A Shifter for New Years Read online

  A SHIFTER FOR NEW YEARS

  (SHIFTER FOR THE HOLIDAYS, BOOK 2)

  By T. S. JOYCE

  A Shifter for New Years

  Copyright © 2020 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2020, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: January 2020

  T. S. Joyce

  www.tsjoyce.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Editor: Corinne DeMaagd

  Contents

  Copyright

  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 Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Up Next from This Author

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  More Series by this Author

  For More from this Author

  About this Author

  Chapter One

  Failure.

  Kimberly Wilson set the pictures from last Christmas into the box and taped up the lid. It shouldn’t have taken her this long to put the remnants of her marriage away, but she’d been hesitant to admit her…

  Failure.

  She was the first Wilson in four generations to get divorced.

  Sure, it had been almost a year since her ex-husband had told her he wasn’t happy and filed for divorce, but this was the first holiday she’d been without him in eight years. It was strange, suddenly being alone.

  When her phone lit up, she sipped her glass of red wine and narrowed her eyes at her dad’s name across the caller ID. Her family had been a little too overbearing while she’d gone through the divorce proceedings, lawyers, court, all that.

  She couldn’t afford the payments on the house she’d gotten in the divorce. Hell, she couldn’t even afford the glass of wine in her grasp. She’d chosen the most expensive bottle from the wine cellar and opened it. This was glass number two, and she was feeling it, but you know? Sometimes a girl just needed to lose herself in a buzz when her life circled the toilet.

  She set the glass down and hummed off-tune the words to the song from How the Grinch Stole Christmas as she shoved the box into the pile with the others.

  When she’d gotten married, she’d thought herself so lucky to land a lawyer, but throughout the divorce, she’d cursed every minute of his law school.

  Brayden had won everything, and she’d lost everything.

  The worst part? Kimberly couldn’t even hate him. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t trying to ruin her whole life. To be fair, he’d bought everything, and he was only keeping what was his. She’d gone from the bosom of her wealthy parents into the arms of a wealthy man without a thing to her name, and that’s how she’d found herself in this awful predicament.

  She straightened her spine and looked around the huge home. The walls were white as well as the cabinets. The counters were the color of snow. The pictures on the wall were black and white. She’d never added color because, when she and Braden had moved in here, it had felt homey enough. But now, staring at the sterile walls, chills lifted the hairs on her arms. It was like a museum in here, but with no artwork to break up the coldness. Everything was simple with clean lines and cost a fortune.

  She’d had everything once.

  When Kimberly sank onto the couch, she sloshed a drop of red wine onto the cushion.

  “Shoot,” she whispered in horror. Stains were not acceptable. Only perfection.

  She rushed to the kitchen, set down her glass, and ripped paper towels off the stainless-steel holder. In a rush, she ran them under the cold water and bolted for the couch. She had to fix it before the stain set in!

  She scrubbed.

  And scrubbed.

  The wine stain smeared. It got bigger.

  A tear fell on her cheek as she scrubbed.

  With a gasp, Kimberly flinched back and rubbed the tear off in a hurry. She was a Wilson. Wilson’s were strong. She was above this unsavory emotion. She was above crying over a man who had moved onto someone new so easily.

  He wouldn’t care that she was struggling. Braden had moved out almost a year ago, and he seemed happier without her. And she couldn’t blame him. A sob wracked her as she scrubbed the stupid stain. Unacceptable. Unacceptable.

  Unacceptable blemish on the pristine white couch.

  Unacceptable blemish on her family’s good name.

  Failure.

  With a scream of frustration, she threw the shredded paper towels at the window, but they fluttered down pitifully, several feet short. Shoulders heaving, she threw the expensive throw pillows, too. At least those made it to the windows.

  How did her sister, Leslie, do this? How had she gone from living with money to living like she did? On nothing. Why was she always smiling as if her life wasn’t utter rubbish?

  How?

  How could she be happy with nothing?

  Tears streaming down her cheeks, she connected a call to Leslie to demand she tell her the secrets to being happy with trash.

  “Come to the shop.” There was no hello, no greeting. Her sister just said, “Come to the shop.”

  “W-what?”

  “I know you’re picking up the last of your boxes from the house today. Come over.”

  Kimberly dashed her hands across her wet cheeks. “We aren’t close.” She didn’t know why she said that. It was just a truth that tumbled from her lips. “Let me disappear in peace.”

  “We might not be close, but we are family. And you need to disappear, Kimberly. The old you needs to give the new you room to grow.”

  The line died, and Kimberly looked in bafflement at the phone screen as it faded to black. Leslie had hung up on her.

  She could call her other two sisters. Beth and Marie would take her out tonight and talk trash about Braden, buy her drinks, and then…go back to their perfect lives. But she would still be here. Stuck being her. Still sitting at rock bottom, waiting for her world to end.

  But Leslie had fallen far away from the family tree, and for some reason, Kimberly wanted the company of the black sheep.

  Who could understand her better than someone who had learned to live on nothing?

  Chapter Two

  When Kimberly pulled up to 1010 Pine Sap Way, she didn’t understand what she was witnessing. Her sister’s paint-your-own-pottery shop was closed with all the lights off, and in the back of the parking lot behind the building, the tiny house Leslie had lived in was adorned with moving boxes out front.

  Kieran’s ugly work truck was an eyesore in front, and
he and his brother, Burke, were loading boxes into the bed of it.

  Kimberly gunned it and pulled in fast to a parking space near the tiny house, then threw it into park and stabbed the concrete with her high heel. Whatever Leslie wanted, Kimberly just wanted to get this over with.

  Kimberly’s perpetually-defensive snide remark got clogged in her throat when she saw Leslie, though. Her youngest sister was standing in the doorway of the hideous tiny-home, staring at her with such sadness in her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Kimberly asked. Clearly her wild pet cat, Turtle, had worms or something.

  “I’m moving out,” Leslie said simply, her bundle of dark, wild curls lifting in the cold breeze. It was the day after Christmas, and Wyoming winters were brutal.

  The two lion shifter brothers were quiet when Kimberly looked to them for an explanation, so she asked her sister, “You’re moving in with Kieran?”

  “We’re getting married in two months. Of course, it’s time to move in with him. His home has become special to my heart.”

  “Okaaaay. So why are you sad?” Kimberly asked, coming to a stop in front of Leslie.

  “Because Dad just told me what you’re doing. You can’t move in with Mom and Dad.”

  Kimberly narrowed her eyes and prepared to verbally annihilate Leslie. She didn’t like to be told what to do. Not now. Not ever. She parted her lips to insult her black sheep of a sister, but what Leslie said next stunned her into silence.

  “I want you to move in here.”

  What? Kimberly dragged her gaze around the tiny house. It was no bigger than a shed with a loft. Four hundred square feet—maybe.

  “I don’t want to live in your shack, and I definitely don’t need your charity.”

  Leslie’s eyebrow cocked up. “Oh, this ain’t charity. You will pay rent on it, and you will pay the electric and water bills.” She twitched her head toward her shop. “And you can have a job with me if you like. My helper started going to college in Kentucky and left me without an assistant. I’ll start you out part-time, and if you suck? You’ll be fired. I’m not doing family loyalty shit for you. I’m giving you an opportunity, and what you do with it is your choice.” She opened the door wider. “Come inside.”

  Shocked to her bones, Kimberly avoided the urge to throw up her middle finger and walk away but, instead, after only a few seconds of hesitation, she followed Leslie inside.

  Leslie flicked on the light switch near the door, and the tiny house lit up like a lamp. It was clean and tidy from the top loft where the bed and small nightstand were to the kitchen that boasted about three inches of counter space but with stainless steel appliances. The wood floors were shining as though they’d just been mopped, and it smelled like lemon-scented cleaner in here. “Why would I want to live here?” Kimberly asked. “I can live at Mom and Dad’s for free until I figure my life out.”

  “How old were you when you left Mom and Dad’s house for college?” Leslie asked, gesturing to the bench under a picture window.

  Kimberly sat down and sighed. “Eighteen.”

  “And how many roommates did you have in the sorority house your freshmen year in college?”

  Kimberly shrugged. “Fifteen? Sixteen?”

  “And when did you meet Braden?”

  Kimberly clenched her teeth, annoyed at having to answer questions Leslie already knew the answers to. “Eighteen and a half.”

  “And when did you move in with Braden?”

  “Nineteen. Leslie, you already know all this, why are you making me answer stupid questions?”

  “Because I’m pointing out something big. Kimberly…” Leslie lowered her chin and bore her gaze straight into her soul with a look of some deep knowledge that Kimberly didn’t understand. “When did you ever take the chance to get to know yourself?”

  Damn.

  As much as she wanted to pop off and tell her the exact time and place she’d discovered who she was, the truth was, outside of being a wife and a Wilson daughter, Kimberly didn’t know who she was at all.

  “If you move in with Mom and Dad,” Leslie murmured, “I can tell you your exact future.”

  “Yeah? Shock me. Because right now, I don’t even have a guess at my future.”

  “Mom will mold you into what she wants you to be, and Dad will give you everything your little heart desires. Within a month, Mom will have dates set up for you with rich men who are cookie-cutter partners with the same income as Brayden. They will love you for your beauty and your last name, and you will be a trophy. So, you’ll go right from our parents’ home to a sorority house to Braden’s house to our parents’ house to another man’s house. And when, in all that time, did you have a chance to just be you?”

  Why was she crying? Why? Kimberly didn’t cry in front of other Wilsons. You never show weakness—that was the unspoken rule.

  “I deserve better,” Kimberly recited, uttering the words Mom had always instilled in her. Never settle. You always deserve better.

  “No, you don’t,” Leslie murmured softly. “You deserve what you earn.”

  Kimberly’s heart stuttered a beat. That was the way it felt in her chest. It kept stuttering and she couldn’t draw a deep breath. Her mind was blown by Leslie’s words. Why did they sound so right? So honorable? Why did they make so much sense?

  She didn’t like this. Didn’t like it. “I don’t like being judged, Leslie.”

  Leslie stood and lifted her chin higher, her eyes blazing gold. “Welcome to the club, big sis. I’m the queen of being judged, but do you know what queens do?”

  Kimberly frowned and shook head.

  “They stand tall anyway. You’re going to learn that if you say yes. It’s going to be fucking awful some nights. It’s going to be lonely. You won’t have easy access to go downstairs and vent your feelings to Mom or Dad or your friends. You will be forced to face your own feelings, your own failures, your own demons. And try as you might, Kimberly? You can’t hide all your rough edges. I see them just fine, and you know what?”

  “What?” she asked thickly.

  “They’re the prettiest parts about you.” Leslie slapped a set of keys onto the countertop. “You can say no. You’re grown, and this is just an offer. Here is a home for just you that you will have to earn, that you will have to work for. I will train you at the shop and give you a source of income so you can provide for your own life. You will be pissed at me most days, but I’ll be there for you if you ever punch my number into your phone and tell me you need to talk.” Leslie cocked her head and sighed. “Kimberly, you can say no and go live with Mom and Dad in luxury and live out the destiny they plan for you. Or…you can find yourself and make your own destiny.”

  And with that, Leslie left. Just…mic-dropped that last line and left the tiny house she’d just offered to Kimberly. It was like a scene from a movie except Leslie should’ve been walking away from an explosion like it was no big deal or something.

  Her baby sister was smarter than Kimberly had ever realized. Not book-smart—she meant emotion-smart.

  “I’m not living in your shack!” Kimberly called after her, angry that Leslie, the black sheep; Leslie, the sister she understood the least; Leslie, the one who didn’t make any damn sense; had planned out her life.

  “Then leave the keys on the counter!” Leslie called from outside.

  Her new lioness shifter hearing was a little obnoxious sometimes. Her mate Kieran had Turned her last January, and now she was filled with all this confidence and obnoxious queenly beauty and, God! Everything annoyed her right now. Yeah, Leslie’s weird-ass dreams had come true just as Kimberly’s normal husband and house with a bigass white picket fence had fallen through.

  Shoulders heaving with emotions she was too overwhelmed to process, Kimberly looked around the tiny house. Small kitchen, small bathroom, small storage space under the small stairway that led to the small loft. So what if it was all antique white shiplap walls, shining wooden floors, and stainless-steel appliances? She wasn
’t degrading herself by living in some microscopic pull-behind barn!

  “Look closer,” a deep, rumbling voice said from the doorway.

  Kieran’s brother, Burke, was filling up the entire doorframe with his giant stature. She startled hard. He was too damn quiet when he entered a room. “W-what?”

  Burke was tall and broad in the shoulders. His blond tousled hair on his head looked like he’d just woken up, but it was perfect. His neck was thick with muscle. He wore jeans and work boots, but also a navy T-shirt. In the snow? Yep, in the snow. His eyes were gleaming the gold of his lion, just like Leslie’s had been.

  “I can see the way you’re looking at this place, but Leslie is offering you a gift. A gift you have to earn, and you will be better for the work.”

  “You don’t know me or my life.”

  Burke shrugged up one shoulder. “I know more than you think. Spoiled rich girl going through a divorce where you’re probably angrier about losing the money than the man. Never had to fend for herself so you wait on a hero to come save you.” He jerked his head outside where Leslie was loading boxes into the back of Kieran’s truck with a thoughtful look on her face. “Lucky for you, your hero is the sister you’ve shit on for her entire life. Take the keys and be grateful that someone loves you for more than your last name.”

  “That is an awful thing to say to me,” she gritted out. “My life has fallen apart, and I don’t need some stranger judging me.”

  “Well, this stranger understands what you’re going through better than you think. This stranger has been in love and lost everything, too. This stranger built back up and knows all about those hard days.” He dropped a ripped piece of notebook paper onto the counter. “This stranger doesn’t like you much, but he’ll still help you move boxes into your new home when you decide to pull your head out of your ass and appreciate what your sister is offering you.”

  “Burke, is it?” she asked primly as he walked out the door.

  He rounded on her. “Kimberly, is it?”