LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Acknowledgments

      Many thanks to Lorene Cook for her constant support in every way. She keeps us going when life seems to shoot us in every direction at once.

      Thanks to Vera Overall for loving and encouraging her son to persevere.

      Thanks to Joan Marlow Golan, our champion, and to her excellent staff, who keep us informed, keep us straight and keep us headed in the right direction.

      Thanks to our Branson brainstormers, Barbara, Brenda, Lori, Deborah, Sharon, Judy, Marty, Stephanie, Carol, Cyndy, Jill, Sandy and Jeanie, and to our support staff, Lorene and Luvena.

      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

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      Chapter Twenty-Eight

      Chapter Twenty-Nine

      Chapter Thirty

      Chapter Thirty-One

      Chapter Thirty-Two

      Chapter Thirty-Three

      Chapter Thirty-Four

      Chapter Thirty-Five

      Chapter Thirty-Six

      Chapter Thirty-Seven

      Chapter Thirty-Eight

      Epilogue

      Discussion Questions

      Chapter One

      Fingers marched across Jill Cooper’s cheekbones like the legs of a stalking tarantula. She stiffened, eyes shut tight.

      She wanted to retreat from the intrusion or jump up from this table and escape. What horrors lay behind the other doors? What had she allowed herself to be talked into? Moral support was one thing, but this—

      “Too rough?”

      Jill opened her eyes and looked into the upside-down face of twenty-two-year-old Sheena Marshall. “No.”

      Sheena had an uncommonly bright, perky grin that matched her bright, perky voice. All the employees of this spa seemed to be infected with terminal optimism, except for Sheena’s mother, Mary Marshall, who had always been on the opposite end of that spectrum, even when Jill had graduated from high school with her twenty-seven years ago.

      Today, Mary’s daughter was actually perkier than usual.

      “It’s fine.” Jill wanted to ask when the sheets had last been washed on this massage table, but the question could eventually reach the ears of the owner of this establishment.

      Jill was here to provide the owner—her baby sister—moral support for this venture, not to irritate her. Noelle Trask ran a tight ship, and these sheets would be pristine. She would not take kindly to having her employees verbally abused, or even questioned by a client with a few…interesting…hang-ups. Especially if that client just happened to be her bossy older sister.

      Who would have thought Noelle, the wild child of Hideaway High, would have matured so well?

      In fact, Noelle would be a mother before long.

      That meant Jill would be an aunt. She felt her tension ease as she smiled at the thought. Aunt Jill. What a wonderful—

      A sharp jab on her chin startled her. “Ouch!”

      “It’s okay. Just relax,” Sheena said. “You have a few blemishes here. We can take care of that right—”

      “I didn’t come here to have my pimples treated.” Noelle had warned Jill that the young masseuse tended to try to fix anything that wasn’t just right. The young woman obviously had delusions of grandeur and saw herself becoming

Скачать книгу