He has been carrying her words for seven years. She does not remember saying them. Her seven-year-old sees everything they refuse to say out loud.

A slow-burn, single parent hockey romance where a veteran who edits himself to survive and a producer who stages herself to stay safe discover that the person watching most carefully is seven years old and entirely unimpressed with their systems.

Vince Mercer is thirty-four, a Portland Wolves veteran defenseman approaching his thousandth game, and a man who has learned to compress every true thing into the minimum viable sentence.

Elara Vasquez is thirty-three, owner of Vasquez and Associates, and a single mother whose marriage taught her what happens when you disappear into someone else's schedule. She has spent three years building a life she controls entirely: color-coded binders, precise timelines, and a production vocabulary she uses on her own feelings.

The Heritage Season is a celebration and an excavation. As Elara digs into the archive, she finds a memo proving the organization suppressed Vince's career-threatening shoulder injury for seven years.

Last Change is Book 4 in the Ice and Instinct series. Each book follows a different couple on the Portland Wolves. Interconnected standalones. They all play dirty.

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