Falling for the Player by Sherry Ficklin

Emma came back to Salt Spring island to hide from her past and lick her wounds. Her solitude is threatened when her best friend’s brother comes home for his sister’s wedding and they are thrown together preparing for the wedding. The last thing she needs is to fall for the cocky, bad-boy football player she grew up next door to, no matter how sexy he is. As Clay turns up the charm, she finds herself more and more willing to give a causal relationship a try, but how can she separate her heart from her libido? Especially when he looks at her like that…
There’s nothing Clayton ‘Wild Man” Thorne hates more than going home. As the starting center for the Knights football team, he has plenty of excuses to stay away from the place he was raised. But with his baby sister getting hitched, he’s got no choice but to make the trek from sunny Memphis to the cool Pacific air of Salt Spring Island. To his surprise, some things have changed in the tiny town, including his sister’s best friend Emma, who has grown from a knock-kneed brat into a stunning, no-nonsense woman. Clay is determined to have her, despite warnings from friends and family to keep his distance, and he sets his sights on doing just that. But Emma has a plan of her own, and it does not include falling for the home-town bad boy.
When buried truths come to light, Clay and Emma will have to choose between trusting each other with their dark pasts or saying goodbye to the only real thing either of them has ever had.

(Previously Published as Under Center by June Stevens Westerfield and Sherry Ficklin writing as SJ Noble)