On Ice Collision

Leo Sterling is the charm-heavy, chaotic center for the Chicago Cougars—a man who skates through life with a lazy grin, a multi-million-dollar endorsement portfolio, and an absolute refusal to play by the rules. But when a viral post-season video triggers a massive PR disaster, management issues an ultimatum: vanish into isolation or face a permanent team suspension. Sidelined and stripped of his city polish, Leo is sent to a secluded guest house deep in the Northwoods of Glacial Lakes, Wisconsin, under a strict thirty-day media ban.

Sienna Hayes doesn’t have time for a spoiled professional athlete with zero boundaries. Between working grueling twelve-hour shifts as a clinic nurse and raising her five-year-old daughter, Lily, her life is a tightly calibrated fortress built on survival. After a reckless man from her past cleaned out her savings and walked away, Sienna swore she would never again let an unstable variable past her defensive lines. Her rules for her new tenant are absolute: Keep your distance, stay on your side of the property, and do not get close to my daughter.

But when a severe summer squall knocks out the power grid and washes out the ridge roads, Sienna is trapped at the trauma center. Desperate and out of options, she has no choice but to call the mysterious man in her guest house to anchor the zone.

What starts as a frantic rescue loop swiftly turns into an intense, forced-proximity lockdown inside the main farmhouse. As Leo drops his celebrity mask to protect Sienna’s family, the friction between them snaps into a white-hot, electric chemistry neither budgeted for. Leo is suddenly fixing broken porches, building block castles, and holding the line like a real partner.

But as the city lights call Leo back to training camp and the media circus closes in, Sienna has to decide if she can risk her daughter’s peace for a man built to drift—and Leo has to prove that when it comes to the only family he's ever wanted, he's ready to drop his gloves and hold the line forever.

From author Avery Cross comes On-Ice Collision, a full-length, high-steam contemporary sports romance. It is Book 2 in the Glacial Lakes Series. While the series features recurring teammates and local town characters, each book is a completely interconnected standalone following a different couple to a guaranteed Happily Ever After. Can be read in any order. No cliffhangers. No cheating.