The Wild Card

After my ex crushed my dreams in the music industry, I’m done with getting my heart broken. Working as an assistant for an NHL player was supposed to be a breeze, but nothing about Jamie Streicher is easy. He’s an intimidatingly hot, grouchy jerk who can't stand me. The guy has a massive ego. Keeping things professional will be no problem, even when he demands I move in with him.

Want to know a secret? It's about that girl over there. Don’t look, but she’s the one in the power suit with the long, black hair and the serious expression. The one I’m about to go on a date with. Yeah, according to her, she “accidentally” donated an obscene amount of money to my charity - The Lineup - to win said date, but I found out the truth.

Tristan Stiles is the bane of my existence. He never wears a shirt. We can’t seem to stop fighting. He’s an arrogant playboy with a filthy reputation. Sure, I had a crush on him when I was fourteen but that was a long time ago. I know better than to trust him. I just need to survive long enough to find a new job and get a new place. And not accidentally let Tristan show me exactly how well-deserved his reputation is.

I know about my reputation as Never Harbor’s secluded single dad. But I have everything I need: my imaginative son, my dog, and our remodeled cottage by the sea. That is, until my nanny quits. My brother’s ex-fiancee, Wendy Darling, is an elementary-school teacher with a free summer. The last thing I need is to get tangled in his mess, but my family thinks she’s a perfect fit for the job. Turns out, she fits in better than I could have imagined. Wendy is nothing like I expected.

Love. Sucks. I don’t know where I went wrong. Whether it was letting a man convince me that suddenly, the things I’ve never wanted are right for me, or if simply believing the best in the person who I wasted three years of my life on was what lead me here.

In Offside Hearts, social media manager Margo Lucas hooks up with star center Noah Blake in an elevator—one week before her first day on the job working for his team. It’s a forbidden workplace romance with a swoony hockey captain who’s determined to prove they’re worth the risk. In Breakaway Hearts, best friends Reese Sutton and Callie Marshall strike a deal. She’ll fake date him to help him win back his ex, and in return, he’ll give her lessons in the bedroom to help her regain her confidence.

Emerson (Emmy) Hartwell has waited for a spot on an NHL roster since she became a professional hockey player, and this season, she'll finally get a chance to showcase her talents with the struggling D.C. Stars. Maverick Miller is the best player in the league, but he's never had a winning record. Team captain and desperate to turn things around, he agrees to play nice with the fiery new left-winger even though they're total opposites.

Jon Paul Dumont is everything I was warned about in this league—talented, entitled, and fully aware of both. The NHL's favorite bad boy has left a trail of broken hearts from Montreal to San Diego, and a year ago, I was stupid enough to become one of them. Now he's signed with my father's team, the Seattle Hawkeyes, attempting a comeback after a career-threatening injury and a DUI charge that got him dropped from the Blue Devils.

Six weeks. That's how long my editor gave me to change my book from a baseball romance to one about hockey. A complete rewrite. Which is how I find myself in Montana, a thousand miles from home, researching hockey, and preparing to meet a local expert. There's one small problem. Or rather a big one. A big, grumpy problem. My expert is none other than Nick Galaxy—the single dad and hockey captain I ran into minutes after landing in Montana and made a… well, let's just say I didn't make the best first impression. Neither did he, for that matter.

Lennox Kennedy is beautiful, loud, and the love of my life. She's also my ex-girlfriend. The first time I saw her after ten years apart, I slammed into the plexiglass minutes before our game was set to begin. The second time I threw up. The third time's a charm apparently because as my fiancée and I walked into an appointment to meet the woman hired to plan our nuptials—there she was again. Obviously, I did what any smart man would do—I called off the wedding. I don't have a plan per se, other than winning back the only girl I've ever loved.

Being hired as the PR representative for the hockey team I’ve always been a fan of, should be a dream come true, especially because my old crush plays for them. My suggestion to save Briggs's career is solid… have him fake date someone wholesome who can change his image. That’s when my big mouth gets in the way and I admit to being the-girl-next-door. Now… my boss is offering me the promotion of a lifetime, but it comes with strings… Fake date Briggs Conley!

I didn't really consider myself part of my father's legacy...until I found out what he left behind in his will: property, ten acres to be exact, which included the headquarters for his beloved motorcycle club. I had no idea that accepting the terms of my inheritance would thrust me into a battle with the new club president, Wesley Ryan. He's unfathomably handsome, menacing, and formidable in every way. But his derision toward me only makes me cling that much tighter to my birthright. That is, it did until he decides to play dirty.

Lucky Beneventi might be the villain in my fairytale, but given the choice, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way. My brother’s best friend and Philly’s favorite football player is the same cocky bad boy every girl wants and the dangerous temptation I was never supposed to touch. Until I did. . . And now I can’t stop.

My dad and I have been estranged for years, but as his only living relative, it's no surprise I inherit his massive cattle ranch when he dies. But the stipulation in his will that requires me to live on the ranch and actively manage it for a year before I can access my inheritance money. I haven't stepped foot in Hartsville, Texas, population one thousand, since my parents split when I was six. Now a city girl through and through, I never imagined having to move back to cowboy country. But I need the money to invest in my company, and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

He should be excited about their win streak, but he's distracted by his best friend, Lacey Daniels, sitting in the stands at his game with a date. When Lacey's date refuses to kiss her on the kiss cam, she's mortified…until Shawn saves the day, jumping in to kiss her in front of seventy thousand screaming fans.