Her Only Chance

“Marry me, Jamie. Tonight.”

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

Books by 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

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To all therapists everywhere.

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

Contents

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

Prologue

“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.

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.

1

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.

That truth was that Jamie had fallen for Kell—the classic “wrong man”—and hadn’t been able to get over him. In fact, she was so hopeless where he was concerned that her academic curiosity had finally taken over and had plunged her into research, which had fueled her doctoral thesis: Women Who Fall For “The Wrong Man”: Why Do They Do It?

How could she have known that, in psychology circles, her research and the resulting paper would be hailed as groundbreaking? That was another secret she wasn’t able to share with Donna or anyone else—her secret book deal with a major publisher who wanted her to develop her thesis into a nonfiction, self-help guide on relationships. Once she signed the contracts, she’d have a lot of money and even more publicity. But there would be no binding contract until she rewrote her thesis into lay terms, and made it slick and glossy in short chapters chock-full of advice, conclusions, lessons, and, worst of all, answers. Help.

The publicity plan scared Jamie the most. The publisher wanted to spring her on the public, present her as the one woman in today’s world who had all the answers about relationships. Jamie could read the caption now, headlining her photo on some glossy magazine page: What does this woman know about relationships that you don’t?

Not a damn thing. She still couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Who would have guessed that the woman from New York that she’d found herself cornered by at that faculty mixer—all Jamie had known then was the woman was someone important’s sister—was also a high-powered literary agent?

Even now, Jamie could remember how, out of sheer desperation for something to talk about, she’d spouted off about the research she’d done, the interviews, her conclusions, et cetera. And then the woman produced a business card, gave it to Jamie and said Kid, I’m going to make you a star.

Whew. A book like this was all about perception, Liz Clendenen, the agent—her agent—had told her. In Jamie, the publisher believed they had the right author, providing she turned out to be an entertaining writer, too. She was young. Attractive. Articulate. Educated. Yep, she had all the credentials, everything they could hope for. All in one package. Except…and only Jamie knew this…she was a fraud. She, too, had fallen for the wrong man. And she still wasn’t over him. That made her a victim of her own syndrome. Frankenstein’s monsterette. Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde.

I have to quit bringing up Kellan to Dr. Hampton. He could unwittingly blow the whole book thing, along with my license to practice, if he thinks I have serious unresolved issues here. Jamie wondered how this could be happening to her. Just when everything fell into place in her life…it all fell apart. She had this unbelievable chance to succeed beyond her wildest expectations, and she’d lost control over her own destiny. Her feelings toward Kellan Chance could torpedo everything.

It had always been this way for her in her life. Every time she tried to do anything positive, something went wrong. No wonder she’d become a thinker, a watcher, and not a doer.

A moment later, she heard the office door behind her slowly opening. Her heart thumping, she quickly brushed her long hair back from her face and tugged at her short skirt. Just keep your cool here, Jamie. You can do this. She turned and smiled at Dr. Hampton.

His answering smile bled into a quizzical frown as he sat in his chair and opened his notepad. “You look nervous, Jamie.”

“I do? Well, I’m not. Except about getting my license to practice, that is.” No license, no certification meant…no book. Only, Dr. Hampton didn’t know that, and she couldn’t tell him.

He nodded. “Yes. Your license to practice.” But he didn’t elaborate. He just took up where they’d left off. “Before we were interrupted, you mentioned—” he checked his notepad “—Kellan Chance and tragedy. Tell me about that, Jamie.”

“Well, there’s no real tragedy. Not like a car accident, or plane wreck. It’s just that when Kellan and I get together, it always ends up in heartache, almost as if we were predestined for it. We always come to tragedy, it seems.” When the doctor said nothing, Jamie continued, blurting, “Kellan is Gaelic for warrior, you know. And he certainly lives up to his name. He’s a Navy SEAL. Did I tell you that?”

Dr. Hampton nodded. “Yes. But there’s more to him than that, isn’t there?”

“Oh, of course. He’s kind, considerate, intelligent. A real Southern gentleman. A well-rounded man.” The image that conjured up in her mind…Kell’s physical well-roundedness…had Jamie blushing and looking down at her hands in her lap. Why did she always become so wrapped up in Kell physically that she forgot his other attributes?

Dr. Hampton suddenly broke into Jamie’s reflective silence. “Those are all good attributes, Jamie. He sounds very nice.”

“He is.” Her words were a defeated sigh. “He’s more than nice. He was my best friend. We did everything together. I miss him—” Jamie watched Dr. Hampton writing furiously on his notepad. What now? What had she said to set him off on yet another blazing round of note-taking? That she missed him? Jamie sat silently, determined not to utter another word until her therapist/professor stopped scribbling her innermost secrets onto what would become nothing more to him than office notes.

The air conditioner suddenly kicked on, sending cooled air throughout the comfortably furnished office. Jamie was sure the walls were slowly closing in on her. Finally, Dr. Hampton stopped writing and looked up at her. Despite herself, she had to admire his expertise. “This works for you, doesn’t it? The long silences, all that writing? Just awaiting the patient’s thoughts—which they finally and desperately blurt out. It’s a good technique.”

“Is that how you feel, Jamie? Desperate?”

She stared at Dr. Hampton. He acted as if it was his job to jump on everything that came out of her mouth. Then she remembered…that was his job. It would also be her job someday soon—if she got past these sessions. “Yes, I feel desperate. But desperate to graduate and get my license. That’s all.”

Well, now, Jamie, that certainly sounded hostile. Dr. Hampton probably thought so, too, given the assessing stare he was sending her way. Swallowing, Jamie glanced at the wall clock behind him. The obnoxiously slow-moving big hand showed she still had fifteen minutes left in her hour. Great. Jamie smiled hopefully, helplessly, at her therapist and wisely said no more.

Dr. Hampton carefully placed his notepad on the small table next to him. He brushed something off his trousers, crossed his thin legs and met her gaze. Bad news was written all over his face. “You come back to your license almost as much as you do to Mr. Chance. I don’t suppose, though, that I blame you. Only I’m afraid, Jamie, that your license isn’t going to be forthcoming, at least not yet.”

His words were like an arrow to the heart of her future. Jamie put a shaking hand to her temple. “Would you please explain ‘not forthcoming’?”

“I’m afraid it means I’ll be, well, holding up your license.”

Jamie’s heart raced, leaving her weak-kneed. Her license. Her agent had called her just three days ago asking her when she’d have it. Liz had said Jamie needed to mail a copy to Highline Publishing and to her the day she got it. Only then would they draw up contracts that meant a signed deal. Jamie could hear herself assuring Liz she’d have it within a week or so. Or so? Suddenly “or so” appeared to be sometime in the next Ice Age. “Oh, God. Oh, please, Dr. Hampton, you can’t deny me my license. You can’t.”

Dr. Hampton’s gaze roved over her face. “I’m not going to deny you your license, Jamie. Well, not for any longer than I have to. I just think there’s something here that needs fine-tuning, let’s say.”