he knows. But when fight club stops taking off the edge, Billy lets down his guard…and starts fighting for what’s his.
Worth Fighting For
A crossover story with Kristen Proby’s Big Sky Series - order now!
Getting in deep has never felt this good…
Commercial diving instructor Tara Hunter nearly lost everything in an accident that resulted in her medical discharge from the navy. With the help of the Warrior Fight Club, she’s fought to overcome her fears and get back in the water where she’s always felt most at home. At work, she’s tough, serious, and doesn’t tolerate distractions. Which is why finding her gorgeous one-night stand on her new dive team is such a problem.
Former navy deep-sea diver Jesse Anderson just can’t seem to stop making mistakes—the latest being the hot-as-hell night he’d spent with his new partner. This job is his second chance, and Jesse knows he shouldn’t mix business with pleasure. But spending every day with Tara’s smart mouth and sexy curves makes her so damn hard to resist.
Joining a wounded warrior MMA training program seems like the perfect way to blow off steam—until Jesse finds that Tara belongs, too. Now they’re getting in deep and taking each other down day and night, and even though it breaks all the rules, their inescapable attraction might just be the only thing truly worth fighting for.
Fighting the Fire - March 30, 2021
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One night is never enough…
For firefighter Sean Riddick, Warrior Fight Club keeps the demons of his past at bay, even though it means seeing Daniela England. Her ball-busting sarcasm drives him nuts, and he knows he’s damaged goods anyway, but he can’t help but remember how good they were together that one time. Now he wants to take her to the mats no matter how much they go toe to toe.
ER nurse Daniela England has lost so much that she’s vowed never to need anyone again. Fight club helps her beat back her survivor’s guilt, but it means dealing with Riddick. The hot-but-infuriating firefighter is everything she wants to avoid, which is why their one-night stand was a mistake. Now she needs to keep her distance so it doesn’t happen again.
But when Dani witnesses Sean’s motorcycle accident, she steps up to help him recover. One on one, they get beneath all the snark and find a connection neither expected. As Sean heals, the sparks between them burst into red-hot passion—and ignite old wounds. Now there are fires all around—and they have to decide which they’ll fight and which they’ll let consume them.
Acknowledgments
This was the book that almost didn’t happen.
If you follow me on social media, you might know some of the trials I went through while writing Fighting the Fire. I started writing it while injured and awaiting my first rotator cuff surgery and then got further delayed when, four weeks after that surgery, I fell and severely reinsured my shoulder. However, I didn’t know that for sure at the time because my surgeon wanted to wait before getting a new MRI. So in the meantime I pushed through with physical therapy and trying to finish this book for its new release date. I forced myself to work hard through the pain for two weeks to make that date only for my laptop to be stolen the day that I’d written all but the last chapter. And then I learned that all my backups failed. Dropbox hadn’t synched those last 120 pages I’d written during that final push. The back-up file on my Apple Time Machine at home was corrupted, and though the Mac Medics were able to recover the file, it didn’t contain those new pages either.
I was crushed.
And I was too exhausted and in too much pain to be productive. Finally, a new MRI revealed the extent of the now massive rotator cuff tear I had (3 of the 4 rotator cuff tendons were torn, one in two places, and one of my biceps tendons was also torn) and a new surgery was scheduled, one that the surgeons gave only a 50% chance of being successful. That was really scary, because the options for what happened if the surgery failed were all bad.
The surgery was a success!
Well, mostly. On a good day, I probably have about 80% of my strength and function back. The BEST thing is that most of the time my shoulder is now pain free. And that is truly amazing. But it took all of the crazy year of 2020 to get to a place where I could really write again and to remove all the mental hurdles I’d put up around this book and these characters.
And I’m so damn glad I was able to do it. Because I adore Dani and Sean. I love their banter. I love that they’re both bad asses and nerds. I love that they never imagined how much they had in common with each other, and I adored writing that discovery. I hope you love them, too.
There were a number of people who helped me get to the other side of all these misfortunes. My husband, Brian, and our daughters were so supportive and took such good care of me. My closest friends, Lea Nolan, Stephanie Dray, Christi Barth, and Kate Quinn were relentless cheerleaders who provided motivation and shoulders to cry on in equal measure. Robin Covington provided a much-needed and very appreciated sounding board at a critical juncture. And I appreciated every time my assistant, Franci Neill, checked in on me and that she was always so excited for this book to be completed. Thank you to my agent, Kevan Lyon, who was a great advocate and was always so understanding. I must also give a special shout-out to the team at Audible who gave me the leeway I needed to get through this rough patch until I could deliver the book to them. I’m so grateful that the amazing Andi Arndt was still able to narrate this book, too!
I also have to thank the readers in my Ravens Facebook group for all the support, love, and excitement they’ve shown me through this whole situation. I never received anything except understanding and compassion in response to the delays on this book and it truly has meant the world to me.
I hope you enjoyed this story. It meant so much to me to finally write it, and I thank you for taking my characters into your heart and letting them tell their stories again and again. ~LK
About the Author
Laura Kaye is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty books in contemporary romance and romantic suspense, including the Hard Ink, Raven Riders, Heroes, and Hearts in Darkness series. Her books have received numerous awards, including the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense for Hard As You Can. Laura grew up amid family lore involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses, cementing her life-long fascination with storytelling and the supernatural. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.
Learn more at LauraKayeAuthor.com
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