Chapter 2
Ryder
The ice knows me better than I know myself. Every morning, same routine: lace up, step out, let muscle memory take over. The scrape of blades against ice drowns out everything else—the pressure, the scouts, the ticking clock on my NHL dreams. Here, I'm just movement and precision, nothing more.
"Lockwood! Tighter on the blue line!" Coach barks from the bench.
I adjust, skating backward while tracking the puck's movement between my teammates. The cold air burns my lungs in that familiar way that means I'm pushing hard enough. Perfect. I need to be sharper, faster, better. Five games. Five chances to prove I'm more than small-town potential.
"Yo, Captain!" Jax glides up beside me, skating backward because the kid never met a simple drill he couldn't turn into a performance. "You see that smokeshow who moved in next to you?"
I send the puck rocketing into the corner harder than necessary.
"We're running plays, Moretti."
"Yeah, but dude." He spins, still backward, gesturing with his stick like he's conducting an orchestra of bad decisions. "She's like Instagram model hot. All that auburn hair and those legs—and she's literally right next door to you, Captain Antisocial."
The words trigger a flash of yesterday: expensive boots, coordinated mittens, screaming at that moose like it personally offended her ancestors. The way snow caught in her hair when she fell. How her whole face lit up with that ridiculous camera smile even while covered in snow and fear.
The crack of my stick against the boards echoes through the arena, sharp enough that practice stutters to a stop.
"Can we focus on hockey?" The words come out rougher than intended. "Scouts are coming to the next five games, not casting calls for whatever reality show you think you're living in."
Jax holds up his hands, skating backward with that shit-eating grin that usually means he's about to say something supremely unhelpful. "Just saying, if the universe drops a hottie on your doorstep, maybe don't growl at her like a wounded bear."
"She's a tourist with a camera." I grab a puck, send it flying toward the net. "Here for a few weeks of 'authentic Alaska content' before she runs back to civilization."
"Content?" Jax's eyes light up like Christmas came early. "She's an influencer? Bro, do you know what this means? We could go viral! The team could—"
"The team could focus on winning." I skate past him, but the guys are all exchanging those looks. The ones that say their captain's wound tighter than fishing line and now there's apparently a complication living twenty feet away from him.
Tommy, our goalie, clears his throat. "Cap's right. Scouts don't care about our TikTok followers."
But even he's fighting a grin, because they all know me.
Know I haven't dated since my last girlfriend left for Seattle two years ago, declaring Ashwood Falls "a place where dreams go to freeze.
" Know I spend my time between the rink, the firehouse, and my cabin, with occasional appearances at The Ashwood Café when the coffee runs out at home.
Coach blows his whistle. "Ladies, if you're done discussing Lockwood's lackluster love life, we've got plays to run. Unless you want the Fairbanks team to embarrass us on home ice again?"
We get back to it, but my concentration's shot. I keep thinking about expensive boots and useless mittens. About someone who doesn't know how to respect a moose's personal space, living alone in a cabin that tilts left like it's trying to escape to Canada.
After practice, I drive to Ashwood Falls Firehouse, hoping the familiar routine will clear my head.
The bay doors are open despite the cold, Chief's way of proving Alaskans don't feel temperature like mere humans.
The trucks gleam in the afternoon light, polished to perfection because that's how we show respect for the equipment that saves lives.
I find Chief bent over Engine 3's compartment, checking inventory with the focus of someone who's done this ten thousand times but still treats it like the first.
"Afternoon, Chief."
He grunts acknowledgment, not looking up. That's how I know something's coming. Chief only avoids eye contact when he's about to meddle.
"Heard we got a new neighbor out your way."
There it is.
"News travels fast." I grab the inventory clipboard, pretending to check numbers I've already memorized.
"City girl from Anchorage." He still won't look at me, examining a Halligan bar with intense focus. "Might be nice if someone showed her the ropes—you know, neighborly-like."
My jaw tightens. Chief's been filling the dad-shaped hole in my life since I was fourteen, since that structure fire took everything except Mom's fierce determination to keep going. Which means his suggestions carry weight I can't just dismiss.
"She screamed at a moose yesterday, Chief. Pretty sure she can figure out how to be a tourist without my help."
Now he looks up, and that expression—half amused, half disappointed—is pure tactical dad energy. "Your father would've helped. Man never met a stranger he wouldn't assist."
Low blow. Accurate, but low.
"Dad also didn't have NHL scouts watching his every move."
"No," Chief agrees, setting down the Halligan bar with deliberate care. "He just had a son he was raising to be a good man, first. Hockey player second."
The words land exactly where he aimed them. In that soft spot where grief lives, where Dad's voice still echoes sometimes when I'm alone on the ice: Play with heart, son, but live with purpose.
"I'll check on her." The resignation in my voice makes Chief smile, because he knows he's won this round.
"Good man." He claps my shoulder, and for a second, I'm fourteen again, scared and angry and desperate for someone to tell me it'll be okay. "Also, Dotty says the girl's single. Recently. Dramatically, apparently."
"Chief—"
"Just sharing information." But there's a glint in his eye that suggests the whole town's probably placing bets on how long before I crack and actually have a conversation with her.
I'm splitting wood behind my cabin, letting the repetitive motion quiet my mind. The rhythm of it—position, swing, crack—creates a meditation that hockey can't quite match. No performance here. Just me, the axe, the setting sun, and wood that needs splitting before the next cold snap.
Then I hear it. Creative swearing that would make a fisherman blush, followed by the distinct sound of metal meeting metal in a way that suggests violence rather than repair.
"—absolute piece of garbage masquerading as a heating system! How is this even legal? This is America! We have technology!"
I set down the axe. Look at my cabin, warm and glowing with firelight. Look at hers, lit only by the blue glow of what has to be a phone flashlight moving frantically past the windows.
Not my problem.
More clanging. Something that sounds suspiciously like a foot kicking metal.
Really not my problem.
"Oh my God, I'm going to die here and they'll find me frozen like Jack in Titanic except without the romance or the good soundtrack!"
It's minus twenty tonight. Without heat, that tilted cabin becomes a death trap by morning.
Fuck.
I grab my jacket and head over, each step heavier with the weight of getting involved. Her door's unlocked—of course it is, city girl probably doesn't realize we have crime here too—and I knock hard enough to be heard over her ongoing battle with the stove.
"It's open! If you're here to murder me, please make it quick because I'm about to freeze to death anyway!"
I push inside and immediately understand the problem.
She's crouched in front of the wood stove as if it betrayed her, wearing fingerless gloves and what appears to be every sweater she owns layered for warmth.
Her hair's piled on her head in a messy bun held by what might be a pencil.
Or a chopstick. Scattered around her: kindling, newspaper, three different lighters, and her phone propped up with the flashlight on.
She looks up, and for a second we stand frozen. Her face cycles through surprise, embarrassment, and something that might be relief before settling on defiance.
"I know what you're thinking," she says, chin lifting. "City girl can't even start a fire. Go ahead, get your I-told-you-so out of your system."
Summer people. I kneel beside the stove and check the damper. Closed. Of course.
"Excuse me, I'm from Anchorage. I know about cold."
"Anchorage has central heating."
"So does civilization!"
The damper opens with a rusty squeal. “Paper first.” I grab newspaper from her disaster pile. "Crumpled, not folded."
She watches intently, and I notice she's actually taking notes on her phone. Documenting this for later reference, apparently.
"Kindling next. Crisscross pattern, leave gaps for airflow."
"Airflow," she repeats, typing rapidly.
"Fire needs oxygen. Too tight and you suffocate it."
"That's actually kind of poetic. In a primitive survival way."
Once the kindling catches, I add larger pieces, arranging them with practiced ease. The fire springs to life, orange light replacing blue glow, and the immediate sigh she releases does something uncomfortable to my chest.
"Oh my God, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." She holds her hands toward the heat, and her whole body seems to uncurl from its defensive huddle. "I take back every mean thing I thought about you."
"You thought mean things about me?"
"You literally grunted at me and walked away yesterday. After saving me from Morris, sure, but still. The vibe was very 'tourist go home.'"
"Morris?"
"The moose. I named him Morris. He seemed like a Morris."
The corner of my mouth twitches despite myself. "Town named him that years ago. He's been around forever."
"Wait, seriously?" Her eyes widen. "I accidentally guessed his actual name?"
"Morris doesn't hurt anyone. He's just nosy."
"That's..." She pauses, and I can practically see her reevaluating everything. "Actually kind of charming. In a 'this town has collectively adopted a moose' way."
I stand, brushing off my hands. "Keep the damper open when burning, closed when it's out. Add logs before you sleep or you'll wake up cold. Don't burn garbage, pine, or anything painted."
She's typing it all, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration. There's a smudge of soot on her cheek that my hand itches to wipe away.
"Any questions?"
She looks up from her phone, and the smile she gives me is different from yesterday's camera-ready version. Smaller. Real. "Just one. What's your name? I can't keep calling you Hockey Stick Hero in my head."
"Ryder."
"Piper." She extends a hand, realizes she's still wearing fingerless gloves, laughs at herself. "Sorry, I'm not usually this much of a disaster. Just, you know, recently."
Chief's words echo: Recently. Dramatically, apparently.
I don't take her hand, don't want to know if her skin's as soft as it looks. "You'll want to stock up on wood. Thompson's sells seasoned cords, delivers too."
"Right. Thompson's." She's typing again. "Seasoned cords. That's a thing I definitely understand and don't need to Google."
The corner of my mouth twitches, almost a smile before I catch it. "Don't freeze, Piper."
I'm at the door when she calls out.
"Hey, Ryder?"
I pause, hand on the doorknob.
"Thanks. For not letting me become a cautionary tale about city girls who think they can handle Alaska."
"Night, Piper."
Outside, the cold hits like a slap of reality. Through her window, I can see her silhouette moving around the now-warm cabin, occasionally stopping to hold her hands toward the stove like it's a miracle she personally manifested.
Back in my cabin, I try to focus on tomorrow's practice, on the plays we need to perfect, on everything riding on the next five games. But my mind keeps drifting to expensive boots and determination, to someone taking notes on how to survive like there'll be a test later.
Five games. Five chances. I don't need complications living next door with her disaster preparedness and real smiles. Don't need to think about how her whole body changed when warmth finally reached her, the way she held her hands to that fire like she'd never felt heat before.
Really don't need to think about any of it.
But I check once more before bed, just to make sure smoke's still rising from her chimney. Because Dad would've done the same. No other reason.
The smoke curls up against the stars, steady and sure.
Good enough.
Through my window, I can see her moving around inside, probably editing that moose video or whatever influencers do. Her cabin's crooked, her survival skills are nonexistent, and she thinks screaming is an appropriate response to wildlife.
But the smoke keeps rising, which means she's warm.
Which means I can sleep.
I tell myself that's the only reason I'm still watching.