Loathe Gray

Gray Hoffman is a police officer whose days run on a fixed schedule: morning workouts, Friday night poker, and a monthly true-crime book club. He has a clear picture of his future, a marriage to a wife who would settle into that orderly life, even if it is a predictable one.

Sam Thornton is in the middle of a divorce and will return to her maiden name, Sam Smith, once it is final. She has moved to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, to learn who she is without a man defining her. She is open to a kiss or a no-strings night, but nothing more. Her energy goes into a new job at Bark Sniff Wag and a growing romance review blog, even though some people, Gray among them, look down on it. In a small town where she keeps running into him, Gray mostly stays the stiff, all-business man she has always found him to be, though not always. Lately she has seen another side of him, and their bickering has started to sound like flirting, so Sam wonders whether she dismissed him too quickly. Can a happy ending work for two people who want different things? Gray is ready to settle down, while Sam has no interest in walking down the aisle again.