Full Exposure: Book One: Independence Falls, page 1
Dedication
To the women who are currently serving in our nation’s military or have served—thank you.
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Acknowledgments
First, thank you to my wonderful agent, Jill Marsal at the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, for challenging me every step of the way, and for finding a wonderful home for this story at Avon Impulse.
To my editor, Amanda Bergeron, your insights and suggestions made this story shine, and for that you have my humble gratitude. This story marks my Impulse debut and my first opportunity to work with Avon’s talented and hardworking marketing, publicity, and art departments—thank you for your efforts. And a special shout-out to Shawn Nicholls and Gretchen Swartley. You both are awesome.
Thank you to Monica Jelden for sharing your knowledge about the timber industry. Any mistakes are my own.
I could not have written this book (or any book) without the support of my family. To my children, thank you for inspiring me every day. I promise to always protect you from scary bears.
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Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Sara Jane Stone
An Excerpt from White Collared Part One: Mercy by Shelly Bell
An Excerpt from Winning Miss Wakefield by Vivienne Lorret
An Excerpt from Intoxicated by Monica Murphy
An Excerpt from Once Upon a Highland Autumn by Lecia Cornwall
An Excerpt from The Gunslinger by Lorraine Heath
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
GEORGIA TRULANE WALKED into the kitchen wearing a purple bikini, hoping and praying for a reaction from the man she’d known practically forever. Seated at the kitchen table, Eric Moore, her brother’s best friend, now her boss since she’d taken over the care of his adopted nephew until he found another live-in nanny, studied his laptop as if it held the keys to the world’s greatest mysteries. Unless the answers were listed between items b and c on a spreadsheet about Oregon timber harvesting, the screen was not of earth-shattering importance. It certainly did not merit his full attention when she was wearing an itsy-bitsy string bikini.
“Nate is asleep,” she said.
Look up. Please, look up.
Eric nodded, his gaze fixed to the screen. Why couldn’t he look at her with that unwavering intensity? He’d snuck glances. There had been moments when she’d turned from preparing his nephew’s lunch and caught him looking at her, really looking, as if he wanted to memorize the curve of her neck or the way her jeans fit. But he quickly turned away.
“Did you pick up everything he needs for his first day of school tomorrow? I don’t want to send him unprepared.”
His deep voice warmed her from the inside out. It was so familiar and welcoming, yet at the same time utterly sexy.
“I got all the items on the list,” she said. “He is packed and ready to go.”
“He needs another one of those stuffed frogs. He can’t go without his favorite stuffed animal.”
If she hadn’t been standing in his kitchen practically naked, waiting for him to notice her, she would have found his concern for the three-year-old’s first day of preschool sweet, maybe even heartwarming. But her body wasn’t looking for sentiments reminiscent of sunshine and puppies, or the whisper of sweet nothings against her skin. She craved physical contact—his hands on her, exploring, each touch making her feel more alive.
And damn it, he still hadn’t glanced up from his laptop.
“Nate will be home by nap time,” she said. “He’ll be there for only a few hours. You know that, right?”
“He’ll want to take his frog,” he said, his fingers moving across the keyboard. “He’ll probably lose it. And he sleeps with that thing every night. He needs that frog.”
She might be practically naked, but his emphasis on the word need thrust her headfirst into heartwarming territory. Eric worked day and night to provide Nate with the stability that had been missing from Eric’s childhood thanks to his divorced parents’ fickle dating habits. She admired his willingness to put a child who’d suffered a tragic loss first.
But tonight, for one night, she didn’t want to think about all of his honorable qualities. She wanted to see if maybe, just maybe those stolen glances when he thought she wasn’t looking meant that the man she’d laid awake thinking about while serving her country half a world away wanted her too.
“You’re now the proud owner of two stuffed frogs,” she said. “So if that’s everything for tonight, I’m going for a swim.”
Finally, finally, he looked up. She watched as his blue eyes widened and his jaw clenched. He was an imposing man, large and strong from years of climbing and felling trees. Not that he did the grunt work anymore. These days he wore tailored suits and spent more time in an office than with a chainsaw in hand. But even seated at his kitchen table poring over a computer, he looked like a wall of strong, solid muscle wound tight and ready for action. Having all of that energy focused on her? It sent a thrill down her body. Georgia clung to the feeling, savoring it.
His gaze dropped to her breasts, briefly, before returning to her face. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down dress shirt, revealing the corded muscles of his forearms. From across the kitchen, she could see those muscles tensing, his hands forming fists.
Yearning to touch? To pull at her bikini strings? Or was that wishful thinking on her part? Was she so crazed with desire for the six-foot-two man with the short black hair she longed to run her fingers through that she was imagining his reaction? Maybe he was horrified that his friend’s little sister looked as if she belonged poolside at a Vegas hotel. Or maybe he was so shocked he didn’t know what to make of the suit she’d ordered from Victoria’s Secret. He generally saw her in jeans and a T-shirt while she chased after Nate, or for the years before she’d become his nanny, her US Army fatigues.
“It’s late,” he said, his tone neutral.
“Eric, it’s eight o’clock and it is still August. The sun hasn’t disappeared behind the mountains. It’s the perfect night for a swim.”
Eric frowned. “The pond water is cold.”
He lived on two hundred acres on the outskirts of Independence Falls, a small town in the heart of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, surrounded by mountains. The water was always cold. And she loved it that way. It made her feel alive.
“It will be refreshing.” Georgia paused, biting her lower lip. She had a long list of reasons not to ask. That she might lose her temporary job as his nanny came a close third to the fact her brother would kill her. But her top reason? Pushing their friendship into uncharted waters might blow up in her face.
He’d always been there for her. When she’d gone out drinking for the first time in high school and downed one too many, she’d called Eric, not her brother or her parents, for a ride. Now Eric ran a multimillion-dollar timber business, the largest in the Pacific Northwest. Yet he’d taken the time to email her every few days while she’d served overseas.
Eric Moore was her friend. But she’d been sneaking I-want-you glances at him since she was a teenager. She’d dreamed about him, fantasizing about how he would look stripped out of his business suits.
Common sense told her the safe and sensible thing was to walk out the door now without another word. Let her dreams remain in her head. Pursuing Eric could lead to disaster. But she’d witnessed tragedy and chaos firsthand, rendering her brother’s demand from their conversation this morning impossible. Settle down, Georgia, her brother had said. But she couldn’t. She refused to calmly watch her life pass her by filled with longing for a man she shouldn’t want. Now that she was home safe and sound from a war zone, she was done holding back.
“Maybe you should join me,” she said. “I could grab the monitor for Nate’s room. The signal reaches to the pond. We’d hear if he woke up.”
Heat flashed in his eyes. No, she hadn’t imagined it. It had been a long time, more than a year, since a man had looked at her as if he wanted to get close enough to touch her. Still, she remembered. But Eric quickly buried the spark of desire. Shaking his head, he returned his attention to his computer screen.
“Too much work.” This time his tone was tight and on edge. She could hear the longing, the wanting, but knew he was holding back because he thought it was the right thing to do. Georgia shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She crossed the kitchen, heading for the sliding door that led to bluestone patio and down to the pond. Her back was to him, but she felt his gaze on her as she slipped out into the night.
The cool air danced across her skin as she walked barefoot ove
Georgia ran faster, taking comfort in her body’s strength, inside and out, drawing solace from her ability to push forward. Slowing down was not an option no matter how much her brother wanted her to return to the quiet life she’d led before she’d joined the army. She wanted to jump from airplanes, feel the wind in her hair as she galloped across an open field on horseback, and more than anything, she wanted to make love. Now. Tonight. She refused to wait, allowing the days to disappear.
She’d played by the rules and avoided romantic entanglements while she’d served her country, which, put bluntly, meant no sex. For twenty long months. She wanted to feel a man’s body against hers, pushing inside her. And not just any man. She wanted Eric.
He’d been her brother’s friend since first grade. She’d grown up tagging along, and over the years, he’d become her friend too. But they’d never had a brother/sister relationship. There had always been something between them. Something hot they’d been too afraid to act on.
Not anymore. She’d survived one long deployment in Afghanistan. She refused to settle, to stand on the sidelines of her own life. She couldn’t do that, not when so many of the men and women she’d served with no longer had the chance to live, to swim, to experience the world around them—and make their every fantasy come true.
Georgia glanced back at the house. With the kitchen light on, she could see Eric standing by the sink, looking out the window. She had a long list of fantasies that started and ended with Eric. She was dying to strip him out of his business suits and run her hands over the muscles built from years of working alongside his crews. She wanted to taste him, explore every inch of his body, and witness the expression in his piercing blue eyes when he lost himself in pleasure.
But did she have the guts to approach him? To go to his room, his bed? To push him to act on the desire written all over his face?
She wiggled her toes in the cold grass. She was alive. She could do anything. She had to cling to that, remind herself over and over. Otherwise it would feel as if her world had slipped away because she’d been too weak to hold on.
Her bare feet touched the dock and she broke into a run, knowing he was watching. At the end of the wooden planks, she dove into the water. The cold shocked her senses. Her lungs contracted and her limbs went numb. But she didn’t fight it. The water was like an ice-cold barrier against her memories. The images of the men and women being blown to pieces, the feeling of her friend’s lifeless body in her arms as she tried to drag him to safety—it all froze in the pond’s cold depths.
Georgia swam deeper, pushing herself farther, knowing she required air. But part of her needed this more. Finally, her lungs screaming, she kicked her way back to the top.
When she surfaced, her bikini bottom floated beside her. She reached behind her head and pulled on the strings, freeing her breasts from the top. Tossing both pieces onto the dock, she glanced back at the house. Eric stood in the window watching her, his expression grim. Georgia gave a little wave and dove back under.
The water felt good, but knowing she planned to go after what she wanted felt even better. She swam deeper, faster. He might turn her away. Eric was steadfast and loyal. His moral compass would probably balk at going to bed with his employee, never mind the fact that her brother was his best friend and the number two at his company. Could desire override all of that?
She pushed back to the surface for another breath of air, clinging to the hope that the answer would be yes. Either way, she’d find out tonight.
ERIC TURNED AWAY from the kitchen window and closed his eyes. Georgia was naked in his pond. Raw need had a stranglehold on him, pushing him to think with something other than his brain and follow her into the water. But common sense told him it was wrong. And he always did the right thing.
He’d taken in his sister’s kid when she’d died in a car wreck with her husband last year. He’d built his father’s logging business into the largest operation in the country. And he’d employed his best friend’s little sister as Nate’s nanny when Liam asked. It was a bad idea then, and after three weeks of living under the same roof as Georgia, it was downright treacherous.
He’d had a raging hard-on for her from day one. He went to bed dreaming about running his mouth over every inch of her petite body. Judging from what he’d seen tonight, when she’d appeared in his kitchen wearing that poor excuse for a bathing suit, her breasts were the perfect size for his hands. He’d wanted to touch them since before he even knew what to do with a beautiful pair of breasts. Now he could drive her wild.
But he couldn’t lay a hand on her, especially not tonight. Liam was stopping by to see her. He hadn’t told Georgia because her brother wanted to surprise her. Plus, Liam didn’t want his little sister thinking he was checking up on her. But he was.
Fighting in a war—she might be a woman, but he knew for a fact she’d seen action while deployed—had changed her. Georgia had always been outgoing, but never daring. Now it was as if she required excitement. Within two days of arriving home, she had gone skydiving and received her first speeding ticket.
Georgia needed something to keep her out of trouble until she calmed down and agreed to get help dealing with the shit she’d seen and done overseas. And Eric had an opening for a nanny. She might be a little wild, but Eric trusted her not to do anything stupid while looking after Nate. So far, Liam’s plan was working. Since she’d started living at his place, she hadn’t embarked on a single life-threatening adventure. Instead, she’d turned all her attention to driving him crazy. She probably thought sex was her next big rush.
It stunk that she’d decided to toy with him. But then again, she had no clue he’d wanted her for as long as he could remember. He’d valued his friendship with her and her brother too much to act on those feelings. Still did.
He shifted in his chair. His mind knew he couldn’t touch her, but it felt as if other parts of his body hadn’t received the memo.
Eric closed his laptop—he couldn’t work when he couldn’t concentrate—and headed for his bedroom. Unzipping his pants, he sat on the edge of his bed, the one he slept in alone every damn night. Liam would be here soon, and he didn’t plan to greet him sporting a hard-on for his sister. Christ, if Liam saw her in that skimpy suit, or splashing around in the water without it, he’d put two and two together and start throwing punches. And Eric would deserve every hit.
Reaching inside his boxers, he freed his erection. He wrapped his hand around himself and closed his eyes. He pictured Georgia in his kitchen, walking toward him, pulling at the strings to her bikini. In his mind, she sat on the edge of his large, oak kitchen table, leaning back, offering him the view of a lifetime.
The things he could do to her on that slab of wood. He imagined what it would feel like to run his hand over her pale skin from her neck, down between her breasts, his fingers moving lower and lower until they found her wet, slick, and wanting. The mental picture pushed him close to coming.
Eric groaned and picked up the pace, his hand holding tight, moving up and down his shaft. Moisture beaded at the top. He captured it, using it to lubricate his movements. It wouldn’t be long now.
The soft sound of a door sliding open invaded the quiet. He felt a rush of night air, and the hand holding his dick stilled. He opened his eyes and looked toward the sliding glass door that led from his master bedroom to the patio.
Georgia stood there, a towel wrapped around her body.
What the hell? He kept his bedroom doors closed and locked. His housekeeper must have left the glass doors unlocked. He moved to cover himself.
“No, don’t stop,” she said, her eyes fixed on the hand trying to stuff his hard-on back into his pants.
“You shouldn’t be here, Georgia,” he said, his voice strained. “You need to go. And next time, knock.”
