Nikki Logan - First Love, Second Chance - Friends to Forever / Second Chance with the Rebel / It Started with a Crush...

First Love, Second Chance

Friends to Forever

Nikki Logan

Second Chance with the Rebel

Cara Colter

It Started with a Crush…

Melissa McClone

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Title Page First Love, Second Chance Friends to Forever Nikki Logan Second Chance with the Rebel Cara Colter It Started with a Crush… Melissa McClone www.millsandboon.co.uk

Friends to Forever Friends to Forever Nikki Logan

About the Author NIKKI LOGAN lives next to a string of protected wetlands in Western Australia, with her long-suffering partner and a menagerie of furred, feathered and scaly friends. She studied film and theatre at university, and worked for years in advertising and film distribution before finally settling down in the wildlife industry. Her romance with nature goes way back, and she considers her life charmed, given she works with wildlife by day and writes fiction by night—the perfect way to combine her two loves. Nikki believes that the passion and risk of falling in love are perfectly mirrored in the danger and beauty of wild places. Every romance she writes contains an element of nature, and if readers catch a waft of rich earth or the spray of wild ocean between the pages she knows her job is done. Visit Nikki at her website: www.nikkilogan.com.au .

Dedication For the Garvey clan (two-legged and four). Thank you for your years of friendship and your tolerance of my weird writerly ways. To Liz for setting the bar so inspirationally high. And to Rachel for keeping me sane and on the right path with this one.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Second Chance with the Rebel

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

It Started with a Crush…

About the Author

Dedication

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

Copyright

Friends to Forever

Nikki Logan

NIKKI LOGANlives next to a string of protected wetlands in Western Australia, with her long-suffering partner and a menagerie of furred, feathered and scaly friends. She studied film and theatre at university, and worked for years in advertising and film distribution before finally settling down in the wildlife industry. Her romance with nature goes way back, and she considers her life charmed, given she works with wildlife by day and writes fiction by night—the perfect way to combine her two loves. Nikki believes that the passion and risk of falling in love are perfectly mirrored in the danger and beauty of wild places. Every romance she writes contains an element of nature, and if readers catch a waft of rich earth or the spray of wild ocean between the pages she knows her job is done.

Visit Nikki at her website: www.nikkilogan.com.au.

For the Garvey clan (two-legged and four). Thank you for your years of friendship and your tolerance of my weird writerly ways.

To Liz for setting the bar so inspirationally high.

And to Rachel for keeping me sane and on the right path with this one.

Ten years ago, Perth, Western Australia

‘MARC, have you got a minute?’

Beth Hughes caught up with her best friend between classes and steered him away from the teenage throng doing a fast book change between fourth period and fifth. The rock that had taken up residence in her gut since she’d spoken to his mother seemed to swell in size.

Marc looked at her in surprise. Understandable, given the past few weeks of slow retreat on her part. If he’d refused point-blank to go with her she would have understood. A weak part of her wished he would. That would be easier all round.

‘Three minutes, Duncannon.’ Tasmin Major swanned past, a friendly smile on her Nordic face, tapping her watch. ‘Geography waits for no one.’

‘I’ll be there, ‘ Marc threw after her, trailing Beth around behind the water fountains, tension rich in his deep voice. She ducked between the back wall of the library complex and some badly pruned shrubs into a rubble-filled clearing she’d never visited before. The place others came to do their smoking. Their deep-and-meaningful conversations. Their making-out.

The location got Marc’s attention completely. His steps slowed.

‘Beth?’

Her pulse beat thick and fast, high in her throat, reducing even further the space for her breath. She sucked in a few mouthfuls of air and forced them down as she turned to face him in the privacy of the little space.

‘What are we doing, Beth?’ His face was cautious. Closed. She curled her fingers into a ball behind her. ‘Does your boyfriend know you’re here?’

She stared at him, forcing air past her lips, hating how he’d taken to saying the word boyfriend. ‘Damien’s in fifth period.’

‘Where we should be. Or do grades mean less to you now that you hang with the beautiful people?’

Her eyes fell to the dirt he scuffed at his feet, heat invading her cheeks. ‘I needed to see you.’

‘You see me every day.’

In passing. ‘I needed to speak with you. ‘ She lifted her focus. ‘In private.’

A grey tinge came over him. His body straightened even more. Not for the first time, Beth noticed how broad he was getting. Those shoulders that had made the swim team captain seek him out a few months back. The way his jaw was squaring off. As if a switch had flipped on his sixteenth birthday and a man had started breaking out of the scrawny exoskeleton she knew as Marc. Maybe she’d left this too late …

Her stomach tightened.

‘You have to hide out to talk to me these days?’

She could have pretended to misunderstand but Marc knew her too well. ‘I don’t want to make trouble with you and Damien.’

‘I’m pretty sure McKinley’s already aware that we’re friends, Beth. I’ve known you since fourth grade.’

‘I don’t want … He might read into it.’

‘Then you might want to choose another location for this conversation. You do know what The Pit gets used for, right?’

Beth swallowed hard, her eyes dropping to his lips for a second. She forced them up. ‘I just wanted privacy.’

The second bell rang and urgent footsteps sprinting into classrooms petered out. Everything around them fell silent. Marc widened his feet and crossed his arms across his chest. ‘You got it. Every other student at Pyrmont High is now in class.’

‘I’m changing streams,’ she blurted before she lost her nerve. ‘I’m switching to B.’

Marc stared at her, his nostrils flaring. ‘You’re changing out of the classes we’ve been taking all year? Into McKinley’s stream?’

‘Not because of Damien—’

‘Right.’

‘I want less science. More arts.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since now.’

‘B-stream is soft, Beth.’

‘It has Literature and Philosophy in it. They’re unientrance subjects.’

‘You’re switching to avoid me.’

The rock in her gut doubled in size. ‘No.’

Yes.

‘Why?’

A throbbing started up behind her eyes. ‘This has nothing to do with you—’

‘Bull. You’ve been backing off from me since term started. What’s going on? No room for a mate in your busy new social schedule, Ms Popularity?’