Part of Series
Author’s note: the original title of RISKING IT ALL was THE MAN WHO LOVED CHRISTMAS. The book has been fully revised and updated and also contains cameos from the Hidden Cove Firefighters. She’s the only woman he can’t charm. He’s the only man she can never love. Dylan O’Roarke has the ideal existence. As a firefighter, he’s been at the top of his game. Even when he’s reprimanded for his risk-taking, the accolades far exceed the censure. Women fall at his feet, and he always has a blond bombshell on his arm. By-the-book Beth Winters does everything with precision and caution in her job as an EMS instructor and recruit trainer, even if she is considered stern and stoic. She has a few good friends she manages to keep some modicum of distance from. Life is best lived on its outskirts, where it can’t wound you so badly you might not survive. The only place the two of them “lose it” is with each other. When Dylan was her student at the academy, she sought out ways to focus on his flaws. And he irritated her intentionally, snidely nicknaming her Lizzie Borden. With eight years of open animosity that rivaled that of the Hatfields and McCoys, they were both grateful when he graduated. Years later, fate throws them together again when he’s assigned as her EMS partner to train new recruits. Working side by side with him, Beth can’t deny his rapport with the students or his warm and giving nature. And Dylan sees the vulnerable side to her, caused by a past that would level an ordinary person. When physical attraction flares between them, they can’t stop their inevitable coming together. Falling in love isn’t in the cards for Beth and she rejects the hand they’re dealt. She can never be part of the family Dylan wants. And he can’t break down her final, indestructible wall. Nail-biting fire scenes, sizzling sexual encounters and the revelation of background that will make you cry buckets permeate this beautiful story of compromise and undying love. Be sure to follow up with the rest of the Rockford Fire Department Series: FEEL THE HEAT, CODE OF HONOR and NEVER FAR AWAY. *** 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."
