Roughing

He's 6'4", covered in tattoos, and reads poetry in the locker room. She's a single mom who stopped believing in promises. His daughter is nine. Hers is four. He holds the four-year-old like she's made of glass and Saylor thinks: oh no.
Gentle-giant enforcer meets single-mom bartender · Slow burn that physically hurts · Spicy (5/5) · Dual POV · Standalone in series

Reid Gallagher looks like the kind of man who starts fights. On the ice, he does. Off the ice, he reads poetry, cries at Pixar movies, and calls his daughter every night to read her a chapter of whatever she picked from the library. His ex-wife wanted the enforcer. She got a man who wanted to talk about feelings. She left. Now Reid plays hockey, raises his kid, and tries not to think about the fact that his body is breaking down and his career has an expiration date. He has a poem fragment tattooed on his ribs. He will fight anyone who comments on it.

Saylor Kim has been saving herself since her ex-husband walked out when their daughter Maisie was six months old. She bartends at Calhoun's, takes accounting classes at the community college, and runs on approximately three hours of sleep and sheer stubbornness. She does not have time for the enormous, terrifying hockey player who sits at the end of the bar reading books with broken spines and leaving 40% tips. She especially does not have time for the way he looks at her daughter -- with a gentleness so devastating it makes her chest physically hurt.

But Reid keeps showing up. Not in the loud way. In the quiet way. He fixes her apartment door that won't close right. He reads to Maisie when Saylor's stuck in class. He leaves groceries on her counter without being asked. And Saylor, who has trained herself not to need anyone for four years, is losing the fight.

Then Reid has a chance to save the team's rink -- but it means moving the Rebels to another city. Saylor sees what she's always seen: a man who will choose himself over the people counting on him. She says she can't do this. He doesn't fight for her because he doesn't think he deserves to.

He's wrong about that.

"Tell me — what will you hold precious in this one short astonishing life?" I read the words tattooed on my own ribs and for the first time, I know the answer. Stay. Just stay.

Roughing is Book 4 in The Northside Rebels. Each book is a complete standalone romance with a guaranteed HEA. No cliffhangers.

Single dad. Single mom. Gentle giant. He reads poetry in the locker room. She doesn't believe in promises. Slow burn so slow it physically hurts. He holds her four-year-old like she's made of glass. Tattoos and tenderness. Books that make you cry about a poem and a 40% tip.

For fans of single-dad hockey romance, brooding-protector sports romance, and men who are terrifying on the ice and soft everywhere else.

Free with this complete series.