The Hard Hitter by Cathryn Fox

Zander: In the NHL, I’m known as the Hard Hitter but my puck-handling skill isn’t my greatest accomplishment. That would be my four-year-old daughter Daisy and I’ll do anything to protect her. I’m careful who I let into our lives, but the more I’m around Samantha, my daughter’s speech pathologist, the more I’m reminded of how long I’ve been functioning solely as a dad. I don’t want to trust her, don’t want to get close. I don’t want to fall in love with her or her big, welcoming family but sometimes, don’ts have a way of becoming dos, no matter how hard you fight it.

Samantha: Getting involved with a client’s father is a strict “no,” but when Zander shows me how good he is at talking bad, it sets off a firestorm of need hot enough to melt the ice in the rink he plays on. I’m not good at relationships and have basically given up on men, but a brief fling with a dirty talking hockey player sounds pretty good at the moment. I didn’t expect to actually fall for him and his daughter, or that it would be so good, but leave it to me to do the one and only thing that taps into his darkest fears and incinerate the fragile trust that’s built between us.