He's my brother's best friend. My new neighbor. And the Providence Forge defenseman who makes me forget I was ever broken.

Coming home to Providence was supposed to be temporary while I finished my master's degree and helped at my family's architecture firm.

I planned to raise my daughter in peace after my ex-fiancé walked away before she was even born.

Then Ryder Mackay moved in next door. The gorgeous pediatrician and part-time Forge enforcer has always been off-limits. He's loyal, steady, and the kind of man who shows up without being asked. Which is exactly why falling for him is such a terrible idea.

Because every time Ryder holds my baby like she belongs in his arms...every time he looks at me like I'm worth more than the wreckage I'm still climbing out of...I start wanting things I swore I'd never risk again: a future and a family. Him.

But Ryder's spent years protecting everyone around him while ignoring what he wants for himself, and if we're not careful, the timing that brought us together might be the very thing that tears us apart.

Previously published as Magnetic Medic, Unexpected Play is a steamy brother's-best-friend hockey romance featuring a protective hero, a single mother rebuilding her life on her own terms, forced proximity, emotional healing, and a fiercely earned happily ever after. Books in the Providence Forge Series can be read standalone ? but reading in order deepens the world.