Cross Checked

He lost everything in one night.
She’s the woman who heals everyone else.

When rookie pro hockey player Brayden Cox loses his mother in a devastating crash—and nearly loses his sister too—his world narrows to one thing: Guilt.

The game that once defined him no longer feels like enough. The family he swore to protect is shattered. And the life he’s building still feels like it should’ve been taken from him instead.

Then a chance encounter at a Central Park dog adoption event brings him face-to-face with the woman who once held his world together from the other side of an ICU curtain.

Karla McAdams.
His sister’s former nurse.
The woman who saw him at his worst.
The one person he never stopped remembering.

Brayden sees a woman who gives everything to everyone else. Karla sees a man drowning in grief he refuses to name. And every moment together pulls them closer to something neither expected to want.

Because loving him means opening a heart that’s already broken.

And letting her in might be the only way Brayden ever learns to breathe again.

Perfect for readers who love:
🏒 Hockey romance
❤️ Nurse heroine + athlete hero
🏒 Grief & survivor’s guilt
❤️ Hurt/comfort
🏒 Protective, guilt-ridden hero
❤️ Emotional slow burn
🏒 Found family & team loyalty
❤️ Healing after loss

Cross Checked is a standalone romance in Kristen Hope Mazzola’s interconnected Shots on Goal: New York Ottersseries. This expanded edition has been fully rewritten, expanded, and newly edited.