She paints the walls everyone admires and signs none of them. He wears a smile everyone loves and means none of it. Then they're handed the same wall.
Indie Hawthorne has been "Coach's daughter" her whole life — an introduction, an appendage, never quite her own name. She's the best muralist on campus, and she has never once signed her work. Signing it means claiming it. Claiming it means someone could decide it's too much and take it away. Safer to make something beautiful and walk off before anyone asks her to stay.
Gabe Marsh used to be Calder's golden boy — four years on the blue line, the easy grin, the guy everyone adored. Now the jersey's gone, he's back as the newest face on her father's coaching staff, and he's circling the same question Indie is: if you take away the thing everyone loved you for, is there anything left underneath?
When the Barn commissions a mural of the program's history, Indie and Gabe get the project dropped on them together. She wants to paint the true story — the losses, the heartbreak, the long unbroken drought, and one panel left deliberately blank for the year they finally win. He's spent his whole life smoothing the true story into something shinier.
He's the first person who doesn't buy her not-caring act. She's the first person who looks straight past his smile — and isn't disappointed by what's behind it.
Falling for him was never the plan. Neither was letting him watch her sign her name.
Brush with Love is a sweet, closed-door college hockey romance — Book Four of the Home Ice Sweethearts series. A guarded artist, a golden boy learning who he is without the spotlight, a wall that refuses to lie, and the warmest found family on the ice. Fully closed-door; happily ever after guaranteed.
Tropes: forced proximity · opposites attract · grumpy heroine / sunshine hero · artist heroine · golden boy with hidden depths · coach's daughter · behind-the-mask · found family · closed-door / clean · reads as a standalone
Genre: Romance
Indie Hawthorne has been "Coach's daughter" her whole life — an introduction, an appendage, never quite her own name. She's the best muralist on campus, and she has never once signed her work. Signing it means claiming it. Claiming it means someone could decide it's too much and take it away. Safer to make something beautiful and walk off before anyone asks her to stay.
Gabe Marsh used to be Calder's golden boy — four years on the blue line, the easy grin, the guy everyone adored. Now the jersey's gone, he's back as the newest face on her father's coaching staff, and he's circling the same question Indie is: if you take away the thing everyone loved you for, is there anything left underneath?
When the Barn commissions a mural of the program's history, Indie and Gabe get the project dropped on them together. She wants to paint the true story — the losses, the heartbreak, the long unbroken drought, and one panel left deliberately blank for the year they finally win. He's spent his whole life smoothing the true story into something shinier.
He's the first person who doesn't buy her not-caring act. She's the first person who looks straight past his smile — and isn't disappointed by what's behind it.
Falling for him was never the plan. Neither was letting him watch her sign her name.
Brush with Love is a sweet, closed-door college hockey romance — Book Four of the Home Ice Sweethearts series. A guarded artist, a golden boy learning who he is without the spotlight, a wall that refuses to lie, and the warmest found family on the ice. Fully closed-door; happily ever after guaranteed.
Tropes: forced proximity · opposites attract · grumpy heroine / sunshine hero · artist heroine · golden boy with hidden depths · coach's daughter · behind-the-mask · found family · closed-door / clean · reads as a standalone
Genre: Romance
Used availability for Cassie Rivers's Brush with Love