Tori Carrington - Total Exposure

Attention: Courage Bay Emergency Services personnel

From: U.S. Coast Guard

This is to notify all emergency personnel that a helicopter has been reported missing over Courage Bay near S-hamala Island. The helicopter is piloted by Dan Egan, fire chief of Jefferson Avenue Firehouse. Also on board is Dr. Natalie Giroux, a staff member of Courage Bay Hospital. The two were returning to the local airport after a successful emergency airlift of a male heart-attack victim from the mudslide on Courage Bay mountain. Reports indicate the fire chief’s dog is also in the copter.

Final contact with air traffic control was made shortly after the helicopter took off from the hospital helipad late this afternoon. All reports indicate that the pilot changed course to avoid the approaching storm. Further attempts by air traffic control to contact Chief Egan have been unsuccessful, suggesting radio failure or a forced landing. Gale-force winds are reported in the bay area, along with twenty-foot swells. A large-and small-craft warning has been issued for the surrounding waters. All flights are grounded in and out of Courage Bay airport, and Coast Guard personnel were evacuated from S-hamala Island to the mainland earlier this afternoon. Given the current conditions, any search-and-rescue missions are on hold until further notice. Updates will be issued on an hourly basis.

TORI CARRINGTON

Multi-award-winning, bestselling husband-and-wife duo Lori and Tony Karayianni are the power behind the pen name Tori Carrington. Their more than thirty-five titles include numerous Harlequin Blaze miniseries, as well as the ongoing Sofie Metropolis comedic mystery series with another publisher. Visit www.toricarrington.net and www.sofiemetro.com and www.myspace.com/toricarrington for more information on the couple and their titles.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

As steadfast fans of Harlequin’s continuity series, we were thrilled when we were invited to contribute to the CODE RED series. Actually, contribute is the wrong word, because, as we quickly discovered, these series are team endeavors in which every member plays an important role—from editor down to the author of the last title—making for a unique reading and writing experience we’ll treasure always.

In Total Exposure, our hunky hero, Fire Chief Dan Egan, is every bit the alpha male with a chip on his shoulder that beautiful burn specialist Natalie Giroux only aggravates. Dan’s wounds run far deeper than the burn he suffered three months earlier in a warehouse explosion. But when he’s stranded with Natalie on a deserted island during one of the worst storms in Courage Bay’s history, does this man of action have the courage to let the lady doc heal all his wounds so the two of them might forge a future together?

We hope you enjoy Dan and Natalie’s rocky journey to happily-ever-after! We’d love to hear from you. Write us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, Ohio 43612 or e-mail us at toricarrington@aol.com. And make sure you visit our Web site at www.toricarrington.com for info on coming attractions and to enter our latest online drawings.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and heartfelt reading!

Lori and Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

We warmly dedicate this book to the extraordinary

Marsha Zinberg and her phenomenal support team,

including Alethea Spiridon, Sasha Bogin and

Margaret Learn, for helping us “expose” another facet of

ourselves as writers and human beings. Thank you!

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

IN DR. NATALIE GIROUX’S experience, there were days that were great, others that were so-so and a handful of additional ones she’d prefer to erase from the record books altogether. Unfortunately, this cold, rainy Friday in November fell solidly into the last category. Not so much because of the threatening storm system that had been parked over Courage Bay, California, for the past couple of days. It was, after all, the rainy season, and, well, rain was to be expected. Her sluggishness didn’t stem from the long, hard week she’d just gone through as Courage Bay Hospital’s burn specialist, treating a wide variety of injuries she somehow never got quite used to seeing. Nor could her mood be blamed on nothing going according to plan, or the fact she’d been misplacing things all day.

No. The source of her melancholy was far more personal and went much deeper than such simple matters. And as a result, the dark monster was much more difficult to battle.

Natalie blinked her examining room back into focus, then gently tousled the head of a four-year-old burn patient in for a follow-up appointment.

“That’s it,” she said, helping the girl down from the table. “We’re all done. Now, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

She trailed the girl and her mother into the reception area. Little Jenny Barnard was recovering nicely. Natalie wished she could say that about all of her patients. She held up three different flavored suckers. Jenny took the yellow, lemon-flavored one.

“Now, do you remember everything I told you?” Natalie asked the four-year-old. “You’ve got to drink lots of juice and let your mom change your bandages when she says it’s time.” The superficial dermal burn on the right side of Jenny’s face was the result of an unfortunate accident involving a pot of boiling spaghetti, a cat and the young girl a week ago. But the injury was not what Natalie focused on now that the examination was over. All she saw was Jenny’s vibrant spirit.

“I will, Dr. Natalie.”

Natalie smiled and crossed her arms over the girl’s chart, hugging it to her, as she watched mother and daughter walk down the hall of the hospital. When they were out of sight, she glanced at her watch, trying to ignore the large numbers of the date at the left. She made a few notes on the chart, then slid it into the slot outside the examining room door for her assistant to pick up.

Today would have been her first wedding anniversary.

The thought snagged her attention, nearly causing the next chart she drew out to drop from her numb fingers.

She swallowed hard, seeking the solace she usually found in her work.

It wasn’t so much the fact that she and Charles would have celebrated their first year of marriage today. She’d been mentally preparing herself for that milestone over the past month. What made her heart ache was that the week before their wedding day, she’d lost Charles. Not to another woman. Not to a case of cold feet. No, the loss was even more decisive. Natalie had lost him to heart disease. Permanently.

She cleared her throat and flipped open the chart in her hands, grateful to be so busy. During the past year, the hospital and her patients were all that had stood between her and emotional collapse.

But nothing seemed capable of helping her through today.

Her gaze fell on the name at the top of the chart and she sighed, glancing around the waiting area without much hope of finding who she was looking for.

“He didn’t show,” her assistant, Manuela, said from her desk on the other side of the reception area. “Again.”

“What appointment is this?” Natalie asked. “His fourth?”

“Fifth.”

Natalie skimmed the contents of the chart. Fire Chief Dan Egan might be everything and more than his stellar reputation suggested when it came to his work, but keeping his appointments with her seemed to rank low on his list of priorities.