Her assignment: keep the toughest man in hockey alive. He dares her to try.

Catrina Robinson has guarded royalty. Now she’s frying whitefish in a restaurant kitchen on a frozen Michigan island, waiting on a job offer from London.

Then hockey star Nick “The Wolf” Whitaker walks in with a concussion and a stalker.

The NHL enforcer came home from a fight he doesn’t remember losing to find his home invaded. Jonathon Island was supposed to be a hiding place. A friend’s wedding, an empty cottage at the MacBride resort, six quiet weeks, then back to the team.

Nobody mentioned the bodyguard.

Nick takes one look at the freckled blonde they’ve hired and says he doesn’t need protecting—especially not from a woman.

Cat takes the job two days later.

Because The Wolf is running out of seasons. His body is failing, and hockey is the only thing he’s ever been good at. Without it, he has no idea what’s left.

Maybe it’s this. Because every shared meal, every walk home makes it harder to remember she’s the hired help—and every X on Cat’s calendar brings her a day closer to the end of the contract. She’s counting down to freedom. She just didn’t expect to dread it.

Then the threat follows Nick to the island. And the man who’s never backed down from a fight will have to let the woman he can’t lose fight for him.

Two people with tickets off the island.

Two people wondering—what if they dared to stay?

A bodyguard romance about a wounded fighter, the woman hired to keep him alive, and the love that dares them both to stay.