Cherry Picking

Some people you bury.

Some people you keep.

Briggs Maxwell is the hockey player teams like to put in front of a camera. He's fast, he's easy to like, and he makes a struggling franchise look better than it is. But it's a contract year, the Charlotte Kings are on the wrong side of the playoff line, and he's starting to suspect he'll spend a whole career being useful without ever being necessary.

Then his little brother dies, and Briggs flies home to Vegas to bury a man he hadn't spoken to in two years.

Evie Sutton has buried half her town and most of her feelings. She's a fine arts graduate who digs graves for her father's funeral home, and she knows how to handle grief like she handles a supply order-practically, and without flinching.

What she doesn't know how to handle is a famous hockey player who's just turned up at her funeral home.

When Briggs has to leave his stroke-recovering father behind for the rest of the season, it's Evie who agrees to help them out. It's supposed to be a simple arrangement. Five months, a paycheck, and two thousand miles of distance to keep it from becoming anything else.

But Briggs has spent his whole life leaving before anyone can ask him to stay, and Evie has never once asked anybody for anything. Which is fine, right up until it isn't.

A romance about the people we lose, the people we hold onto, and the terrifying business of being worth the trouble.