Return (Stingrays Hockey #6)

Mari Carr

Blurb:

His comeback was supposed to be behind the bench—until she put his heart back in play.

Dean Fields thought he’d already played his final hockey period.

Forced to retire at twenty-nine after a brutal, career-ending injury, Dean traded skates for a clipboard, grinding his way through assistant coaching jobs across the league. He built a life in the shadows of the game he loved—controlled, disciplined, safe. Because if hockey had taught him anything, it was how quickly everything you want can be taken from you.

Coming back to Baltimore as head coach of the Stingrays was supposed to be just another step forward. It wasn’t supposed to bring her back into his life.

Vivian Hale had once been off-limits in every possible way—his teammate’s little sister, too young, too bright, and already falling for someone else. Dean had noticed her anyway. Always. But timing had been cruel, and by the time he understood what he felt, she was gone—married, building a life that had no place for him.

Now she’s back too.

Five years a widow, raising her spirited daughter Pip on her own, Vivian has spent long enough grieving the life she lost—and convincing herself it was enough. Love was something she had. Something she buried. Something she wasn’t sure she’d ever risk again.

But Dean isn’t the same man she once knew. And she isn’t the girl who watched him from afar.

What starts as familiarity—shared history, old almosts, quiet understanding—quickly turns into something deeper, something impossible to ignore. This time, there are no rules about teammates or timing. Only fear, second chances… and a little girl who might just change everything.

Dean never believed he’d get a shot at the life he once ruled out.

Vivian never thought she’d want one again.

But sometimes, the hardest thing isn’t moving on—

It’s allowing yourself to return.

Themes: Contemporary, Hockey

Rating: 4.25 stars

Heat Rating:

Review:

It’s always wonderful to see two people that have been friends for so long finally look at one another and see so much more, realizing that their connection can become so much more. Mari Carr has an ability to take us on an adventure through the lives of her characters as they go through the emotional changes and allow us to experience the way their hearts change and grow right there with them. At the end of the previous novel that Vivian was coming out of her shell off and her longstanding period of mourning after losing her first husband. I was very concerned that it would be too much for her and she might have to back away from her budding romance, but turns out that wasn’t the problem in this story at all. I enjoyed following along with these two as they both worked through all of their fears and past mistakes in order to find their way to one another and their HEA. I am dying for the next story and can’t wait to find out which of these hockey hotties will find love and get their world shaken as they find the woman that will change their lives forever.

Dean Fields has devoted his entire life to hockey, even at the expense of a relationship with his daughter as she grew up, but now that he is the coach of the team he is able to change his life a bit. Vivian Hale has lived and lost a lot in her young life, she’s a scientist by trade, a widow with a young daughter, and sister to a hockey star, but she has just recently begun to wonder if she has forgotten that she is also still simply a woman. When a hot night in Boston put Vivi and Dean together, neither of them ever conceived of the way their lives would change and the needs it would bring to the surface for them both. Now they are both finding that the deeper they get into their secret relationship the more their feelings get involved, so the question becomes will the relationship be sustainable or will they decide it was simply a fling? And if they decide to keep their relationship going are they able each get over their pasts in order to have a meaningful future or will their fears forever stand in their way?

Dean and Vivi were both interesting and multilayered characters with serious issues to work through individually and together so that they were able to have a relationship together. Dean has lived his entire life for his career, even though he did what he thought was best in difficult situations, but now he is having regrets and fears that he truly let down people that he cared about in the past. He forfeited a deep relationship with his daughter while she grew up, providing for her, but not really being there for her and now he is questioning if that makes him the type of man that doesn’t deserve to be a father. While he is a sweet, caring, smart, and brave guy, he doesn’t always think the straightest when it comes to his irrational fears he allows them to drive him to make dumb decisions. Vivian is the best kind of heroine, one that has had far too much thrown at her in life, but she is finally allowing herself to come out of her mourning and get back to her life. She is determined to stop allowing her loss to drive her future especially when she has a man that is offering her an ecstasy and chance at a future that she wants again, one filled with love and happiness. She is intelligent, sassy, charming, loving, and watching her with her family show us that she is the lynchpin of her family and always will be.

Return is truly a story of two people that are rejoining the relationship world by jumping into the deep end all at once and finding love together. A widow with a young daughter that has finally decided to allow herself to fall in love and move forward to live life once again, and in doing so finds herself losing her heart to the most unexpected of men. Vivian had a crush on Dean years ago when she first met him, but after falling in love then losing that love, she never imagined that crush could become so much more once she allowed herself to open her heart to him again and give their love a chance. Dean never looked at Vivian as anything more than a sweet young woman and his teammate and friends little sister, but once he does look at Vivian as a woman, his eyes are no longer able to see her as anything but the most interesting and beautiful creature he’s ever seen. However, with the mistakes he’s made in the past he’s not sure he deserves Vivian and Pip or the happiness that he feels building a life with them, so he’ll have to let his past go in order to forgive himself and have a chance of that beautiful future. The passion between Dean and Vivi is there from the very first moment, even when they are hiding it from those around them, and it is obvious that fire will continue burning in their relationship long into the future. I’m dying for the next story in this series because with each story it only gets better and better, but I expect nothing less from Mari Carr, especially when it involves hot hockey players.

*eARC provided by author for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review. No compensation was provided.