Jeanie London - The Time of Her Life

No time like now!

Susanna Adams is too young to be a widow. She’s still in her thirties! There will be no sitting around trying to fill empty days for her. Instead, she’s accepted a big promotion, moved states and is embracing her own dreams again. She might even be open to a little romance.

The new plan doesn’t unfold quite as smoothly as she expected. The job is a lot tougher thanks to Jay Canady, the man she’ll eventually replace. Working with him and his high standards definitely tests her resolve. Not to mention all the sparks igniting between them. Office affairs have never factored on her radar, but Jay is so…hot, she might make an exception. After all, this time it’s all about her.

Susanna intended to thank Jay

She intended to right their relationship, to get back to something far more comfortable than this crazy intimacy.

A simple thanks would restore balance, distract her from the awareness making every nerve ending tingle, making her remember what she wasn’t wearing beneath the soaking wet sweatshirt.

Then she met Jay’s gaze, saw his face. The awareness she saw in his expression mirrored hers, and it was torture.

For one wild moment, time stopped.

Not a breath passed between them.

Not a sound.

Only the awareness of the pent-up restraint they’d both held in check and the certainty that restraint was about to end.

Dear Reader,

I’m delighted to announce exciting news: beginning in January 2013, Harlequin Superromance books will be longer! That means more romance with more of the characters you love and expect from Harlequin Superromance.

We’ll also be unveiling a brand-new look for our covers. These fresh, beautiful covers will showcase the six wonderful contemporary stories we publish each month.

So don’t miss out on your favorite series—Harlequin Superromance. Look for longer stories and exciting new covers starting December 18, 2012, wherever you buy books.

In the meantime, check out this month’s reads:

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeanie London writes romance because she believes in happily-ever-afters. Not the “love conquers all” kind, but the “we love each other so we can conquer anything” kind. It’s precisely why she loves Harlequin Superromance—stories about real women tackling life to find love. The kind of love she understands, because she’s a real woman tackling life in sunny Florida with her own romance-hero husband, their two beautiful and talented daughters, a loving and slightly crazy extended family and a menagerie of sweet strays.

To all the caregivers.

May you be blessed.

With appreciation to all the staff at University Village.

Your loving service and generosity of spirit continually inspire me to set stories in the caring world of senior living.

You touch more lives than you know ;-)

Contents

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

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

THE OLD PROVERB “change is the only constant” seemed to echo inside the empty house as Susanna Adams stood in the doorway of her home for the last time. And she kept standing there, somehow not ready to leave even though she’d done nothing for weeks but prepare. Apparently all the activity of packing and storing twenty years of memories in a portable storage container had been nothing but a diversion.

Once she left, she’d need to lock the door then drop off the key with the real estate agent. She wouldn’t be able to get inside her home ever again. What if this move was a huge mistake? Suddenly, taking that one last step symbolized everything she was leaving behind.

Glancing into the quiet darkness, Susanna took a steadying breath and tried to capture the moment in memory. She knew every square inch of this house by heart. The wall separating this foyer from the living area, a wall she’d often bumped into with her arms full of groceries. How many bruises had she sported through the years because some brainy architect thought the wall should extend beyond a clear passage to the living room?

Susanna had no clue. She only knew that without the kids’ photos marking their stepping stones through school years or Skip’s stuffed fish showcased front and center, the wall looked foreign. Only a wall surrounded by unfamiliar shadows.

Without her family, this house was just a house, the way it had been when a real estate agent had unlocked the door for the first time twenty years ago. Before she and Skip had filled every room with expectations and dreams.

They had been such big dreamers.

The thought grabbed Susanna around the throat, made her swallow hard. They’d bought this house while still in college, ignoring every bit of advice from their parents and friends.

“You’re too young to get married.”

“Finish college and start careers before settling down.”

“Live a little before saddling yourselves with a mortgage.”

She and Skip had filled this house with dreams of a life together where anything could happen. And did.

They’d started careers while having their family, had paced floors in the wee hours through colic while still managing to make it to work on time the next morning.

They’d been T-ball coach and Brownie leader. They’d taken turns as chaperone for school field trips. They’d been homeroom mom who baked designer cupcakes en masse and homeroom dad who tended every classroom pet from mammal to reptile.

“What’s the rush? You’ve got a lifetime to settle down.”

No, they hadn’t. They’d had only a limited number of years together, certainly not the lifetime everyone had promised. Thank God they’d ignored the advice and hadn’t wasted a second. As Skip was losing his battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he’d said his only regret was not getting more time with her and the beautiful family they’d made.

That was still her only regret.

So, Susanna had forged on while he missed the teenage years, the championship games, the homecomings, the proms, the graduations. Survival helped her through grief, helped her focus on what was important—keeping life familiar for the kids. She’d been playing the roles of both mom and dad, keeping life moving in the direction she and Skip had intended for their family.

Now both kids were away at college. Bedtime stories and good-night kisses were a thing from the distant past as Brooke was three states away in Virginia and Brandon five states away in South Carolina. If she could ever take this last step and get on the road, she’d only be one state away from each.

Then selling the house wasn’t a mistake, was it?

What else could Susanna do? She had an opportunity for job advancement that would get her family back on solid financial ground for the first time since Skip had died. True, there was risk, but she didn’t like the alternative any better—continuing to knock around this empty house, losing her mind from loneliness.

The kids didn’t know. She was the parent, the only one they had left. She’d reared them to be independent adults. They needed to go off and experience life, not tie themselves to home, worried about leaving their mother alone.

But was she being selfish by selling the only home they’d ever known? Once she locked this door, none of them could come back to the one place they would always have memories of Skip.

She hadn’t realized how much those memories, and the tangible evidence of his presence in their lives, had kept him alive. But as she stared into the foyer, she realized how close he’d been in spirit, as if he’d only gone on a business trip and would be awaiting them at the airport to bring him home.