Moving On
A Novella
By Jennifer Simpkins
Blurb:
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Love
hasn’t come easy to Hadley Jameson. With her daughter away at college, she’s
decided to take time for herself and figure out what comes next. A cabin at
Wildflower Creek seems like the perfect place to spend some time alone and
gather her thoughts. But when she finds a strange man with sad eyes and a sexy
grin in her cabin, her vacation plans change.
Being
a firefighter, Ethan Crocker has seen some awful scenes play out, but none of
his training could prepare him for when he’s called on to save someone close to
home. When tragedy strikes, his life spirals out of control. After months of
living in a fog, he’s determined to get his life back on track and be happy
again. As luck would have it he finds a beautiful naked woman standing on the
patio of his cabin rental, giving him the perfect distraction.
Excerpt:
This wasn’t the first
time Ethan Crocker had seen a beautiful women. Take that back, a beautiful
semi-naked women. He just didn’t
expect to find one standing on the patio of the cabin he was renting with her
bikini bottoms off and working on her top. Her petite arms stretched around her
back and untied the last stitch of clothing.
It was one thing to see
a woman briefly changing clothes, with all intention of putting something else
on. This stranger outside seemed to enjoy being naked. After her top joined her
bikini bottoms on one of the chairs, she tossed her head back, face towards the
sky, with her arms spread out like a bird.
A sharp ache throbbed
in his chest. He’d known another lively, free spirited woman. And it felt as
if, every time he thought about the loss in his life, the small dull ache hit
him all over again.
Was the woman he was
staring at now, some kind of hippie? If so, that explained the whole being nude
outside part. But besides her being stripped down and acting a little off with
the “spreading her wings like a bird” thing, she didn’t look like a hippie to
him. He didn’t quite know what he was dealing with yet.
It was wrong to stand
in the background and watch a woman when she thought she was alone. He felt as
if he was intruding on a private moment. But for obvious reasons, like he
hadn’t been with a woman longer than he cared to admit, and what he was staring
at now was borderline erotic, he literally couldn’t look in any other
direction. Because she was standing with her side to him, he could only make
out her profile. That was enough for him to figure out her body was gorgeous.
All that dark hair, that at the moment was in need of a brush, toned legs and
arms, flat stomach, small, but perky breasts that would fit perfectly in the
palm of his hand. Hell, even her small, perfectly shaped ears were turning him
on.
Shit.
Legs suddenly feeling heavy, feet planted to the linoleum floor, Ethan couldn’t
turn and retreat before the beautiful goddess glanced towards the sliding glass
door. She had to have seen him. The doors were big and wide, hiding nothing. He
also wasn’t trying very hard to be discreet.
He watched as she
hurriedly searched the patio before grabbing a large towel jumbled up on a
table. She wrapped it around her body. It was then that her gaze landed on him
again, but this time something resembling fire blazed there.
Shit,
shit, shit.
“Who the hell are you?”
the mystery goddess demanded after she slid the glass doors open. She stomped
her way right up to him. “What are you doing in my cabin? And why were you
gawking at me?”
Her fierceness made him
actually fall back a step. It was the first time he’d moved his feet since he’d
caught sight of her outside. “Yours? I’m sorry, darling, but this is mine.” The
next two weeks had been booked in his name months ago. Number nine. He’d made
sure he got this specific cabin when he had made the reservation. “And I find
it hard to believe you don’t already know the answer to that last question.”
Her brown eyes with a
hint of gold grew wide. “This place was booked for me a few days ago. I’ve been
here since Monday night.”
His attempt at flirting
either went unnoticed, or she was just choosing to ignore him. That was okay.
Her being pissed and wanting to get rid of him was for the best. He wasn’t at
Wildflower Creek to get tangled up in a woman. He was there for…what? To find
peace? Acceptance? To get his family off his back? Maybe he was just running.
Not knowing why he was there only proved he needed
to be there to figure it out.
“It looks like we’re in
a bit of a situation, now doesn’t it?” He held out his hand to her. “I’m Ethan,
by the way.”
With one hand gripping
the towel wrapped around her body, she extended a hand out, but not to greet
him. She snatched a spray can of sunblock off of the kitchen counter and held
it up at face level with the nozzle aimed at him. “I don’t know who you are. I
don’t know if you’re telling me the truth about this cabin being booked for you
too.” The finger she had placed on the trigger flinched. “But what I do know is
that you’re a pervert. I suggest you get out before—”
Ethan gave a smirk. “If
I was a bad guy do you think a can of sunblock is going to save you?”
“Do
you really want to stick around to find out?” she shot back.
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Bio:
Jennifer
has always been an avid reader, but it wasn't until she
became a stay-at-home mom did she start to read romance. Her passion of reading
romance turned into another passion she had as a child—writing. One late night
of writing about sexy heroes and strong-willed heroines turned into two nights,
until seven months later she had written her first novel.
She lives
in a small, Tennessee town with her supportive husband (whose dream is to be on
the cover of one of her books), a beautiful daughter, and two dogs who can’t
seem to get along. If she's not writing you can find her reading, hanging out
with her family, or cheering on the New York Yankees.
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