Ryker
Cold Fury Hockey # 4
Cold Fury Hockey # 4
By: Sawyer Bennett
Releasing September 8, 2015
Loveswept
The rugged men of
the Carolina Cold Fury hockey team are winning hearts once again in another
scorching novel from New York Times bestselling author Sawyer
Bennett.
The stakes have
never been higher for Carolina Cold Fury goalie Ryker Evans. With his contract
running out, he’s got a year left to prove he’s still at the top of his game.
And since his wife left him, Ryker has been balancing life as a pro-hockey star
and a single parent to two daughters. Management is waiting for him to screw
up. The fans are ready to pounce. Everybody’s taking dirty shots—except for the fiery redhead whose faith in Ryker gives him a
fresh start.
As the league’s
only female general manager, Gray Brannon has learned not to mix business with
pleasure. And yet even this tough, talented career woman can’t help breaking
her own rules as she gives Ryker everything she’s got. She hopes their hot
streak will last forever, but with Ryker’s conniving ex plotting to reclaim her
man, the pressure is on Gray to step up and save a tender new love before it’s
too late.
“D-a-a-a-d,” Ruby shrieks from upstairs.
It’s a sound that once used to cause all the hair
to stand up on my arms and on more than one occasion caused me to go tearing
after the call of my youngest daughter thinking she was being murdered by an
intruder. I’ve since come to recognize that particular shrill cry as one of
excitement and wonder, and I can’t help but grin over what Ruby is possibly into
now. At almost five years old, she refuses to accept the concept of a
well-mannered, indoor voice and goes balls to the wall in everything she does.
“Is the house on fire, Rubes?” I call out.
Her little voice shouts back to me in a squawk.
“No.”
“Have aliens landed?” I keep my voice just loud
enough to carry up the stairs but still
decibels below her own.
“No,” she yells, and there . . . right there . . .
that’s a little giggle from her.
“Did Timmy fall down the well?”
“No, Dad . . . but you have to come here,” she
yells, and, to give her credit, it’s toned down just a bit. When I don’t answer
her right away, she calls down in a sweet voice that makes my heart
pitter-patter. “Please, Dad.”
Brilliant, little brat. Throwing in some manners to
throw me off my game.
“I’ll be right there,” I tell her as I finish the
last of Violet’s braid and manage to efficiently bind it with a hair elastic.
Leaning over, I place a kiss on her head. “All done, dreamy dwarf.”
Violet leans her head back and gives me an
upside-down grin. I love the sprinkle of freckles on her nose and it compels me
to kiss her again.
“Do me a favor,” I tell her as I turn toward the
living room. “Get the cereal and milk out for me while I go see what your
sister needs?”
I don’t bother waiting to see what she does,
because Violet has become my metaphorical right hand over the last few months.
While she still loves for me to braid her hair and help with her homework,
she’s also relished taking on a bit of a caretaker role since the girls moved
in with me permanently this past summer.
They’ve been here almost six months and I actually
feel like I know what the hell I’m doing now. It wasn’t always like that, and
thank God for Kate’s help or I would have gone insane in those first few months
of becoming a single parent of two little girls. Kate patiently helped me
establish a routine and taught me how to braid hair, distinguish excited
shrieks from cries of pain, and most important . . . how to conduct the perfect
princess tea party.
I skirt my way through the living room, bending
over to pick up one of Ruby’s dolls from the floor, and bound up the stairs
taking two at a time. I find Ruby in the bathroom that she and Violet share,
bent over the toilet and peering at something.
She shares the same dark hair and gray eyes as
Violet, except her locks spring out everywhere in a mass of tiny curls. I have
no idea where that came from, but assume it’s a rogue strand of ancestral DNA
from either me or my soon-to-be ex-wife, Hensley. Both of us, as well as
Violet, have fairly straight hair, so Ruby is definitely dipping into the
family gene pool with her wild curls, but damn . . . they totally fit with her
personality.
“What’s up?” I ask as I walk over to the toilet.
She straightens up, shoots me a grin, and points.
“Look . . . a spider.”
I cautiously take a step forward and lean over,
grimacing as I look into the bowl.
And holy shit . . . a spider the size of a T rex
is floating on the surface, all eight legs spread out, bent and poised to
look as if it’s ready to leap out and attach itself to my face. I suppress a
full spinal shudder and reach a tentative hand toward the handle to flush it.
Two things happen almost simultaneously that take
at least three years off my life.
The spider somehow manages to skitter across the
water, the beast so large it actually creates waves, and Ruby shrieks at me,
“No! Don’t kill it, Dad!”
It is with a major blow to my pride—as a man, as a
dad, as a six-foot, six-inch professional hockey player nicknamed the Brick
because I’m as big and tough as a brick wall—that I jump backward at least two
feet from the monster-infested toilet and banshee-crying sprite, causing my hip
to slam into the corner of the sink.
“Shit,” I curse loudly, and Ruby’s eyes go round,
followed by her lips.
“Oh, Dad . . . that’s a bad word.”
No shit.
I smile at her as I rub my hip. That’s definitely
going to leave a bruise. “Sorry, Rubes. I’ll put a dollar in the swear jar.”
She merely nods her acceptance of my apology and
turns worried eyes back to the toilet.
“You have to save it,” she implores.
Yeah . . . that’s not going to happen. Not now. Not
ever.
“Sure, baby,” I tell her as I take her by the
shoulder and turn her toward the bathroom door. I swear the spider glares at me
with a million red, evil eyes. “Go on down and get breakfast. Violet’s fixing
your cereal. I’ll get the spider out.”
“Okay,” Ruby says as she pulls away from me, but
continues to give me instructions. “But let it out the front door and I’ll
bring it some food later.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I assure her as she
disappears down the stairs. When I hear her feet hit the bottom landing, I turn
toward the toilet, intent on a quick flush to put me out of my misery.
Except when I look in the bowl, the fucking thing
is gone.
I’ll just go ahead and admit it. Spiders scare the
living hell out of me. I have no clue why, and while I would battle the
biggest, baddest monster to the death for my daughters, I’d much rather flush a
little spider down the toilet.
I immediately scramble backward out of the
bathroom, grabbing the doorknob and shutting it quickly behind me. My heart is
racing a million miles an hour, the thought of that furry hell beast now loose
in my house.
Just one more thing on the list of things I still
need to do today.
Get the girls dressed and ready for school.
Take the girls to school.
Clean up the spilled laundry detergent.
Finish the laundry.
Arm myself with a can of hairspray and a lighter to
torch the rogue spider in the bathroom.
Pick up my dry cleaning.
Work out.
Team practice.
Pick up the girls from Kate and Zack’s house.
Dinner.
Baths.
Story time and cuddling.
Go to bed because I’ll be exhausted.
Easy as fucking pie, and I’ll get up and do it all
over again the next day with a smile on my face. I’m finding life as a single
parent isn’t as daunting as I thought it would be and I’ve finally found my
groove.
I've been waiting for Ryker's story since I met him in the last book, and he did not disappoint - I think he may be my favorite player so far! He is so sweet with his kids, but gets down and dirty with Gray. He is also the glue that holds the team together. Gray is amazing the way she she goes for what she wants in her career and eventually her life as well. Keeping their relationship a secret makes it hard for Gray to build a relationship with Ryker's daughters, and I really would've liked to see that. It was nice to see the guys from the previous books and I loved the bonus scene for Zack and Kate!
I received an ARC via NetGalley for the purpose of an honest review. I was not compensated for this review, all conclusions are my own.
USA Today and New York Times Best-Selling
Author, Sawyer Bennett is a snarky southern woman and reformed trial lawyer who
decided to finally start putting on paper all of the stories that were floating
in her head. Her husband works for a Fortune 100 company which lets him fly all
over the world while she stays at home with their daughter and three big, furry
dogs who hog the bed. Sawyer would like to report she doesn’t have many
weaknesses but can be bribed with a nominal amount of milk chocolate.
Sawyer is the author of several contemporary romances including
the popular Off Series, the Legal Affairs Series and the Last Call Series. She
will be releasing her third book in the Cold Fury Hockey Series with Random
House Loveswept, June 2015.
Thank you for hosting RYKER!
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