Epilogue
Dual POV
The salty breeze blowing off Massachusetts Bay carried the crisp, dry scent of fallen red oak leaves and woodsmoke.
From the wide cedar deck of our home on the rocky point of Marblehead, the late-afternoon sun was an expanse of warm, melted honey across the harbor.
Inside the kitchen, a pot of spiced cider was steaming on the induction range, filling the open floorboards with the aroma of crushed cinnamon bark and orange peel.
I leaned against the weathered teak railing, holding a ceramic mug with both hands, my cream cashmere cardigan wrapped loosely over a dark ribbed knit dress.
On the fourth finger of my left hand, the heavy platinum band was flanked by a micro-pavé diamond eternity ring.
Resting against my collarbone on a delicate gold chain hung Coast’s collegiate Frozen Four national championship ring, the heavy gold emblem cool against my skin.
Down on the sloping grass near the stone seawall, the starting shutdown defenseman for the Boston Bruins was lying flat on his back.
Coast was dressed in worn gray fleece track pants and a faded charcoal thermal, his bare feet buried in the rye grass, his six-foot-four frame taking up half the lawn.
Sitting squarely on his massive sternum was an eighteen-month-old toddler in miniature denim overalls and red wool socks, her dark chestnut curls bouncing in the wind.
Isla.
She had my stubborn chin and round, honey-brown eyes, but every ounce of her quiet, observant stillness belonged to the giant beneath her.
She held a fistful of dry crimson maple leaves, methodically pressing each one against Coast’s scarred jawline like she was applying athletic tape to an injury.
Coast didn't move.
The man who had logged twenty-six minutes of ice time on Thursday night, who had checked a six-foot-three Russian power forward through the penalty-box door, lay as still as a granite boulder on the lawn.
His large, scarred hands—hands that could snap a composite stick across his knee—hovered three inches from Isla’s hips, trembling slightly with an agonizing, continuous vigilance, ready to catch her if she wobbled by a single millimeter.
"More, Dada," Isla demanded, slapping a broad yellow leaf over his left eyebrow with a wet smack.
Coast’s masseter muscles relaxed into a slow, faint grin, his gravelly voice dropping into that low, patient register he used only within the fence line of our property.
"Right there on my brow, baby," he murmured, his deep rasp rumbling through his ribcage, lifting Isla half an inch with every breath he drew. "Good job. You're holding the blue line."
Isla giggled, a bright, bubbling sound that scattered the gulls along the seawall, and planted both of her small hands flat against his stubbled cheek.
Coast’s eyes softened, a raw, unshielded adoration washing across his scarred face that made the breath catch in my throat.
Slowly, as if feeling the weight of my stare, his head turned toward the porch.
His pale green eyes found mine across thirty yards of lawn.
The warmth in his gaze deepened into something heavy, dark, and possessive—a slow-burning heat that sent a familiar, delicious shiver straight down my spinal column.
He didn't roll over. He hooked his massive right forearm around Isla’s waist, sat up in a single effortless motion that used pure abdominal power, and rose to his feet.
He settled Isla securely on the shelf of his left bicep, her tiny red-socked feet dangling against his ribs, and walked up the stone steps toward the deck.
His stride was smooth, powerful, and completely unhindered by the old ankle trauma. His right leg moved with the fluid, punishing grace that had earned him thirty-four points in his sophomore NHL season.
He stopped in front of me, his physical mass blocking out the coastal wind, wrapping me in the scent of cedar shavings, salt spray, and the warm, clean musk of his skin.
He didn't say a word.
He reached out with his right hand, his large, calloused palm cupping the side of my jaw, his thumb smoothing over my cheekbone with a firm, familiar pressure.
He leaned down, his mouth catching mine in a slow, lingering kiss that tasted of autumn air, hot cider, and four years of unbreakable devotion. His stubble grazed my chin; his lips parted mine with an unhurried, commanding warmth that left my knees feeling hollow against the cedar boards.
"Mama," Isla murmured, patting Coast’s ear with a maple leaf.
Coast broke the seal of our lips by an eighth of an inch, his breath washing warm across my cheek, his green eyes dark and dilated in the afternoon sun.
"You've been watching me from that window for twenty minutes, Mrs. Stuart," he rasped, his thumb dragging across my bottom lip.
"You're very entertaining when you're being bossed around by someone who weighs twenty-four pounds," I whispered, resting my palm flat against the center of his chest, feeling the slow, heavy thud of his heart beneath the thermal.
Coast’s mouth curved into a slow, wicked smirk, his hand sliding down to the small of my back, drawing my hips firmly against his.
"She gets the stubbornness from her mother," he murmured, his lips pressing a lingering kiss to the pulse point below my ear. "And you know what happens to stubborn girls in this house."
My pulse gave a hard, fluttering leap, a dark flush warming my collarbones as Isla squealed, burying her fingers in his dark curls.
"Game time is seven o'clock, Captain," I whispered against his jaw.
"I've got three hours," he growled softly, his eyes burning into mine with an ironclad claim that promised midnight would not come fast enough. "And every second belongs to you."
* * *
The air inside TD Garden smelled of frozen humidity, cut ice, friction-scratched plexiglass, and the metallic burn of ninety thousand watts of arena halogens.
It was 9:48 PM. Third period. Forty seconds remaining against the Montreal Canadiens.
BOSTON 4, MONTREAL 2.
The roar of nineteen thousand five hundred fans was a concussive, physical vibration that hummed through the steel blades of my skates into the soles of my feet.
Montreal pulled their goaltender, dumping the puck hard around the dasher boards into our defensive zone.
I read the trajectory before the rubber cleared the trapezoid.
I opened my hips, crossed my edges over the red line, and stepped directly into the path of an incoming forward who thought he had a clean lane to the slot.
The impact was pure physics.
I took him shoulder-to-shoulder against the kickplate with a clean, devastating check that echoed through the lower bowl like a clap of thunder. The glass flexed four inches; the forward lost his stick, his balance, and his air, bouncing off my hip and sliding onto the frozen slush.
I collected the loose puck on my backhand, looked up, and fired a ninety-foot wrist pass tape-to-tape to our center at the far blue line.
The puck slid into the empty Montreal net with a clean snap.
The arena horn detonated.
A deafening, mechanical siren blared as the red goal lights spun against the glass, confetti cannons firing black and gold streamers from the steel catwalks above the ice.
The final buzzer sounded.
Kip Callahan charged out from our crease, throwing his blocker into my shoulder pads, screaming through his cage as the defensive pairing mobbed the corner.
"Forty-two points on the season, Stuart!" Kip yelled, his voice cracking with wild adrenaline as the Garden organ thundered. "Norris Trophy voting closes next week! You're buying the steaks in Montreal on Tuesday!"
"Shut up, Kip," I rasped, bumping my helmet against his cage.
I didn't linger in the scrum. I didn't join the stick-salute at center ice.
I turned my skates toward the south boards, gliding along the blue line until I stood directly beneath the private luxury loge hanging above Section 112.
I looked up through the glass.
Standing against the front railing of the private suite was Tallulah.
She wore a fitted black wool sweater beneath an unbuttoned black team jersey—my number four stitched in gold across her chest, the captain’s patch resting right over her heart.
Her dark curls were pinned back with that same tarnished brass comb from her mother's wedding, her cheeks flushed a radiant rose in the arena light.
Perched on the wooden counter beside her, wearing tiny gold noise-canceling headphones, was Isla, waving two black mittens furiously at the ice below.
My heart hammered against my ribs with a deep, heavy force that made the cheers of twenty thousand people fade into dead static.
The three-year, twenty-four-million-dollar extension the Bruins had finalized last month didn't mean a single damn thing. The Norris Trophy chatter from the Boston press box meant nothing.
The only universe that mattered was looking down at me through the glass.
I reached up with my right hand, pulling the heavy leather hockey glove from my left fingers, dropping it onto the ice.
I raised my bare hand toward the loge.
Under the halogen glare, the thick platinum band on my fourth finger caught the light.
I pressed my lips to the metal, then flattened my bare, calloused palm against the cold plexiglass, holding my hand steady beneath the light.
Up in the box, Tallulah smiled.
She reached down, placing her palm against the glass from above, her fingers aligning with mine across thirty feet of cold space, her lips moving softly against the noise of the stadium:
Hurry home.
My masseter muscles relaxed, a slow, quiet heat spreading behind my breastbone as I scooped my glove off the ice.
The game was won.
And my life was waiting in the tunnel.
* * *
The tide was rolling in against the granite rocks below the bedroom balcony, the rhythmic wash of the Atlantic an endless, low-frequency whisper beneath the floorboards.
Midnight had passed forty minutes ago.
Down the dark pine hallway, the nursery door was cracked two inches, the digital monitor on the nightstand glowing a soft, steady green that broadcast Isla’s deep, rhythmic breathing.