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Mills & Boon Showcase

      The Summer They Never Forgot

      Kandy Shepherd

      Resisting Her Ex’s Touch

      Amber McKenzie

      The Return of Mrs Jones

      Jessica Gilmore

      Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid

      Jennifer Rae

      Resisting Her Rebel Hero

      Lucy Ryder

      Holiday with a Stranger

      Christy McKellen

      Changed by His Son’s Smile

      Robin Gianna

      Unlocking the Doctor’s Heart

      Susanne Hampton

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      The Summer They Never Forgot

      Kandy Shepherd

       When Ben lifted his head from the wave and saw Sandy standing on the beach it was as if the past and the present had coalesced into one shining moment. A joy so unexpected it was painful flooded his heart.

      So here he was, against all resolutions, kissing her.

      Her lips were warm and pliant beneath his; her body pressed to his chest. Her eyes, startled at first, had filled with an expression of bliss.

      He shouldn’t be kissing her. Starting things he could not finish. Risking pain for both of them. But those thoughts were lost in the wonder of having her close to him again.

      It was as if the twelve years between kisses had never happened.

      KANDY SHEPHERD swapped a fast-paced career as a magazine editor for a life writing romance. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter, and a menagerie of animal friends. Kandy believes in love at first sight and real-life romance—they worked for her!

      Kandy loves to hear from her readers. Visit her website at: www.kandyshepherd.com.

      This is Kandy Shepherd’s first book for Mills & Boon® Cherish™ and is available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk

      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

       EXCERPT

      CHAPTER ONE

      ON SANDY ADAMS’S thirtieth birthday—which was also the day the man she’d lived with for two years was getting married to another woman—she decided to run away.

      No. Not run away. Find a new perspective.

      Yes, that sounded good. Positive. Affirming. Challenging.

      No way would she give even a second’s thought to any more heartbreak.

      She’d taken the first step by driving the heck out of Sydney and heading south—her ultimate destination: Melbourne, a thousand kilometres away. On a whim, she’d chosen to take the slower, scenic route to Melbourne on the old Princes Highway. There was time, and it went through areas she thought were among the most beautiful in the state of New South Wales.

      Alone and loving it, she repeated to herself as she drove.

      Say it enough times and she might even start to believe it.

      Somewhere between the seaside town of Kiama and the quaint village of Berry, with home two hours behind her, she pulled her lime-green Beetle off onto a safe lay-by. But she only allowed herself a moment to stretch out her cramped muscles and admire the rolling green hills and breathtaking blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean before she got back in the car. The February heat made it too hot to stay outside for too long.

      From her handbag she pulled out her new notebook, a birthday present from her five-year-old niece. There was a pink fairy on the cover and the glitter from its wings had already shed all through Sandy’s bag. It came with a shocking-pink pen. She nibbled on the pen for a long moment.

      Then, with a flourish, she headed up the page ‘Thirtieth Birthday Resolutions’ and started to scribble in pink ink.

      1. Get as far away from Sydney as possible while remaining in realms of civilisation and within reach of a good latte.

      2. Find new job where can be own boss.

      She underscored the words ‘own boss’ three times, so hard she nearly tore the paper.

      3. Find kind, interesting man with no hang-ups who loves me the way I am and who wants to get married and have lots of kids.

      She crossed out ‘lots of kids’ and wrote instead ‘three kids’—then added, ‘two girls and a boy’. When it came to writing down goals there was no harm in being specific. So she also added, ‘Man who in no way resembles That-Jerk-Jason’.

      She went over the word ‘jerk’ twice and finished with the date and an extravagant flourish. Done.

      She liked making lists. She felt they gave her some degree of control over a life that had gone unexpectedly pear-shaped. But three goals were probably all she could cope with right now. The resolutions could be revisited once she’d got to her destination.

      She put the notebook back into her bag and slid

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