Epilogue
Dual POV
The late-October sunlight broke over the jagged granite ridges of the Front Range in sheets of liquid honey, painting the yellow aspens across our hillside in brilliant, fiery bronze.
I stood on the wide cedar deck of our home in the foothills above Castle Rock, a heavy ceramic mug of warm spiced cider cradled between my palms. The air smelled of burning pi?on pine from the outdoor hearth, fallen birch leaves, cold mountain stone, and the distant, crisp promise of the first high-altitude snow drifting down from Pike’s Peak.
On my left ring finger, the platinum band set with a radiant-cut diamond caught the morning glare, resting beside the gold chain beneath my collar that held Chase’s national championship ring against my breastbone.
Down in the fenced lawn thirty feet below, the most feared first-line center in the National Hockey League was currently flat on his back in the grass.
Chase lay stretched out on the manicured lawn, his two-hundred-and-thirty-pound frame dwarfing the green yard, wearing worn gray sweatpants and a thin black long-sleeve thermal with the sleeves pushed up over thick, vascular forearms.
Sitting directly on the center of his chest was our two-year-old daughter, Chloe.
She had his dark, unruly curls, his stubborn chin, and hazel eyes that flecked with bright gold whenever she laughed. She was bundled in miniature denim overalls and tiny pink boots, diligently pressing bright yellow dandelion stickers onto the scarred ridge of his right cheekbone.
Chase didn't move a muscle.
The man who had logged ninety-two penalty minutes and forty goals for the Colorado Avalanche last season—the enforcer who routinely rattled two-hundred-pound defensemen through the Plexiglas boards on national television—lay completely motionless on the lawn, his hands hovering two inches from Chloe’s waist, ready to catch her if she wobbled by half a millimeter.
"Another one, Daddy," Chloe commanded in her sweet, imperious toddler cadence, peeling a crumpled paper flower from a sticker sheet.
"Put it right on the eyebrow, sweetheart," Chase rumbled, his voice a low, gravelly rasp of pure, unadulterated devotion that vibrated through the crisp mountain air. "Right over the scar. Good girl."
He opened his mouth, letting her feed him a dry slice of dehydrated apple from her plastic snack bowl, chewing with exaggerated slowness that made her collapse into giggles against his ribs.
My throat pulled tight, a wave of profound, soothing warmth settling deep into my chest.
Three years ago, I had sat in a frozen rental on Lake Superior, terrified that the world was too violent for the life taking root beneath my ribs. I had looked at this man and seen an iron cage of trauma, wondering if he would ever learn to breathe without bracing for an impact.
Now, watching his massive, calloused hands gently adjust the fleece collar of our daughter’s jacket, the memory of that fear felt like an old dream from a different lifetime.
As if sensing the weight of my gaze, Chase’s head turned.
Across the lawn, over the wooden railing of the deck, his obsidian-gray eyes found mine.
The fierce, predatory intensity that usually defined his face softened into something sacred, an open, worshipful warmth that made my pulse hitch in a slow, heavy strike.
He didn't rush. He slid his left arm under Chloe’s legs, hoisting our daughter effortlessly onto his massive forearm in a single, fluid motion, and stood up from the grass.
He crossed the yard in long, unhurried strides, his heavy boots silent on the cedar stairs.
He stepped onto the deck, towering over my frame, bringing with him the clean scents of pine needles, crisp alpine wind, and the dark, familiar musk of his skin.
He didn't set Chloe down. He shifted her higher on his arm, her small fingers tangling into his dark hair, while his free right hand reached out, his warm, calloused palm cupping the side of my jawline.
His thumb stroked the soft skin beneath my ear with slow, deliberate pressure.
"Morning, wife," he murmured, his voice dropping into that deep, gravelly register that made my toes curl inside my wool-lined boots.
"Morning, Captain," I whispered, my lips parting on a soft exhale.
He leaned down, tilting my chin up, and pressed his mouth to mine.
The kiss was unhurried, warm, and thick with the taste of morning cider and an absolute, unshakeable devotion that stole the breath right out of my lungs. His thumb traced my cheekbone, holding me anchored to his heat while Chloe patted his beard with her sticky hand.
When he pulled back an inch, his gray eyes were swimming with gold light.
"You ready for tonight?" he murmured against my mouth.
I smiled, resting my hand flat over the gold C tattooed on his wrist. "We have front row in the family tunnel, Guzman. We wouldn't miss it for the world."
* * *
The mechanical horn blared through the rafters of Ball Arena with a concussive blast that rattled the concrete foundations down to the ice.
Twenty thousand voices in burgundy and blue erupted in a deafening, unified roar, pounding on the glass, waving towels as the final buzzer flashed across the center-hung video board:
COLORADO 4 — CHICAGO 2.
I stood at the center red line, my chest heaving beneath the heavy burgundy sweater, sweat dripping from the tips of my hair into my eyes. My Kevlar shoulder pads pulled tight across my back, my left joint burning with the good, clean ache of sixty minutes of physical warfare.
I had scored the insurance goal on an empty net with forty seconds left, won twenty-two of twenty-six faceoffs, and led our roster to our fourteenth consecutive home victory.
Silas Vance skated into my blindside, his stick slapping the back of my pads, his grin wide and breathless.
"Hell of a third period, Cap!" Silas yelled over the roar of the arena bowl, wiping ice slush from his chin. "You laid that defenseman out at the blue line so hard his ancestors felt it."
I bumped gloves with him, but my boots were already turning away from the celebration at the bench.
I didn't care about the three stars of the game. I didn't care about the regional broadcast cameras tracking my sweater toward the tunnel.
I glided across the blue line, stopping two feet from the seamless glass boards directly beneath the private owners' luxury box on the lower concourse.
I looked up.
Nola stood against the glass partition, radiant and untouchable.
She wore an oversized burgundy home sweater with GUZMAN and the number nineteen stitched across her back, falling past her hips over dark denim and tall leather boots.
Her dark auburn hair was swept over one shoulder in soft, gleaming waves, her cheeks flushed with the excitement of the final period.
Balanced securely on her hip was Chloe.
Our daughter had tiny pink noise-canceling headphones clamped over her curls, wearing a matching miniature jersey that reached down to her knees, waving a small foam hockey stick with both hands as she spotted my helmet through the glass.
The deafening noise of the arena dropped into a dead, absolute quiet.
The multi-million-dollar contract extension I had signed in the spring, the championship rings locked in the safe at home, the endorsements, the accolades—none of it held the weight of a single snowflake.
My universe was forty feet above the ice, wrapped in an oversized sweater, holding our child against her ribs.
I reached up with my teeth, yanking the velcro strap of my right hockey glove, pulling the heavy leather off my hand and letting it drop to the sheet.
I raised my bare left hand toward the glass.
The thick platinum wedding band on my ring finger gleamed beneath the arena floodlights.
I brought my hand to my visor, pressing my lips firmly against the cool metal of the ring, and held my palm flat against the air, pointing straight toward my wife and daughter.
Nola pressed her palm against the glass from above, her fingers matching mine through the barrier, her lips curving into that brilliant, fearless smile that had torn down every wall I had ever built.
I gave them one slow, resolute nod.
I turned and skated down the rubber runner into the player tunnel, ready to shed the armor and go home to the only life that mattered.
* * *
Midnight at our mountain home was wrapped in absolute, unbroken stillness.
The timber-beamed master bedroom was illuminated only by the dying orange embers of the stone hearth, casting deep, flickering bronze shadows across the dark oak floorboards and the massive king-sized bed.
Through the French doors cracked open to the balcony, the freezing pine-scented wind of the Rockies filtered into the room, a sharp, clean draft that died against the blistering heat of the blankets.
Down the short hallway, the nursery monitor sat silent on the nightstand, transmitting only the soft, steady rhythm of Chloe sleeping beneath her yellow quilt.
I stood at the edge of the mattress, my hands resting on the lapels of my dark silk robe.
Chase walked out of the ensuite bath, a towel slung around his neck.
He was bare-chested, wearing only low-slung charcoal lounge pants, the water from the shower glistening on his broad shoulders and the thick ridges of his abdomen.
His dark hair was damp, falling across his forehead, partially obscuring the pale scar slicing through his right brow.
His frame was vast, carved from fifteen years of violent athletic labor, but as he stepped into the bedroom, his movements were slow, unhurried, and devoid of the aggression he had worn on the ice three hours earlier.
His obsidian-gray eyes locked onto mine, burning with a dark, heavy reverence that made my pulse drop into a slow, liquid thrum.
He tossed the towel onto a leather armchair and closed the distance between us in three silent strides.
He didn't speak.
His large, calloused hands came up, sliding inside the open lapels of my robe, his warm palms flattening against the bare skin of my waist.