Falling for a Faceoff (Signed Edition)

✅ enemies to lovers

✅ forced proximity

✅ found family

✅ inheritance

✅ slow burn

✅ hockey

Forty million dollars. Forty tasks. Six months. And the one woman he can’t ignore.

Shelby
I have two goals: prove myself as a baby attorney—and keep my fifteen-year-old sister out of trouble.

Dakota Hale is messing with both.

Sure, my sister egged his house. But calling the cops on a teenager? Total overkill.

Even worse, my first assignment as a junior associate is making sure Dakota completes the forty outrageous tasks in his late father’s will. If he doesn’t, my already-shaky career could be toast.

He’s maddeningly stubborn, infuriatingly charming, and the most attractive man I’ve ever met.

Which would be complicated enough if falling for him weren’t completely off-limits.

Dakota
My father’s gone—and he’s still trying to control me from the grave.

If I want my forty-million-dollar inheritance, I have six months to complete every ridiculous task in his will. And I have to do it all while playing one of the most important hockey seasons of my career.

That’s the easy part. Dealing with Shelby, the uptight attorney assigned to keep me in line, is what might break me.

She thinks I’m an entitled brat. I think she’s more painful than a hockey puck to the face.

But somewhere between the arguing, the hours we’re forced to spend together, and confronting the family secrets I’ve spent more than a decade avoiding, Shelby stops feeling like the enemy.

It isn’t about the money anymore.

I’m not even sure it’s about hockey.

It might be about her.

If you love an enemies-to-lovers hockey romance, sparkling chemistry, witty banter, and heartfelt emotion—without on-page steam—then you’ll love Falling for a Faceoff. Each book in the series can be read as a standalone, but readers will love returning to the interconnected world and characters.

CHAPTER ONE

Dakota

Toilet paper hangs from the trees in my front yard like abandoned streamers from the world’s saddest party. I slam shut my truck door through gritted teeth, staring at what looks to be an entire aisle’s worth of TP thanks to my neighborhood’s teenage miscreants.

This is the second worst thing that’s happened to me in the last twenty-four hours. The first is losing last night’s game against Calgary.

Third worst thing, slightly below the toilet paper: finding out an hour ago that my dad is dead.

It would be higher on the list if I hadn’t already mourned his loss over a decade ago, when he divorced my mom and abandoned me in the process. Still, the fact that I’m more frustrated by a little pre-Halloween vandalism than the death of a parent sucks. Maybe I’m still processing the news.

It’s been three days since Dad took a conference call in his office, had a heart attack while on the phone, and the paramedics failed to revive him. But Eddie the Administrative Assistant managed to track me down today to impart the news. He had to use Dad’s phone to get through to me—I have all unknown numbers automatically blocked—and the message sounded urgent enough that I called him back.

My dad is dead. D-e-a-d dead. Still can’t believe it.

I take one last look at the toilet paper. Do these teens not have homework? It’s a freaking Monday evening. Fully dark outside, yes, but it’s still only eight o’clock.

Whatever. I grab my duffel bag of gear from the back of the truck and head inside with a sigh. I’m exhausted, so I’ll take my chances with the weather and hope I don’t have a soggy mess to dispose of in the morning.

Inside, I kick off my shoes, sending them flying more or less toward the mudroom as the garage door slides almost silently closed. Some of the guys on the team choose to rent, since we can’t depend on permanence in our line of work. But when I saw this house, I knew I had to buy it.

Getting traded to Utah just over two seasons ago felt like a bad omen at the time. I dreaded returning to the state of my birth—the place where my family disintegrated like melting ice. The home where my childhood imploded is only a few miles north of the Yetis’ training facility. But when I drove into the valley and saw the tall mountain peaks surrounding me on all sides, I immediately felt at home.

Utah is where I belong. Dad doesn’t get to take that from me anymore. And since I’m staring down age thirty, retirement’s taking up more space in my mind than I’d like.

I have no idea where Dad is these days—or where he was, I guess. Last I heard, he still owned my childhood home. Eddie the Administrative Assistant startled me so much with his news that I didn’t think to ask where he was calling from.

Not that I care one way or the other. It’s not like my life will be any different with Dad in the ground. Still, it’s surreal to know that the man I once idolized above all others is now gone forever.

I wish he hadn’t become a walking cliché who chose to cheat on my mom for his midlife crisis. Then again, if he hadn’t thrown our family away for a floozy, I probably wouldn’t be a defenseman with the Utah Yetis. I guess I can thank Dad for that much.

I sink into my leather recliner with a satisfied groan and flip on my favorite sports channel to replay the commentary of last night’s game. But when it gets to a slow-motion replay of me getting smashed into the boards, I flick off the television and toss the remote aside.

The remote clips the edge of the couch and bounces onto the solid wood floor, where the back pops off and two AA batteries roll away. Whatever. Right now, I can’t bring myself to dig under the couch for them.

I can’t believe my dad is really dead.

He tried to repair things more than once over the last decade—you know, after I signed with my first team and he figured I might become rich and famous. The most recent attempt was last year, when he called me on his birthday—I guess he thought I’d answer out of guilt, or maybe sympathy?—and left a message asking if we could talk. Maybe even see each other.

I never called him back, and it’s hitting me that some things in life are more permanent than divorce. Like being six-feet under.

An email notification flashes across my phone screen, distracting me. I’m about to swipe it away when the subject line catches my attention—the last will and testament of Jonathan Hale.

I run a shaky hand through my hair, which is still damp from my post-practice shower, and stare at the email.

I guess I am my father’s only living direct relative. Dealing with his affairs is probably my job now. If I don’t step up, who will? Then again, he didn’t exactly step up after the divorce. Never paid child support or alimony.

I open the email, zeroing in on the return address—r.mckinley@mhjlaw.com. It seems legit enough.

A few moments later, I’ve confirmed that the email does indeed belong to Mr. Robert McKinley, an attorney at McKinley, Howard & Jones. My stomach is full of rocks as I start reading.

To: dakotahale@utahyetis.com
CC: j.pritchard@mhj.com
From: r.mckinley@mhjlaw.com

Subject: the last will and testament of Jonathan Hale

Dear Mr. Hale,

I apologize for contacting you so informally. As I’ve been unable to reach you by telephone and time is of the essence, I have resorted to email.

Please accept my heartfelt condolences for the recent loss of your father. As his attorney, I had the pleasure of working with him these past few years on his last will and testament. He was a kind and fair man, and he will be missed.

As you are his sole heir, it is now my responsibility to discuss his last wishes with you. Would it be possible to meet tomorrow at one o’clock in our Draper office?

I’ve cc’ed my secretary on this email; if you would simply “reply all,” she will get it scheduled.

Cordially,
Robert McKinley, Esq.
McKinley, Howard & Jones, Attorneys at Law

My hand curls into a fist, anger piling up like trash in a landfill. It’s an almost Pavlovian response whenever my father is brought up. Of course he’d force me to deal with this. He couldn’t make me forgive him in life, so he’s going to strong-arm me into dealing with him in death.

I guess I can at least be grateful that Eddie the Administrative Assistant broke the news before this email did.

The timing couldn’t be worse—we’ve lost four of the last five games, and I’m exhausted from being on the road so much. I don’t have time to settle my father’s estate. “Free time” isn’t on my schedule, and “flexible” isn’t even in my vocabulary.

I’ve already got the stupid toilet paper to clean up, and that’s more than enough.

My finger inches toward the delete button. If I blow off this meeting, what are the consequences? None, really. It’s not like they can arrest me for refusing to talk to my late father’s attorney.

But I hesitate, the trash can icon staring at me like a taunt. Yes, I hate my dad. He was a terrible person who didn’t deserve my respect.

But the curiosity is eating at me. What’s his angle here? What is his attorney going to say?

I sigh, clicking reply all instead of delete. I can at least hear Mr. McKinley out. Nothing’s stopping me from walking out of the office if things go south.

Dad’s probably got a few small balances on open credit cards, maybe a car that needs to be sold in addition to the house—the one Mom refused to stay in after she found out about the affair. It had sucked to move away from all my friends and start at a new school mid-year, especially one in a different state, but I didn’t complain. Mom cried all the time in those days, and I didn’t want to make things worse.

Besides, that was the year Mom signed me up for hockey, because how else is a thirteen-year-old boy supposed to make friends in Minnesota? As soon as I stepped onto the ice, I was hooked.

Mom. I swallow, realizing I’ll need to tell her that Dad has passed.

I can do this. I’ll meet with the attorney, let him say his piece, and then ask if he can handle All Things Dad without me. Because I expect exactly what my dad has given me since I was thirteen years old: nothing.

We had a great life until he dropped a grenade on it.

I’ve just hit send on my reply to Mr. McKinley and his secretary when a thunk outside the front door grabs my attention.

I cock my head to the side, listening. Thunk. There it is again. The telltale sound of teenage troublemakers.

Why can’t the world just leave me the heck alone?

I shove my phone into my back pocket and angrily stride toward the front door. Whoever is out there better run fast, or they’re ending the night with a free ride in the back of a police car. I’m in no mood to be messed with.

I fling open the door, ready to yell.

Something small and white slams into my chest with a dull splat. Yellow egg yolk slides down the front of my favorite T-shirt, running over the Y in yeti like a slimy booger. Fragments of shell cling to the mess, and I fling the largest piece aside with a disgusted grunt.

This is definitely worse than the toilet paper.

A dark figure in a hoodie runs toward the street, following a similarly dressed person who’s already halfway to the end of the cul-de-sac. Both of them are lanky and fast, which just confirms my suspicion—they’re teenagers. Maybe even the same ones who wasted three months of toilet paper on my trees.

Well, they picked the wrong house to target.

I sprint after the teens, leaving my front door wide open. Cold concrete scrapes the soles of my feet, but I barely notice.

I cross my lawn in a few bounds, lengthening my stride. I’ve nearly caught up with the slower vandal, but the faster one has already disappeared around the corner and into the shadows.

An engine’s roar shatters the still November night. Guess the faster kid decided to be a coward and abandon his partner in crime. Some friend.

But I’ve got the slower vandal within reach. Just a few more steps and I’ve got him.

I snag the back of his hoodie as we pass under a street lamp. The teen lets out a high-pitched shriek, struggling to get free.

A decidedly feminine scream.

Turns out my teenage vandal isn’t a snotty teen boy. No, this is much worse.

I’ve caught a defiant—and definitely underage—girl.

Falling for a Faceoff is a standalone romance with a guaranteed happily ever after in the multi-author, interconnected Utah Yetis Hockey Romcom series. Find the rest of the books in the series HERE.