Pucking Wild

Pucking Wild is a 2023 novel by the best-selling novelist and professor Emily Rath and the second story in the Jacksonville Rays series. A contemporary sports romance about friendship, trust, and hope, Pucking Wild centers on Tess Owens, a corporate attorney who struggles to free herself from an abusive marriage while falling in love with Ryan Langley, a forward on the Jacksonville Rays NHL hockey team. By employing many classic tropes of contemporary romance, Rath explores themes of Navigating Romantic Relationships After Trauma, Overcoming Self-Doubt, and Finding a Home and a Community.

This study guide refers to the 2024 Kindle edition of the text.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of gender discrimination, antigay bias, ableism, sexual content, physical abuse, graphic violence, cursing, racism, substance use, illness, death, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Tess Owens is a high-powered corporate lawyer and the best friend of Rachel Price, a doctor for the Jacksonville Rays hockey team and the protagonist of the series’ first novel, Pucking Around. Tess’s busy life in Cincinnati rarely gives her time to see her best friend, but a few months before the action of the novel begins, she visits Rachel in Florida and meets many of the Rays’ players and staff, including Rachel’s partners, Jake, Caleb, and Ilmari. Tess also meets Ryan Langley, a member of the hockey team who is instantly attracted to Tess despite being significantly younger than she is. Rachel has told Tess that all of the Rays are romantically off-limits, but that doesn’t stop Tess from sharing a kiss with Ryan after they first meet or dancing with him at Rachel’s wedding.

Tess is also dealing with a messy separation from her emotionally and physically abusive husband, Troy Owens. Though Tess and Troy have been separated for three years, Troy’s mother, Bea—who is also like a mother to Tess—has been trying to get them to reconcile, especially as Tess and Troy work at Bea’s law firm. One day, Tess comes into the office to find that Troy has shown the HR team pictures someone took of her and Ryan together at the wedding. Noting a morality clause that all employees at the firm must sign, Troy gets Tess put on administrative leave. Knowing Troy only did this because he wants control over Tess, she officially asks him for a divorce. Troy threatens to have Tess fired if she doesn’t stay with him, getting angry while they are in her office and choking her.

When Tess gets home that day, she knows she needs to change her life, so she immediately gets on a plane to Florida to see Rachel. Rachel and her husbands accept Tess into their life and their new home, but Tess feels awkward in the newlyweds’ space. Without her husbands’ knowledge, Rachel therefore offers Tess a key to Ilmari’s old house, which they haven’t sold yet, before heading out of town with the Rays for a game. As Rachel finds some joy in taking time for herself at Ilmari’s house, she also helps Ilmari start a non-profit foundation, which he gives her total control over.

While they were dancing at the Prices’ wedding, Ryan had asked Tess to come to one of his games, insinuating that he wanted to pursue a relationship with her. When Ryan looks up to the crowd in the middle of a game and sees a red-headed woman, he therefore thinks she is Tess, which distracts him: He gets hit by another player, and his knee is badly sprained. Ryan must be carried off the ice as he sees the woman in the crowd is not actually Tess. 

At the hospital, Ryan learns he cannot play hockey for at least six weeks, and his teammates worry about how he will get around his multilevel house. Jake Price offers Ryan a key to Ilmari’s old house, not knowing that Rachel already said Tess could stay there. Ryan and Tess are both surprised when they find themselves accidentally living together before the Prices can clear up the misunderstanding. Despite their sexual attraction to one another, Tess is okay with Ryan staying there, seeing how exhausted he is, dealing with his injury.

Tess and Ryan form a friendly relationship, and though they initially try to stay away from one another due to Rachel’s off-limits rule and the fact that Tess is dealing with a divorce, they continually find themselves drawn to one another. Eventually, they agree to be friends with benefits. Meanwhile, Tess refuses to have any contact with Troy, throwing her phone into the ocean when he won’t stop calling her after he receives the divorce papers. Then Tess starts to receive packages from Troy at Ilmari’s house, an address no one from her past life should know. The first package contains the shreddings of their divorce papers, but the second includes intimate pictures of Tess and Ryan that she knows must have been taken by someone Troy hired to follow her.

Tess keeps the news about Troy’s stalking from Ryan as their relationship grows more serious. Though Ryan knows he would do anything to be with Tess and that he is falling in love with her, he sees that she struggles with having a relationship after the abuse Troy inflicted on her and feels it when she continually pulls away from him. When Tess receives further proof of Troy’s stalking, she finally calls him. Troy threatens not only her but also Ryan, saying he could demolish his entire hockey career and life beyond. Knowing she can’t put Ryan through that, Tess agrees to Troy’s demands that she stop seeing Ryan and return to Cincinnati.

During his first game after recovering, Ryan knows something is wrong when Tess does not show up. After finding out from the Prices that Tess spoke to Troy, Ryan rushes home and finds the pictures Troy had sent Tess, as well as her belongings, which are already packed. However, Ryan is able to stop Tess from leaving, knowing she is only doing so under duress, and they confess that they love one another and resolve to deal with whatever Troy throws at them. 

At a gala Tess throws for Ilmari’s non-profit, Troy shows up and threatens Ryan with a fraudulent restraining order from Tess against Ryan. However, the Prices and all of the other Rays protect Tess and force Troy to leave. After Tess sees the fraudulent document, she knows she finally has leverage over Troy. While Ryan confronts Troy with the proof of his malpractice in front of his entire firm, Bea visits Tess in Jacksonville, offering her the signed divorce papers in an attempt to stop Tess from pressing charges against Troy. Knowing she still has leverage over Bea and her son, Tess only agrees not to speak out against them if they go to therapy, make a sizable donation to their non-profit, and never see her again. 

When Ryan returns from Cincinnati, he shows Tess a house he bought for the two of them in which they can figure out what kind of relationship they want. A year later, Tess orchestrates an elaborate proposal to Ryan during one of his hockey games, and he agrees to marry her.