Saving Shelby

by Nicole Taylor Eby

  “Are you okay? Where are you going?” Ginny asked.

  “I’m fine. Stood up too quick that’s all. I just need a little walk on the beach to clear my head.” Shelby kept her eyes carefully away from Ginny’s. She didn’t want to cry, and she didn’t want Ginny to see she was lying; otherwise, Ginny wouldn’t let her go off on her own—and she needed to be alone.

  “You want me to come? We could have that talk about ‘you know who’ right now.”

  “No. I’ll be fine. You stay here and have fun with Luke—who we will also talk about later.” Shelby gave Ginny a meaningful look, trying to distract her friend from her line of questioning.

  “Oh, you bet we will,” Ginny said, laughing as Shelby slipped away from the campfire.

  Adrenaline and anger pumped through Shelby’s body, making her want to run. She forced herself to walk slowly until she was out of Ginny’s sights.

  As Ian stalked away from the clearing and his confrontation with Shelby, he clenched his fists in fury. What was she thinking? All kinds of accidents happened when people got drunk in the woods. Didn’t she realize how close she had come to dying? She needed to grow up and make better decisions if she was going to keep playing at being a wilderness guide.

  The sound of the campfire party started to fade away, as it was absorbed by the heavy trunks and leaves of the old growth forest. In the eerie quiet, his fury began to diminish. The forest always had that effect on him. He could see he had overreacted, but he couldn’t shake the fear that seeing Shelby with that beer in her hand had caused.

  It had all felt too familiar, and it kept bringing back the memories of Charlene laying still, her face pale, her eyes not seeing, while Natalie sobbed over her sister’s body. The pain had been too much back then, and he knew he couldn’t live through it again.

  He had to keep Shelby safe—whether she wanted him to or not.

  Suddenly, the dampening quiet of the forest was too much. He needed noise to block out the memories. He needed the sound of the surf pounding against the beach to drown out the regrets and the fear. Without thinking about where he was going, Ian turned his feet towards the beach trail.

  “You avoiding me, Ian?”

  Ian stopped and turned, his gut clenching. The way Celeste said his name had hidden meanings—the undertone definitely sexual. Why hadn’t he been paying closer attention? If he had spotted her on the trail, maybe he could have avoided her. The last thing he needed to do right now was pretend to be her wilderness man fantasy, so that she would feel like she was getting what she paid for.

  He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to pretend he was something he wasn’t—even to help Jade. A man could only ignore his morals so many times before he broke. And this thing Jade had him doing didn’t sit well with him.

  His stomach churned. He knew the right thing to do was come clean with Celeste—tell her he couldn’t give her what she wanted. But he also owed Jade big time, and he knew that Jade couldn’t afford to give Celeste a refund. It wasn’t like Jade had asked him to do anything more than pay special attention to Celeste and make sure that she felt like she was living her wilderness man fantasy. He didn’t actually need to make the fantasy come true.

  Although he wasn’t sure that Celeste understood that.

  He ran a hand through his hair, wishing like hell for the days when things had been easy—back when Spencer, Justin, and him had tramped through the woods together, and the hardest decision had been where to pitch their tents.

  Right and wrong had been much easier to distinguish back then.

  Those days were long gone. Justin had disappeared out of their lives to get rich in finance, and Ian had had an up close and personal lesson about life and death decisions that he would never get over.

  Only Spencer had managed to make it into adulthood seemingly unscathed.

  Letting his hand drop, Ian turned on his smile. He had made his choice when he had accepted Jade’s job offer. He needed to be a man of his word, even if it felt wrong.

  “Never, Celeste,” he tried to say the words nonchalantly. He might need to be alone, but he also needed to keep his job. “I just came from the Fire Pit. You headed there?”

  “Nope.” She gave him a coy smile and hooked her finger into the front of his shirt, drawing him closer to her. “I was looking for you.”

  He let her pull him closer—helpless to do anything else. Sometimes the right thing to do was keep your promise to others rather than yourself. He pushed aside the image of Shelby’s face, as he gave in to Celeste.

  “I think it’s time you showed me that special spot of yours on the beach. I want to see the huge moon.”

  Ian breathed in slowly to steady his nerves. Being alone on the beach with Celeste was not what he needed right now. “You sure you don’t want to check out the campfire? They’re having quite the party.”

  “No,” she said, her full lips drawn up in a pout. “I want my toes in the sand...” She let her words trail off, but her eyes left no illusion about what she really wanted.

  He glanced up the trail towards the safety of his quarters, and then he closed his eyes for a second, recapturing the look in Shelby’s eyes when he had shouted at her about the beer. Maybe, he was thinking about this all wrong. Maybe, he shouldn’t be avoiding Celeste. Maybe, he should be using the distraction to his advantage. It used to be just the kind of thing he liked to do—even if it no longer held any appeal.

  What had happened with Shelby had been a mistake—an amazing, delicious mistake that he wanted to keep making, but that didn’t change the fact that it was a mistake. And what better way to get the haunting image of a woman out of your mind, then to replace it with the flesh and blood, sexy as hell and ready to rumble, woman that was right in front of you?

  It was a quick walk along the twisty path from the clearing down to the beach, and it wasn’t nearly long enough to clear her head. Shelby didn’t really have a plan, other than to just sit on one of the logs at the high tide mark and watch the waves roll in and out under the moon. Her emotions were so jumbled up she didn’t even know how she felt. She just knew she had been a bigger fool than she had originally thought.

  She needed some serenity to figure out her next move, and the soothing rhythm of the surf was just the ticket. It was loud enough to block out the toxic thoughts swirling around in her mind and rhythmic enough to help her focus on figuring out what she needed to do now.

  She wanted to rage about Ian’s behaviour, but there was something that just wasn’t ringing true in her anger, like there was something she was missing; something important that would make the pain stop. He had her so mixed up that she couldn’t untangle her own thoughts.

  Oh God, I’ve made such a mess of things.

  Everything had gone wrong, and it wasn’t just Ian; it was the accident too. It had rattled her, and she wasn’t sure she could finish the course, or if she even should.

  Maybe the accident had been a not-so-subtle message from the universe.

  She knew what Ian would tell her, but the fact that his opinion even factored in at this moment was proof that she was in danger of losing herself. She didn’t need the complication of a man like him. She needed to get away, because if she was being honest with herself, she was losing her battle to ignore Ian McLean.

  As Shelby left the path and stepped onto the beach, the pulsating melody of the waves drew her towards the water’s edge, and she found herself drowning in issues much bigger than her infatuation with Ian. She had almost died. In the face of the raw power of the ocean, she could finally truly admit that to herself. Her restlessness wasn’t just about not knowing what to do next. It was about the fear she was harbouring deep down that she wasn’t capable of good decisions. Her mistake had put herself and Ginny in danger, real danger. She would have died, if Ian hadn’t rescued her.

  Pushing her bitter thoughts aside, she allowed the wildness of the waves to pull her closer to the water. Shelby picked her way across the large pieces of driftwood l
ittering the edge of the beach and then stepped onto the rocky sand. About halfway down the beach, a sound caught her attention. Not just any sound. Voices.

  She froze, as frustration surged through her. She wasn’t alone. Another giggle rang out over the surging waves, and this time she recognized it.

  Don’t look. She pushed down the thought that the entire universe seemed to be plotting against her. You don’t need to see. You don’t want to see. She could just slip away unnoticed.

  She was helpless to stop herself; her eyes were drawn up the beach towards the sound. The gasp was already out of her before she fully comprehended what was happening. Ian was there under the same mystical moonlight that had pulled her away from the campfire and down to the beach; he wasn’t alone.

  And he was kissing Celeste.

  Her thoughts scattered like autumn leaves across the sand. Time slowed, but everything was moving too fast to process. She had known it would be them, but she hadn’t been expecting the kiss. The kiss left no doubts about the situation. He certainly hadn’t wasted any time going to Celeste after bitching her out at the campfire.

  It was impossible that he could have heard her gasp over the crashing surf, but at that very instant, he turned to look at her. His eyes locked onto hers, and instantly he started to rise, moving towards her. She could see his mouth moving. She saw his lips form her name.

  She fled.

  CHAPTER 23

  Stumbling up the beach, Shelby struggled to get away from the image of Ian’s lips on Celeste, but she couldn’t run fast enough in the soft sand.

  “Shelby!” She heard him call her name, but she didn’t even pause. “Shelby! Stop! It’s not—”

  She didn’t look back. The sand sucked at her feet, making her clumsy. Slipping on a piece of seaweed-covered driftwood, she went down hard. Pain screamed through her hand, as she scrambled back to her feet. Her breath came hard, but she pushed herself to keep moving.

  I can’t let him catch me. But no matter how hard she pushed herself to go faster, she could still hear him gaining on her.

  The moon wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the heavy tree canopy, and when Shelby reached the edge of the beach, she found the path all but obscured by shadows. She didn’t even pause to consider the danger. She just plunged straight into the gloom. She couldn’t face Ian now, if she ever could.

  She was a fool—there was no denying it now. She had fallen for the myth that a man like Ian could actually desire a woman like her.

  She struggled to breathe, as she kept running, pumping her arms hard to propel herself forward. Up ahead, she could see the dancing light from the campfire, but it did nothing to illuminate the path. If anything, the flickering light made it harder to differentiate between shadows and obstacles. She didn’t check her pace.

  Catching her toe on a root, Shelby went down a second time. “Oomph!” The air exploded out of her lungs, as her stomach collided with a log. Instinctively, she curled into a ball around the pain, as she fought to pull air into her burning lungs.

  Then, Ian was there. She felt him shake her. “What were you thinking, Shelby? Do you have a death wish? Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  She wanted to scream at him, but her lungs were empty.

  “Come on, man, let her be,” Luke said; his voice far away and hazy.

  “But she needs to know,” Ian protested.

  “She knows,” Luke said, drawing Ian away.

  “I didn’t kiss her.”

  “Okay, man, you didn’t kiss her. You can kiss her later.”

  “No, I...” Ian’s voice got faint as the two men moved away.

  Then Ginny was beside her, gently coaxing her to focus on breathing out, and Shelby lost track of Ian. Kirk encouraged her to sit up and lean slightly back against a tree so her lungs could expand and contract better. It was all reminiscent of when she had fallen during fire making—except this time Ian wasn’t there.

  “Focus on breathing out,” Kirk said. “Your body will automatically breathe in.”

  When the air finally returned to her lungs, she allowed Kirk and Ginny to once again lead her to the medical hut. It felt a bit like déjà vu, as the three of them made the same trip that they had made earlier. Shelby thought about making a quip about her needing to visit Adrien at the medical hut becoming a habit, but she couldn’t muster the strength.

  Ginny remained quietly beside her until Adrien got Shelby settled and left them alone. “What happened?” Ginny asked, finally. “Ian seemed pretty upset.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Are you sure? How much did you have to drink?”

  Shelby blew out a frustrated breath. Why was everybody so concerned about her drinking? It was one time, and everyone else was doing it too. Besides, she had nearly died. And if that didn’t earn her a pass, then she had been deceived by a man and that definitely did.

  “Just a taste of the whiskey and a beer.” Shelby snapped.

  Ginny raised her eyebrows.

  “I only took a few sips out of the second beer. I didn’t do anything everybody else wasn’t doing!”

  Ginny didn’t answer as Adrien returned, staying quiet while he examined Shelby.

  “It looks like your concussion is mild. I’ll clean up this cut on your forehead and the one on your hand.” Shelby hadn’t even registered that she had hit her head. “Then you’re cleared to go. Just come back if you get any weird sensations or see any spots. And maybe take it easy tonight. You’re becoming our best customer.” Adrien smiled and winked at her.

  She gave him a small smile in return; she didn’t have the heart for banter.

  When Shelby was all cleaned up, Ginny helped her off the stretcher. “Are you okay? I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. I just need to get out of here.”

  Ginny sighed, clearly unconvinced. “I’ll walk you back to our room. It’s late. We should call it a night.”

  “No, I mean go home. My family was right. I don’t belong here. This was a mistake.” She could not stay here and face Ian.

  Ginny grabbed hold of Shelby’s arm and stopped her from walking away. “Come on. This is what you want. You gotta start living your own life. Besides, you can’t leave me here.”

  “It’s not like you’ll be alone,” Shelby snapped. “You can get all cozy with Luke.” A part of Shelby was aware she was taking her anger out on Ginny, but her sarcasm-laden words were already out, and she couldn’t take them back.

  Ginny stepped away, hurt blossoming in her eyes. “That’s not fair.”

  A rage swelled inside of Shelby. It was just too much—almost dying, Blake, Ian. “Don’t tell me what’s fair. I should never have let you talk me into this.”

  “What do you mean talked you into it? We’re here because this is your dream. I’m here because you’re my friend.”

  “I don’t need pushy friends. I’ve got enough pushy people in my life.”

  Shelby didn’t wait to hear Ginny’s response. She knew she was way out of line and being completely unfair, but she couldn’t seem to control herself. Without looking back, not wanting to see the stricken look on her friend’s face, Shelby marched straight to their shared room.

  Ian flung the door shut. It slammed against the door frame, and then bounced open again. He balled his fists up, ready to take his pent-up aggression out on the door. He shoved it shut again, and it latched with a thud that did nothing to relieve the pressure building inside him.

  He paced the room, feeling trapped; trapped in the past, trapped in this job, and trapped at this God forsaken camp. He needed to get away from here before he went insane or, even worse, did something truly stupid.

  But leaving wouldn’t clear Shelby’s stricken face from his mind, and he had responsibilities. He clenched his fists again, using every bit of his internal self-control to not pound the wall.

  He was an idiot. He should have been straight with Shelby about the Celeste situation; he should not have been alone on th
at beach with Celeste; he should not have accepted a job from Jade that compromised his morals; and he should not have let himself fall for Shelby Reid.

  He wanted a beer, and he wanted it badly. Lack of access to a liquor store was probably the only silver lining in his current situation. Even in this dark moment, he knew that getting blind drunk wasn’t going to fix anything. It would numb the pain and the fear for a while, but it always came back. It had taken him a long time to get sober after losing Natalie; he knew this was a slippery slope.

  What he needed was to head out into the bush with a buddy and physically burn off this toxic energy that was swirling around inside him, making him want to rage and hit things. But dammit, he was trapped here. He was trapped by responsibilities that he apparently couldn’t live up to.

  The pain in Shelby’s blue eyes had hit him in a place that had never really recovered from the accusations and devastation in Natalie’s. He still wasn’t over the transformation of Natalie’s eyes from sapphires that sparkled whenever they looked into his to the dark blue of a turbulent ocean. She would never forgive him, and he would have to live with that.

  Ian collapsed down on his bed, as visions of three sets of blue eyes swirled around in his head—Charlene’s unseeing eyes tangling with the twin images of disillusionment in Shelby and Natalie’s.

  He knew he couldn’t be with Shelby. She was off limits for too many reasons—the biggest one being that he was broken. It didn’t matter that his every instinct told him that she was the one for him; he had too many demons. He had a past that would bring her down.

  He had been able to rescue her this time—but he wouldn’t have had to save her, if he hadn’t put her in danger in the first place. His judgment couldn’t be trusted.

  He needed to make this right.