“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But also maybe not. But I do know I’ll still love you when you can’t open my pickle jars, either literallyormetaphorically.”
He bent his head to kiss her, but she put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. Frowning, he took a step back. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not letting you retire, Will. That’s not what I came here for, and it’s not what I want.”
Fear shot through him. She had just said she’dstilllove him, so shedidlove him now. What had she come here for if not to work things out between them?
“I have some issues from growing up a Burke, to put it lightly,” she continued. “They’re old wounds I thought had hardened, but falling in love with you made me so vulnerable, I was too busy trying to keep those walls intact to see I didn’t need them. You’re not like my family. You’reespeciallynot like my dad, and I think if I ever truly believed you were, I would have walked away. But I panicked and just had this need for you prove you cared about me more than you care about hockey.”
“Iloveyou,” he said, looking directly into her pretty blue eyes. “I mean, I love hockey, too, but it’s my job. It’s not the same.”
“In my family, that kind of loveisthe same. But that’s on me, not you. Iknowyou love me.” He watched her blink away tears, feeling a little choked up himself. This wasn’t easy for her. “I believe that, in my heart. And hockey is a part of you, and I love you.Allof you.”
“You have to be sure, Kristen, because what we just went through? I can’t do it again.”
“I am absolutely sure. I know there will be times your focus is on the game, and times when your travel schedule might be inconvenient, but I’ll remind myself that it’s not a choice between me and the game. And I have to compromise, too. We’ll do it together.”
“I like the sound oftogether.” He caressed the side of her face with his thumb. “And maybe, if you let a little bit of hockey in, you can meet some people. There are a whole lot of hockey players out there with beautiful families they love very much. We can make this work because we love each other, and we’ll figure it all out. Together.”
“Do you think Baltimore will hate me as much as Boston hates you?”
He laughed, pulling her toward the couch so they could sit down. “No, they won’t. Your brother? Yes. But they’ll love you because I do. And you don’t have to move to Baltimore, you know. I know you’ll want to keep your apartment. We can bounce back and forth between your place and mine. If you find a great job in Boston, then I’ll have to be away a little more during the season, but it’ll only be for a few years.”
She turned toward him instead of sitting, and then cupped his face in her hands. “We’ll figure all that out. For now, just know that I love you and I’m always going to love you.”
“I love you, too.” He kissed her again, holding nothing back as he let the pain and loss of their separation go and simply rejoiced at having her in his arms again.
When he ended the kiss and stroked her hair away from her face, her eyes sparkled. “Who would have thought I’d end up married to a hockey player?”
His pulse quickened in response, and he grinned. “Are you proposing to me, Kristen Burke?”
“I’m not very good at waiting for a man to make the first move, I guess.”
“I do like that about you. And yes, I want to marry you. I want that more than anything.”
“We’re going to make a great team,” she whispered, right before he kissed her again.
Epilogue
Thanksgiving, almost ten months later…
“Another face-off in a neutral zone.”
Kristen laughed as Will stepped aside to hold the door to the restaurant open for her. “We could have spent the day at Dad’s, you know. I’m sure eating in the Erik Burke shrine would have done wonders for your digestion.”
“Your brother picked a fine time to remodel his kitchen.”
“You know he’s lying, right? The truth is, none of us can roast a turkey worth a damn and we eat here every Thanksgiving. It’s kind of a family joke at this point. Whenever there’s a family gathering, he claims he’s having his kitchen remodeled. Except last year. Andie made Thanksgiving dinner for all of us, but they broke up shortly after that.”
They checked their coats, and then he lifted her hand and kissed the stunning diamond ring she’d been sporting for several months before he laced their fingers together. “What do you think the chances are the sweater makes it out alive?”
“We almost never throw food at each other.” She grinned. “As a matter of fact, I think that was the very last Thanksgiving dinner we tried to make for ourselves. I like your family’s Thanksgiving better.”
It had been nothing short of a miracle that their schedules had lined up so they could eat dinner with Will’s family. While Americans were celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day in mid-October, Canadians were having Thanksgiving, and there had been enough of a gap in the hockey schedule and Kristen’s work with a Boston nonprofit to allow for a rushed visit home.
The Lecroix family had welcomed Kristen with open arms, thrilled Will was happy and loved. The Burke family was…trying.
He squeezed her hand. “I think your father said about ten words to me at your birthday dinner. Let’s see if we can get him up to a dozen today.”
