Epilogue
Dual POV
The golden October sunlight poured across the wide plank floorboards of our lakeside home in New Hampshire, setting the sugar maples outside the bay windows ablaze in copper and scarlet.
Three years.
Outside on the stone terrace, dry fallen leaves skittered across the slate under a crisp, twenty-knot autumn breeze blowing off the water.
The air inside smelled of seasoned birch burning in the double-sided stone fireplace, spiced apple cider simmering on the commercial range, and the deep, familiar scent of cedarwood that lived in every piece of furniture my husband touched.
I stood at the polished soapstone kitchen island, holding a warm ceramic mug between my palms.
On my left ring finger, a three-carat emerald-cut diamond rested securely above an eternity band of platinum, clicking softly against the porcelain.
Hanging from a delicate platinum chain around my neck, resting warm against the hollow of my throat beneath my cable-knit oatmeal sweater, was Julian Mercer’s scratched silver #14 varsity pin.
Julian had spent yesterday afternoon out on our private dock, navigating his motorized all-terrain wheelchair with a fishing rod locked into his custom armature, laughing as Knox Davies dropped an entire tackle box into six feet of clear water.
The Mercer Spinal Rehabilitation Endowment, funded in perpetuity by the opening signing bonus of Chosen’s NHL contract, had built Julian a fully accessible sports training clinic in Lake Placid where he coached adaptive sled hockey four days a week.
There were no debts left. There were no ghosts haunting our halls.
My gaze drifted from the kitchen counter to the large braided wool rug spread before the hearth.
The enforcer of the National Hockey League—the six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound first-line center who had racked up one hundred and ten points and sixty penalty minutes on his way to hoisting the Stanley Cup four months ago—was flat on his back on the floor.
Chosen wore charcoal sweatpants and a faded gray Carver Hockey thermal with the sleeves pushed up past his thick, vascular forearms. The three-inch surgical scar along his left collarbone stood out white against his skin; his knuckles were permanently scarred from a decade of bare-knuckle hockey.
Opposing defensemen crossed the blue line with their heads down when he was on the ice, terrified of the surgical, concussive violence he brought to every shift.
Right now, that terrifying, lethal titan was pinned to the rug by a twenty-six-pound toddler.
"More tea, Dada," Isla commanded.
Our daughter was twenty-two months old, built with my dark, unruly curls and her father’s unyielding, stubborn jaw.
She sat squarely on Chosen’s broad chest in a pair of miniature fleece overalls, her small knees digging into his ribs, clutching a plastic yellow teapot with absolute, tyrannical authority.
"I'm drinking it, sweetheart," Chosen rumbled.
His voice was a deep, gravelly baritone that vibrated straight through the floorboards into the soles of my wool socks.
With agonizing, unhurried patience, his massive, scarred hand—a hand that had shattered dasher glass with a single wrist shot—carefully lifted a pink plastic teacup no larger than a thimble.
He brought the rim to his mouth, pretending to sip, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners as Isla watched him with narrow, critical scrutiny.
"Good, Dada?" she asked, tilting her head.
"Best tea in the state, Isla," he murmured, his voice softening into that private, velvet register he gave only to the two of us.
He didn't move to push her off. He lay there on the hardwood floor, letting our daughter use his chest as a playground, his large left palm hovering two inches behind her back, an invisible, ever-present guardrail ready to catch her if her balance wavered for half a millisecond.
A slow, sweet warmth spread beneath my ribs, deep and heavy as honey.
Chosen shifted his head against the rug, his dark eyes finding mine across the island.
The predatory vigilance in his gaze never vanished—it was hardwired into his marrow—but the moment his eyes locked onto mine, the tension in his temples melted away.
His gaze swept over my face, over the sweater that hung loose off my shoulder, tracking down to the silver ring on my finger with an unvarnished, possessive heat that made my pulse jump in the hollow of my neck.
He moved with sudden, effortless power.
In a single, fluid motion, he sat up, scooped Isla onto the shelf of his massive right forearm like she weighed no more than a feather, and rose to his full height.
Isla giggled, her tiny fingers tangling into the short, dark curls at the nape of his neck, completely unbothered by the sheer elevation.
Chosen crossed the kitchen in three long, silent strides.
He didn't stop until his chest was two inches from mine, his shadow swallowing the soapstone counter, trapping me against the cabinets with his sheer physical mass.
He set Isla on the island beside my mug, but his free left hand rose immediately. His blunt, calloused fingers cupped the curve of my jaw, his thumb dragging across the swollen pink crest of my lower lip, tilting my face upward into the golden autumn light.
"You're staring, Marie," he rasped, his eyes dark, heavy, and full of raw devotion.
"I'm admiring the help," I whispered, my lips brushing his thumb.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated deep in his chest. He leaned down, his mouth slanting over mine in a slow, lingering kiss that tasted of black tea, cinnamon, and the unshakeable certainty of a man who had claimed every corner of my soul.
He kissed me until my breath hitched in my throat, until my fingers rose to grip the hard muscle of his bicep, anchoring myself against the solid furnace of his body while our daughter clapped her sticky hands against his shoulder.
"Mama pretty," Isla announced to the kitchen ceiling.
Chosen pulled back half an inch, his forehead resting against mine, his thumb stroking the rapid, fluttering rhythm of the pulse point at my throat.
"Mama is everything, Isla," he whispered against my mouth, his breath warm and steady on my skin. "Everything in this house."
* * *
The subterranean chill of the arena tunnel at TD Garden sat at a sharp, biting forty-two degrees, smelling of shaved frost, friction-heated iron, vulcanized rubber, and the ozone exhaust of the ice resurfacer.
Above the concrete ceiling, nineteen thousand six hundred fans were on their feet, the roar of the arena bowl vibrating through the structural steel with enough concussive force to shake the dust from the pipes.
Two minutes remained on the scoreboard clock.
I took the defensive zone draw to the right of our net, my carbon-fiber stick blade planted on the red dot with enough downward torque to groove the ice.
My right knee—repaired, stabilized, and reinforced by three years of Marie’s proprietary biomechanical load protocols—held twenty degrees of flexion without a fraction of a millimeter of laxity.
Under my black-and-gold Bruins sweater, the white 'C' on my left shoulder felt light, stripped of the lead weight that used to choke my breath in college.
The linesman dropped the rubber.
I didn't finesse the puck. I drove my shoulder into the opposing center's chest, lifting his stick, kicking the rubber cleanly back to my defenseman behind the goal line.
I broke through the neutral zone, gathered the breakout feed in full stride along the half-boards, drew two defensemen into my perimeter, and threaded an unselfish, tape-to-tape saucer pass across the slot to my right wing.
The red lamp ignited behind the net.
The final horn shrieked through the rafters, swallowed by the thunderous explosion of the home crowd as the siren wailed.
Boston won, 4–1.
My teammates mobbed me along the end boards, gloves pounding my shoulder pads, helmets knocking against my visor in a blur of sweat, ice spray, and shouting.
I gave them ten seconds. I tapped my goalie’s pads with my blade, raised my stick to salute the upper balconies, and then turned my back on the center-ice handshake line.
I didn't look at the television cameras tracking my stride across the blue line.
I skated straight toward the north corner of the rink, coming to an abrupt halt before the reinforced seamless glass of the private owners' suite set at ice level.
Behind the glass, standing in the front row, was Marie.
She wore a tailored black wool coat over an oversized black-and-gold #14 sweater, her dark hair falling in soft, gleaming waves over her shoulders.
Her credentials from the United States Olympic Training Center—where she served as the lead biomechanics research consultant for the national team development program—hung from a lanyard around her neck, gleaming under the arena floodlights.
In her arms, perched against her hip, was Isla.
Our daughter had pink noise-canceling earmuffs clamped over her curls, her small hands clad in miniature wool mittens, frantically pressing her palms flat against the thick acrylic glass.
A physical ache tore through the center of my chest—an unyielding, profound gravity that made the nineteen thousand screaming fans in the rafters cease to exist.
I ripped my right hockey glove off with my teeth, letting the heavy leather drop onto the shaved ice by my skate blades.
I lifted my bare left hand to my mouth.
I pressed my lips firmly to the heavy platinum wedding band on my ring finger, breathing the heat of my skin into the metal, before pressing my flat, calloused palm against the cold glass.
I placed my hand directly over the spot where Marie’s fingers and Isla’s mittens rested on the other side of the partition.