Everyone expected me to play hockey. I was good at it, but I was better at being a doctor. So I hung up the skates and joined Doctors Without Borders. But there is no place like home, so now I’m back. And instead of being on the ice, I’m behind the bench as the team physician. After years of playing cat and mouse, it’s time to admit it. She’s mine.

I had one thing on my mind and that was never going to change: The game. The only goal I had was beating the records set by my family. I didn’t have time for anything else. Until she walked in the room. The earth shifted, just like the stories said it would. I said it wouldn’t happen—not to me. I didn’t have the time, but now she was the only thing on my mind. I knew it was her. Now I had to convince her.

It was supposed to be a regular day out. Three couples celebrating the last days of summer. When tragedy struck. I thought I was going to marry her. Instead, I was burying her. I blamed the world for my pain. I buried it all. I became a man I didn’t even recognize.

It was supposed to be the best day of my life. But the second I got up, things started to fall apart. The kitchen just caught on fire. Flowers were from a funeral. My bride-to-be just had an allergic reaction, leaving by ambulance. Oh, and my ex-girlfriend just walked into the church. They say you have to see the signs when they are right in front of you. Maybe she was just mine to have.

All my life I've said I will never date a hockey player. I know better because I've seen and lived it all. My father is a hockey god, my brother is the captain of the most successful NHL team in the world, and my brother-in-law also plays in the league. Their lives are complicated, so I went in the opposite direction. I fell in love with a scholar. But instead of proposing marriage, he broke up with me.

Being traded after fighting with your coach on air isn’t exactly a good look. With one mistake under my belt, I knew I needed to focus on the game and nothing else. But everything changed when I went to pick up my niece and came face-to-face with my very pregnant one-night stand from six months ago.

Being an entertainment journalist was the last thing I thought I would be doing. I thought once I got my degree, I would be reporting on stories that made a difference, but now all I do is report on who broke up with who and who is dating who. I was over it. Then I got my next assignment. He’s Hollywood’s bad boy.

Lila James is my best friend’s little sister, and I’ve always looked out for her. She's five years younger than me, and when she left for college, she was just a kid. But now she’s home for the summer—and she’s definitely not a kid anymore.

I fell in love with him when I was seven. I scraped my knee, and he helped carry me inside. Our love story was the talk of the town until a woman told everyone she was pregnant with his baby. The only rational solution was to high-tail it out of town and never come back. My best friend needed a place to hide, and you can’t get much more covert than my family farm, so I came back. For her. It was supposed to be temporary, and I wasn’t supposed to see him, but that’s what happens when you live in a small town where everyone knows each other.

Whip King cannot be the man for me. Cocky, pierced firefighters are perfect for late-night rom-coms, but in real life they’re nothing but trouble. Especially when you find out they work for your dad—after you’ve already slept with them. Moving to my parents’ small town was supposed to be the fresh start I was looking for. When a disastrous Valentine’s Day leads to an unexpected encounter with a sexy stranger, and ends with the hottest night of my life, I didn’t think I would ever see Whip again.