Second Chances Boxed Set: 7 Sweet & Sexy Romances in 1 Book Read online

  SECOND CHANCES

  SEVEN SWEET AND SEXY CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

  by:

  TRACEY ALVAREZ

  DIANA FRASER

  JANET ELIZABETH HENDERSON

  JOANNE HILL

  KRIS PEARSON

  SHIRLEY WINE

  SERENITY WOODS

  There’s nothing sweeter than the promise of a second-chance romance that somehow fell apart the first time around.

  Join seven top New Zealand indie authors as they chart the course of rekindled romances after tender teenage infatuations, failed first-time marriages, friendships that never quite made it over the line, and partnerships previously forbidden.

  This collection of contemporary novels is a limited time special offer. Heat levels vary from sensual to downright sexy—there’s something for everyone.

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN 978-1-927323-04-5

  For more about these authors please visit

  KIWIINDIES.COM

  In Too Deep

  Copyright 2014, Tracey Alvrez

  The Playboy’s Redemption

  Copyright 2013, Diana Fraser

  Laura’s Big Break

  Copyright 2012, Janet Kortlever

  Dating Daisy

  Copyright 2012, Joanne Hill

  The Wrong Sister

  Copyright 2012, Kris Pearson

  Return to Totara Park

  Copyright 2012, Shirley Wine

  His Christmas Present

  Copyright 2012, Serenity Woods

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations, and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is co-incidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the authors.

  Contents

  In Too Deep — Tracey Alvarez

  To save her brother from financial ruin, police diver Piper Harland does the one thing she swore she’d never do—return to the tiny island hometown on Stewart Island where Ryan “West” Westlake crushed her heart. West lost Piper once, but now she’s back for an unexpected six week visit. Maybe he wants her a little bit, but can he fall in love with such a flight risk?

  The Playboy’s Redemption — Diana Fraser

  James Mackenzie is tired of his shallow lifestyle and wants a family. But before he begins his new life he wants to secure the future of the woman he wronged ten years before. The last thing Susie Henderson needs is her ex lover buying the winery in which she works and threatening her independence. Because how can she trust someone who betrayed her, someone who doesn't even believe in himself?

  Laura’s Big Break — Janet Elizabeth Henderson

  Laura needs to interview war hero Charlie to keep her job. She'd rather stick a fork in her eye. Charlie jokes that he won't say a word unless Laura comes along on his cycling holiday. Sport phobic Laura has no choice but to agree. It's two weeks of hell in Holland - and that's before Charlie discovers she can't ride a bike!

  Dating Daisy — Joanne Hill

  When Daisy Miller discovers a new dating show in town, she auditions in the hope of getting promotion for her ailing bookshop. She figured she’d never win. She was wrong. Ancient History Professor Joel Benjamin—the loser boy Daisy once spent a memorable night with—chooses Daisy. But Joel's only on the show as a favour to his best mate and dating Daisy threatens his dream of becoming an Associate Professor.

  The Wrong Sister — Kris Pearson

  From the 'Wicked in Wellington' series. Fiona Delaporte has an impossible assignment - to care for her newly widowed brother-in-law and his tiny daughter. (The newly widowed tall, dark and delicious brother-in-law she's secretly wanted for five long, frustrating years.) WARNING: Contains one hot man who always gets what he wants - in bed and out.

  Return to Totara Park — Shirley Wine

  Winsome Grainger left Totara Park vowing never to return. A vow broken when she and her estranged husband, each inherit a half share in the estate. She has had time to regret not telling Jared why she walked out on him, and their marriage... Too late Winsome learns she’s a pawn in a dark and deadly game. A game whose rules she doesn’t know

  His Christmas Present — Serenity Woods

  A romantic Christmas novella. Dion Wallace turns up in New Zealand hoping for a quiet break after the stress of his father's betrayal, and maybe also to reconnect with Megan Green, whom he hasn't seen since they met in Prague a year before. Megan has a Christmas present for him - but it's not quite what he was expecting...

  In Too Deep

  —Due South Book 1—

  Tracey Alvarez

  Dedication

  For my mum. You were gone by the time I started writing this book but there are traces of you in it and my grief over losing you when I was so unprepared. Love you, Mum.

  I hope you’d be proud.

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN 978-0-473-27216-6

  Copyright © 2013 by Tracey Alvrez

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Tracey Alvarez/Icon Publishing

  PO Box 45, Ahipara, New Zealand.

  www.traceyalvarez.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  When death revealed a pale hand to Piper Harland she didn’t turn away, but kicked toward it and grabbed hold.

  Sixty-five feet below Lake Tikitapu’s crystal blue water, she found the seventeen-year-old water-skier who’d disappeared yesterday evening. Now that they had pinpointed his location, Piper would return the boy to his grief-stricken family, huddled above on the shore of one of New Zealand’s most picturesque lakes.

  Through her face mask she examined the body, while tugging on her swim-line to signal the rest of the squad that she’d found their objective. And right now she needed to be objective. Sucking air from the regulator, her gaze returned to the boy’s waxen skin. Her heart clenched, stuttered, and raced faster and faster. Under her neoprene wetsuit, an icy shiver skittered down her spine.

  C’mon, Pipe. Forget the past. Don’t you dare lose it.

  A movement to her left and her dive buddy, Senior Constable Tom Carpenter, finned to her side. His eyebrows lifted above steady brown eyes, his gloved thumb and forefinger forming a questioning “O.” She nodded, mirroring the signal.

  She was okay, dammit.

  Piper hadn’t made the elite Police National Dive Squad two years ago by allowing on-the-job stress to shake her, and she wasn’t a rookie freaking out
on her first body recovery dive. She’d been trained to deal with the dead.

  But the teen beside her bore a resemblance to a younger Ryan Westlake, her first love. She tried to shrug it off. She hadn’t thought of Ryan “West” Westlake in years. Well, maybe months. Okay, weeks.

  Piper glanced again at the boy, his shaggy, dark hair waving in the current like fine strands of kelp. Blood thrummed thickly in her eardrums as the regulator rasped, and she inhaled a quick gulp of air. And then another.

  No. She wouldn’t allow her mind to go there.

  But the momentary bolt of panic was enough to reduce her smooth, coordinated kicks to fumbled thrashes of her fins as she struggled to remain neutrally buoyant. Sediment billowed behind her and swept forward over the body, momentarily obscuring its features.

  Behind the face mask Tom’s gaze sharpened, and he pointed at the rapid belch of bubbles escaping from her regulator, a clear indication she was breathing in and out way too fast. He made a thumbs up, a mute instruction to ascend.

  Crap. She wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all herself.

  The victim’s lifeless eyes, focused through the deep blue to the sky above, set her heart slamming against her ribs. Tom tapped her arm and signaled again, this time with more emphasis. She released her grip on the boy’s wrist, placing it in Tom’s capable hands.

  She had to get out of there. Right now.

  Relying solely on her years of training Piper followed the line upward, keeping a check on her dive computer. She made the mandatory three-minute safety stop sixteen feet below the lake’s sparkling surface. Seconds dragged as she attempted to steady her breathing. The mask dug into her face, the bottled air bitter on her tongue. For the first time she understood at a gut level the panic that drove some divers to risk the bends as they thrashed away from the claustrophobic depths.

  Piper waited out her one hundred and eighty crawling seconds with her gaze fixated on the hull above, drawing on every hour of intensive training, every hard won skill, to remain static.

  She was okay, dammit.

  Bursting into bright sunshine she swam to the boat and didn’t look back.

  Nearly twenty-four hours after returning to the city where she lived and worked, Piper remained trapped at Wellington’s Central Police Station. She collated a report for the coroner’s inquiry and then endured a dour-faced psychologist picking through her brain—because Tom’s suspicions had been aroused thanks to her near freak out. And worse? She couldn’t blame him. Her reaction could’ve jeopardized the whole team.

  Piper slammed her locker door, glaring at it while buttoning her jeans. She adjusted her tee shirt and tugged on her battered leather jacket, feeling half clothed without her pressed uniform blues and heavy stab-resistant vest.

  Her pocket vibrated, and she yanked out her phone. The text from her sister said, “Call me when you get home. IMPORTANT.”

  Hell, what else could go wrong today?

  She shoved the phone back in her pocket, snatched up her backpack and left the locker room.

  “Hey, Piper?” Tom strolled along the corridor toward her. “You ready to tell me what really happened at Tikitapu?”

  She froze.

  “You gave me the rose-colored version at yesterday’s debrief by the lake. Now I want the non-prettied up version.”

  “Nothing happened. I’m fine.” She swung the backpack onto her shoulder and folded her arms across her diaphragm.

  “Fisher the shrink doesn’t think so.” He leaned against the wall opposite, a six-foot-three chunk of solid muscle with a soft side few knew about—except perhaps his wife and twin baby girls. “How long have we worked together, kid? I know when you’re dodging bullets.”

  “I’m not a kid—ah, crap.” She raked shaky fingers through her hair, pulling the short strands until her scalp stung. “Fisher stood me down from the squad today—effective for two weeks. Two weeks back to the normal daily grind of paperwork and patrol.”

  Tom shoved his hands into the pockets of his regulation pants. “Well, you knew we were a part time squad when you applied. You did normal duties before you became a dive cop and you continue to do it daily unless we get a call out—be thankful we’re not pulling someone’s seventeen-year-old kid out of a lake every day.”

  “Sound like a whiny cow, don’t I?” Piper grimaced.

  He sighed. “Look, Fisher gave me a heads-up a few minutes ago that you’d failed the assessment and I hate to say he’s right—” his voice gentled “—but it’s not the first trouble you’ve had on a body recovery, is it?”

  When she glared at him, he shrugged. “Look Piper, you work like a woman possessed, so why not treat this as a holiday. Even better, go south and see your relatives. It’s, what, eight years since you’ve been home?”

  Home. Stewart Island. Bush-covered hills, cold azure ocean, and abundant birdlife.

  A lump of hardened grief and loss amassed in her belly.

  “Nine.” She planted her feet wide apart on the pitted linoleum floor. “But it’s not like I don’t keep in touch. I talk to Shaye and Mum all the time.” If she counted text messages and stilted phone conversations with her younger sister and mother as keeping in touch.

  “Kid, you don’t talk, really talk, to anyone.” Her chin lifted higher and Tom tugged on his earlobe with a sigh. “It’s unnatural for a woman not to yatter on about her feelings.”

  “Try saying that in front of your wife, boss.”

  “Well, my ear’s here if you wanna use it. You got a little squirrelly, but we all do at one time or another. Still, you did good. We gave the boy back to his family.”

  “I know.” She couldn’t meet his gaze as the old familiar ache rose in her chest.

  She did what she’d been trained to do, achieving the goals she set as an eighteen-year-old cadet entering Police College. She recovered the dead this time, but nine years ago she’d been unable to return her own father to the family.

  She fastened a fat, false smile on her lips. “Maybe I will take that holiday. Seats to the Gold Coast are on sale this week. See you ‘round, boss.”

  Tom shook his head as she sauntered past. “Not if I see you first.”

  Off the southernmost tip of New Zealand, Piper clung to the ferry’s handrail as it wallowed across Foveaux Strait to her hometown, Oban, on Stewart Island. Sea spray splattered onto her face, salt stinging the corners of her slitted eyes.

  She was about to throw up. Repeatedly throw up. And afterward she’d have to drag her weakened carcass under a bench and curl into a fetal ball to die. The manufacturers of useless seasickness pills had better watch out, because she’d be haunting their asses.

  God, she hated this stretch of water.

  Unpredictable and often dangerous, the churning grey waves of the Strait reflected the gathering storm clouds above. Another howling southerly squall on the way. Perfect. She could be sunning herself without a care on the Gold Coast, but instead she’d taken a call from her panicked sister two days ago and used up all her accumulated leave to head south. Now she endured a near-death experience to try and save her older brother Ben from losing his house and business—not that he’d thank her for it.

  “Just six weeks,” she muttered as the ferry roiled into the small harbor, the anchored boats bobbing and tossing so violently she closed her eyes. “Anyone could do six weeks.”

  Kind of made Fisher’s two weeks off squad duty almost look appealing.

  The ferry docked with a bone-rattling thump. She peered at the town’s distant lights shimmering through the light rain as she stepped onto the wharf, though “town” was too big a word for the local pub/restaurant/hotel, the cluster of small stores, and the community hall.

  Nothing changed. Time stood still here.

  Piper tugged the baseball cap lower on her head and zipped her leather jacket shut. People swept by, surrounding her with a chatter of bright voices and the rattle of suitcase wheels along the planks. She hoisted her hiker’s backpack and strode off the wh
arf onto Oban’s main road.

  Her stomach looped into a series of reef knots, each growing tighter the closer her steps carried her into the center of town. She stopped at the children’s playground opposite the Due South Bar and Restaurant. A grassy slope led to a jumble of rocks and a beach dotted with clumps of seaweed. Overturned dinghies framed a picture-perfect island scene—ruined only by spitting skies and the choppy grey waves surging across the sand.

  Raucous laughter drifted through the open doors of the bar. Someone roared, “C’mon Gav—drink, drink, drink!” The locals claimed Friday night as their own and without a doubt her brother Ben would be there. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket and hunched her shoulders against the chilly air. Watching from the outside, yet again.

  Light spilled from the large windows of the double-story building. The Westlake family had owned and operated Due South for the last fifty years, and the watering hole was the hub and heart of the town. Cocooned behind the glass, secure and enfolded by the warmth of familiarity, men and women she’d grown up with drank beer and gossiped.

  She had to go inside and face her brother, face them all.

  Face Ryan Westlake.

  West.

  Piper’s pulse rate jetted into the stratosphere and she sucked in a gulp of sea air.