Cheryl Porter - Her Only Chance

Everything inside Jamie screamed for her to say yes. But her practical side urged her to proceed with caution. She and Kell had tried to be together twice before. “I want to, very much, Kell. But not like this.”

“Why not?” He held her tighter in his arms and trailed slow, sensual kisses down her collarbone.

Jamie melted. “Kell, you aren’t being fair. I can’t think with you pressed this close to me.”

He lifted his head and looked deeply into her eyes. “I like being pressed close to you. As you can feel, I want to make love to you. Here. On the beach.”

“My, my, you are impetuous tonight. First you want to marry me, then you want to make love to me—all in the same night.”

Kell pulled back. The bright moonlight illuminated the look of bemusement on his face. “Well, that’s the right sequence, isn’t it? First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes making love on a moonlit beach…”

“I think you forgot the baby carriage.”

Kell pulled her down to the sand. “Not without the making love part first…”

Dear Reader,

How many times have you heard couples say… “We were high school sweethearts”? Or, “I’ve known him since we were kids”? For many, this isn’t a fantasy, but a wonderful reality. They got it right the first time.

But that doesn’t happen often. And I got to wondering…would these people have fallen in love if they’d met again when they were older? Would the same chemistry be there? Hard to know, isn’t it?

In my first Temptation, Her Only Chance, I got to explore these possibilities. Jamie is a child of divorce and seeks security. Kell is a Navy SEAL, used to risking his life but not his heart. They have tremendous passion for each other—and share just as many problems. They can’t be together—yet they can’t stay apart. Neither one is willing to throw away all the love and the history they’ve shared.

Do they stand a chance? Read on and find out….

Enjoy,

Cheryl Anne Porter

HARLEQUIN DUETS

12—PUPPY LOVE

21—DRIVE-BY DADDY

35—SITTING PRETTY

Her Only Chance

Cheryl Anne Porter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all therapists everywhere.

If you don’t have your own book, you should.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

“I ALWAYS KNEW you were crazy.”

“Gee, thanks.” Jamie Winslow came to a stumbling stop as she jogged with her sister along Bayshore Boulevard. To her left, the waters of Tampa Bay sparkled and winked. Breathing hard, Jamie squinted at Donna through the bright morning sunshine. “Seriously, Donna, I have to go to these therapy sessions. They’re required before I can be licensed.”

“Yes. I remember those well myself.” Jamie’s sister, a petite woman with delicate features much like Jamie’s own, was bent over at the waist, her hands clasping her knees. Finally, she managed to ask, “But why are you so worried? If you really were crazy, they’d already know by now.”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Still, Jamie couldn’t help obsessing a little about the tricky ground she and her therapist would cover in that afternoon’s session. She was reluctant to mention it to Donna, who always felt compelled to fix her younger sister’s problems, even when, like this one, they weren’t the least bit fixable. “By the way, Ms. Junior-High Counselor, we in the psychology field no longer refer to people as crazy.”

“We should. Most of them are. Except for us, of course.” Donna straightened up and groaned. “Every muscle I own hurts right now.” With that, she limped off to the nearest concrete bench. Jamie followed her, watching her sister gracelessly flop down on the seat. “So,” Donna continued, “it can’t be your grades that are worrying you. You’ve always aced any class you took.”

Jamie made a face. “Aced them with a lot of hard work. It was never easy for me like it was for you. But, still, you’re right. My grades aren’t bad. But apparently I’m a mass of insecurities.”

Donna’s blue eyes rounded with feigned surprise. “No! Seriously?” She then chuckled sympathetically. “You poor kid. You must be at the part where they tear you down so they can rebuild you.”

Jamie nodded, asking desultorily, “How’d you know?”

“Because there’s nothing like therapy to unravel a person. Finding out you’re susceptible to your own emotions and experiences isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?”

“No,” Jamie griped, crossing her arms. “Now I know how it feels to be a specimen in a biology lab.”

Grinning, Donna squinted at the bright sunlight and shaded her eyes with a hand as she stared up at Jamie. “That’s the spirit, sis. Seriously, though, try thinking of your time with the shrink as another bit of class work.”

“Class work? How?”

“This is where you understand how your patients feel when they come to you and you start doing the same thing to them.”

“I see your point. I just wish that was all there was to it.” Suddenly overcome with the enormity of her crumbling confidence, Jamie covered her face with her hands and gave in to a moment of pure anxiety.

“Hey, honey, are you all right?”

Jamie lowered her hands and met her sister’s concerned gaze. “Do I look all right? Donna, what am I going to do? I mean, here you and Mom came all the way from New Orleans to celebrate with me. And I’m not even sure if I’ll graduate. I can see it now. Culled from the cap-and-gown herd. Left behind for the predators that prey on the weak and the sick.”

“Lord, as bad as all that?” Donna patted the concrete seat next to her. “Come here, Jamie. Sit. Talk to me.”

Exhaling her frustration, Jamie sat next to the comforting presence of her sister. “By the way, before we get too deeply into my angst, I want to tell you how good it is to have you and Mom here. Even if it is only for a few days. I miss you guys.”

Donna raised an eyebrow. “So move back to New Orleans.”

“I can’t.” Jamie stared down at her running shoes. She could never move back home. Too many bad memories, too much guilt. “I love you all. But my life is here now.”

“You keep saying that. And I guess I see your point,” Donna admitted. “You’ve been in Tampa for five years now. I love this city. You’ve established a nice home for yourself. You have new friends and important professional relationships. And, yes, it will be easier to get a practice going among people who didn’t watch you grow up and still think of you as that little brown-haired pigtailed girl with the skinned knees. But there are times when I wish you’d never applied for the postgraduate opening here.”

“It was a blessing, Donna. Trust me.”

“A blessing? Then how come you sound ready to hurl yourself into the bay?”

“Oh, please, I’m not suicidal. Far from it.” But still, Jamie looked out across the shimmering water and firmed her jaw. That day so long ago still haunted her. In a moment of flashback, she relived it. She was thirteen, and her father caught her and sixteen-year-old Kellan Chance together on the bed in Jamie’s bedroom. It was her first kiss. It was innocent. A simple exploring of carbonated hormones. And, yes, they had fallen back on the bed. But her father had exploded and thrown Kell bodily out of the house. Then her parents fought, and her father left…for good. God, what a disaster. And it was all her fault. She’d never said that out loud to anyone. It was hard enough to admit it to herself.