Chapter 23
Penny Correa POV
Outside, a slate-gray Adirondack sky hung low over Lake Champlain, threatening another six inches of lake-effect pack before nightfall.
The arena below was flooded in white light, the air sharp with shaved ice, Zamboni exhaust, and the rhythmic, concussive bang of bodies hitting acrylic boards during afternoon scrimmage.
Sixty-three days remained until the ECAC Championship in Lake Placid.
I sat three rows above the glass with my black canvas binder balanced on my knees, tracking Justin’s transition velocity from the blue line to the half-wall.
Two rows below me, three men in heavy down coats sat with their boots propped on the wooden backs of the seats in front of them.
One wore a black wool jacket with the gold Boston Bruins spoked-B on the chest—Raymond Cole.
Beside him sat a regional scout with a Detroit Red Wings binder, and a thick-necked scout in a Calgary Flames parka.
Their voices drifted up through the chilly air, casual, professional, and devastating.
"Ibarra’s mobility is completely restored," the Calgary scout said, jotting a notation on his tracking grid.
"He’s skating twenty-five minutes of shutdown hockey and hasn't drawn a minor in four weeks.
If Boston doesn't execute his Entry-Level Contract the day after Lake Placid, Vancouver and Edmonton will make a play for his rights on August fifteenth. "
"Boston isn't letting him walk," Raymond Cole said, his voice clipped and flat. "We have the three-year ELC on the table. Nine-fifty base, full ninety-five bonus. He’s stepping straight into the main development roster."
"Kid belongs in the Western Conference," the Detroit scout grunted. "Six-foot-four enforcers who can skate the transition game don't stay in small-town New York. He’ll be living out of a suitcase in Alberta or British Columbia by June."
A cold, heavy weight dropped straight through my ribs, settling into the pit of my stomach.
Without warning, a sharp, sour wave of nausea rolled through my abdomen, catching in the back of my throat. My mouth went suddenly watery, my vision swimming with a brief, dizzy blur that forced me to close my eyes and grip the aluminum edge of my binder until my knuckles ached.
I swallowed hard, reaching into the pocket of my coat for my stainless-steel thermos, forcing down a sip of cold water to wash away the metallic tang on my tongue.
Just exhaustion, I told myself, drawing in a tight, shallow breath through my nose. Sixteen-hour clinical shifts, three hours of sleep, and dining hall coffee on an empty stomach.
I opened my eyes and looked down at the ice.
Justin had just stepped into a forward along the boards, using his massive hips and shoulder leverage to separate the skater from the puck with clean, surgical violence.
The glass rattled violently, the sound echoing through the empty arena.
He gathered the disc on his backhand, flipped it tape-to-tape across the red line to Declan Ward, and coasted backward into the defensive zone, his chest heaving under his saturated black practice jersey.
He was an athletic god in a sixty-foot sheet of ice.
He was destined for chartered flights, multi-million-dollar signing bonuses, and arenas packed with twenty thousand screaming strangers.
And I was an undergraduate with an eighteen-thousand-dollar equipment debt hanging over my head, praying for a forty-five-thousand-dollar clinical fellowship so I wouldn't have to dodge my father's collection notices for the rest of my life.
Sixty-three days.
That was all that remained. In sixty-three days, the tournament in Lake Placid would conclude, graduation would clear the campus, and Justin Ibarra would pack his duffel bag and walk into the life he had spent five years bleeding to reach.
And I would be left behind in the snow, just another temporary chapter in a college town he outgrew.
* * *
The cab of his black pickup truck was suffocatingly warm, the heater blowing dry, cedar-scented air across our knees as we rolled down Cumberland Avenue at 5:15 PM.
The silence between us was heavy, thick as wet slate.
Justin drove with his left hand resting easily on top of the steering wheel, his dark hair damp from the post-practice shower, the jagged white scar through his left eyebrow standing out against his bronze skin.
He reached across the center console with his right hand, his large, calloused palm settling heavily over my thigh, his thumb brushing through the fabric of my black trousers.
Usually, the contact sent a soothing warmth straight into my bones.
Today, my muscles locked. My thigh went rigid beneath his touch, my hands knotting into tight balls in my lap, my gaze fixed on the frozen gray bay outside the passenger window.
Justin’s thumb stilled.
He didn't remove his hand. His fingers tightened, pressing firmly into the muscle of my leg, his jaw hardening into a sharp, watchful line as he checked the rearview mirror.
He didn't say a word. He swung the truck into his gravel driveway, parked in front of the brick carriage house, and killed the engine.
The silence collapsed around us, broken only by the tick of the cooling exhaust beneath the floorboards.
Justin unbuckled his seatbelt, turned his massive two-hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound frame in the bucket seat, and pinned me with an unblinking, dark stare.
"What is wrong with you?" he rumbled, his voice dropping into that low, gravel-edged register that demanded immediate compliance.
"Nothing," I lied, keeping my chin level, staring straight at the dashboard. "I have a migraine from the arena fluorescents."
"Don't lie to me, Penny." His hand left my thigh, his fingers reaching up to hook beneath my chin, turning my face with slow, irresistible force until my eyes were forced to meet his.
"You sat in Section 108 with your shoulders hunched like you were waiting for a bomb to drop.
You flinched when I put my hand on your leg. What happened?"
The knot in my throat tightened, swelling until it felt like swallowed glass.
"The Calgary scout," I whispered, the words trembling on my lips, my defense mechanisms crumbling under the steady intensity of his gaze. "He was talking to Raymond Cole two rows below me."
Justin’s brow furrowed, his thumb stroking the soft skin beneath my jawline. "Scouts talk, Penny. It’s their job."
"They said you belong in the Western Conference," I pushed out, the dam finally cracking, the tears I had been fighting all afternoon burning hot behind my eyelids.
"They said Vancouver or Edmonton will buy out your rights if Boston doesn't sign you immediately. They said by June, you’ll be living out of a suitcase three thousand miles away. "
Justin went dead still, his chest pausing mid-rise.
"And?" he murmured, his voice deadly quiet.
"And there are sixty-three days left of this season, Justin!
" A ragged sob broke through my chest, my hands reaching out to shove against his heavy wool coat, trying to push him away, trying to put the distance back between us before the pain destroyed me.
"Sixty-three days until the ECAC Final! Then you sign your nine-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar contract, you get on a plane, and you walk into your life! "
"Penny—"
"I can't do this!" I cried, my voice cracking in the dim cab, my fingernails digging into the sleeves of his jacket.
"I watched my father pack his truck and drive away when I was fourteen because he outgrew my mother and me! I know what it looks like when a man moves on to something bigger! I am not going to sit in this town and pretend that I’m anything more than your secret college girlfriend while you fly across the continent! "
* * *
The insult hit him like a physical blow.
Justin’s face drained of color, his dark eyes darkening into something terrifying, wild, and raw.
He didn't let go of my chin. In one violent, explosive motion, his left hand shot out, unbuckling my seatbelt, his powerful arm hooking around my waist to haul my hundred and twenty-two pounds clean across the center console into his lap.
The movement was so fast the breath left my lungs in a sharp gasp.
He pinned me against the driver’s side door, his massive frame caging me against the frosted glass, his thighs bracketing mine, cutting off every escape route.
His large, calloused hands came up, framing my face with a desperate, bruising urgency, his fingers tangling in the dark curls at my temples. He held my head still, forcing my wet hazel eyes to look straight into his.
"Shut your mouth," he snarled, his voice a low, ruined roar that vibrated straight through my breastbone. "Shut your mouth, Penny, and look at me."
My chest heaved against his, my breaths coming in ragged, shallow sobs, my fingers clutching his collar to keep from falling.
"Look at my damn eyes," he commanded, his forehead crashing down against mine, his hot, mint-scented breath pluming between our faces in the chilly cab. "Good girl. Breathe for me. Right now."
I swallowed the sob, drawing in a sharp, shuddering breath, holding his dark, dilated gaze.
"You think I'm your father?" he rasped, his thumbs pressing hard into the hollows beneath my cheekbones, wiping away the tears with fierce, rough reverence. "You think I brought you into my bed, gave you my clothes, and put my hands on your skin just to walk away when the ice melts?"
"The scouts said—"
"To hell with the scouts!" he roared against my mouth.
"I don't give a damn about Calgary! I don't give a damn about Edmonton!
I sat in that conference room on Wednesday and looked Raymond Cole in the eye and told him I'm not going to Europe, and I'm not going to Alberta!
I told him my development stays in Massachusetts, or I don't sign the damn paper! "
The words hit my chest like an anvil, knocking the remaining air from my lungs.
My lips parted, my eyes widening in sheer, disbelieving shock. "You... you turned down Europe?"
"I turned down everything that takes me away from you," he whispered, his voice breaking on the admission, stripped bare of all pride, all arrogance, all defense.
"I don't care about twenty thousand people in an arena, Penny.
I don't care about the money. You are the only thing on this earth that has ever made this life worth living. "
A violent shudder ripped through his broad shoulders, his heaving chest pressing mine flat against the steering wheel.
"You are not an expiration date, sweetheart," he rasped, his lips grazing mine with an intensity that burned straight down to my soul. "You are my home. And I will burn the entire National Hockey League to the ground before I let anyone take you from me."
My hands flew up, tangling in his dark hair, clutching the hard muscles of his neck as my throat tightened on a flood of pure, unadulterated devotion.
"Justin," I breathed, my lips trembling against his.
He didn't give me time to speak another word.
He crushed his mouth to mine.
The kiss was desperate, fierce, and all-consuming, tasting of salt, cold winter air, and an unyielding, unbreakable claim.
His mouth moved over mine with a possessive, rough-edged hunger that stole every doubt, every fear, and every lingering shadow of my past, replacing them with the solid, immovable weight of his promise.
I clung to him in the dark cab, weeping into his mouth, my heart hammering against his ribs in frantic, synchronized rhythm.
I had spent my life bracing for the moment the ice would break beneath my boots.
Held in Justin Ibarra’s arms, I finally realized the truth:
The ice wasn't going to break.
He would carry me across it, or he would go down into the dark with me.