She put her hand to her chest in an attempt to still her wildly beating heart. She had never loved him more than she did at that moment. “Are you sure?”
He smiled. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“We don’t have to do this. I’d understand if you didn’t want to. It’s a big step. We’ve only just found each other again. It may be too soon.”
“Who are you worried about, Cheryl, me or you?”
“You,” she admitted. “Me, a little, too. I don’t know if I have it in me to be the mother this baby needs. What if I mess it up?”
“I’ll be there to help you.”
“You sound so confident.”
He considered what she’d said before answering. “I learned firsthand the wrong way to raise a child. I’d like a chance to do it right.”
“The baby will be here in three months. Do you realize what that means?”
“That she’s going to feel cheated because her birthday is so close to Christmas?”
“You’re serious about this,” she said, dumbfounded.
“Given a choice, I would have given us a year or two alone, but life has a way of setting its own timetable. We either act now or regret not acting for the rest of our lives.”
She came up on her knees and threw her arms around him. He fell backward. Raining kisses on his eyes, his cheeks, his chin, and finally his lips, she breathlessly said, “I love you, Andrew Wells.”
He caught her face between his hands and kissed her long and deep. She responded with a soft moan, moving against him suggestively. Her hand went to his thigh and then to the front of his khakis. He stopped her.
“Not here,” he said, pressing his lips to her palm.
“Why not?”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Because you don’t want sand to get in the way for what I have in mind.”
Cheryl immediately stood and smiled. “Race you.”
“And if I win?” He stood beside her, suddenly serious. “Never mind,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “I already did.”
They tumbled into bed as the last drop of sun dripped into the horizon … unnoticed.
About the Author
GEORGIA BOCKOVEN is an award-winning author who began writing fiction after a successful career as a freelance journalist and photographer. Her books have sold more than three million copies worldwide. The mother of two, she resides in Northern California with her husband, John.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Other Books by Georgia Bockoven
ALONE IN A CROWD
THE BEACH HOUSE
DISGUISED BLESSING
FAR FROM HOME
A MARRIAGE CONVENIENCE
MOMENTS
THINGS REMEMBERED
AN UNSPOKEN PROMISE
THE WAY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
Praise for Rita Award-winning writer Georgia Bockoven
“Marvelous! Outstanding.”
Romantic Times on The Beach House
“Sensitively depicted and thought-provoking.”
Publishers Weekly on An Unspoken Promise
“Read Another Summer on a day
when you want to laugh and cry
and feel better about the world.”
MARY JO PUTNEY
“I’ll tell you how it is with me.”
He ached to touch her. Just holding her hand would be enough. It seemed impossible he had once taken the hundreds of small, day-to-day moments they’d shared for granted.
“There isn’t a day I don’t think about you. There are times I see a woman walking alone on the beach and let myself believe it’s you. Some days someone will knock on the door. And for the seconds it takes to answer I tell myself you’re the one waiting for me …”
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HARPERTORCH
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York 10022-5299
Copyright © 2001 by Georgia Bockoven
ISBN: 0-380-81865-5
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-00421-5
First HarperTorch paperback printing: December 2001
HarperCollins®, HarperTorch™, and ™ are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Visit HarperTorch on the World Wide Web at www.harpercollins.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland,
New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
Another Summer Page 27
