donovan, I was content to wander alone. I wasn’t trying to land a significant other, tangle myself up in some fairy-tale whirlwind romance, or wind up in some quaint town in the middle of Vermont. I also wasn’t trying to uproot my entire life and pour every last cent of my savings into renovating a dilapidated Queen Anne.
But love—real or imagined—changes a person.
Some days, I hardly know who I am anymore.
Most days, I struggle to remember a time before he came into my life.
When I glance down at my left hand, there’s a void where my engagement ring once glimmered.
After Donovan passed, it took me thirty days to take it off. I kept thinking one more day, and then that turned into one more week, which inevitably turned into one whole month.
I couldn’t rip the thing off my finger fast enough when I found out he’d lied about the money I’d given him for the renovations. I’ll never forget showing up at the Arcadia Grove Savings and Loan to find out if there was enough in our joint account to cover his funeral costs . . . only to be told there was no joint account.
The bastard stole my heart, and then he stole my life savings.
And now he’s six feet under—a world away from having to atone for the mess he left.
My stomach rumbles when I notice a little pop-up coffee shop ahead. Collecting my things, I head that way, order a small latte and petite blueberry scone, and call it brunch. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can finish sanding the floor in the dining room.
Eyeing the sidewalk on my way back to my Prius, I look for the auburn-haired stranger in the brown leather coat, but all I spot is the usual cocktail of tourists and locals. Young couples holding hands. Families pushing strollers. Grinning teens taking selfies. Retired couples dining al fresco.
All around me, life moves on.
Yet here I am, wandering alone.
I make it back to my car and load my books onto the passenger seat. A white sedan pulls into the spot beside me, and a lovely-looking couple exits a minute later. They meet at the sidewalk. She picks something from his dark-chocolate hair, and he kisses her blissful strawberry-red smile. Before they vanish into the crowd, he wraps his arm around her shoulder as if to show the world she is his and he is hers. That was us once. I can only pray that what they have is real and not some get-rich-quick scheme.
I start my car, shift into reverse, and glance into the rearview. It’s in that exact moment that the olive green Ford passes by.
I pull out of my parking space and end up behind him at the light on the corner. A sticker in his back window says IN TRANSIT, and the spot that should hold a rear license plate is vacant. With my knuckles white against the steering wheel, I catch a glimpse of his eyes in his side mirror as he peers my way . . . and my stomach drops.
I’d know that copper-hued gaze anywhere.
I tap my fingers against the wheel, focusing on the beat of the tinny pop music playing low from my speakers, and try not to make eye contact.
The light flicks to green, and the truck turns right.
Without giving it a second thought, I do too.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” I mutter under my breath. “What the hell am I doing?”
This is crazy.
I am crazy.
I stay a few car lengths back, as if that could possibly make any of this less obvious given we’re the only two vehicles on this side street.
Five blocks later, he takes a left, pulling into the parking lot of the Pine Grove Motel.
My chase—if that’s what I want to call it—comes to an abrupt end. It’s all for the best, though, because I didn’t have an end goal. I don’t even know why I was tagging him. My fiancé is long gone, and he’s never coming back. And it doesn’t matter who this look-alike stranger is or how much he resembles Donovan—because he’ll never be him.
And thank God for that.
Snapping out of it, I continue home to my empty house on the other side of town: past the main drag with the charming shops, beyond the cozy park with the shiny blue slide, miles from Arcadia Grove K–12 and all the places that remind me of the life that was never meant to be.
Once home, I slip into a pair of coveralls, crank my favorite Madison Cunningham playlist to drown out the echo of my lone footsteps, and sandblast the hell out of the dining room floor.
By three o’clock, I’m chugging a glass of ice water in front of an open window to cool off, debating whether I want to continue to the point of collapsing in exhaustion—or call it a night with a five-dollar bottle of twist-cap wine and a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm . . . a show Donovan would never watch with me because he didn’t get Larry David’s offbeat humor.
It’s then that I see him again . . . the striking look-alike in the vintage truck.
He slows down in front of my house, his piercing stare homing in on my front door.
But before I can do anything insane—like chase after him on foot this time—he’s gone.
TWO
LACHLAN
rantipole (v.) to be wild and reckless
“Well, well, well. Look what the dog dug up.” Lynnette Hornsby steps out from behind her screen door, arms folded across her chest like she has a bone to pick with me. Not that I’d blame her. I’d tell her to get in line.
“Lynnette,” I say. “Sorry to show up unannounced. Bryce isn’t around, is he?”
Her stoic expression softens, and a smile that feels somewhat like home meanders across her face.
“You show your face at my door for the first time in years, and you ask for Bryce?” She feigns annoyance.
“Good to see you, Lynnette,” I say. Bryce has worked in construction since we graduated high school. Last I knew, he’s a foreman. I was hoping he could find me some quick work while I’m in town.
“That’s better.” She looks me up and down, like she’s taking me in for the first time in forever. “And you just missed him, actually. He’s working in New Hampshire for the next month. Why don’t you come in, take your shoes off, tell me where you’ve been all these years and why you didn’t so much as write a letter.”
