The Fireman's Secret (21 page)

It could happen. Maybe.

He rolled onto his side, but it didn’t help. Firefighters slept on the roads for safety reasons. If the wind changed directions, the wildfire could move rapidly and unexpectedly. Concrete and asphalt didn’t start on fire instantly. If the wildfire changed course and came at the crew, being on the street would give them a couple of extra minutes to get to a safer place.

Turning onto his back again, he tried to make out the constellations, but smoke blotted out most of the stars’ light. The air smelled like chemicals, more than likely a mixture of the buildings and personal belongs being swallowed by the fire. People’s dreams gone in seconds.

But he wasn’t about to let another fire steal something so important to him.

God, be with Shelby. Take care of her. Help bring healing to her life and show her she is loved just as she is.

* * *

“He’s going to be all right.” Paige handed Shelby an iced tea as she sank onto the plush sofa beside her.

It hadn’t taken Shelby long to cool off from her fight with Joel. Unleashing years of hurt might have felt relieving in the moment, but it had been the wrong thing to do. Joel wasn’t the enemy—not really. A few days apart, a talk with Chief Wheeler and time spent praying had shown her that.

Shelby kept her eyes on the television screen. She’d been so wrapped up in the church rebuild the past few weeks that she hadn’t realized how huge the Colorado wildfire had become. The blaze had gobbled up acres and acres of forest. Why hadn’t she paid attention when Joel had first brought it up?

The church rebuild had stalled. It was still under way, but she was letting Chief Wheeler and Miles handle the details. They were better at keeping the contractor in line anyway.

Besides, she didn’t need to see the church in one piece to feel whole again. That had always been the wrong way to think about her situation. Her healing hadn’t ever been tied to the church, but to her own stubborn heart. She’d slammed the door on all opportunities God had brought into her life, which could have led to healing. It wasn’t Joel’s fault, or her father’s or anyone else she’d blamed along the way.

Only hers.

What a wake-up call.

While she still cared about the church rebuild, her attention had become focused on wanting Joel home safe and sound.

Since Joel had left Goose Harbor, she’d spent most of every day holed up in his house with Dante. But being there kept him on her mind constantly so she’d talked Caleb and Paige into letting her and Dante come to their house in the evenings for company.

Shelby sipped the iced tea but couldn’t have told someone what it tasted like. Her focus was squarely on the television. Why were they talking about baseball scores when the fire still raged?

The front door to the house burst open and Caleb charged in. He stopped and looked both of the women over. “You don’t know, do you?” He sounded out of breath.

Paige laid her hand on Shelby’s knee. “Don’t know what?”

Bold letters reading Crew 178 now flashed on the screen.

He snatched the remote off the coffee table and unmuted the television. “Joel’s crew is—”

“Shh!” Shelby jumped to her feet.

The overly tanned reporter pulled a grim face. “...reported to be trapped in the middle of the wildfire.” A map filled the screen. Animated orange blazes covered town names she’d never heard of, but right in the middle of all the orange was a white circle with the number 178 written inside. “As of this moment, it’s uncertain if the men will be reached in time.”

Shelby dropped back into her seat. “No. No. No. This can’t be happening.”

Caleb rushed to her side. “Let’s pray for him. Right now.” He grabbed Shelby’s hand and reached for Paige’s. “Father God, right now we’re worried about our friend Joel. Keep him safe, Lord. Bring him home to us. Let him complete the work You’ve set for him to do on this earth. And, God, please heal Shelby’s pain. She’s hurting knowing that the man she cares about is the one who gave her the scars she’s been hiding for so long. Show Your hand in all of this. We ask these things in Your Son’s powerful name. Amen.”

“Amen.” Paige squeezed her hand.

“Amen.” Shelby kept her eyes closed and heard Joel’s voice in her head.

People hurt other people—whether we mean to or not. I’ll try my hardest to never cause you pain, and someday when I do, I’ll do everything in my power to make it right.

What right did she have to expect him to be perfect? Relationships—even good ones—involved confusion and discomfort and, yes, pain at some point.

She kept hold of Caleb’s hand and opened her eyes slowly. “What if he dies?”

Caleb hooked his free hand on the back of his neck. “You can’t think like that right now.”

“I should have forgiven him when I had the chance. He told me he was walking into a dangerous situation and I told him I never wanted to see him again. Why didn’t I tell him I forgave him? I don’t want to lose him.” She scrubbed her hand across her eyes. The past two months had caused her to cry more than the past ten years combined. In a good way. Shelby was living again—feeling things again. All thanks to Joel.

Paige moved to sit on the coffee table so the three of them could form a huddle. “You’ve been through so much. It’s okay that you reacted the way you did.”

Shelby stood and brushed past Paige. She needed room to move. “But it’s not okay. I’ve been using that fire as a crutch for so many things in my life.” She yanked her phone out of her back pocket. “Joel doesn’t have control over something that happened fourteen years ago and he never meant to hurt me. The fact is, I’m in love with him. I was so stupid not to tell him.”

Caleb pointed to her phone. “Then go ahead and tell him now.”

Shelby spent the next two hours hitting redial and getting voice mail. Listening to his voice repeat his message again and again calmed her. When he finally saw all his missed calls from her number he would probably think she was insane, but that would be okay because to have that thought meant he’d be alive.

On the last call, she decided to leave a message. “This is Shelby. I want you to know that I forgive you and I miss you like crazy. When you get this message, hurry home to me, okay? Forget everything I said the last time we talked. We’re all praying for you.”

Caleb and Paige took over the couch and Shelby snagged the small love seat. They turned the channel to one of the twenty-four-hour news networks. Shelby asked to borrow Caleb’s laptop and kept refreshing the screen for the most current information on the fire.

It kept hitting her how many people were losing their entire lives. People were missing. Families were looking for relatives. Entire communities were gone.

She couldn’t help Joel at the moment, but she could join him in helping the people in the midst of the wildfire. Sure, she wasn’t tangibly there, but she could spend all night praying for the families affected, for rescue personnel, for protection for the missing people, for rain to fall and for Joel’s safety.

Finally closing the laptop, she glanced at Caleb and Paige, who had fallen asleep leaning on each other. Shelby yawned and reached by her feet to pet Dante, but she touched carpeting. Odd. The dog usually stuck close by.

She got to her feet and stretched. “Dante,” she whispered, which was silly because the dog was half-deaf.

After searching the entire lower level of the house, she was wide-awake and starting to panic.

“Dante!” She no longer cared if she woke up her brother and his wife. There was no reason for the dog to have gone upstairs. He had arthritis in his legs and the stairs would have hurt him. But she dashed up the steps two at a time and scoured the bedrooms for him.

Her heart lodged in her throat and pounded an uneven beat against her temples. She rushed into the living room and found Caleb and Paige rubbing their faces and stretching. “Have either of you seen Dante?”

“Yeah.” Paige yawned. “He was whining at the door, so I let him out back a while ago.”

Caleb’s jaw dropped. “Paige...the back gate is broken.”

Shelby raced her brother to the back door. She flung it open and charged outside. “Dante! Here, pup. Where are you, boy?”

But Dante was gone.

Chapter Eighteen

“S
helby.” Someone jiggled her shoulder.

She jolted awake. “Did you find Dante?” She latched on to Paige’s arm.

Shelby blinked, and Joel’s living room came into focus—a small room, bare except for a very well-used plaid couch she lay on and an old television with rabbit ears that sat on a milk crate. Nothing else. She’d insisted on going back to Joel’s modest rental home after the search finished each night in case Dante decided to return to the place he knew.

Paige patted her hand. “No. But I talked to Wheeler and he’s been in touch with the hotshot center in Colorado. Joel should be headed back home today.”

“I was so scared for him. What would I have done if his crew hadn’t been rescued?”

When Shelby had stopped by Joel’s house for the first time almost two months ago, she’d figured he was still waiting for boxes of his belongings to arrive, but no more possessions ever showed up. The house had a single bedroom across from the bathroom. He’d left the door open once and she’d found only a mattress on the floor and a duffel bag of clothing.

The one photograph in the entire house was fixed to the fridge with a magnet. It showed Joel hugging a younger Dante.

Joel had no home. No family. No roots. Nothing besides Dante.

She’d known those things were true, but the gravity of the situation hadn’t struck her until she stood in his house this morning. Sickness crept up her throat. How would she explain everything to Joel if and when he returned to Goose Harbor?

Shelby pointed to Paige’s arm where her sister-in-law always kept an assortment of hair ties. “Can I borrow one?”

“Sure.” Paige handed her a blue tie.

Pulling up her hair, Shelby made her way to the bathroom. She grabbed the mouthwash sitting on the counter and swished. Bags under her eyes and cracked lips told the story of her past two days. Her feet hurt, too. If Joel had left his truck, she would have used it in the search instead of going by foot or waiting for other people to drive her. But Joel must have swapped out his motorcycle for his truck after he’d seen her the last time because she’d found his bike in the driveway.

Shelby returned to the living room and pulled on her shoes. “I’m going out to look for him again.”

Paige blocked the doorway. “It’s been two days.”

“And we haven’t found him yet.” Shelby inched around Paige.

But she stepped in front of her again. “You were up all night searching for him and spent all day yesterday making more flyers and contacting every police department in a twenty-mile radius.”

“There aren’t that many.” Shelby crossed her arms. She would push her scrawny sister-in-law out of the way if she had to. “Don’t you get it? That dog is the only family he’s got. I have to find Dante before Joel gets back.”

“Caleb and Miles are out looking right now. Why don’t you wait until they return?”

“Because I’m not going to sit around and relax until he’s found.” Shelby brushed past Paige and laid her hand on the front-door knob. “What if...what if I have to tell Joel that I lost his dog? He could react the same way I did when he told me about the fire. I didn’t mean to lose Dante any more than he meant to trap me in a burning building. But he could be angry. He could decide we shouldn’t be together after this.”

“Right now, you have to trust that he’s not going to react that way.”

Shelby looked out the small window of the door and saw Joel’s truck roll up the driveway. “He’s home.” She breathed.

She’d misplaced her phone at Caleb’s house the other night and Paige had returned it today with a dead battery. If Joel had tried to call her, she wouldn’t know. It was possible he’d never listened to her message saying she forgave him. All she knew was that he was alive. And home. And only twenty feet outside the house where she stood.

She ripped open the door and ran down the front walk. Joel had just closed the driver’s door when she barreled into him. Shelby threw her arms around him. “You’re safe! Wheeler said you were, but I couldn’t breathe right until I saw you...I’m so happy.” First she kissed one side of his face and then the other side.

“Shelb—”

She stopped his words with a kiss and wove her hands into his smooth hair. He needed a shower, but she couldn’t have cared less. Joel dropped the bag he’d been holding and pressed his hands into the small of her back to bring her flush against his chest.

After they parted, he still held her close. He pressed his nose into her hair and breathed once deeply. Then he rested his forehead against hers. “That’s the best welcome home I’ll probably ever get.”

“I’ll do that every day if you let me.”

“Why, Shelby Beck.” He took her shoulder and set her a foot away to study her face. “Are my ears playing tricks or did you just ask me to marry you in a backdoor kind of way?” His voice told her he was teasing. Joel must have received her voice mail.

Hooking her hands into his coat pockets, she pulled him close again. “I’m saying I’m in love with you. That’s what.”

“I love you, too. But you knew that already.”

If she could have stayed in this moment, she would have, but Caleb’s heavy footsteps up the driveway made reality crash in. They couldn’t stay like this, because she had to fess up about Dante.

“Joel, I have to tell you something.” She grabbed his hand.

Paige opened the front door and came on to the stoop. Joel glanced at Paige, then Caleb and then Miles as he walked up the sidewalk toward them.

Miles tucked a walkie-talkie into a clip on his belt. “No sign of him.”

Joel’s eyebrows shot up. “No sign of who?” He locked gazes with Shelby. “Can someone tell me why there are so many people at my house at nine in the morning on a Thursday?”

Say it. Quick. Like ripping off a bandage.

“Dante’s missing.”

“Missing?” Joel dropped her hand and looked around at everyone. “I don’t understand.”