Sandra Field - Second Honeymoon

Cover Page

Excerpt “Lucy, you haven’t kissed me good-morning.” As if he’d uttered an obscenity, every one of the men was staring at him. “Why would she do that?” the bald one blurted. “She’s my wife,” Troy announced with a bland smile. “Who else would she kiss good-morning?” For a wild moment he thought Lucy was going to dump the coffeepot and its contents over his head. “We’re separated,” she said. “We’re going to get a divorce.” “So is that your decision?” Her eyes blazed into his. “Yes.” “Ah…in that case you won’t mind if I hang around for a few days. Obviously, if you’re going to divorce me, my presence shouldn’t matter to you one way or the other.” “You ought to be down on your knees giving thanks that this is a coffeepot and not a carving knife,” she grated. “Stop being insufferable, Troy, and go back to Vancouver.”

Dear Reader Dear Reader, Welcome to the second of three scintillating books by Sandra Field. When Sandra first came up with the idea for Beyond Reach (#1806) she fell in love with her characters so much that she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind. So she wrote another book. Then another…And SIGNIFICANT OTHERS was born. “This series of three books crept up on me unawares. After Troy and Lucy met in the West Indies, I found myself curious to discover how marriage would change them. Hence Second Honeymoon, again set on an island, this time off the coast of Nova Scotia. Lucy’s laid-back friend Quentin and her uptight sister Marcia played minor roles in Second Honeymoon. Once Quentin had appeared on the scene, I knew I wouldn’t rest until I’d brought him face-to-face with Marcia, which I did in my next book, After Hours. ” Though all three books can be read on their own, why not follow Marcia and Quentin’s own romance in After Hours —coming soon in Harlequin Presents! Look for the special SIGNIFICANT OTHERS flash at your favorite bookstore—this is one series you don’t want to miss! Happy reading! The Editor

Title Page Second Honeymoon Sandra Field www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

As if he’d uttered an obscenity, every one of the men was staring at him. “Why would she do that?” the bald one blurted.

“She’s my wife,” Troy announced with a bland smile. “Who else would she kiss good-morning?”

For a wild moment he thought Lucy was going to dump the coffeepot and its contents over his head. “We’re separated,” she said. “We’re going to get a divorce.”

“So is that your decision?”

Her eyes blazed into his. “Yes.”

“Ah…in that case you won’t mind if I hang around for a few days. Obviously, if you’re going to divorce me, my presence shouldn’t matter to you one way or the other.”

“You ought to be down on your knees giving thanks that this is a coffeepot and not a carving knife,” she grated.

“Stop being insufferable, Troy, and go back to Vancouver.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the second of three scintillating books by Sandra Field. When Sandra first came up with the idea for Beyond Reach (#1806) she fell in love with her characters so much that she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them behind. So she wrote another book. Then another…And SIGNIFICANT OTHERS was born.

“This series of three books crept up on me unawares. After Troy and Lucy met in the West Indies, I found myself curious to discover how marriage would change them. Hence Second Honeymoon, again set on an island, this time off the coast of Nova Scotia. Lucy’s laid-back friend Quentin and her uptight sister Marcia played minor roles in Second Honeymoon. Once Quentin had appeared on the scene, I knew I wouldn’t rest until I’d brought him face-to-face with Marcia, which I did in my next book, After Hours. ”

Though all three books can be read on their own, why not follow Marcia and Quentin’s own romance in After Hours —coming soon in Harlequin Presents! Look for the special SIGNIFICANT OTHERS flash at your favorite bookstore—this is one series you don’t want to miss!

Happy reading!

The Editor

Second Honeymoon

Sandra Field

www.millsandboon.co.uk

UNTIL four that afternoon, it was a day like any other.

At four o’clock Troy Donovan strode past the receptionist’s desk, giving Vera a distracted smile and quite oblivious to the fact that the eyes of every woman in the room had swiveled to follow his progress.

Vera smiled back. “Your mail’s on your desk,” she said. Vera was very happily married to a civil servant who adored her, but she had long ago decided that the woman who could ignore the cleft in Dr Troy Donovan’s chin, not to mention the breadth of his shoulders and his sexy gray eyes, might as well be in her coffin. How his wife could have left him was more than Vera could imagine.

“Thanks, Vera.” Troy marched down the corridorenjoying the stretch in his long legs after the hours he’d spent in the operating room, rubbing at the back of his neck under the collar of his open-necked shirt. He was supposed to be at a meeting at four-thirty. He’d have time to glance at his mail and make a few phone calls first. He pushed open the door of his office and shuffled through the neat pile of envelopes on his desk.

The letterhead on a white vellum envelope leaped out at him. The institute whose name was printed in ornate script on the envelope was located in Arizona, and was the most prestigious center in the continent for pediatric plastic surgery—Troy’s speciality. But why would they be writing to him? Slowly he sat down at his desk and reached for his letter-opener.

Ten minutes later Troy was still staring at the thick sheet of vellum. He was being offered a job. A plum job. A prize job. The very pick of the crop. A job that any craniofacial surgeon in the world would yearn after. Teaching, surgery, opportunities for research—it was all there, and at a salary that made him blink.

A new start. A new country, a new hospital, a whole group of new people. None of whom would know about Lucy or Michael.

He could sell the house where he and Lucy had lived during the four brief years of their marriage. Where he had stayed by himself for the twelve months since she had gone. Sell it. Be rid of it and all its memories. Start afresh.

He buried his head in his hands, feeling the longfamiliar pain rip at his guts. Twelve months since she had left him, and not for one day of those months had he been without her presence. It walked down the hospital corridors beside him. Perched on the stool by the west window in the kitchen, the evening sun burnishing the mahogany curls. It lay alongside him in the big bed where they had taken such pleasure in each other.

Why move to another country? He’d only take her with him.

Jarring as an electric shock, the telephone shrilled in his ear. Automatically he picked up the receiver. “Donovan speaking.”

Vera said, “There are two people here to see you if you have a minute, Dr Donovan. Trish and Peter Winslow. They do realize they don’t have an appointment.”

Troy remembered them instantly. Two years ago their little girl had sustained third-degree burns, and had—mercifully, in his opinion—died. Pushing the letter from Arizona to one side, he said, “Send them in, please, Vera.”