Canary Cowards

Dylan has just finished school and started work as a physiotherapist. She is proud of the job and has no plan to fall for a client, least of all Lake Decker, a football star whose career has stalled. Lake's broody, over-confident manner tests her patience, and she bites her tongue to keep her position and to protect her secrets.

Lake was the league's best running back until a debilitating injury pulled him out of the game. Women usually fall for him, and he is not used to a woman who stays strictly professional, answers back with a saucy edge, and now and then turns up with a shiner. His curiosity is caught, and he keeps pressing her to open up.

The book is an angst-heavy contemporary romance told from two perspectives, alternating between Dylan and Lake. Each of them acts tough in the face of hard times, and each hides fear underneath. The tension builds between a therapist who guards her privacy and a patient who will not leave it alone.

Readers get a slow-burning, emotionally charged romance in a sports-and-recovery setting, with banter, friction and two people who are afraid of what love will cost them.