Cheryl Porter - Her Only Chance

Jamie blinked away the bad memory and looked over at her sister. “Trust me, Donna, I would be much worse if I’d stayed in New Orleans.”

“What’s so bad about New Orleans? You were born there. You have friends there. Mom is there. And I’m there.”

Jamie grinned. “You miss me, don’t you?”

Donna put her arm around Jamie and pulled her close in a quick hug. “Of course I do, kiddo. I love you. I want you to be happy.”

Jamie hugged her back. “I am happy. Well, I was until these required sessions.” Jamie’s concerns bubbled up inside her again. “Do you realize what will happen if this doesn’t go well and I’m not certified to practice?”

“Yes, I do. Ten years of higher education, right along with your career, will circle the drain. But I know you, Jamie. And I know you won’t allow that to happen.”

Jamie shrugged. “I’ll do what I can. But I’m not the only one involved here.” Ouch. She hadn’t meant to reveal that.

“Who are you talking about? Your therapist?”

All she had to say was yes. But Jamie realized she wanted to tell her sister the truth, all of it. She wanted to talk to her. So, adopting a sparkly I-have-a-delicious-secret expression, she said, “No. Not my therapist. There’s another ‘someone else’ I’m talking about.”

Donna poked her sister in the arm. “Ohmigod, a man. Talk to me, girlfriend.”

Jamie chuckled. It was like they were teenagers again. “Okay. Two words. Kellan. Chance.”

Donna stared at Jamie. “Kellan Chance? You’re not serious. Come on, you said you haven’t even spoken to him in a year.”

“I haven’t.”

“Then what—” Donna stopped and a moment later the invisible I-get-it light went on over her head. She pushed at Jamie’s shoulder. “Get out. This afternoon’s topic on the couch isn’t so much Kellan Chance as it is your sex life. Am I right?”

Jamie nodded. “Bingo. My sex life. Or total lack thereof.”

“Ah. Not much action since you blew Kell off again, right?”

“I did not blow him off.”

“Yes you did. So let me guess.” Donna cocked her head, thinking. “I know. You haven’t washed that gorgeous, sexy man out of your hair yet, have you?”

“Yes I have.” But Jamie’s heart knew better. Poof, there he was in her mind’s eye. That gorgeous, sexy man, as Donna called him. He lurked inside her…a picture of muscles and a tight T-shirt, of dark and brooding eyes that accused her of walking away from him again. As always, his image sent a delicious shiver over Jamie’s skin. Not that all she loved about Kell was sex. But he was the type of man that made a woman—any woman—think about the bedroom.

Jamie heard her own guilty sigh in the same instant that Donna did.

“So where’d you go in your head just now?” Donna’s grin could only be called lascivious.

Jamie felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment. “Stop that. This is serious.”

Donna chuckled and tugged at Jamie’s ponytail. “All right, little sister. I’m listening. Talk to me.”

“Okay, here’s the thing.” Jamie took a deep breath for courage and plunged in. “What am I going to do when Dr. Hampton asks me about Kell? I mean, Kell essentially is my sex life. There’s no way to avoid talking about him.” She shook her head. “I am getting such bad vibes for this afternoon’s session. It’s make-or-break time.”

“Yes, it is. So here’s what you’re going to do.” Donna stood up, signaling for Jamie to do the same, and the two of them began walking toward Jamie’s car. “While Mom and I are ruining our budgets this afternoon shopping at Olde Hyde Park, you are going to go to your session and face the truth that you still love Kellan Chance and you always will.”

Jamie felt like screaming. There it was, like a big-banner headline flying across the blue sky for all the world to see. Her biggest fear just baldly blurted out. Her denial was instant. “I do not—”

“Oh, you do so. Don’t lie to me or to your therapist. He’ll see right through you. Instead, work with the man to try to figure out why it is that you keep breaking Kellan’s heart. And your own.”

A second denial rode Jamie’s lips, but the words wouldn’t come. Everything Donna said was true. She couldn’t live with the man and she was even worse without him. And right now, she was without him. Yet he had the power, without even being aware of it, to destroy everything she’d worked so hard for.

Jamie sighed in defeat. Loving Kell, or not loving him, was the last thing she could do anything about. But it also the one thing she had to do something about.

JAMIE TRIED to remember the last time she’d had a thirty-minute conversation about sex with a man and hadn’t at least been turned on first. She couldn’t come up with any time before today. Thank God. But now here she was, with her therapist, a slight older man with a gray beard and a notepad, sitting in his private, low-lit office. Talking about sex. For thirty minutes!

“I don’t have a problem with sex,” Jamie assured her therapist for the tenth time. “I like it a lot. Well, at least I did before this conversation. Now I may never want it again.” She grinned, but when the therapist didn’t even crack a smile, she hurriedly added, “Just kidding. Don’t write that down. Okay, so you’re saying I have a problem with one member of the opposite sex, right?”

“I don’t know, Jamie. You’d have to tell me.”

“I did tell you. Sex for me is pronounced Kellan Chance. You’d think the man and I were star-crossed lovers, and I’m compelled to keep reliving the tragedy.”

“Tragedy?” Dr. Hampton raised a graying eyebrow. “Is that how you see your relation—” A knock on the door interrupted him. “I’m sorry. Will you excuse me?” He stood up. “Roberta wouldn’t knock if it weren’t an emergency.”

Jamie waved a dismissive hand at him. “Please, go ahead.” Secretly thrilled with this temporary reprieve, she added a smile. “Take your time.”

Dr. Hampton nodded and crossed the room, quietly opening the door and leaving the room. Jamie watched him, thinking she needed to develop that soothing technique. She couldn’t seem to enter or exit a room without wrenching the door open or banging it closed. If only she could close her aching—and arousing—thoughts of Kellan Chance as easily.

It was true. Where Kellan was concerned, her heart and mind and body simply would not allow her to rest. He was entrenched in her senses. She felt certain she could smell his scent, taste his kiss, feel his touch…even after not seeing him for a year. No. Jamie leaned forward, crossing her arms atop her knees and resting her forehead against them. Do not think about him, Jamie. You’ll only lose.

She raised her head and stared across the soothingly lit and comfortably furnished office where Dr. Hampton plied his psychiatric trade. “I can do this,” she said softly to the man’s diplomas hanging on the wall behind his huge walnut desk. “I can and I will,” she said with more force, already feeling better. “I don’t have anything to worry about.”

Except Kellan Chance.

Slumping, Jamie muttered a mild expletive. The man is going to drive me crazy. She then remembered her conversation earlier with Donna about being crazy. Yeah, crazy about Kellan. Worse than that, she knew she still loved him, as Donna had accused. Not that loving him has done me any good, Jamie fussed. Kellan will never change. She knew it was true. The man, despite all his wonderful qualities, physical and otherwise, was a thrill seeker, a danger junkie. Her exact opposite. He was also, without being aware of it, her worst enemy. Or he would be, if the truth ever got out.