There's an old saying in the writing business, write what you know. I know what it's like to be the wife of a firefighter, I've been that for many years, but that's a long way from feeling the fear that crawls up the back of your neck when you're standing outside a burning house, breathing smoke, knowing there's a child inside waiting to be rescued. 

If I weren't as close to the job as I am I would have put a firefighter in a book long before now, but I've listened to too many of them moan in frustration at the way their job is misrepresented in film and television. The last thing I wanted was to have any of them feel this way about something I wrote. I finally solved my problem by making my husband my research assistant. He was enthusiastic, even if unpaid.

He happened to be on shift when I was writing one of the more difficult scenes in the book--a rescue with a fully involved house fire. I must have called him at the fire house twenty times that afternoon, reading him what I'd written and asking questions about what I wanted to happen next.

While I took liberties with the volunteer organization Rick Sawyer belongs to in the book, it was based on a real one in Sacramento, California, The Firefighters Pacific Burn Institute. For over twenty years local firefighters have given time and money to help burned children and their families, putting on a summer camp for burn survivors and helping them in a dozen other ways.

My research for the hospital scenes included a private, behind-the-scenes tour of the new, state-of-the-art Shriner's Hospital in Sacramento. Conducted by one of the brilliant plastic surgeons who worked there, she was as generous with her time as her information.

While research is important, it's the characters that make a story come alive. In DISGUISED BLESSING Catherine Miller faces every parent's nightmare when her fifteen-year-old daughter, Lynda, is accidently burned at a beach party. A week later, the man she is engaged to tells her he didn't sign on to take care of an injured teenager and walks out--just as Rick walks in. Despite the bond that grows between Lynda and Rick as he helps her heal the emotional scars that come with her injury, there's no way Catherine is going to trust another man.

But then she's never known a man like Rick Sawyer.