I'm the face of the NHL. The golden boy with quick hands and a million-dollar smile the fans adore. My contract is up at the end of the season, and with playoffs starting, I have to be on my best behavior. Keep my head down and respect the press when they shove their microphones beneath my nose. This isn't my first rodeo, so it should be easy. Right?

As a single father, I often feel like the weight of the world sits on my shoulders. When my daughter’s nanny gives me her two weeks’ notice, I’m sweating bullets. Fear that my NHL season with the New England Bay Sharks could be derailed consumes me. Finding a replacement seems impossible when, suddenly, Maci McKenzie—a struggling author who’s running from some deep, dark secret in her past—steps into the picture. She needs a change of scenery to help her write, and I just need someone who isn’t a complete weirdo to watch my kid when I’m not around.

Axel Fairchild is the eternal outsider, both in his elite MBA program and in the world of NYC finance. Powering through on charm, swagger, and smarts has always worked for him—and it’s poised to pay off in a big way as he prepares to launch his very own finance business with his brothers after graduation. There’s only one thing left on his to-do list: prying the love of his life, Cora Margulis, away from her controlling and manipulative family.

Oakley Hutton, the hockey prodigy. The guy ready to grab the sports world by the balls and finally live his dream. Octavia Layton, the girl unable to move beyond her broken past, fearful of her childhood betrayal following her through her new adult life. Two polar opposites with only one thing in common. Their inability to stay away from each other. Two people pushing the other in ways they've never experienced, forcing them out of their comfort zones and making them forget how different they really are after all.

Love. Sucks. I don’t know where I went wrong. Whether it was letting a man convince me that suddenly, the things I’ve never wanted are right for me, or if simply believing the best in the person who I wasted three years of my life on was what lead me here.

Demi Crawford was Magnolia Falls royalty. I was the boxer from the wrong side of the tracks. She was the epitome of everything good, while I was broody and rebellious. We couldn’t be more different. Her family was enemy number one which made her guilty by association. I despised her before I even knew her. It was easier that way. But now she’d moved in next door to me, and she was everywhere I turned. I couldn’t avoid her no matter how hard I tried. She was beautiful and honest and sweet. Everything I knew I shouldn’t want. Shouldn’t need.

Lennox Kennedy is beautiful, loud, and the love of my life. She's also my ex-girlfriend. The first time I saw her after ten years apart, I slammed into the plexiglass minutes before our game was set to begin. The second time I threw up. The third time's a charm apparently because as my fiancée and I walked into an appointment to meet the woman hired to plan our nuptials—there she was again. Obviously, I did what any smart man would do—I called off the wedding. I don't have a plan per se, other than winning back the only girl I've ever loved.

Hope Barlowe is a vow away from a lakeside wedding to her high school sweetheart. Next, check off her follow-up dreams: two kids, a dog, a home, and a happy ever after. But suddenly, ever after seems like a very long time. Instead of saying I do, Hope thinks I can’t and bolts for the woods—right into the unpredictable life of a handsome tattooed hiker.

They all ended up in the small town of Redemption Hills to put the dangers of their previous lives behind. But they had no idea they would all find the women who show them their pasts don't dictate their future.

The hottest rock star in the world walking into my work wasn’t on my bingo card. Speak of the devil . . . My soon-to-be ex-husband. Shane Faris is taller than I remember. Scruffier. More attractive than ever and sporting a sinful smirk that tells me he hears “Yes” too much. Figures. He offers me the divorce I want, but on one condition . . . Two nights together, for old times' sake.