Hat Trick

Riley Mitchell is riding as high as an NHL career gets. The D.C. Stars defenseman has just helped his team win a second straight Stanley Cup when a night out ends with his Uber T-boned by a drunk driver. He survives. His right leg does not, and the amputation leaves him relearning who he is on top of relearning how to walk.

Lexi Armstrong is the team's athletic trainer, and getting Riley moving again is her job before it is anything else. She will not tolerate his self-pity and pushes him through workouts he would rather skip. The sessions turn personal, then physical, then something closer to a relationship than either one intended, and Riley, who has quietly wanted her for years, falls first and falls hard.

The fourth D.C. Stars novel keeps the ice in the background and puts the recovery gym at the center. It runs on a slow-burn friends-to-lovers arc between an athlete and the trainer who refuses to let him quit on himself.