Fall with Me

Lennon Hayes was meant to spend this week on her honeymoon. Instead she is alone in Cabo, the engagement over, when a bar argument with a scowling, tattooed stranger turns into one reckless night. Sure she will never see him again, she slips out before he wakes.

She is wrong. Weeks later Lennon starts a new job as team photographer for the Vancouver Vipers. The sneering defenseman across the locker room is the man from the resort, Jaxon Riley. He is known for starting fights on the ice, picking up women after games, and going home to feed his cat. Neither of them wants anything serious.

Fall with Me is the fourth Playing for Keeps novel, and it runs on banter first. Quick, needling exchanges slowly give way to something steadier. Jaxon buries an old hurt under jokes and one-night stands. Lennon is still nursing the wound a runaway fiance left behind. Working the same rink forces them to keep noticing each other anyway.

Becka Mack keeps the tone light and funny even as both leads let their guards down. Workplace friction sits alongside real vulnerability, and a warm circle of friends makes Vancouver feel like home. The book follows three earlier Vipers romances but stands on its own, for a reader who wants hockey romance sharp before it turns tender.