Her Sister's Keeper

Her Sister's Keeper
Julia Penney

Enjoy the dreams, explore the emotions, experience the relationships.He’ll teach her to trust – and to love. After a crushing betrayal, Melanie Harris is beginning to put her life back together. Dr Kent Mattson wants to help the fragile beauty. But he has pressing problems of his own – two homicide investigations that may be linked. The situation gets complicated when he realises that Melanie knew both victims.Then Melanie’s sister goes missing – and Melanie realises that she needs to let go of the past. To save Ariel, she’ll have to trust Kent, the man who’s shown her how to love again.

“You don’t understand.”

“My sister Ariel and I haven’t spoken in six months,” Melanie went on. “I never wanted to see her again after what she did. When Stephanie called and begged me to come to dinner to celebrate the birth of Ariel’s little girl, I…I hung up on her! Oh, God, she was my best friend. That was the last time we talked…”

Kent had to resist the urge to take Melanie into his arms when she buried her face in her hands and painful sobs shook her. Instead, he racked his rattled brain for something soothing to say while he was processing what she’d told him. Melanie wasn’t making any sense, but she was obviously distraught.

“I’m sure she realises why you were upset,” he said. “That’s what best friends are for. Whatever happened between the two of you, it’s never too late to make amends.”

“You don’t understand,” Melanie repeated. “I’ve known Stephanie for years. She was my best friend, yet I lost my temper with her because she befriended my sister. I can’t ever make amends for that, because she’s lying on the floor of that bedroom dead. My best friend is dead.”

Dear Reader,

Who among us has not longed for the opportunity to turn back the clock for a second chance at something? Whether it has to do with a relationship, career choice or some other life-altering decision, there have certainly been times I have longed to go back and get it right this time.

That’s the dilemma facing Melanie Harris and Kent Mattson, the characters you are about to meet. Like the rest of us, they learn that while it is impossible to redo the past, it is very possible to meet the present head-on when life offers unexpected opportunities. It’s been my experience that getting that second shot at happiness is only the first step. In the end, as Melanie and Kent find out, it’s what we do with that second chance that can make all the difference.

Enjoy the ride these two people are about to take you on. You’re going to find they keep you guessing until the very end.

Happy reading!

Julia Penney

Her Sister’s Keeper

JULIA PENNEY

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To all who go above and beyond the call of duty.

We owe you our thanks.

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN MELANIE HARRIS had envisioned celebrating her six-month wedding anniversary, she never imagined she would spend it sitting in an impersonal office, waiting for an appointment with the renowned Dr. Kent Mattson. Then again, she hadn’t anticipated how quickly things could have turned bad. She glanced at the unmoving hands of the wall clock, then tried to read the magazine in her lap, but the words on the page were a meaningless blur.

She sighed, bit her lip and, for the hundredth time, wondered what was keeping her in the chair. All she had to do was get up, walk out into the bright California sunshine and put the whole sorry chapter behind her.

There was the door.

She stared at it for a moment, then set the magazine down and stood with sudden resolve. She’d just taken her first step toward freedom when the receptionist entered the waiting room.

“Dr. Mattson will see you now, Ms. Harris,” she said with a pleasant smile. The receptionist was a middle-aged woman with a calm, patient expression, obviously accustomed to dealing with the steady stream of emotional wreckage that flowed through Dr. Mattson’s office. “I apologize for the wait.”

Melanie, a mere two feet away from the door, froze with indecision. She could hear her heart beating in the stillness of the room. Her mouth was dry, her palms damp. She didn’t belong here, but, after all, she’d promised Stephanie that she’d endure at least one visit. She owed her best friend that much. It was Stephanie’s enviable strength that had propped Melanie up for the past six months. Six months of wishing she were dead rather than face another sunrise.

“Promise me you’ll see Dr. Mattson. He’s the best there is and he can help you,” Stephanie had pleaded. “You have to put this behind you. None of what happened was your fault.”

Wasn’t it, though? Wasn’t she standing here in this office, hand reaching for the doorknob, because she’d blindly and willingly believed everything Mitch had told her, in spite of the warnings from those who’d known him so much better than she had?

“Ms. Harris?” the receptionist said, a concerned frown furrowing her brow. “Are you all right?”

Melanie felt herself beginning to crumble. In spite of her resolve not to show any weakness, her eyes stung and her voice trembled when she spoke. “If I were all right, would I be here?”

The receptionist never missed a beat. “Ms. Harris, there isn’t one among us who doesn’t need someone like Dr. Mattson at some point in our lives,” she soothed, stepping forward to touch Melanie’s arm. “Please, come with me.” She guided Melanie across the waiting room to another door and gave her a reassuring nod before opening it. Melanie drew a deep breath, shored up the last of her resolve, and entered Dr. Mattson’s inner sanctum.

Expecting an older, overweight man with gray hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a placid, patronizing expression, Melanie was surprised by the sight of an athletically built man dressed in blue jeans and a chambray shirt, sleeves rolled back to reveal powerful forearms. A man whose dark, tousled hair showed not a hint of gray, whose keen blue eyes were offset by the weathered tan of his face and whose strong masculine jaw looked as if it hadn’t felt a razor since erasing the five o’clock shadow of the night before. In fact, he looked much more like a cowboy who had just come in from a hard morning’s work in the saddle than a clinical psychologist. She wondered for a moment if she were in the right place, but before she could retreat, the receptionist closed the door behind her with a firm click.

She was trapped.

KENT MATTSON KNEW he was running behind, but he was distracted. He couldn’t stop thinking about the murder scene he’d been called to that morning. But, unfortunately, his work with the LAPD paid peanuts compared to his private practice. Two days a week he listened to clients who were victims of Hollywood; it was a shallow world by most counts, juicy by others, yet immensely profitable to those in a position to help them. Without that extra income he’d have lost Chimeya long ago.

Too, he derived an ironic satisfaction from an increasingly healthy bank account bolstered by these movie industry casualties. It was these very same stars and starlets moving into the valley who had sent property taxes soaring and jeopardized the long-term survival of the historic ranch that had been in his family for three generations.

He glanced down at the latest file his receptionist had placed on his desk. Melanie Harris. The name was vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t place it. He scanned through the file but his mind kept returning to the morning’s murder.

A soft rustle of movement interrupted his thoughts and he glanced up to see a woman standing in the doorway. She seemed uneasy, which wasn’t unusual for a client’s first visit. He rose to greet her.

“Ms. Harris. Please, come in. I’m Kent Mattson,” he said, crossing the room.

Melanie Harris was a tall, attractive young woman in her late twenties or early thirties. Her clothing was predictably fashionable, her hair a deep, lustrous shade of mahogany and swept back. She wore no makeup, which was highly unusual in this part of town, but the best makeup artist couldn’t have hidden the dark smudges beneath those tragic green eyes, nor mask the fact that she was at least ten pounds underweight.

Kent gestured to the chair across from his desk. “I was just reviewing your file,” he said, waiting for her to sit, but she remained standing just inside the door. “I see you were referred by your regular physician, Patricia Phillips. Won’t you have a seat?”

She hesitated, and he sensed that she was very near to bolting. Her eyes held his for a moment, like a startled doe caught in the headlights of a car, and he was struck by her expression. He turned away and moved toward the side table, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “I have several bad habits,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “One of which is drinking too much coffee. Could I fix you a cup, or would you prefer tea? I have black, green or herbal.” He noted that some of the initial anxiety had left her eyes, but the wariness remained, and he doubted very much that the sadness would ever leave.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she said in a quiet voice.

Good. At least she could talk. Be a tough job for him if she couldn’t. He carried his mug to the window and stared out at a skyline smudged with brown haze. “I see from your file that Dr. Phillips was concerned about your weight loss and chronic insomnia.” He took a sip of coffee, wondering why her physician hadn’t just prescribed Prozac or Valium. The movie industry was hooked on those pills. Still no response from Ms. Harris, who remained standing just inside the door, poised to flee. “So,” he said, turning to face her, “we know why Dr. Phillips thinks you should be here. I guess what I need to know is why you think you should be here.”

He felt another jolt as his eyes locked with hers. If she wasn’t a big-name movie star yet, she would be. Those eyes alone would guarantee that, even if she couldn’t act worth a damn.

“I’m here because I’ve been told I need your help,” she replied.

He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “That’s something you’re not going to get from me until you’re ready for it. When you’re here because you want to be here, you’ll be ready. Until then, you’re just wasting your time and mine.”

Her face betrayed no emotion whatsoever, but he noticed a quick flash of pain in her eyes. “In that case, Dr. Mattson, I’ll be going,” she said, and turned toward the door.

Kent might have let her walk out except for that flicker of anguish. She was in trouble, real or imagined, and needed help. That was, after all, why he was there, despite his current preoccupation, which he did his best to shake off. “Once you start running from your past, Ms. Harris, it becomes very hard to stop,” he said. “How much longer do you want to live like this?”

His words made her pause, her hand closed around the doorknob. He saw the determined set of her shoulders as she stood motionless, and then she leaned forward until her forehead touched the door, her body rigid. After several long moments she straightened, turned and looked at him.

“I’m tired of running.”

“Good,” Kent said, relieved that he hadn’t driven her away. “You’ve just taken the first step. If you choose to stay, we can begin.”