Christmas In Whitehorn. Susan Mallery

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