“Are we ready to show off some of that gorgeous artwork?” Candy, the bubbly owner of Candy’s Canvases, grinned from the stage of the Wellshire community room.

“We’re ready to try!” Paulette responded. “But there’s no accounting for taste with this bunch.”

“I disagree,” John said, pulling Paulette into a side hug. “You have excellent taste. In men. Ha!”

“Don’t let my husband hear you say that,” she teased. “His head is big enough already.”

Ally grinned at them both, enjoying their endless banter. They’d officially tied the knot a few months earlier, and since then, they’d grown too adorable for words.

Paulette had made a full recovery from her previous heart troubles, but John was on oxygen now, carrying a portable device everywhere he went. He seemed to take it all in stride, but for Ally, it was a stark reminder of how quickly life could change. How important it was to cherish those you loved.

“Come on up, Paulette,” Candy called out. “Let’s show your friends how it’s done.”

Paulette unleashed a put-upon sigh, but her eyes sparkled with delight. “If I must.”

“Here she goes,” John said. “Speaking of big heads.”

Everyone at their table laughed as Paulette peacocked her way to the stage, holding her canvas in front of her so it wouldn’t smudge. Tonight’s gathering had been a free-for-all paint night, so rather than walking everyone through the motions of painting the same flowers or winter scenes, Candy had encouraged the group to let their muses out.

Ally was still putting the finishing touches on her painting—a silhouette of Reggie on the ice, skating under a moonlit sky.

It was the end of another summer and hockey clinic, and Ally, Roscoe, and Reg had just gotten back from a week in Maine with Roscoe’s enormous family. After months of nothing but video chats and greeting cards, it was really nice to meet them all in person. Ally had been nervous—they were a big bunch, each one louder and more boisterous than the last—but just like Roscoe, they’d welcomed her and Reggie with open arms. By the end of the first day, it was as if they’d been a part of the family all along. Reggie was a bit older than the other kids, but she loved hanging out with them on the beach, helping the little ones build sand castles, and—of course—showing up all the boys who’d tried and failed to outshine her in their wave riding competitions.

Plus, Ally had finally gotten to hear Roscoe’s infamous lobster voice, and that alone was worth the trip.

“That’s just lovely, Paulette!” Candy beamed, directing Paulette to stand at the center of the stage. Her painting was simple but elegant—a black, calligraphy-style letter E, woven through with flowering vines. Ally didn’t know what the E stood for, but the piece was pretty.

Karen Dunn went next. Lately she’d been having more bad days than good, her memory fading more every time Ally saw her, and now she walked with a bit of a shuffle. Walker said that she’d still surpassed the doctors’ expectations, but he knew as well as Ally that it wouldn’t last forever. It was yet another reminder at just how precious their time together really was.

Ally swallowed the lump in her throat, grateful that today was a good day for Karen, and that Ally had gotten to share it with her.

“Wow, Karen,” Candy said, and Karen beamed. Like Paulette, she’d also painted a fancy letter. “Excellent lines on that M. Really clean and modern.”

Other artists followed—Lorraine, John, Walker, Eva, and even June Higgenbottom, who’d made her peace with Lorraine and John’s romance in time to step in as a late-entry bridesmaid at their wedding, and had since become part of the gang. Each one of them had painted a single letter, all in different styles, and now they clustered together on the stage, comparing and contrasting while Candy commented on their creative techniques.

“What’s going on with the letters?” Ally asked Clarissa.

“No idea, but it’s super cute! Big, buff hockey players and sassy old women? Why are we not filming this?” Clarissa dug out her phone, climbing up on her chair to get a good angle.

Ally shot a questioning look at Roscoe and Reggie across the table, but they seemed just as confused.

“Probably some Pinterest trend or something,” Reggie said dismissively.

Roscoe, who’d made Ally pinky swear not to peek at his painting for the entire night, simply shrugged his shoulders and winked, flashing her that killer dimple of his.

Ally’s heart fluttered, a white-hot current buzzing through her veins. Roscoe was so damn cute, so damn sexy. How many times had she kissed that very spot, usually after he’d made her laugh until tears streamed from her eyes? How many ways had he continued to surprise her? Had he celebrated her artwork? Championed Reggie’s hockey dreams? Held them both in his strong, protective embrace as they cried after their grief sessions?

God… Most days, Ally still couldn’t believe how blessed she’d been. Standing here now, paintbrush in hand, surrounded by the people she loved most in this world, Ally felt her heart expand. When she looked out across the community room and saw her friends gathered on the stage with their paintings, all of them laughing as Paulette and John started making out in the middle of Candy’s assessment, Ally’s heart expanded again, blooming and blossoming in ways she never could’ve predicted when she’d first come to this city, scared and anxious, lost and scattered.

“Roscoe LeGrand,” Candy called out now, and Ally felt her heart skip at the sound of his name. “Don’t be shy, number thirty-eight. I’m sure I’m not the only woman dying to know what your muse looks like.”

At this, everyone in the room cheered.

“Is it another letter?” Ally asked.

Roscoe shook his head. “Not even close.”

“Go on!” Ally bounced on her toes, making Reggie giggle.

“I don’t know about this,” Roscoe teased. He held her gaze for a moment, his face actually flushing. “We all know I’m not the artist in this operation.”

“You’re killing me,” Ally said. “In the words of my daughter, I’m, like, legit dying over here.”

“Please go, Roscoe,” Reggie said. “Before she further embarrasses herself trying to be cool.”

“I’ll go if you go,” he said, elbowing Reggie.

“You’re such a man-baby.” Reggie laughed. “Fine, fine. Let’s go.”

“Okay. We’ve got this.” He blew out a breath as if he were prepping for a big game, then looked at Ally one more time, a hint of nervousness flashing in his eyes. “But don’t judge me too hard. I’m a suck-ass painter.”

“Yes, but you're my suck-ass painter,” Ally reminded him with a grin.

“Always.” He winked again, then picked up his canvas and headed up front, Reggie in tow. Candy rearranged the other artists to make room for everyone, settling them all into one long line across the stage, with Reggie and Roscoe at the very end. But in the confusion, everyone had managed to flip their canvases around, hiding their artwork.

“Well.” Candy laughed, gesturing to the group. “This won’t do at all. Come on, guys. Get it together.”

One at a time, they flipped their canvases.

Karen had the M.

Lorraine had an A.

An R for June.

Another R for John.

Eva held the Y.

Ally gasped, her brain finally starting to figure it out. Is this really happening?

Walker had another M.

Oh my God.

Paulette had the E.

This is… Oh my God!

Reggie had a question mark.

Ally’s heart thudded in her chest, threatening to burst as she read the message again.

MARRY ME?

A murmur started in the crowd, everyone turning around to find the message’s intended recipient. Ally’s cheeks flamed, her eyes misting with tears.

And there, watching her from the end of the line with his beautiful hazel eyes, was her man. Her lover. Her champion. Her heart.

Without breaking their gaze, Roscoe got down on one knee and flipped around his canvas, revealing a painted diamond ring surrounded by pink and red hearts.

Time slowed to a crawl.

Even as the butterflies danced inside her, even as the tears finally spilled, even as her heart continued to drum its wild, untamed beat all for Roscoe, Ally still couldn’t believe it was happening.

Slowly, as if in a dream, she made her way to the stage, climbing up to stand in front of Roscoe, her legs trembling, her heart threatening to burst free.

“Is this real?” she whispered.

“It’s real.” Roscoe passed his canvas to Reggie and took Ally’s hands, brushing his thumbs across her knuckles. The gesture was so familiar, so comforting, for a moment Ally forgot where they were. Everyone else faded away, and Roscoe looked into her eyes, speaking the words that healed the very last fractures of her heart.

“You’re my best friend. My true partner. I know it sounds crazy, but I fell in love with you the very first time we met. I’ve loved you every day since. And I promise to love you for the rest of my life.” He slid a ring onto her finger—a gorgeous platinum-set diamond surrounded by tiny rubies—sealing it with a kiss. When he looked up at her again, his eyes shone with love. With gratitude. With hope. “Be my wife, Allison Heinz,” he said, raw emotion breaking his voice. “Be my messy, complicated, beautiful forever.”

Ally didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” she said, laughing through her tears as she dropped to her knees before him. “Yes!”

The room erupted in a chorus of cheers and whistles, Reggie and Clarissa loudest of all, but Ally paid them no attention, throwing her arms around Roscoe and kissing him until they toppled backward on the stage, consumed by love and passion and all the things bursting to life inside their hearts.

The good things.

The very best things.

By the time Roscoe and Ally came up for air, paint night at the Wellshire had turned into a full-on engagement party, complete with Champagne and food and music and dancing, all courtesy of Clarissa, who knew better than anyone how to throw a good bash.

There was celebrating. Cheering and toasting. Posing for selfies with Paulette and the ladies of Wellshire. Happy tears and hugs and laughter. Memories shared and made as Roscoe and Ally began the next chapter of their lives, surrounded by friends and loved ones.

But what Ally would remember most about that night was Roscoe. Always Roscoe.

Their time together had not been without its challenges, but that morning on the ice rink last year, Ally had promised she’d bare it all to him, never pushing him away or shutting him out. In return, he’d promised he’d stick by her side, helping her and Reggie through their hardest, ugliest, most rock-bottom moments.

They’d endured more than a few of those.

But here they were tonight, stronger together, bound by respect and friendship and a deep, devoted love that had transformed Ally from a woman living in fear to a woman living in peace. In joy.

For so long she’d assumed she’d never find love again. That her immense fear of loss and death would keep her locked in a cage until her heart shriveled and died.

But then she’d stormed out onto the ice and met-cute Roscoe LeGrand.

In the end, Roscoe hadn’t saved her—not like some fairy tale prince on a white horse, slaying all her dragons. He’d simply given her the friendship, the encouragement, and the love she’d needed to find her own way out of the darkness, her own keys to the cage.

She loved him for that—maybe more than he even realized. And no matter what new challenges they faced, no matter what dragons still lurked in the deepest, darkest dungeons, she’d love him through all of it, and he’d love her, standing by her side for all the days of their messy, complicated, crazy, wild, amazing—and yes—beautiful forever.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading BIG HARD STICK! If you enjoyed Roscoe and Ally’s story, please consider leaving a review. Even a quick sentence or two about what you liked best can help other readers discover and fall in love with new books!

* * *

Have you read the rest of the Buffalo Tempest series? If not, find out how Walker and Eva fell hard and fast on the ice in , and then get to know Bex and Henny in .

If you’re all caught up with the Tempest boys, how about trading in that cold hard ice rink for a scorching hot beach? Ex-Army ranger Asher Burke is waiting for you in ! Read on for an excerpt…

* * *

First day back at Starfish Cove in a decade, and Asher Burke couldn’t decide what he’d missed more: hot, beautiful women sunning themselves on the beach, or wet, beautiful women splashing around in the ocean.

It was a damn tough call, one that would require serious hands-on research. He stripped off his T-shirt, sticky with sweat from the daylong drive down, already tasting the salty blue ocean on his lips. But before he could officially kick off his work boots and dive in, he had to do a little recon.

Ash dropped his gear in the mudroom and stepped into the kitchen at Summerland, the Southern California beach house where he’d spent every summer for twenty-two years. A pang of longing twisted his heart, but he stowed that shit quick. He wasn’t there to reminisce or beat himself up about his piss-poor decisions. He was there to do a job.

Ash had made that absolutely clear on the phone with his old man last week. He’d heard from his sister Lizzie that their father was planning to sell the beach cottage at the end of the season and needed some repair work done, but didn’t have the cash to make it happen. So after a ten year estrangement, Ash had swallowed his pride and made the old man an offer he couldn’t afford to refuse.

His father hadn’t invited him down to the house in San Diego, which was just as well—Ash wasn’t ready to go home yet. But they’d managed to find some common ground: the old man was upside down on the Summerland mortgage, needed the work done fast and cheap. Ash had just finished out his lease in Seattle, then coasted into town on fumes, needing a gig and a place to crash for the summer.

Right now, that’s all they had to offer each other.

Course, that was before Ash had seen the place. Now that he was here, he couldn’t believe what the fuck he’d gotten himself into.

FUBAR didn’t even begin to describe it. He’d seen better construction on huts in the damn desert.

The back door was missing a hinge, and the screen had a hole big enough for a roadrunner to jump through. The kitchen faucet was leaking. The baseboards under the sink were warped to shit, and the floor was starting to buckle, too.

Ash opened a few cupboards, still stocked with chipped and mismatched dishes. They might be able to get away with the original cabinetry, but the shelving inside was shot, and most of the doors needed to be rehung with new hardware and knobs. When he turned on the faucet and flicked the switch for the garbage disposal, the thing made a sound like a car wreck.

He flicked off the switch and shoved his hand into the hole, pulling out a twisted hunk of metal that used to be a fork.

Pressure built up behind Ash’s eyes, threatening to blow up into a headache. When he and Lizzie were kids, Summerland had been his mother’s heart and soul. The Burkes had never had much money, but his mother had always wanted her kids to have a special summer place growing up—a place where the stresses of real life didn't exist.

“Summerland is magic. When you’re here, you get to be whoever you want to be…”

Ash shook his head, clearing away the echo of his mother’s voice. She’d been gone ten years now; it wasn't that he wanted to forget, it just hurt too damn much to remember. And now his father was getting ready to sell the very thing that had once brought his mother so much joy—that had brought the whole family joy.

Ash tossed the mangled fork onto the counter. When he’d first heard about his father’s plan, he didn't think much of it. The old man was getting, well, old. Lizzie had her own life now, living out in Huntington Beach, teaching English at some tough-as-nails high school. Summerland had fallen into disrepair and wasn't being used—selling it made perfect sense. In fact, he was surprised his father had held on to it for this long.

But now that he was here, Ash couldn't shake the feeling that they were selling off a piece of his mother’s heart, the one thing that had meant more to her than any other possession, including her own home in San Diego. It was the place where she'd given her children those happy summer memories, just like she'd always wanted.

By this time next season, they'd be someone else's memories.

Ash yanked open a few drawers, peeked inside the oven. In his mind's eye, the place had never been particularly fancy, but he’d always remembered it being in good shape. Solid. Homey.

Now everything was falling apart.

What the hell happened to this place?

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Ash braced himself against the chipped countertop and looked out the cracked window over the sink. Hell. He knew damn well what’d happened—he just wasn't ready to face those demons yet.

Avoiding the refrigerator—more specifically, the collection of family photos plastered across the front of it—he rummaged through the junk drawer for a notepad and pen.

So much for a day flirting at the beach. Ash had hoped he'd be able to pick up supplies in town, but if the state of the kitchen was any indication, that plan was shot to shit. He had his own tools in the truck, parked in the beach access lot up the hill, but supplies were another story. Unless a Home Depot had sprouted up in the Cove while he was away, he’d need to hit the lumberyard out in Jackson Bay, and probably that kitchen-and-bath place he’d passed on the drive in. Not to mention grocery shopping.

Jesus Christ. The old man was lucky Ash wasn't charging him for labor. Even the cheapest parts would just about wipe out the budget. How had his father let this place get so out of control?

A fresh wave of guilt crashed through Ash’s chest. Everywhere he turned, he saw his mother's face, felt the touch of her hand on his cheek. She was so weak by the end, it had taken almost all of her strength to hold up her arm, yet she'd always managed to find a smile for Ash. Right up until the last day.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. But they were just words, and in the ten years he’d been saying them, not a damn thing had ever changed.

Get your shit together, asshole.

Ignoring the stab of pain in his heart, he jotted down some more notes, trying to figure out how he could minimize the number of county lines he’d have to cross to get all his supplies today, but it wasn't looking good. He tossed the notepad onto the counter and yanked open the fridge, hoping against the odds that fate would smile on him with a beer left on the door. What he found instead almost made him a true believer: the entire bottom shelf of the fridge was full of wine and Corona, and the rest was stocked with enough food for a party.

Before he could even guess whose stash that was, a pair of female voices floated in through the kitchen window, just outside the mudroom.

“I can't believe you didn't go with him," the one said. “He was totally into you. And totally hot.”

“He didn't respect my boundaries,” the other one said.

“The boundaries you so clearly established by throwing your arms around his neck and mashing your boobs against his chest? Or the boundaries where you shook your hot little ass against his crotch.”

“I was just leaving him wanting more.”

“Judging from the bulge in his shorts,” the first one said, laughing, “mission accomplished.”

Ash swiped a beer from the fridge and was about to head out and introduce himself, but they beat him to the punch. At the sound of the screen door creaking open, Ash plastered on a grin, turning on his heel toward the mudroom.

And then he almost lost his shit.

Two women wearing nothing but sand and bikinis—one hot pink, the other black. Both of them staring at him with shocked, open mouths, water dripping from their hair all over the floor.

Time stopped, then rewound, and suddenly he was twenty-two again, his baby sister standing in the kitchen wearing too much makeup and not enough clothing, pleading with him.

“Just two beers, Ash. One for me, one for her.”

“No way. You're underage.”

“We’re eighteen, dickface. Next year we can totally drink in Canada.”

“Oh yeah? If you start walking now, you’ll hit the border right on time.”

“Come on, Ash! Mom and Dad won't know. Pleeeease…”

“Ash?” pink bikini said now, her eyes glazing with tears.

Jesus. Like so many things in this house, Ash wasn't ready to face those tears. But unlike the ghosts he’d been wrestling with, these two women were real. Flesh and blood. And nothing like the teenagers he remembered.

Pink bikini was his baby sister, Dizzy Lizzie.

Black bikini? Lizzie’s best friend, Pam Diederman. Deeds. Also known as the woman who’d fueled every last one of his sexual fantasies from high school to—frankly—last night in the shower.

Ash hadn’t spoken to her in ten years. The night he’d said goodbye was supposed to be for good, and he’d made damn sure of that—never once stalked her on social media, never called, never asked about her the handful of times he’d talked to Lizzie after their mom's funeral.

Yet there she was, standing there like a Victoria's Secret model in that bikini that hugged her every curve, her innocent Blue eyes wide with shock, mouth frozen into a tiny pink “o.”

Ash’s heart banged against his ribs as memory after memory crashed through his skull, jerking him in a dozen different directions. Pam, laughing on the beach year after year as she snapped pictures of their childhood summers. Pam, giggling with Lizzie—Deeds and Dizzy, or D-squared, as their parents used to say—as they played Marco Polo in the water.

And that last summer… Pam, naked beneath the press of his hard body, her eyes dark with pleasure as she arched her hips and whispered Ash’s name again and again and again…

He lost the ability to think, to breathe, to fucking speak in complete sentences.

There was only one phrase he remembered at the moment, and it pretty much summed it all up.

“Well fuck me.”

* * *

It’s not long before Ash and Pam get up to their old tricks, sneaking around for another red-hot, wall-banging, toe-curling summer. But what happens when secrets come to light and Ash puts his heart on the line?