Offside Hearts (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798177927480)

Marcus Kennedy knows how to fight for a win

After fourteen seasons as a star winger for the Detroit Diesel, he understands sacrifice, pressure, and what it takes to survive when everything is on the line.

He just never realized his marriage had become one of those things.

Claire Kennedy has spent years building a life around the demands of professional hockey-the road trips, missed milestones, unpredictable schedules, and a husband whose career always seems to need him somewhere else. She loves Marcus fiercely. But somewhere between his life on the ice and their five-year struggle to have a baby, Claire stopped feeling like his partner and started feeling like someone waiting for him to come home.

They aren't falling out of love.

That might be the hardest part.

Because the love is still there. So is the attraction. The history. The friendship. And a marriage neither of them is ready to surrender.

When their journey to become parents leads them through infertility treatments, devastating disappointment, and eventually IVF, Marcus is forced to confront something no amount of talent can fix: showing up for the people you love takes more than good intentions.

At the same time, Detroit is chasing the Stanley Cup, Claire is pursuing a dream of her own, and the life they've spent years trying to build is changing faster than either of them expected.

Now Marcus and Claire must learn how to choose each other again-not as the teenagers who fell in love, but as the people they've become.

Because some love stories aren't about falling.

They're about staying.

And sometimes the most important fight isn't for the Cup.

It's for the person waiting when you come off the ice.

Offside Hearts is Book Two in the Detroit Diesel Hockey Romance Series-a deeply emotional marriage-in-crisis hockey romance about infertility, IVF, second chances within marriage, sacrifice, family, and discovering that happily ever after isn't something you reach. It's something you keep choosing.