No Other Love
To Serve and Protect
By Kathryn Shay
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Release
Date: September 12, 2017
A family of
heroes, all in dangerous jobs, all irrevocably tied to those they love. Read
about the Marino clan in this fast-paced, emotional new series, To Serve and
Protect, by NYT bestselling author Kathryn Shay.
Connor Marino
has always been an upstanding guy. Even in his youth, he was good-natured and
upbeat. So it’s no surprise that when becomes an adult, he joins Doctors
Without Borders to help those in dire circumstances. There he meets Calla
Gentileschi, also a doctor, but also a…real princess. And because she comes
from a royal family, whose customs and ways are old-fashioned, her life is not
her own. Calla loves Connor but she loves her family and country more. Will the
decisions Calla has made destroy their love for each other?
In NO OTHER
LOVE, get a glimpse at the difficult work of doctors overseas, travel with
Connor and Calla to her exotic foreign home country, and experience their
undying love for each other.
“Shay’s writing
trademark is taking seemingly impossible relationships and developing them into
classic tales of true love.” - Fresh Fiction
“Emotionally
charged.” - Romance Readers at Heart
“Always a
dramatic and engaging storyteller, Shay never disappoints!” - RT Reviews
Heat
consumed him as he walked into the hut. Connor had been sweating all day from
the relentless sun beating down on the unsubstantial roof. As it was only June,
the worst was yet to come. In December, the opposite happened, and it was cold
here. The conditions in medical outposts kept getting worse with the constant bombings.
And even though he’d been in Syria six months, he still wasn’t used to how the
weather drained him or chilled him depending on the season. Five boys sat on a
cot next to each other in the exam room to greet him in this tiny village on
the outskirts of Aleppo. “As-salāmu ʿalaykum.” The children responded in kind.
He
picked up one boy’s arm and winced. The angry sores oozed with pus. He pointed
to the boy’s wound area and the other four boys lifted arms affected by the
same rash. He could tell this wasn’t poison ivy, impetigo, fungus or shingles.
What the hell was it?
“Bug
bites.” The words came from behind him. He turned to see a vision amidst all
the squalor and sickness. Black as night hair, pulled back in thick knots.
Raven brows arching over huge nearly black eyes. “I said those are bug bites. I
had a rash of them, pardon the pun, on the Eastern side of the city.”
“Ah.
Thanks.”
“A
salve of...” She went on to give him the ingredients but he was distracted by
her husky voice. “Doctor, are you listening to me?”
“Um,
no. Who are you?”
“Calla
Gentileschi. Dr. Calla Gentileschi. I’ve been transferred to your area.”
“How do
you pronounce your last name again?”
“In
Italian, it’s Gen-tee-less-ski. But most Americans use till for the second
syllable.” She smiled. “We’re from a sovereign state off the coast of Italy.”
“You
don’t have an accent.”
“Our
schools teach English in addition to Italian.”
“And
you came to this village to help out?”
“Yes.
You lost some personnel this week, I understand.”
“We
did.” They’d put in their time for the grueling work. Connor himself had signed
on for a year.
She
said, “I brought my translator, too.”
“Oh,
thank God. I’m drowning here. And not being able to communicate is part of the
reason.”
“His
name is Razim. He’ll be right in...oh, here he is.”
A tall,
skinny Arab man walked up to her. Razim had dark hair like the beautiful doctor
and sported even darker eyes. He said to her, “I cannot find the supervisor.”
His English was accented but perfect.
She
smiled at the young man and he smiled back. “Razim, this is Doctor...what’s
your name?”
“Marino.”
Connor held out his hand. “Connor Marino.”
“Nice
to meet you.”
“Supervisor’s
here,” someone called from outside.
“I will
be right back.” This from Razim before he left them.
“Where
are your supplies?” Dr. Gentileschi asked. “I’ll make the salve for you. I’m
assuming you’re equipped like we were and have the materials on hand.”
“We got
restocked yesterday. We were lucky the planes got in.” He couldn’t help but
grin at her. “But I should learn, so come on, I’ll show you where the room is.”
He
yelled to a nurse across the way. “Could you keep an eye on these guys while I
make a lotion?”
The
nurse stepped to the tables.
He led
Dr. Gentileschi to the back and unlocked the storage room, which was the size
of his walk-in closet back home. It held medical devices, drugs, vaccines, and
even condoms to distribute to the men here.
The
door slammed behind them.
Connor
grabbed onto the woman.
The
room shook!
Again.
And again.
She
clutched at him.
Silence.
A
cacophony of noise exploded.
They
both startled.
It
lasted only about a minute. Dirt and concrete rained down on them. She sneezed
and Connor coughed.
She
looked at him. “An attack, right?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,
no. Razim is out there.”
Connor
whipped open the door and they both raced through it. Shambles. Noise from
around them: some shouts, some crying, some low and mournful moans spreading
over the whole compound. The concrete and dirt had formed a small hill
separating them from the treatment area. Connor leaned down. “The debris is
hot. Be careful.” He took her hand as they climbed over it, only to find nails
and glass and other rubble.
“Those
were barrel bombs,” she said as she went with him.
They
finally got back to the examining area.
Callandra
Gentileschi gasped.
He
murmured, “Dear Lord in heaven.”
She
grabbed onto his shoulder and buried her face in his back. He couldn’t witness
the ravaged bodies of five boys and the nurse for long, either. Turning, he
took her into his arms, felt her grasp his shirt and bury herself in his chest.
Connor shut his eyes, closing out the misery.
A New York Times
and USA Today bestselling author, Kathryn Shay has been a lifelong writer and
teacher. She has written dozens of self-published original romance titles,
including print books with the Berkley Publishing Group and Harlequin
Enterprises, and mainstream women’s fiction with Bold Strokes Books. She has
won five RT Book Reviews awards, four Golden Quills, four Holt Medallions, the
Bookseller’s Best Award, Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year, and several
“Starred Reviews.” Her novels have been serialized in Cosmopolitan
Magazine and featured in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and People
magazine. There are over five million copies of her books in print, along with
hundreds of thousands downloaded online. Reviewers have called her work
“emotional and heart-wrenching.”
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