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How To Find A Man In Five Dates
Tina Beckett
When the clock strikes midnight…Dr Miranda Dupris is fed up of men! Her ban on relationships is a New Year’s resolution she is determined to keep. To prove it, she’ll go on twenty-five dates in one year, and that’s first dates only. Maybe then Mira will be able to find Mr Right!Finding a man is one thing. But when sun-kissed doc Jack Perry arrives in a spray of perfect snow it soon looks as if Mira might be destined to lose her hundred dollar bet…along with her heart!New Year’s Resolutions!Resolutions are made to be broken…!
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS!
Resolutions are made to be broken …!
Childhood friends Mira and Ellory each make a New Year's Resolution to stay away from love. Little do they know that fate has other things in mind …
When two hunky doctors hit the slopes, escaping their past in the deep snowy mountains, the last thing they expect to find is two wonderful women who can heal minds, bodies and souls … and maybe these brooding doctors’ hearts!
This New Year, lose yourself in these magical snowy romances from
Mills & Boon
Medical Romance™ authors
Tina Beckett and Amalie Berlin
Read Jack and Mira's story in
HOW TO FIND A MAN IN FIVE DATES
Read Anson and Ellory's story in
BREAKING HER NO-DATING RULE
Dear Reader (#u28c7e899-b033-59f1-bfb5-0ffea1fc94a2)
I seem to have a love/hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. I love making them. Keeping them? Hmm … not so much.
When the heroine of HOW TO FIND A MAN IN FIVE DATES makes a crazy resolution one snowy New Year’s Eve she has every intention of keeping it. After all, she’s fresh out of a disastrous relationship and not looking to start anything new. What she doesn’t count on, however, is coming to the rescue of a surfer-dude-turned-newbie-skier when he wipes out on his first run down the slopes. What starts off as one date turns into two, and soon she is doing some slipping and sliding of her own … emotionally.
Thank you for joining Mira and Jack as they make their way down a treacherous slope where trust and self-forgiveness become rules to live by—and hopefully find love along the way. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I loved writing it!
Have fun on those ski slopes of life—and maybe even break a resolution or two of your own!
Love
Tina Beckett
Born to a family that was always on the move, TINA BECKETT learned to pack a suitcase almost before she knew how to tie her shoes. Fortunately she met a man who also loved to travel, and she snapped him right up. Married for over twenty years, Tina has three wonderful children and has lived in gorgeous places such as Portugal and Brazil.
Living where English reading material is difficult to find has its drawbacks, however. Tina had to come up with creative ways to satisfy her love for romance novels, so she picked up her pen and tried writing one. After her tenth book she realised she was hooked. She was officially a writer.
A three-time Golden Heart finalist, and fluent in Portuguese, Tina now divides her time between the United States and Brazil. She loves to use exotic locales as the backdrop for many of her stories. When she’s not writing you can find her either on horseback or soldering stained glass panels for her home.
Tina loves to hear from readers. You can contact her through her website or ‘friend’ her on Facebook.
How to Find a Man
in Five Dates
Tina Beckett
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u7d664134-6558-5aaf-a77f-b29f9a1c8437)
Dear Reader
About the Author (#u28c06a63-3419-5bf5-a982-a6585bf199f6)
Title Page (#ucd7a0c94-fada-58ea-87c5-7a7254f45cb4)
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#u28c7e899-b033-59f1-bfb5-0ffea1fc94a2)
HERE’S TO A brand-new year.
Dr. Miranda Dupris clutched her empty champagne flute and waited for the dreaded annual countdown to begin. The huge gathering area of her father’s lodge—with its vaulted ceilings and blazing fireplace—was packed, the free food and drinks drawing in legions of guests and employees, all hoping the year ahead would be kinder than the one they were leaving behind.
Or maybe that was just her.
A fresh glass of glittery amber liquid was pressed into her hand, while the empty one was plucked free and deposited onto the tray of one of the serving staff. The smell of champagne clogged her senses, its sharp bite a welcome diversion.
“Mira, we totally forgot to make our resolutions!” Her best friend grinned at her, long blonde curls bouncing as she swirled the contents of her own glass. “Let’s do them now. That way you can dump Robert into the universe’s nearest black hole and start over.”
At the mention of her ex-fiancé, Mira curled her toes into the ankle-slaying red stilettos while the familiar sting of betrayal lanced through her gut.
Never again. Never, ever again.
If anyone was jumping into the nearest black hole, it was going to be her.
She was done with relationships. For good this time. Three failed engagements in the last seven years should tell her something.
“I’m all for that.” She forced her lips to tilt upward, trying not to ruin their New Year’s Eve tradition, something she and Ellory had done for the last ten years in this very room. She lifted her glass. “I’ll even go first. I hereby swear off committed relationships for the next twelve months.”
Her friend laughed. “What about uncommitted ones?”
What about them?
Oh! Her foggy brain finally put two and two together. Ellory was asking if she was swearing off men altogether. Was she?
Maybe that was a bit too extreme. She did like men. Some of them, anyway. Just not certain bastardly ski instructors.
“Uncommitted is good. More than good, actually.” She raised her glass even higher. “Okay, how about this, then? I resolve to date twenty-five men over the next year with no emotional involvement whatsoever. Zip. Nada.”
Her friend blinked. “Whoa.” Ellory now had to yell over the crowd as the clock hands on the huge screen across from them shifted closer and closer to the witching hour. “Are you serious? Miss Monogamy Dupris is going to serial date?”
Um … yes. Why not?
The idea sounded more and more attractive. Or maybe that was the three glasses of champagne she’d had. Whatever. She took another bracing sip. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Serial date. Twenty-five men … one year.”
“This I’ve got to see. Bet you a hundred bucks you either back out or you don’t make it past man number five without getting attached to him.”
Ha! Unless the fifth guy was a puppy hiding in a man suit, she didn’t see that happening.
“Make it ten men. No, wait … all twenty-five. And backing out is not an option.” She waggled her shoulders back and forth, her courage growing with each passing moment. “Tell you what. Next New Year’s Eve we’ll see who pays whom. Your turn. What’s your resolution? And it’d better be good!”
“Well, if you can swear off serious relationships, I can swear off men altogether—maybe work on myself for a change, take on a project. And I’ll bet the same amount of money that I will follow through.” Ellory’s expression had taken on a serious note, totally out of character for her fun-loving friend.
But with the hands almost at the top of the dial, she didn’t have time to question her. “Okay, so we each have a hundred dollars riding on our resolutions, right?”
“Right.”
She’d just gotten the words out when a cacophony of voices began chanting backwards from ten. Ellory clinked her glass against Mira’s and they downed the last of their drinks.
Confetti rained all around her, the cheers and laughter of the crowd forming a frothy wave of mirth that carried her up and out of her funk. Mira caught her friend up in a tight hug, so glad Ellory had come to stay with her for a while.
She stepped back, about to say something, when a masculine voice came from behind her. “Well, well, well. Looks like I’m not the only one without a date tonight. Or are you two together?”
Mira’s eyes widened when she realized the slightly slurred tones were far too close to her ear for comfort. Still holding onto one of Ellory’s hands, she raised her brows in question. Surely not.
“Turn around,” her friend mouthed. “He’s talking to you.”
Knees quivering, Mira released her hand and pivoted on the spiked heel of her shoe until she was face to face with a beefy hunk who could have stepped straight out of an ad for a gym membership. He was tall and buff, and his too-tanned-to-be-real neck rose from a pressed white shirt and black tux. His blue eyes gleamed with something that looked like … interest. Or boredom. She couldn’t decide which.
“I—I …” Her mind went blank, and she scrabbled for the nearest coherent sentence. “Er … hello.”
How the hell did one serial date, anyway? She’d have to ask Ellory for some pointers later.
The man’s smile grew. “I waited a whole ten minutes to make sure no irate boyfriend was going to bust my jaw for coming over here. I noticed you as soon as you walked through the door. Are you alone?”
Oh, no. Not this fast.
She glanced back at her friend, who opened her beaded purse and tipped it toward her with a knowing jiggle. “You want to pay up now, honey?”
Egads. The woman knew right where to hit.
Straightening her spine, she turned back to the man in question. “Yep. I’m alone.”
“What say I buy you a drink, then?”
Since the booze was free, that was hardly an enticing offer. But if her job was to stay unattached, this guy seemed like the obvious choice.
“What say you do?” Mira tried for a purr, but it came off sounding like an asthmatic wheeze.
Before she could chicken out, she handed her empty champagne glass to Ellory, who stared at her with undisguised shock. Mira leaned forward and whispered two words, drawing them out for emphasis. “Game. On.”
CHAPTER ONE (#u28c7e899-b033-59f1-bfb5-0ffea1fc94a2)
JACKSON PERRY WAS going to fall.
No matter how many times he tried to stab his ski poles into the snow, they ended up flailing around like twin javelins about to be launched by a drunken athlete.
Make your skis into a wedge to slow your rate of descent.
The instructor’s mandatory lesson played through his skull, but actually obeying that advice was almost impossible, since he was too busy trying to find his center of gravity as his body continued to pick up speed down the slope. He tried to ride it out like a surfer on a killer wave. Only skis were nothing like the smooth, wide surface of his well-waxed board. And the ground looked a whole lot harder than the soft embrace of the ocean.
Wobble.
Correct.
Wobble.
Correct.
Not. Gonna. Freakin’. Work …
