Blind Need

by Dakota Trace

In a previous post on my blog about the writing of Blind Need, I talked about some of the research I did to get into the role of my heroine, Xavieria, who happens to be blind. About how I wandered around my house in a blindfold and had my son guiding me down steps. But Xaviera isn’t the only character in my book I had to do research on. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the hero, Ignatius, too. Nate as he insists on being called, is a smoke jumper. In other words, he jumps out of perfectly good planes to put out forest fires and the occasional canyon fire.

When I was going the research for his character, I wanted a man who had a heroic job that possibly had been injured on the job saving someone but didn’t want a cop or the standard firefighter. That’s when a fellow author friend of mine suggested a smoke jumper. They go in and save peeps all the time or at least their belongs in the case of forest fires. The idea was intriguing and I decided to go with it. But I didn’t know much about smoke jumpers. I live in Iowa and we don’t get forest fires here. Field fires, yes, but forest fires…no. So I did some research on them and here are a few tidbits about Nate’s profession that I found interesting.

·         The first smoke jump was in 1940 at the Nez Perce National Forest in the Northern Region of Idaho.

·         The first woman smoke jumper was certified in 1981. (How’s that for woman’s lib? Come join us …we’ll let you jump out of a plane into a forest fire.)

·         Currently there are 270 certified smokejumpers in the U.S.

·         Smokejumpers wear padded jump jacket and pants, made of Kevlar, a wire mesh motorcycle helmet and carry water canteens, fire shelters, hard hats and gloves. They also have a let down rope in their right leg pocket, just in case they get caught in a tree and have to repel down.

These wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned when I thought of a smoke jumper – I had pictured a more traditional fireman but I can’t say I’m disappointed. These men and women do us a great service and I had fun with Nate. His dedication to his job is quite obvious – considering he let Madame Eve set him up on a 1NightStand just to keep his job. J

To celebrate my first release with Decadent I want to give away a free copy of Blind Need. Just leave a comment and tell me what profession you think is the sexiest out there. 

(It might just might show up in my next book :D)

Blurb:

Two wounded souls, one blind and the other scarred, are matched up by the famous Madame Evangeline—neither one expecting more than a brief meeting of two bodies in the dark for one night.

Xaviera Navarro had it all, a wonderful career ahead of her running her family’s wine business, a sexy fiancé, and her dream-wedding around the corner, but that all changed in the blink of an eye. A freak accident has left the Navarro wine heiress blind with no future other than the company of her seeing-eye dog, Lucy. After licking her wounds, she finally is tired of her own company and ventures out in hopes of finding a man who might be strong enough to stand beside her but not in front of her. If she can’t have that, she’ll settle for a night of hot loving before returning home.

Ignatius "Nate" Ramirez is not only a scarred fire-jumper with a justifiably bad attitude toward women, he’s also under strict orders by his Captain that if he doesn’t get laid on his vacation, he’s going to bench him. After finding out about 1Night Stand, he requests Madame Evangeline find him the perfect fantasy woman to have under the cover of darkness. Figuring he’ll have a better chance with his date with all the lights out, he wasn’t expecting a feisty, no punches pulled heiress to knock him off his feet.

A blind woman and a scarred fire-jumper should be a match made in heaven, but will Nate and Xaviera manage to leave their baggage at the door and find love all in one night.