Chance of a Lifetime

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Chance of a Lifetime

ISBN # 1-4199-0779-4

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Chance of a Lifetime Copyright© 2006 Joey W. Hill

Edited by Briana St. James.

Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication: October 2006

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Content Advisory:

S – ENSUOUS

E – ROTIC

X

-

TREME

Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (Erotic), and X (X-treme).

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic.

S-
ensuous
love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

E-
rotic
love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. E-rated titles might contain material that some readers find objectionable—in other words, almost anything goes, sexually. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry in terms of both sexual language and descriptiveness in these works of literature.

X-
treme
titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Stories designated with the letter X tend to contain difficult or controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

CHANCE OF A LIFETIME

Joey W. Hill

Trademark Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

Glock : Glock Gesellschaft M.B.H. Ltd Liab JT ST CO

Mustang : Ford Motor Company

NASCAR : National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc.

NBA : NBA Properties, Inc.

NFL : National Football League

Porsche : Dr. Ing. H.C.F. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft Corporation Sig Sauer : SIG Swiss Industrial Company

Trans Am : Sports Car Club of America, Incorporated

Chance of a Lifetime

Chapter One

“Stacie, that was inappropriate behavior. I expected more from you than that.”

Inappropriate behavior.

She’d laughed at a joke. The wife of one of John’s co-workers had made the observation, not unkindly, that John’s boss looked like a giraffe. The likeness had been so obvious, she couldn’t help the snort of laughter.

Maybe it had been too loud. Maybe a couple heads had turned. But all she’d done was laugh, for heaven’s sake.

On Monday, her father had freaked out on his new meds and thrown her into a china cabinet. On Wednesday, her mother had needed her diaper changed. When she’d cried through the indignity of it, Stacie had cried too. She’d made multiple calls to the insurance company about a ten-thousand-dollar charge her brother insisted was incorrect and therefore refused to pay. Finally, to top off this terrific week, she’d been roped into being John’s arm candy for this business party, the annual “Summer Fling”

for which he
had
to have a date.

God, she was so sick of worrying about what she said, how she did things. Maybe she’d overreacted. But seeing John’s face when she’d told him to “go to hell” had been worth it. She’d even taken his car, a car that certainly shouldn’t belong to a stuffy corporate ass kisser who color-organized his sock drawer.

“Aarggh!” She pushed her foot down on the accelerator. The Porsche leaped forward. God…it felt so good. On these quiet rural roads, nothing around for miles and miles but corn and a rosy summer sky getting ready for sunset, it felt incredible, like riding a horse. Or riding a man. Maybe both were a form of running, but she didn’t care.

5

Joey W. Hill

Though she hadn’t been out of nursing school more than a year, at the time it had made sense for her to leave her hospital job to serve as a home health care nurse to her parents. Fate had struck a cruel blow, inflicting Alzheimer’s on her father within a month of when her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. As they worsened, she knew they needed a good long-term care facility that could be supplemented by her care.

Her two older brothers had moved north and joined a New York firm, an important career move they said they couldn’t turn down, several months after she moved in with their parents. Both successful CPAs, Carl and Tom saw no reason why she couldn’t provide their parents everything they needed at home. As the eldest child, Tom held power of attorney for their parents. At first, she’d tried to believe their reasoning was emotional, based on love. The “we’re not putting Mom and Dad in a home” mentality, lingering from a time when the only choice was a brick box structure on the side of the highway with a few rocking chairs out front. As time progressed, her opinion changed bitterly. They insisted they would take care of the finances insurance didn’t cover and her living expenses, but everything was a fight and grudgingly given.

Her dating life in the past couple years had been John. It wasn’t dating she cared about, however. She’d asked Tom to pay for a relief nurse to give her a night away from the house once every couple of weeks. He’d hung up on her after calling her a selfish bitch trying to drain his children’s college fund. An hour later, she’d been called by John. A former colleague of her brother’s, he needed an attractive armpiece for his business dinners and didn’t have much time to devote to developing a relationship.

Tom said he’d pay for an overnight relief nurse whenever she chose to go out with John, as long as it didn’t exceed once a month. In return, she suspected John gave him a discount on his brokerage services.

At first, she’d been insulted by the whole situation, including her brother’s assumption she’d need an overnight nurse. After giving it some thought, however, she decided to take advantage of it. On her first date with John, she’d planned to have an 6

Chance of a Lifetime

early night and spend the rest of her evening elsewhere. She’d take a few dollars she’d put aside to check into a cheap motel and read or sleep for the night, enjoy some solitude.

But for reasons she was ashamed to examine too closely, she’d let John coax her into going home with him and succumbing to some perfunctory sex she’d actually been grateful to him for initiating. A weak moment where she’d needed comfort, someone’s sheltering arms.

After that it had become a monthly habit. Go to some idiotic business function, go home with John. At least he fell asleep quickly. She could then slide out of bed and sit by the window, listening to rain patter on the glass or watching the moon. Sometimes she read whatever paperback novel she’d picked up for escapism, knowing the dream it spun would be uninterrupted for a little while. While she was embarrassed at herself, at the whole revolting situation, she knew she didn’t have enough energy left at the end of the day to walk away from it. Her mother was sliding fast toward the end and her father was losing his mind, and she couldn’t give them everything she knew they needed. She was so desperate for that one day a month where she’d get a few hours away from that reality, she was willing to be whored out to get it.

Imagining John’s arms around her now was smothering. Intolerable. Like a dog trying to wriggle under a fence, stuck in the hole he’d dug, she understood why he’d strangle himself to death trying to escape.

Perhaps she’d spend the night just doing this. In college she’d had a Mustang. This car had a lot more power, but it was easy to get used to the difference. She pushed the gas pedal down even farther. It was just her out here, on a silver ribbon of road with hills to give her stomach the thrill of a roller coaster. It was like the feel of first love, the first bite of lust. For once she was going faster than the demons chasing her soul.

Two days ago she’d turned twenty-five. Her mother had hugged her and looked at her with tears in her eyes. She didn’t want her mother to worry about her. Worry about anything. Damn her brothers. Stacie vowed her parents would never see anything but 7

Joey W. Hill

her love. Her mother would
not
pass out of this world thinking she or Dad were a burden to Stacie. Never. They’d cared for her eighteen years and then some.

She’d been a wild child. Not a bad girl, just carefree enough to blow her shot at a scholarship, unlike her brothers. But she’d found her focus in her senior year and Dad had believed in her enough to sell his treasured restored Chevy and pay for her first year of tuition in nursing school. She’d worked her ass off to pay for the rest and make the grades to get the degree.

The two years she’d spent caring for them was nothing.

Just an eternity when she was watching her mother die while her father slowly forgot who his wife and daughter were. When she learned that no matter how hard she tried, one person alone, even medically trained, couldn’t give optimal care to two adults with such disparately different serious long-term illnesses. She was afraid something in her own mind was going to crack wide open soon, like Humpty-Dumpty on his wall.

She put the gas pedal all the way to the floor, trying to push all of that away and the panicked desperation that went with it.

She let out a short yip of alarm at a sharp blast of noise. Glancing up in the mirror, she saw flashing blue lights about a quarter mile back.

“You have got to be fuc…KIDDING!” She rolled her eyes. “Stop it. You’re alone, Stacie. You can swear.
Say it.
F-fuck. You’ve got to be FUCKING kidding!” She glared at the rearview mirror in triumph. She’d cussed. Not one of those weak everybody-used-them words like damn or hell. She wished John had been here to hear it, just for a moment. His mouth would have hung open like he’d just been hit in the head by a flounder.
Inappropriate behavior.

Bite me.

What in hell was a cop doing out here in a county area so remote the radio stations had static? She’d no idea how fast she was going, but she was sure it was at least twenty miles over the speed limit. It wasn’t fair. Had she been like her self-absorbed brothers in a previous life, and this was karma?

8

Chance of a Lifetime

Fine. Taking a deep breath, she pulled over. She could handle one cop. The threat of jail had all the appeal to her of a weekend spa session.
With
a full body massage.

She glanced in the side view mirror as the cop’s car door opened. If she hadn’t been used to seeing refitted drug dealer cars used in the city all the time by the police, she might have suffered a fleeting worry about a blue light bandit posing as a police officer.