Showing results by author "Karla Sorensen" in All Categories

Raising my ten-year-old son, running an animal rescue, and caring for my grandfather leaves zero time for complications, let alone cocky athletes who get under my skin. Too bad the universe didn’t get the memo. Because a big complication just crashed into my life—literally—in the form of towering NFL quarterback Archer Evans, sentenced to community service at my shelter after a scandal. Despite his mistakes, I try not to judge.

You’d think it was the perfect setup: living next door to the grumpy single dad who needs my help with his troublemaking kids—just until football season is over. Swoony stuff, right? You know who’s not swooning? Me. I’m as grumpy as he is, and I’m fairly certain that for NFL Coach Barrett King, it was hate at first sight. It’s nothing I’ll lose sleep over because 1) the feeling is mutual, and 2) I’m not a people person. Just me and my dog, Larry, moving around when the mood strikes, is what I prefer.

It’s no secret that I’ve been in love with Jax Cartwright for half my life. A terrible decision, really, and not just because he’s my brother’s best friend or he’s ten years older than me. Thanks to an overprotective family, he’s ignored me for years, but still, I can’t get his grumpy a** out of my head. And in a wine-fueled, post-bad date funk, I make another terrible decision: show up at his cabin to ask why he’s never given me a chance. The storm that got me stuck there overnight was a total fluke, but I’m no fool.

Rule number one for the team owner’s daughter? Don’t date the players. Especially not hotheaded tight ends with tattoos and impulse-control problems. That’s why Dominic Walker is completely off my radar. Sort of. Babysitting the team troublemaker when he’s forced to volunteer for the foundation where I work means I can’t exactly avoid him. I wish I had though. Because once I get to know Dominic, it’s almost impossible to ignore the feelings he brings out in me. Pretty soon, I’m breaking all my rules. I just have to hope he doesn’t break my heart in the process.

A decade-old animosity is the only thing Liam Davies and Zoe Valentine have in common. Until their mutual best friends pass away and they’re appointed co-guardians of the trusting couple’s precocious toddler, Mira. Liam is committed only to professional football. Relationship-wise, he’s even better at defense. Still wrestling with a tough childhood, he’s not cut out to be a father. Why his late best buddy believed in him, Liam has no idea.

It’s an unwritten rule somewhere: small-town librarians shall not commit spontaneous acts, for fear of mortal embarrassment. I’d certainly just proved it true, though hiring an escort was perfectly logical. How else should I overcome my fear of intimacy without risking heartbreak? Unfortunately, what came next wasn’t so logical. Instead of a dating coach, Griffin King showed up. Yes, that Griffin King: my childhood neighbor and now, to my dismay, an obscenely handsome pro football player. He’s not actually an escort, but how was I supposed to know that?

Have you ever fake dated your bodyguard? I don't recommend it. Especially if he's anything like Erik Wilder: Former football player, world class know-it-all and unapologetic grump. To be clear, I didn't want a bodyguard (hence the fake dating idea). Most days, I can’t figure out why he wants the job either. We drive each other insane, probably because we’re as opposite as two people can be. He’s suspicious, never talks about his past and has the comfort skills of a cactus. I’m a happily-ever-after kind of girl who knows exactly what she wants out of life.

Former Dallas football player Burke Barrett is weathering a lot of changes. He’s retired from football. He’s mourning the loss of his best friend. And now he’s been bequeathed a dilapidated house in northern Michigan he doesn’t want. To his surprise it comes with a long-legged, blindly optimistic renovation manager with big ideas for Burke’s inheritance. She’s passionate, irritating, and irresistible.

Imagine the guy you’ve always wanted just whispered that in your ear. That you have one night to see what you’ve been missing. I’ve had a crush on Emmett Ward for as long as I can remember. And not just because he looks like a Greek god and has the audacity to walk around like he could break your headboard given the chance.

Marrying Beckett Coleman is the best idea I've had in years. I can grant my sick dad’s wish to walk one of his daughters down the aisle, and Beckett has my help solving a custody situation with his daughter. Our plan is to spend a year together, then part ways. Easy, especially since I'm not his type, and he's not mine either. He’s too quiet and too serious. And while he’s distractingly gorgeous, he’s also my brother’s teammate. Beckett is fake husband material, not the real deal. I just have to remember that.

Who forgets marrying a football player? Me, apparently. Turns out countless shots and a bad breakup lead to questionable decision making. But waking up in Vegas with a ring on my finger beside a hot, naked man is hard to ignore. I married Parker Wilder. Thanks to our quickie nuptials, I’ll get my inheritance, and he’ll get his family and their well-intentioned meddling off his back.

There’s only one course of action when your dad wants you to marry a clammy-handed wimp to make one of his board members happy—you get yourself stuck in an elevator with a hot stranger and have the steamiest make-out session of your life. Years of etiquette lessons went out the window thanks to Cameron Wilder, who managed to unleash my hidden bad girl with naught but his talented mouth and deliciously rough hands.

Being a football player and legal guardian to his four younger sisters means his playbook is full. However, one of them just landed in the hospital, which gives his brother the shot he needs to challenge Logan for custody. Legal counsel says there's only one thing Logan can do - find himself a wife.  

If you've ever seen your teenage crush 10 years later, and he turns out to be a complete jerk, then you know how Molly Ward feels. The last time she saw Noah Griffin was the regrettable day that she decided to climb into his bedroom window and turn her unrequited crush into something more. That day was bad enough, but things are about to get worse. Noah has become one of the best football players in the country, and he's just landed on Molly's front step.

Imagine this: an author with a raging case of writers block finds an unexpected source of inspiration in her grumpy, gorgeous new roommate. Sounds amazing, right? Except that new roommate is my childhood best friend. And Ian Wilder has been off-limits since I was five.

I wake up in a hospital with a year of my life missing—and Grant Hastings at my bedside. I remember him, all right. He’s wealthy. Arrogant. British. And my late brother’s best friend. The last man I’d ever want to marry. Except apparently I did. Now I’m living in a beautiful house I don’t recognize, wearing a ring I don’t remember receiving, and expected to play the devoted wife while his aristocratic family, unaware of the gaps in my memory, descends for his birthday.

Every action has a consequence, and Claire Ward knows it. And yet, even knowing that her decision to swap places with her identical twin sister, Lia, for a night could be disastrous, she still does it. Why? Because it will give her an evening with the man she’s been crushing on for years, Lia’s best friend, Finn. Miss Straight-A Student has thought through all the angles. And everything would have been fine if Finn had been the one to show up at her door. But it wasn’t. Bauer Davis - Finn’s half brother and his exact opposite...is the one waiting for her instead.

The headline could write itself: Matthew Hawkins, star defensive end, comes out of retirement to play for the Washington Wolves. Which is perfectly fine by Ava Baker - it makes her job as publicist for the team easier. There are only two problems. This particular football player was her first crush. The bigger problem: Matthew Hawkins was once engaged to her older sister.

I'm Levi Buchanan, and until five years ago, I thought the legend of my family's curse was a load of crazy, Southern nonsense. No curse can make you fall in love at first sight. No curse can force a true, deep, passionate, all-consuming love that will haunt you all the days of your life. Then I met Jocelyn Abernathy and I realized how completely wrong I was. The problem is, Jocelyn guards her feelings like well-armed soldier. She's the most beautiful, stubborn, infuriating woman I've ever met. Every time she talks, I want to kiss the living daylights out of her. But I can't.

Life lesson from Grady Buchanan: If you're going to fall in love with the untouchable girl in town, don't hire her as your only employee. Even after he bungled the interview with Magnolia MacIntyre, he knew better than to hire her. The list of why it's a bad idea is a long one. Her father could ruin his fledgling business. She is completely overqualified. And he’s attracted to her.