The Fireman's Secret

“Sounds like you’re telling me to stay away from your little sister.” Joel didn’t know why he was poking an agitated bear. He didn’t have any designs on Shelby. How could he when he hardly knew her? But he challenged Caleb all the same. A lifetime stuck in foster homes following new, and sometimes ridiculous, rules made Joel bristle when someone told him he wasn’t allowed to do something as an adult.

“I am.” Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. Same old Caleb.

Joel titled his head. “Tell me, you do realize she’s not twelve anymore? I don’t know her, but I’m sure Shelby’s old enough to take care of herself.”

“She’s not—”

“Like I said.” Joel raised his hands in the universal sign of let’s-drop-this-already. “I don’t know her. Your warning is a bit premature, buddy. I just got into town last night and, between you and me, romance isn’t even a blip on my radar.”

“That’s exactly when it finds you.”

“Well, no worries for me and Shelby. Okay?”

His old friend lowered his voice. “Maybe it’s not the time or place to ask you this, but where did you go?”

“When?” Joel stalled for time, but he had known the conversation would come to this. What happened that day? If Caleb questioned him, Joel would have to think quickly and place himself far away from the church.

“You said you’d meet me at the bend in the river so we could fish that day and...you just didn’t show. Do you know how heartbroken the Lloyds were when you never came back? They thought of you like a son.”

Like a son? Right. That’s why the Lloyds told him they were going to turn him back over to the state so they could move to Florida on their retirement money.

Joel laughed once, drily. “Is that what the Lloyds told everyone? That I ran away from them?”

Caleb frowned. “They asked everyone to help find you and formed search parties. They were so upset they moved away a few months later. I think they had to get away from the memories and the hurt from not knowing what happened to you.”

Joel’s hand formed a fist in his pocket.

Relax. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd had been good people. They’d opened their home to him for three years, and he’d been a handful the whole time. He shouldn’t have expected more. Never should have allowed his mind to entertain the thought that they might make him a permanent part of their family.

But he couldn’t let Caleb believe he’d run off for no good reason. “It sounds like they didn’t tell anyone they’d decided to turn me back over to Child Protective Services. Nice of them to leave that bit out.”

Yes, Mrs. Lloyd’s arthritis had progressed to the point where she couldn’t hold a toothbrush, but hadn’t Joel been there to help them? He might have been a hardheaded sixteen-year-old, but he’d cared enough about the Lloyds to have helped them however they needed. When the doctor had told them that living somewhere warmer might help Mrs. Lloyd, they’d immediately put a move in motion. Sure, they’d petitioned the state for permission to take Joel, but, even then, he’d known they would never have been granted authorization. Not with his mother still alive. Even if she had been in jail.

And when they weren’t, they still chose to move instead of keep Joel. Still decided to hand him right back to the state.

Caleb’s brow furrowed. “They were going to give you back?”

Joel nodded.

“Man. I’m sorry. I never knew.”

“Yeah.” Joel crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “Within ten years, I’d lived in twelve different places. I was so sick of being sent wherever my case manager deemed best. For once, I wanted to be in control of my future—if that makes sense. I couldn’t go back into the foster system. Not after enjoying three years in Goose Harbor. I couldn’t live like that any longer.”

“So they were right—you took off?”

He shrugged. “I ran away, if that’s what you’re asking. You’ve got to understand, I was so mad at God and everyone that I just...I needed to do life on my own for a while. Live by my own terms.”

“And how’d that go for you?”

He hadn’t forgotten how tenacious Caleb could be when it came to getting to the bottom of an issue. Like a mosquito in search of exposed flesh.

Joel ran his finger over the grooves in the cinder-block wall. “It went badly.” He let his hand drop to his side. “Let’s see, four years in an out of homeless shelters in Indiana. I had to take the GED since I didn’t graduate high school here, and sending for my transcripts would have tipped off my case manager. Anyway, I always wanted to come back. I’ve thought about Goose Harbor a lot over the years.”

Caleb placed his hand on Joel’s shoulder. “You were missed. I always wondered what happened to you. I never stopped praying for you.” He squeezed Joel’s shoulder.

Joel straightened his shirt and stepped away from Caleb. “Looks like those prayers might have worked.”

“I have to head out to finish end-of-the-year nonsense at school, but we should catch up more. You have to meet Paige, my fiancée. She’s a teacher, too. Know what? You have to come to our wedding. The invitations have already gone out, but I’ll get you the information.”

They made plans to grill steaks later in the week on one of the days Joel wasn’t scheduled to work a twelve-hour shift, and then Caleb headed out.

When he’d left years ago, Caleb had been going steady with Sarah West, had been since grade school. Caleb and Sarah had always talked about getting married, but it sounded like that hadn’t happened.

Which made sense. What kid actually got his childhood dream? Joel sure hadn’t. Which was fine. Dreams changed. He no longer begged God for the family he’d never have. No, his requests were simpler now. The conversation with the chief nagged at him. Perhaps Wheeler was right. It would be nice to have someone in the world besides Dante to miss him if something happened.

One person. Was that too much to ask?

Chapter Three (#ulink_c401e070-5936-55fa-b986-7abe755baf00)

Pink-and-orange sunlight pushed the purple of night out of the sky as Shelby dipped her toes into the brisk lake water. Minnows danced in a group near the shore and a large dragonfly buzzed over the surface of the calm water. The sand under the water was hard and compact beneath her feet. On warm summer mornings, she planned to swim out to the end of the pier and back for exercise, but today the water was still too chilly. Lake Michigan always took too long to warm up. For now, she’d wade. Just wade.

Her father had taught her to swim on this same beach, and before the divorce, her family had spent every summer weekend here with a picnic and volleyball. This beach was the only kind memory of Dad she allowed herself to hang on to. In grade school, she’d been a part of the swim team at the local Y, but after the fire, she quit.

Oh, Caleb and Mom told her no one would treat her differently. They said she should wear her scars with her head held high because those marks on her skin meant she had survived a great tragedy. They said people wouldn’t even notice them.

Caleb and Mom had been wrong.

People had been polite to her face—if openly staring at the burned patches on her arms, back and legs could be considered polite. But Shelby had heard them whispering. She’d seen people trying to avert their eyes from her ugliness. Some of her friends at school had even been afraid to touch her, as if the scars were contagious.

That’s when her wardrobe had changed to all jeans and long sleeves no matter what. The only time she shed those concealing clothes was for her morning swim in summer and when she was by herself in her apartment. And when she was alone around animals. Animals didn’t judge.

She ran her fingers on the two tougher, bright pink patches of skin on her arms. The marks might as well have been labels stuck to her that read: damaged goods. Like a dented can of string beans in the reduced food section of the store.

Because of the scars, she’d never know the joy of marriage that Caleb and his fiancée, Paige, were about to experience. Nor would she get to hold her firstborn child—or any child of hers in her arms. The day the church caught fire, those dreams had ended. They’d been crushed right under the same beam that had fallen from the ceiling and trapped her.

Who would want her like this? No man.

Knee-high in the water now, she scanned the beach. It was too early for anyone to be up and near the shore. Even the joggers hadn’t ventured out yet. She usually saw them on her way back to her car. Granted, today she’d taken longer to get to the beach since she’d had to ride her bike.

Today’s swim would need to be cut short so she could put her clothes back on before anyone saw her in her swimsuit. She probably shouldn’t have come anyway. It was too early in the summer yet for the lake water to be a swimmable temperature.

She escaped the cold water and toweled off her legs before slipping on her baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirt. Glancing at her watch, she remembered she was supposed to meet Joel this morning at Fair Tradewinds Coffee. The small coffee shop was off the beaten path so most of the tourists who swarmed the town during the summer didn’t know about it. She loved the place.

She needed to get a move on.

She and Joel had a fund-raiser to plan and a church to build.

* * *