Part of Series
He was the most upstanding lieutenant in the department, until he made a critical error in judgement that almost ended his career. And she’s a mistake just waiting to happen. Fate has been cruel to Lieutenant Jake Scarlatta. His father died when he was ten, his best friend stabbed him in the back and his marriage went sour. When he’s saddled with a female firefighter on his crew, he knows trouble is coming his way again. Chelsea Whitmore is a pariah in the RFD. A stellar firefighter and competitive weight lifter, she assumes none of that will matter this time around either. When Scarlatta says he’ll help her fit in, she doesn’t believe a word he says. She plans to keep her head down and her heart safe from more bruising. But when she’s accused of one rookie mistake after another on the line, that she knows she didn’t make, all hell breaks loose. If that isn’t bad enough Chelsea finds herself falling for Jake. And he feels the same. Can things get any worse? With cutting edge fire scenes, exploding passion at the station house, and emotions shooting off the charts, readers will gasp at the stunning conclusion to this suspenseful and scorching story. Cameo appearances from your favorite guys in Hidden Cove will delight readers. Be sure to follow up with the rest of the Rockford Fire Department Series: FEEL THE HEAT, RISKING IT ALL and NEVER FAR AWAY, as well as all of the Hidden Cove Firefighters series. *** NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Kathryn Shay spent five years riding fire trucks with a large city fire department, eating in their firehouses and interviewing hundreds of America's Bravest.
Author
Kathryn Shay is a lifelong writer. At fifteen, she penned her first 'romance,' a short story about a female newspaper reporter in New York City and her fight to make a name for herself in a world of male journalists - and with one hardheaded editor in particular. Looking back, Kathryn says she should have known then that writing was in her future. But as so often happens, fate sent her detouring down another path. Fully intending to pursue her dream of big city lights and success in the literary world, Kathryn took every creative writing class available at the small private women's college she attended in upstate New York. Instead, other dreams took precedence. She met and subsequently married a wonderful guy who'd attended a neighboring school, then completed her practice teaching, a requirement for the education degree she never intended to use. But says Kathryn, "I fell in love with teaching the first day I was up in front of a class, and knew I was meant to do that." Kathryn went on to build a successful career in the New York state school system, thoroughly enjoying her work with adolescents. But by the early 1990s, she'd again made room in her life for writing. It was then that she submitted her first manuscript to publishers and agents. Despite enduring two years of rejections, she persevered. And on a snowy December afternoon in 1994, Kathryn Shay sold her first book to Harlequin Superromance. Since that first sale, Kathryn has written twenty-one books for Harlequin, nine mainstream contemporary romances for the Berkley Publishing Group, and two online novellas, which Berkley then published in traditional print format. Kathryn has become known for her powerful characterizations - readers say they feel they know the people in her books - and her heart-wrenching, emotional writing (her favorite comments are that fans cried while reading her books or stayed up late to finish them). In testament to her skill, the author has won five RT BookClub Magazine Reviewers Choice Awards, three Holt Medallions, two Desert Quill Awards, the Golden Leaf Award, and several online accolades. Even in light of her writing success, that initial love of teaching never wavered for Kathryn. She finished out her teaching career in 2004, retiring from the same school where her career began. These days, she lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children. "My life is very full," she reports, "but very happy. I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pursue and achieve my dreams."
