Rookie Rebels

From Instacrush to Insta-Daddy . . . Theo Kershaw is the luckiest guy alive. Roaring back from a life-threatening injury, he has the world at his skates as defenseman for his new team, the Chicago Rebels. Everyone adores his big personality, his on-ice talent, and his killer smile. Everyone but his prickly neighbor-or so he thinks. One chilly Christmas Eve, Theo will learn that maybe the girl next door isn't such a hater after all ... Elle Butler is the most embarrassing person on the planet. How else can the ex-military-now-bartender explain her crush on the hot jock who lives across the hall? True, he has gorgeous green eyes and perfect cheekbones, but the filter between his brain and too-sexy mouth is permanently malfunctioning. Yet she can't stop checking out his Instagram antics or sneaking looks at him when he's in her bar. Absolutely mortifying. Running from a past filled with damning secrets, Elle's determined that this guilty pleasure remains buried in her deepest fantasies. Because she couldn't possibly indulge with the Theo Kershaw. Or make a mistake that draws attention to her under-the-radar life. And she especially couldn't be a mom to a pro-athlete's baby ... could she?

I've been texting the wife I lost, the woman I loved beyond measure . . . Now someone else has answered back. Gunnar Bond is broken. Three years ago, he lived through the car crash that took his wife and twins away from him-though "lived" barely describes his current state. Giving up professional hockey, going off grid, and drinking himself into oblivion are his coping mechanisms. Another is texting his dead wife about his days without her. Therapeutic? Doubtful. Crazy? Definitely. But those messages into the ether are virtually the only thing stopping him from spiraling to even darker places. Until someone texts back ... Sadie Yates is losing it. Suddenly guardian to a little sister she doesn't know and a misbehaving hound she'd rather not know at all, she's had to upend her (sort of) glamorous life in LA and move back to Chicago. The nanny has quit, the money's running out, and her job is on the line. The last thing she needs is her sister's hockey camp counselor, a judgmental Viking type, telling her she sucks at this parenting lark. Thank the goddess for her sweet, sensitive, and-fingers crossed-sexy text buddy who always knows the right thing to say. In the same city at last, they can finally see if their online chemistry is mirrored in real life. She just needs to set up a meeting ... A ruined man who claims to have used up all his love is surely a bad bet, but Sadie's never been afraid of a challenge ... even if this one might shatter her heart into a million pieces.

She's got game everywhere but the bedroom. Enter the player who knows exactly how to grade her curves . . . After a very public breakup and a viral post that declares him the villain, power forward Cal Foreman is taking a timeout from women and relationships to focus on hockey. When Chicago Rebels captain and old friend, Vadim Petrov, "volunteers" him to help train Vadim's sister Mia, Cal figures he can do a favor for a pal and get ready for the season with his new team. But the imperious Russian would slice a skate blade through Cal's internal organs if he knew what lessons Mia really wants. Yeah, not that kind of stickhandling. Hockey phenom and Olympics hopeful Mia Wallace needs help seducing the man of her dreams. That man is most definitely not Cal Foreman: notorious playboy, thorn in her side, and her brother's bestie. But surely a guy with his reputed skill set has a few tips on how she can nail her target-which makes him the perfect foreplayer. Cal knows Mia sees him as merely the warm-up act in her grand plan to win another man, but as they spend more time together, he wonders if that's enough. If they could be more. And if he could convince her he's worthy of the starting line-up . . . in her heart?

She has her heart set on a hockey player. Any hockey player. When the new general manager of the Chicago Rebels tasks Tara Becker with faking it with one of his players to help clean up the naughty jock's act, she's all over it. She'll make that misbehaving hunk of muscle look good and get her dream guy into the bargain. Only the path from fake to real is riddled with thorns . . . New Rebels GM Hale Fitzpatrick thinks ditzy blonde and wannabe WAG Tara is the perfect solution to his PR problem - until she isn't. Soon Fitz realizes that maybe he doesn't have control of the strings after all . . . especially when he starts to fall for his pretty little puppet. A fake relationship hockey romance - with a twist!

"I need us to stay married, Big Guy." Recently traded to the Chicago Rebels, hockey veteran Dylan "Banks" Bankowski is adjusting to what might be his last team and his final year in the NHL. That means taking care of his battered body while he strives for the one goal that's managed to elude him: a championship ring. What he does not need is a visit from the woman to whom he gave a different kind of ring months ago. His young, flighty, socialite wife. Apparently, signing the annulment papers within a week of their quickie wedding in Vegas didn't quite take, and now she's back, right before the playoffs when he needs his focus most. Only this time she has a different request: let's keep up the charade. He should say no, but he once said "I do" and surely that means something ... Georgia Goodwin has good reasons for wanting to keep her hockey player husband. Convincing the big lug to cooperate is the easy part. Not so easy? Ignoring the flutter in her chest when he grunts in jock, kisses her neck, or calls her wife. But it's only for a few weeks, and as soon as the playoffs finish, so will they. But the more time Georgia and Banks spend together, the more real their marriage feels. Less Vegas mistake, and more like the start of something amazing. They said goodbye once. Can they do it again ... or will they figure out that a love this good is worth fighting for as much as that championship ring?