Max Montgomery was at the height of his career, playing the best hockey of his life, and lucky enough to have a starting spot on a team that was actually a contender for the Cup.

And one by one his friends were falling in love.

Love. Now that was a dirty four-letter word if he’d ever heard one.

Max had experienced love and all of its aftereffects and where had that gotten him?

Lonely, living in an apartment, and paying alimony to a woman who’d left him at the merest sign of a hiccup in their marriage.

His only bright spot was his son. Brayden had moved back in with him a few months ago, after his mother had taken off to God knew where. Max loved having him home, but with his son only seven and him on the road for forty-two games a year, they’d struggled. Still, they’d found a way to make it work.

But then Brayden threw Max a completely new curveball.

He wanted Max to find a wife.

Max had been there, done that, got the crappy T-shirt as a souvenir. No way would he make himself vulnerable like that again, no matter how much his son wanted it.

A puppy was a perfectly viable alternative, right?

At least that was what he’d been thinking until he met Angelica Shallows, sister to the team’s Physical Therapist guru, Mandy, and a brilliant engineer in her own right. She was gorgeous, smart, but had shadows in her eyes.

Max knew all about shadows, knew they were meant as a sign for him to stay away.

What was that about the best intentions paving the road to hell? Max may have wanted to stay away, may have wanted to abide the warning signs in Angie’s eyes, but—

The real trouble began when found that he couldn’t do either of those things.

Lacey Laurel