Destiny on Ice (Boys of Winter #1)(81)

Leaning her head on my shoulder, she agrees, “It definitely did.”

After a beat, she pulls back and asks, “Oh, so what were you about to tell me about the driver?”

“Just that I got him and his kid tickets for the first game.”

Aubrey sits up straight. “Wow, that was really sweet of you. I remember the driver talking about how he couldn’t afford to take his kid to even a regular season game.”

“Yeah, he told me the same thing.”

She places her hand on my cheek, rubbing at the playoff beard I’ve been growing. “You’re a good man, Brent Oliver,” she tells me.

And, for once, I feel like I am.





The Best Hat Trick Ever





We take the Red Wings in seven.

It’s a grueling, grinding, hard-fought series, but that just makes our victory that much sweeter.

There is nothing I can compare to the moment I lift the Cup above my head. I look for my dad up in the stands, and when I find him I see he’s crying tears of joy. Mom and Aubrey are there too, hugging and jumping up and down.

I kiss the Cup…and savor the moment.

After the initial hubbub wraps up, my family and my girl join me on the ice. We take a bunch of pics with the Stanley Cup. Aubrey even kisses it, just like I did when I held it above my head.

There’s a parade down the Strip in Las Vegas a few days later. It’s hot as hell, but no one cares.

We won the motherf*cking Stanley Cup!

Aubrey and I decide to spend the summer in Minneapolis, at my lake house. We’ll come back to Las Vegas in August, before training camp starts. Benny is heading back to his hometown of Surrey, BC for the off-season, and Nolan is spending the summer in Toronto.

Nolan seems pretty intent on making time to come up to the lake house to visit with us, which is interesting when we find out, after visiting Aubrey’s parents in Pennsylvania, that Lainey plans to stay in Minnesota for a while.

“Did she get a job there?” I ask Aubrey.

“Not that I know of,” she tells me.

“Hmm…”

Guess I’ll find out this summer if she and Nolan have been dating on the sly. It’ll be hard to keep that shit hidden when he stays with Aubs and me.

Before we leave Vegas, there’s one thing I want to do—propose to Aubrey. Like I said before, you can’t put things off. I love her, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.

I choose an evening when the sunset is stunning for us to drive out to the desert. I take Aubrey to the same spot where we viewed the stars way back in the fall. Only now, instead of a black velvet night sky above our heads, one dotted with a zillion stars, the horizon is streaked in shades of crimson, orange, and purple.

“God, it’s so pretty out here at this time of the day too,” Aubrey says when we step from the car.

“It is,” I agree.

Cocking her head and looking over at me, she asks, “Do you still come out here to think, Brent?”

“Nah, not as much. But it’s still a special place to me.”

“It’s becoming special to me too,” she says.

I know then I’ve chosen the perfect place to ask her to become my wife.

While she’s smoothing down her short cream-colored dress, I walk out into the desert, where I stealthily remove from a light blue Tiffany’s box a multi-carat diamond set in platinum.

I bought the ring just the other day, and I sure hope she loves it.

I set the ring gently on top of a smooth boulder, and then call out, “Hey, Aubs, come check out this neat rock I found over here. It’s crazy-sparkly and really cool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this out in the desert.”

“Okay, hold on.”

She makes her way over to me slowly, since she has on sandals with heels. When she reaches me, she says, “I didn’t know we were going hiking, Brent. I would’ve worn something different.”

“No hiking,” I assure her. “I just want you to see this shiny little stone.”

She looks down at the boulder just as the setting sun hits the ring. The resulting sparkle is dazzling.

Looking up at me, she whispers, “Oh my God, Brent. Does this mean what I think it means?”

I drop to my knees. To hell with sand and pebbles and even the little lizard that just ran by. I’m doing this right.

Taking her hand, I say, “Aubrey Shelburne, you’re not just the love of my life, you’re my everything. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

With tears in her eyes, she replies with an enthusiastic, “Yes!”

I stand and pretend I didn’t hear her. Cupping my ear, I lean in close and say, “Wait, what was that?”

Her arms fly around me. “Yes, yes, yes. I will absolutely marry you, Brent Oliver.”

As we seal the deal with a kiss, I know for certain that this moment outweighs even winning the Cup. Because now I’ve truly won it all—I’m a Stanley Cup champion, Aubrey said “yes,” and I’m finally the man I was destined to be.

This is, by far, the best hat trick ever!



If you enjoyed Destiny on Ice, be on the lookout this spring for the second novel in the Boys of Winter series, Resistance on Ice, which is Nolan’s story.