The Fireman's Secret (17 page)

But not tonight.

* * *

No matter how many years he’d been an EMT, there probably would never come a day when Joel felt mentally ready to face a 9-1-1 call. Sure, he knew what to do and he could go through the motions for any emergency situation, almost as if his hands took over and performed whatever tasks needed to be done, all the while trying to keep his emotions at bay.

People who worked as first responders needed to function that way. Either that or they would be emotionally spent from allowing their compassion and desire to connect with their patients to get in the way.
Do the job and leave.
That had been Joel’s motto, but should that be his mode of operation now that he’d decided to put down roots into Goose Harbor’s sandy soil?

Whenever Chief Wheeler joined the team on a call, he would hug the family members involved, ask about prior problems he was familiar with, and often pray with the hurting person if they were open to that sort of thing. Wheeler was beloved in Goose Harbor because he practiced compassion and connected directly with the people he served. Joel could take a lesson from him, but he needed to find a way to ask Wheeler how he did it and stayed sane.

The ambulance stopped and Joel hurtled out the passenger side. He got to the porch steps first.

An older woman held open the front door. “Hurry. She’s bleeding pretty good. We have her at the kitchen table.”

“What’s the injury from?” He rushed into the house and his vision swept the area in a mechanical way, searching for the necessary clues to a dangerous situation.

“Dog bite, I’m afraid.” A man held a barking gold dog by a choke collar. A retriever.

A wave of nausea washed through his stomach.
Shelby
. Rounding the man and the dog, he doubled his speed and burst into the kitchen.

Shelby sat at the table holding a towel around her forearm. “Joel.” How deep was the bite? How long had they delayed the call? Was she in a lot of pain?

He pulled out the chair next to her and commanded his voice to stay calm. “On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”

“I’m fine.” She hugged her arm to her stomach.

“Here, let me take a look at it.” He reached for the towel.

Shelby jolted back and stood, knocking over her chair. “No. I don’t need that.”

Shock? That had to be it. Nothing else explained her reaction.

He rose slowly. “You’re going to be okay. I’m here to help you, but I can’t until I have a look at your arm. We also need to get you into the ambulance.”

Tears started to drip off her chin. She wouldn’t make eye contact with him. “I don’t want your help.”

Why was Shelby acting like this?
Practice compassion.
But he was, and it didn’t seem to matter.

The rest of the crew had entered the room but hadn’t spoken, and their presence made the air in the room heavy.

“Shelby, come on. Don’t you trust me?” Why had he tossed that out there in front of everyone? She’d said she did last night. But then why refuse his help today?

She cradled her arm. “Not in this.”

Her words stung with the force of a backhand to the jaw. Worse. If she didn’t trust him in the one aspect of his life where he was completely competent, then she couldn’t trust him in all the relationship ways he was bound to bungle.

He breathed deep and worked his jaw back and forth. His voice took on a hard edge. “I’m sure you realize that dog bites can lead to serious infection. Especially untreated bites. Staphylococcus and streptococcus being a couple of the worst, but local infections can be just as bad. Even if you don’t get an infection, the damage to muscle, tendons, blood vessels and nerves can be irreversible if there is too much time before treatment. Sometimes surgery can’t even repair the mark.”

As he spoke, Shelby narrowed her eyes. She turned her body so her injured arm was blocked from his view. “And making sure everything looks nice is all that matters, right? That whatever marks the dog left goes away without any scars.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” And he was being unprofessional, but he couldn’t find the internal switch he usually used to turn off his emotions. He’d been wrong about Shelby. She couldn’t care about him like he’d let himself care for her. Not if she couldn’t let him take care of her in the one way he knew how. “So you’re refusing treatment?”

“I am.” Her voice shook.

“Then sign this.” He yanked the refusal form out of his duty bag and slammed it on the table. “Give it to one of the guys.” Joel spun around and started to push through the rest of his team to get out of the house.

“Joel...please.” The hurt in her voice stopped him, but he didn’t turn around.

“Since you can’t trust us, you should probably go find someone you can and get them to treat the bite. You think I’m overreacting, but they can be serious.”

Not waiting for an answer, Joel pounded down the front steps and punched the side of the ambulance before barreling inside the vehicle.

On the drive back to the fire department he turned the radio to a blaring level so the other men couldn’t say anything to him. Besides, he had to drown out the words playing through his head like a looping video.

You’ll never be good enough. No one wants you.

Caleb was wrong. Dreams weren’t worth the pain. Opening himself up to the idea of a relationship with Shelby had been a mistake. One he hoped not to make again.

Chapter Fourteen

W
hen she’d asked at the appointment, Doctor Brandon said she could go into Lake Michigan thirty-six hours after getting the stitches, as long as she promised not to do any marathon swimming, and to contact him if she noticed any redness or swelling near the bite area. It helped to have a doctor in town who knew about her skin and kept her secret.

Thankfully, he told her that yes, the bite had bled a lot, but it wasn’t deep enough to cause lasting complications. The dog’s sharper teeth had landed around her scars and since that skin was thicker, its teeth hadn’t penetrated as badly as they would have otherwise.

She folded her sweatpants and put them beside her shirt and towel at the sandy base of the dock. The water was chilled from the night, plus Lake Michigan never really got warm until late August. No matter. An early-morning swim would help clear her mind like it always did. And she had a lot on her mind.

Joel hadn’t called or returned any messages in the past three days. Why should he? She’d made him look foolish in front of his coworkers, had shoved him away in front of everyone. That aspect of the situation bothered her the most. Joel probably felt abandoned again, and he may not want to talk to her.

She couldn’t blame him. Maybe it was easier this way because his panicked reaction to the possibility of a lasting mark from the bite meant they couldn’t have a relationship. Not now or ever. Staying friends would only make it hurt more. While her mind understood that ending their relationship early was for the best—because it minimized how great the pain would have been when he eventually rejected her—her heart still protested.

Her relationship with Joel was supposed to be different. She’d thought he’d be the one who could love her as she was. But maybe no one could.

“Let go of it, Shelby. Just let go.”

She walked deeper into the water until it lapped against her chin. Pumping her arms and legs, a sense of freedom surged through her veins. On her morning swims, she could be herself. Skin and scars exposed, with no need to hide and cover up in shame. If only the rest of the world would accept her the way the morning air did.

She paddled farther out than usual, out past the end of the long pier into deeper waters, determined to get away from Goose Harbor for ten minutes and forget the past couple of days. With Paige and Caleb gone on their honeymoon and Maggie busy with her inn during tourist season, she had no one to talk to.

Rolling onto her back, she put out her hands and floated. Eyes focused on the deep gray sky, she decided to talk to God out loud.

“I don’t have to hide from You, either, do I? You know I look like this. You used those firefighters to save me from the church all those years ago, so You must have wanted me to live my life like this. Well, that makes me angry. There. I said it.”

She breathed deeply and swam back to the end of the pier. It was the longest pier in the state’s coast of Lake Michigan.

“But I know these scars mean nothing to You. You still see me the same as always, don’t You? And love me. Just as I am.” She ran her hands over the slimy baseboards and kicked her legs. “Thank You for that. I hope I’m not asking too much, but is it possible that someone else could love me. A person? A man? I still dream of being a wife and a mom. Should I give those dreams up?”

The pier creaked. “Shelby?”

She squeezed her eyes closed. Joel. Why was he out here now during her sacred alone time? How much of her prayer had he overheard?

Keeping everything below water except for her head, she let go of the pier and paddled into the open water before turning around. For once, she found herself thankful that the lake’s water was murky instead of the clear water she’d seen in ads for Caribbean beaches. This far out into the water, Lake Michigan was a friend who could hide her, as long as she could convince Joel to leave.

Even so, her energy wouldn’t last much longer and she’d have to come out of the water sooner than later.

“What are you doing here?” Shelby hollered from thirty feet away.

Joel opened his mouth to answer her, but stopped when he heard the sky rumble. While he’d walked the beach, dark clouds had rolled in to blanket the earth. They were the type of clouds that piled up like people waiting in line for a midnight showing of the latest overproduced teen movie—angry and ready to rain down fury at a moment’s notice. These were the type of summer storm clouds that held house-shaking thunder, Olympic-sized pools worth of rain, and dent-causing hail.

Shelby needed to get out of the water.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “You better come in. It’s going to storm.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” She spoke loudly, but her voice and breathing sounded labored. A storm and a weary swimmer made the worst possible scenario he could think of at the moment.

After a night tossing and turning, he didn’t feel up to arguing with her. He just wanted her safe. For the past few days, he’d been watching the news footage about a wildfire raging in Colorado. A lot of people were in danger and a thought kept tugging at the back of his mind to go and offer his help and training. He might not be a member of a hotshot crew anymore, but his certifications were all up-to-date. He might be of some good to someone out there. Unlike here where his semigirlfriend wouldn’t even let him treat a simple dog bite.

“Oddly enough, I came to the beach to think about you.” Joel slipped off his gym shoes. Being off duty, he didn’t have to follow protocol and listen if she said she didn’t need his help. He’d jump in and drag her out of the water if he had to.

“About me?” She coughed. “We need to talk.”

“Not now. You’re tired, Shelb. You’ve got to get out of the water.”

The first bolt of lightning ripped across the sky.

Shelby’s eyes widened, but she stayed where she was. “I’ll get out when you leave.”

First refusing his help with the dog bite and now not taking him seriously about the danger of swimming during a storm. What reason could she possibly have for acting this way? She had said she dressed in long sleeves and pants because of modesty. But she must know he’d seen a woman in a swimsuit before and, given the circumstances, it wasn’t like he’d have time to check her out, if that was her main worry.

At the risk of embarrassing her, he called out again, “Now’s not the time for modesty.”

“It’s not about that.”

Okay. No more trying to understand her reasons. He yanked off his sweatshirt.

She swam a little closer. “What are you doing?”

“Getting ready to jump in there after you.”

“Don’t.” She palmed her cheek to wipe away tears. The action made her dip a bit farther beneath the water. “Please don’t.”

“Then come out.”

“Please. Leave. I’ll come out then.”

He shook his head. “After the dog bite, I’m not certain you will. So I’m going to wait right here until I see you out and safe.”

Lightning cracked across the sky.

It looked as if he was going for a swim. Joel yanked off his shoes. “Soon would be good.”

“Could you go back to the beach and turn around? I’ll come out as long as you turn your back to me.” Her voice trembled. A mixture of cold, exhaustion and terror.

Whatever it took. He turned around, picked up his sweatshirt and shoes, and slowly made his way toward the beach. The pier groaned behind him, signaling that Shelby had hoisted herself out of the water.

Joel stopped a few feet away from her pile of clothes on the beach. “Walk quick, okay?”

The pier creaked with her footsteps and then he heard the soft pad of her feet when she transitioned to the sand. A light rain began to drum against the pier.

“Oh, no.” She gasped.

He spun around to see what had happened.

Shelby had her back to him as she fished her shirt out of the water. Which was an exercise in futility seeing as the rain grew harder every second.

Joel rushed to grab her towel before the wind took it for a swim, as well. He froze. Across Shelby’s back, down her legs, and on the backs of both arms were patches of angry skin. Large scars, the leftover of healed burns.

A man he had worked with in Indy had been caught in a fire and suffered third-degree burns from the ordeal. His skin had looked just like Shelby’s.

The marks explained why she wore pants and long sleeves all the time. But why hide them? Had someone made fun of her? He balled up his fists. Didn’t she know that all those marks meant was that she was strong and brave?

What now? He could turn back around and pretend he hadn’t seen or he could tell her the scars were nothing to him, and she had no reason to hide where he was concerned.

Joel chose the latter. “Here.” He held out his sweatshirt. “Don’t bother with that waterlogged shirt. You can wear this.”