Chapter Nineteen

The car was barely at a stop near the airport curb before Ian had the door open. Thanks to a call to Lucy, he’d gotten Shelby’s flight information and the tip that she liked to get to the airport two hours in advance. Of course she did. She carried around a flashlight Taser; she didn’t leave anything to chance. He glanced down at the clock on his phone screen. He was cutting it beyond close. 

“Thanks, Alex,” he said as he got out. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“No shit,” his brother responded. “Now go fix your fuckup.”

Ian sprinted through the airport doors and through the crowd at the airport. He deked left and then right, making his way toward the security gates where a crowd of people waited in lines that barely seemed to move. It was as far as he could go without a ticket. There were two hours before her flight. She had to be here. 

He jumped up on a trio of seats off to the side and scanned the crowd looking for Shelby. Trying to find one person in the room of wall-to-wall people was like trying to find a guy without a mullet in an eighties hockey video montage. 

“Shelby Blanton!” he hollered, his heart hammering in his ears.

People turned and looked around, glad for some entertainment while they waited. Several training their phones on him, no doubt to send the video of the Harbor City weirdo at the airport to their friends back in Omaha. A few TSA agents turned in his direction and started toward him. He didn’t give a shit. 

“Shelby, I know you’re mad and you have every right to be.” This was where that whole grunts-more-than-talks thing became a problem. When he needed the words, he didn’t know what to say. So he went with the first thing that came to mind. “I was an asshole.” Wow. He really should have made a plan, but it was too late to now. “I don’t have the right to ask, but I’m asking for another chance in every zip code. Please.”

“Sir,” one of the TSA agents said. “I’m gonna need you to get down from there.”

Fuck. “Just one minute more?”

The agent pulled out a pair of zip ties. “Depends on how curious you are about the inside of the airport jail. Stay up there and you’ll get the full tour.”

If it would mean seeing Shelby, he would have happily taken the arrest option, but nowhere in the crowd was a tall, dark-haired woman ready to tell him he was a dumbass and then hopefully forgive him. 

“Flight six twenty to New Orleans, do you know if it got delayed?” he asked, still eyeballing the passengers in line, looking for Shelby.

The agent shook his head. “Some kind of storm system is moving through later, so they moved up that flight’s departure time. Turned this place into chaos with all those passengers trying to get through early. It has already boarded and is about to take off. You’re too late.”

The news was a punch in the gut that knocked all the air out of him. He flopped down into the chair, his legs not strong enough to hold him up under the staggering weight of the news. 

“I heard a rumor, though, that they added another flight out tonight to make up for it,” the agent said.

It was the best news he’d ever heard. Whatever it took, he was getting on that flight. 

…

Sitting in seat 14C on a plane destined for New Orleans, Shelby tightened the seat belt. 

Then she loosened it. 

Then she tightened it again. 

No matter what she did, though, it felt wrong, but then again so did everything. Packing up her belongings and sticking the boxes in the building’s basement storage until she found a place in New Orleans made her eye twitch. Putting her carry-on stuffed with a week’s worth of clothes in the overhead bin made her queasy. The Ice Knights home screen on her phone made her weepy. 

And the idea that Ian was out there somewhere and that she wouldn’t see him again? That was fucking terrifying.

Every nerve in her body was screaming and her fight-or-flight response had gone to full-on get-the-hell-out-of-here mode. All she could think of was Ian. The night he taught her how to skate. How he’d stuck up for his brother even when he was so mad, he couldn’t talk to Alex. The breathtaking way he looked at her after making her come so hard she was surprised her toes weren’t still curled. 

She had to get out of here. 

She had to get to Ian.

On the verge of hyperventilating, she unfastened her seat belt and stood up. On the inhale, she popped open the overhead bin and on the exhale, she had her bag and was heading down the aisle as the other passengers stared at her and wondered aloud what was going on.

She’d made it almost to the front when a flight attendant blocked her way.

“The cabin doors are about to close,” he said with a testy smile. “You have to sit down.”

“I need to get out of here.” She had to get to Ian.  

“Ma’am.” The flight attendant straightened his glasses and gave her an imperious glare. “We’ll be taking off soon.”

Yeah, that was exactly why her heart was going a bazillion miles an hour, her brain was in full panic mode, and she had been rushing toward the jetway. “I understand, just let me off before you do.” She paused, gathering up all the fear and hope for what was going to happen next and putting it into the most important word. “Please.”

The flight attendant’s demeanor changed in an instant and he ushered Shelby to the front of the plane. “Is everything okay? Do you require assistance?”

She shook her head. The only person who could get her out of this mess was herself, but help with Harbor City traffic would be appreciated. “Not unless you can get me a cab and through rush-hour traffic to the Ice Knights arena in less than an hour.”

He raised both eyebrows so high, they got lost behind his perfectly coiffed hair and gestured toward the walkway. “You’d need a miracle for that.”

“Then that’s what I have to hope for.” And she took off down the jetway, knowing she was probably on a fool’s mission, but she had to try. 

She loved Ian Petrov and if there was a chance—even a small one—for a happily ever after with the sexy, grunting, stubborn man with enough family baggage to fill a 747, then she had to try. 

Hustling down the jetway, she regretted every step of the way that she’d decided to wear heels. She barely made it to the gate before she took them off and started sprinting for real, the tiny wheels on her cheap carry-on making the case bounce and swerve as she ran. 

The TSA agent sitting at the checkpoint between the secured and not-secured area stood up as Shelby neared and eyed her suspiciously as she moved to block her exit. “Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to slow down.”

Getting arrested for causing an airport disturbance was the last thing she needed right now, but when a person figured out what needed to happen next so they could start the rest of their life, they wanted it to start now.

“I’m sorry.” Shelby held up the hand with her black heels. “I just have to get out of here as fast as possible.”

The agent put her hand up to the walkie-talkie on her shoulder, body language loose but ready to rumble. “Why do you have to do that?”

How in the hell was she supposed to explain what had happened with Ian in the shortest amount of time so she could get out of the airport, hail a cab, and get her ass to the Ice Knights arena? There was no fucking way, but she had to try.

Coming to a stop six feet away from the TSA agent, Shelby sucked in a deep breath, ready to get it all out as quickly as possible when she looked over the agent’s shoulder and spotted Ian on the other side of the do-not-cross line. 

All the adrenaline pumping through her system vanished in an instant. He was here. Ian Petrov was at the airport. He’d come after her. “I have to go tell that man right there that I love him.”

The agent looked over at Ian and then back at Shelby and what she could only assume was the 100 percent over-the-top goofy grin on her face. Shaking her head, the agent walked back over to her chair. 

“I have been waiting years for this to happen.” She sat down. “Go ahead, honey, I’ll be rooting for you.”

Shelby wanted to, but all of a sudden, her feet stopped working. All she could do was stand there with her shoes in one hand and the handle of her suitcase in the other, looking at the man she loved and trying to figure out what to say.

Ian looked like hell. His hair was going every which way, as if he hadn’t been able to stop ramming his hands through it; he had at least two days’ worth of beard growth; and he was pacing back and forth while talking animatedly to someone on the phone.

“What do you mean, there aren’t any open seats tonight for a flight to New Orleans?” He let his head fall back as he grimaced. “It’s a major tourist destination—there has to be at least one spot.”

“Why are you going to New Orleans?” Shelby asked from her side of the do-not-cross line.

Ian spun around, his eyes wide, and hung up his phone without saying goodbye to whomever was on the other line.

 “I have to tell you something,” he said, looking at her with such love in his eyes that she nearly melted right there on the spot. “But I still don’t know what to say.”

…

Okay, he’d royally fucked that up. Could he make this any worse? Well, considering she was staying on her side of the do-not-cross line, probably not.

She was looking at him like he’d lost his mind and maybe he had—the idea of never being with her again did that to him.

“Do you want to go somewhere more private?” she asked without moving from her spot. 

He looked over at all the people in the security line, and everyone was watching. By now most of them had their phones out, recording, and there was no missing the chattering about who he was. All of this would be on social media in minutes if it wasn’t being live broadcast already. Normally this was exactly the time when he’d walk away, get out of the spotlight as fast as he could, but he wouldn’t risk walking away from Shelby ever again. Being with her was worth whatever judgment came down from the Harbor City sports media, fans, and anyone else. The only person’s opinion besides his own that he cared about was Shelby’s. 

He had no idea what to say to fix his fuckup, but he knew the most important part. “I love you.”

She dropped the shoes she was holding and lost her grasp on her suitcase. “What?”

“I know,” he said. “I was surprised, too.” 

Her eyes rounded and a loud “ooooooooh” went up from the crowd. The older woman in the TSA uniform on the other side of the do-not-cross line rolled her eyes as she shook her head.

“Wait.” He held up his hand and prayed like hell that Shelby wouldn’t just walk away. “That came out wrong. Fuck me, this is why I don’t talk.” He took a deep breath and tried again. “I didn’t plan to fall in love with you, but really I should have expected the unexpected when it came to you after you Tased me in the cabin.” 

Another “oooooohhhh” from the crowd grew louder, and with everyone recording, there was no way that part wouldn’t end up on the news. Way to go, Petrov. “She thought I was a burglar who’d broken in—it was totally justified.” 

Satisfied she wouldn’t end up arrested for assault, he focused back on Shelby. “You’re funny and smart and you push me when I need it. I know you don’t love me, but I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance, that you’ll at least be open to the idea of dating and seeing if your feelings change. I think it could really work out.”

Her chin was wobbling and her voice shaky, but there was no misunderstanding what she said next. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

Her statement hit him like a Mack truck followed by a herd of water buffalo in mid-stampede. 

“I do love you,” she said. 

Shock didn’t begin to cover it. More like what-a-pair-of-jerks-they-were. 

“That’s why I had to tell you we couldn’t…” She glanced over at the crowd, her cheeks turned pink, and she focused back on him. “Well, we couldn’t anymore. I was afraid that I would just keep falling more in love with you and you’d leave me with a broken heart.”

He crossed right up to the do-not-cross line, not stopping until he was right in front of her. “I’d never do that.”

“But, Ian,” she said, her eyes watery. “You did.”

And he’d spend the rest of his life making up for it if that’s what it took. “I was an idiot with his head shoved way too far up his ass. I removed it. I promise: I’ll be with you if we’re ever arrested for trespassing again, go ice-skating, make out in the owner’s suite, or just sitting on the couch talking smack about the hair of the players in whatever classic hockey game is on.” 

He glanced over at the TSA agent by the podium and raised an eyebrow in question. She smiled and waved her hand.

Crossing that line was like walking into a new future, one that he couldn’t wait to start. He pulled her into his arms, dipping his head down to kiss her but stopping just shy of her lips. “I love you, Shelby Blanton.”

“I love you, too.” Then she raised herself up on her toes and kissed him, soft, promising, and forever. 

Somewhere in the background he heard whistles, claps, and hollers, but he couldn’t be bothered. He had Shelby in his arms and there was absolutely nothing in the world more important than that.