Chapter 22
Chase POV
The laminated draft boards spread across the oak conference table looked like a stock exchange ledger.
Beside me, Coach Hastings tapped his gold signet ring against the fourth-floor glass of Kehoe Pavilion, looking down at the frozen quad below. Across the table sat Frank Morrison, my certified family advisor, his iPad propped open beside a thick manila folder stamped with my name and medical flags.
"Anaheim’s general manager called me twice before morning skate," Morrison said, clicking his pen with rapid, bureaucratic precision.
"They hold the third overall pick in the lottery. They’re rebuilding their defensive identity around a heavy, two-way center who can take thirty faceoffs a night and drop the gloves when the top line gets crowded.
If we signal willingness to sign an entry-level maximum in California, you're locked into the top three. "
Hastings turned around, his arms crossed over his chest. "It’s a guaranteed franchise role, Chase. California gives you immediate first-line minutes. Calgary and Vancouver are circling at five and six, but the West Coast market has the cleanest roster path."
I leaned back in the high-backed leather chair, my hands resting flat on the mahogany.
My knuckles were bruised, the skin across my right hand raw from morning battle drills against North Dakota’s cycle, but my resting pulse sat at forty-three beats a minute. Slow. Grounded. Heavy as lead.
Two months ago, I would have signed the Anaheim paper without reading the contract.
I would have chased the highest draft slot, the biggest signing bonus, and the most brutal media market solely to shove the headline down my father’s throat.
I would have viewed three thousand miles of distance from Minnesota as an asset.
I looked at the Anaheim logo printed on the draft sheet.
Three thousand miles from Lake Superior. Two time zones away from the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
"Take Anaheim off the board," I said.
My voice was quiet, scraping the low register, carrying the flat finality of an iron gate slamming shut.
Morrison paused mid-click, his pen freezing above the tablet. "Excuse me?"
"And take Vancouver and Calgary off," I continued, holding Morrison’s stare until the older man’s eyebrows pulled together. "I’m not playing in Western Canada, and I’m not moving to the Pacific coast."
Hastings stepped away from the window, his boots heavy on the carpet. "Chase, you’re talking about cutting your top-five lottery leverage in half. You don't dictate terms to franchises before the combine."
"I dictate where I sign," I said, leaning forward until my forearms rested on the table, the black cotton of my team pullover pulling taut across my shoulders. "My parameters are the Central Division and the Mountain corridor. Minnesota, Chicago, Denver. Tell Colorado’s front office I’m open to private interviews. "
Morrison stared at me like I had lost my mind. "Colorado holds the seventh pick. If you restrict your market to the Mountain corridor, you could slide four spots on the board. That’s nearly two million dollars in guaranteed signing bonuses on an entry-level contract."
"Then I slide four spots."
I stood up, pushing the leather chair back with a dull roll of its casters. Two hundred and twenty pounds of athletic bone and muscle stood over the desk, casting a long shadow across the draft charts.
"Make the calls to Denver, Frank," I rasped, picking up my keys from the blotter. "Those are the terms."
I walked out of the conference room before Hastings could open his mouth.
I didn't care about two million dollars. I didn't care about being the third overall face on a television broadcast.
Nola’s fellowship application was targeted at Colorado Springs. If she was sixty miles south of Denver, I was going to be sixty miles north on the ice. My coordinates were locked, and nothing in the National Hockey League was going to pull me off that compass.
* * *
The deadbolt of my loft turned with a smooth, oiled click.
I pushed the heavy steel door open, the sub-zero chill of the warehouse stairwell dying the second the latch cleared the frame.
The scent hit me instantly: warm vanilla cream, mint tea, cedarwood, and the faint, sweet heat of her skin.
Nola was sitting cross-legged on the deep leather sofa, surrounded by open orthopedic textbooks, yellow legal pads, and three stacks of laminated kinematic charts.
She was wearing my thick charcoal Vandermark Hockey team sweater—the heavy wool falling off her right shoulder, exposing the smooth, pale curve of her collarbone and the faint shadow of the mark my mouth had left there forty-eight hours ago.
A wooden pencil was jammed through her messy auburn bun, holding the hair off her neck.
Beside her knee on the cushion sat her small brass key, resting safely in the center of the ceramic tray.
My jaw relaxed, a deep, heavy exhalation leaving my chest as the tension of the rink dissolved into the warm floorboards.
I had set the thermostat to seventy-two before morning skate so the high-ceilinged room wouldn't chill her fingers. I had stocked the refrigerator with the ginger brew she liked and left two fresh legal pads on the counter.
Seeing her sitting in the center of my furniture, wrapped in my wool, felt like an anchor sinking through twenty feet of ice.
She looked up from her notes, her hazel-gold eyes softening the second they found my face. "Hastings kept you late."
I dropped my heavy gym duffel by the entryway, kicked off my boots, and crossed the dark oak planks in my socks.
"Front-office meeting," I rumbled, stopping at the edge of the coffee table.
I sat down on the cedar table directly facing her, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. Without asking, my hands reached out, sliding beneath the hem of her gray sweatpants, finding her bare feet.
Her skin was like river stones.
"You never wear socks," I murmured, my voice dropping down into thick gravel.
"I was reading," she defended softly, though her toes curled into my palms the second the heat of my hands enveloped them.
I pulled her feet onto my lap, my massive, calloused hands closing over her arches. My thumbs pressed into the soles of her feet, working the tight tendons with slow, firm, rhythmic strokes that made her head fall back against the leather cushions on a long, shuddering sigh.
"Long day?" I asked.
"Six hours of clinical vector math," she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut as my thumbs worked up to her ankles, warming the stiff joints with deliberate, heavy pressure. "My brain feels like wet cardboard. Miller brought two regional scouts by the lab to look at your recovery logs."
"What did you tell them?"
She opened one eye, a faint, teasing smirk playing at the corner of her swollen mouth. "I told them Captain Guzman was a model of physical compliance. I didn't mention that you're turning into a pushover behind closed doors."
My eyes narrowed, a dark, heavy heat settling behind my breastbone.
My right hand slid up from her ankle, my fingers hooking behind the soft curve of her knee, pulling her leg toward me until her thigh pressed flush against my hip.
I leaned over her, my shadow swallowing her face, my thumb dragging across the flushed skin of her cheek until her teasing smile parted into a soft, breathless gasp.
"You think I let anyone else sit in my space like this?" I rasped, my voice vibrating against the bone of her jaw. "Look at you. Taking over my living room. Spreading your work across my table."
Her breath hitched, her fingers coming up to rest flat against the cotton of my shirt, feeling the slow, heavy thud of my heart beneath her palm.
"Good girl," I murmured against her parted lips, brushing my mouth across hers with a lazy, possessive friction that made her hips twitch against the leather. "Keep working. I've got you."
* * *
By nine o'clock, the loft was quiet, the only sound the steady clanking of the radiators along the brick wall.
Nola’s voice had trailed off twenty minutes ago.
Her head rested heavily against my left shoulder, her cheek pressed into the black cotton of my shirt, her soft, warm breaths puffing against the hollow of my throat.
The yellow legal pad had slipped from her lap to the floor, her pen rolling under the edge of the coffee table, her small hand curled loosely into the fabric of my sleeve.
She was dead to the world.
I sat motionless on the leather cushions, my left arm wrapped securely around her waist, anchoring her small frame against my ribs.
I didn't move for fifteen minutes. I simply watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, letting the deep, unbroken cadence of her respiration sync with mine.
Slowly, carefully, I shifted my weight.
I slid my right arm under the crook of her knees and my left around her back, gathering her against my chest.
I stood in one clean, effortless motion.
Her weight was nothing against my frame. She stirred slightly, a sleepy, incoherent murmur escaping her lips as her face buried deeper into the crook of my neck, her arms looping loosely around my shoulders.
I carried her down the dark hallway into the master bedroom.
The king-sized bed sat in the shadows, bathed in the pale blue wash of the winter moon through the frosted glass. I lowered her onto the mattress with meticulous care, laying her head on the down pillow.
I unrolled her sweatpants, pulled off the heavy wool sweater so she wouldn't overheat, and drew the thick down comforter all the way up to her chin.
I reached down, my calloused fingers brushing a loose strand of auburn hair away from her forehead. My knuckles lingered on the soft, warm curve of her cheek, feeling the steady, peaceful heat radiating from her skin.
I stood beside the bed in the quiet gloom, my chest expanding on a long, slow breath that burned clean in my lungs.
My entire life had been defined by a desperate, selfish scramble to outskate the shadow of my family’s ruin. I had lived like an enforcer waiting for the whistle, ready to destroy anything that stepped across my blue line.
Now, looking down at her sleeping face, the war was over.
There was no draft board, no contract, and no piece of silver hardware in this world that meant a damn thing compared to the girl breathing in my bed.
I would tear down my career, my reputation, and every bone in my body before I ever let the world touch her.
She was mine. And the fortress was closed.