The Fireman's Secret

Rekindling Her Life

After the fire that injured her and burned down Goose Harbor’s only church fourteen years ago, Shelby Beck is planning to rebuild—the structure and her life. But her wounds have always caused her to keep men at a distance. When Joel Palermo returns to town as a fireman and is assigned to help Shelby raise funds for the new construction, she’s surprised at how easy it is to get close to her brother’s old friend. Could he be the man she’ll finally trust enough to let in? Or will the bond they’ve built go up in flames, when Joel’s own scars are revealed?

Goose Harbor: Love is in big supply on the shores of Lake Michigan

“Everything that’s happened to me isn’t worth repeating.”

Joel balled his hands and put them in his pockets.

“How come you won’t trust me?” Shelby whispered.

“Shelby—believe me when I say I already trust you more than any other person in my life.”

“I can only get as close to you as you’ll let me.”

Precisely the problem. Did he want a close relationship like she did? Sure, he enjoyed spending time with her and she got him to smile like he hadn’t in a long time. But were those things worth the pain that more than likely would accompany the moment she decided she was done with him?

Shelby looked as if she was going to start crying again. He had to say something.

He cleared his throat. Why was this so difficult? “I…I don’t want you to look at me differently.”

“I won’t.”

“You will. Everyone does.” They heard about sad little Joel Palermo and they all got the same look. That cartoon-eyes-welling-up-with-tears face. Their expressions a clear mix of wondering if they should hug him or step away slowly.

“Maybe we should go back.” Shelby sighed.

He caught her arm. “Stay. Please.” Joel’s eyes searched hers.

“Give me a reason to stay.”

JESSICA KELLER is a Starbucks drinker, avid reader and chocolate aficionado. Jessica holds degrees in communications and biblical studies. She is multipublished in both romance and young-adult fiction and loves to interact with readers through social media. Jessica lives in the Chicagoland suburbs with her amazing husband, beautiful daughter and two annoyingly outgoing cats who happen to be named after superheroes. Find all her contact information at jessicakellerbooks.com.

The Fireman’s Secret

Jessica Keller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For we are God’s handiwork,

created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God prepared in advance for us to do.

—Ephesians 2:10

For my sweet Anna.

The person God made you to be will always

be enough. Never forget that or allow anyone

to make you feel differently. You are loved

beyond comprehension, just as you are.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Moonlight flashed like a strobe light through the dense canopy of trees lining the road just a mile away from the shores of Lake Michigan. Shelby rolled down her window to let the cool breeze kiss her skin, but the air hung thick with a strong after-rain worm smell and the wind caused the important deed papers sitting on her passenger seat to stir. She promptly rolled the window back up.

Dampness clung to her toes. The running shoes she wore might be ruined now, but dogs needed to be walked and let outside for a little bit, even when it rained.

Her one working headlight bounced off a green sign. Welcome to Goose Harbor. As she read those words, the muscles in her shoulders relaxed instantly. Home.

Perhaps she’d drive past the land she’d inherited. Until now, she’d avoided the street the old church had been on—not wanting to see the barren lot or be reminded of the day that had changed her life. The congregation had never rebuilt the church after it burned down, and somehow Shelby felt as if her life hadn’t been able to move forward since then. Rebuilding the church wouldn’t take away the scars she had received from being trapped in the burning structure all those years ago, but maybe seeing the church standing again would help her move on.

It had to.

A hill came into view and she gunned the car’s engine. Bad idea. The vehicle started to shake uncontrollably.

“Please don’t die on me,” she begged. She eased off the gas and watched the dials on the dashboard bounce. “Please, please, please.”

She glanced back at the road and gasped.

A deer leaped onto the street no more than ten feet in front of her. In a split-second calculation, Shelby realized there was no time to move out of the way. She was going too fast. She jammed her foot on the brakes. The car’s tires squealed, and like a madman on a warpath, her Volkswagen struck the deer.

Shelby’s head lashed forward, slamming against the steering wheel. The car’s one good headlight blinked out. The deer flew up onto the hood. White-knuckling the steering wheel, Shelby hung on as her car careered into the steep, wet ditch, tossing gravel and glass shards like candy from a parade float.

With a final death groan, the car came to a rest.

Headlights on the road pulled to a halt above her. A car door slammed.

A deep, male voice called out. “Hello? Are you hurt?” The man skidded down the ditch. He wrenched open her door. “Is it just you in here or are there others?”

“Only me.” She coughed and turned a bit, catching a glimpse of his black leather coat.

He stayed her with a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe you shouldn’t get up just yet.”

The man crouched and his face came into view. Rich hazel eyes full of concern, jaw set, and spiked black hair—he looked as if he belonged on a motorcycle. He couldn’t be from Goose Harbor, because she didn’t know him—and she knew everyone in her small town.

His dark eyebrows scrunched. “I saw you swerve off the road. Looks like you’ve got a cut on your forehead. Does anything else hurt?” He tapped his left temple to show her where the cut was.

“I’m okay...I think.” Shelby yanked a napkin from her purse and pressed it to her cut. “How’s the deer?”

He kept his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s worry about you right now. My name’s Joel. I’m a fireman, so I’m a trained EMT. I’d like to make sure your head’s okay before you get up.” His forehead creased as he assessed her. Leaning close, Joel inspected the wound with his warm eyes.

“I’m okay.” Shelby tugged at her sleeves, pulling them as low on her wrists as she could. Whoever he was, Joel didn’t know about the burn marks on her arms and legs, and she’d like it to stay that way. The less he stared at her, the better.

But he didn’t move. “Are you having any feelings of nausea or a quick onset headache?”

“Seriously, I’m fine.” She glanced at the napkin she’d been holding to her head. It didn’t look like she was bleeding that badly.

“Do me a favor and wait here for a second.” The fireman turned and climbed back to his vehicle. A couple of minutes later, he carefully navigated his way back down the slippery slope with a tube of paste, a small flashlight and gauze in his hands.

“Humor me?” He clicked on the flashlight and bent to be eye-level with her. “Okay, I’m going to shine this in your eyes.”

Shelby squinted and he told her to keep her eyes open.

“Great.” He clicked off the flashlight and tucked it into one of his coat pockets. “Your eyes responded how they should, so that’s good news.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” She grinned at him.

“You have pretty eyes.” He stopped what he was doing for a moment and his face relaxed—like how she imagined he would have looked at her if their eyes met across a coffee shop. The moment was over too soon. He immediately snapped back into EMT mode.

“Here.” He unwrapped the gauze. “We need to put this on your head. It’ll work a whole lot better than that napkin.”

With two fingers, Joel gently moved her hair out of the way. “I’m going to put some of this ointment on your cut, okay? It’ll probably tingle some.” His steady fingers worked quickly, his touch considerate. “This might burn a little, but I’m going to need you to hold the gauze on there for me.”

Shelby blew out a long stream of air but obeyed. Hopefully the deer had gotten up and continued into the forest. The image of an injured animal didn’t sit well with her, especially when she felt fine.

“Good. Just like that,” Joel coached. “Put pressure on it and hold it.” He rocked back so he was sitting on his heels. “I should call for an ambulance.”

“No.” She grabbed his wrist as he reached for his pocket and probably his cell phone. An ambulance meant that her brother, Caleb, would be called and he’d overreact. A lecture from him was best saved until morning. “I’m good. I could drive home if my car wasn’t in the ditch.”

“Then let me call for a tow truck.”

So this Joel was persistent. And cute. He wasn’t built and overly muscled like her brother, but he had a quiet strength about him. She narrowed her eyes. He actually looked familiar.

Shelby shook her head. “I go to church with the local mechanic. He has two small kids and I don’t want to wake them up by calling him right now. I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow.”

Joel looked back up to the road. “If the cops see your car here they might give you a ticket.”

“My brother’s best friend is on rotation for the night shift this week. I’ll send him a text to let him know about my car.” Good thing Miles had recently made the transfer from the police force in the big city of Brookside to the smaller Goose Harbor department. It came in handy being buddies with one of the seven officers in town.

A slow smile lit Joel’s face. “Everyone still knows everyone around here, don’t they? It sounds like Goose Harbor hasn’t changed a bit since I left.”

Since he left? Shelby leaned closer. He smelled like cinnamon gum. Joel. She knew a Joel once... The image of a wiry teenager with midnight black hair, a closed-lipped smile and deep hazel eyes popped into her mind.

“Are you...?” It had to be. “Joel Palermo, right?” Caught up in the excitement of seeing an old friend, she grabbed both his hands. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen when he left town some fourteen years ago.

He nodded. “And if I’m not mistaken, you’re Caleb’s little sister. Shelby Beck.” He glanced at her left hand. “It’s still Beck, isn’t it?”

Her? Married? Right, he’d left before the fire. He didn’t know about the scars marring her skin.

“Still just a Beck.”

As teenagers, Miles, Caleb and Joel had been inseparable for the few years Joel lived with a foster family in Goose Harbor.

“It’s so good to see you.” She squeezed his hand.

He looked at their hands for a moment. “That’s nice to hear. I didn’t know how people would feel about me coming back.”

She let go of his hand. What had come over her to latch on to him like that? Besides, they’d forgotten something important while they’d been catching up and taking care of her cut. “Wait. What about the deer?”

“Deer?”

“When you went to get your flashlight did you check the deer? How is it?” She jammed the deed papers into her purse, slung the bag over her shoulder and locked the car door.

He scratched his chin. “Um, I didn’t take a look at the deer. I was more worried about you.”

“Well, I’m fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Listen, my head hurts like there’s a small child jumping on my brain, but I’ll survive. Nothing’s broken. Believe me, I’ve survived much worse than a small accident.” Shelby pressed past him and stumbled up the incline.

He grabbed her elbow to steady her. “Whoa, there. Let’s walk easy. Maybe I should call Caleb for you. Does he still live in town?”

Shelby swallowed. When Caleb proposed to Paige Windom, Shelby made a promise to herself to move out of her brother’s home and begin making a life of her own apart from Caleb. She needed to learn to be independent and stop letting Caleb take care of everything.

She spun around too quickly. “No. I don’t want that.”

Feeling woozy from the fast movement, she grabbed on to the first thing she could find to steady herself. That ended up being the fabric of Joel’s coat near his chest.

Joel’s arms came around her. “Listen, Shelby, I don’t think—”

She spotted the deer. It rested in the gravel on the edge of the street. Shelby let go of Joel’s coat and inched toward the animal. She fell to her knees beside her. No breath. No movement.

“Oh, you poor thing. I’m so sorry.” Tears welled in her eyes. Shelby turned to Joel. He stood behind her, working his jaw back and forth. Hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“I killed her.” She got up. Why had they talked so long? She should have climbed out of the car the second it went into the ditch in order to help the deer.

Joel shrugged. “It was just a deer. The important thing is you’re okay.”

She scowled at him. “We should have at least tried to save her. If we hadn’t talked so long we might have been able to do something.”

“Listen.” Joel placed a hand on Shelby’s shoulder guiding her away from the deer. “Even if we’d come up here right away and it was still breathing, it had three broken legs. Not to mention plenty of internal damage. We would only have been extending its suffering by trying to help.”

Shelby pulled away from him. “Just because something was wrong with her—something she didn’t deserve—doesn’t mean she wasn’t worth saving. Her life still meant something.” Shelby fisted her hands to hide that she was shaking. Why did people only want something or believe it had worth if it was perfect—unblemished. The deer might not have been able to live in the wild again, but they could have taken it somewhere to rehabilitate it. Some zoo or nature preserve.

“She probably died on impact, Shelby. Accidents happen. Let’s just leave it be.”

“I didn’t mean for it to die,” she whispered.

Joel blew out a long stream of air. “Yeah, well, if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that a lot of things happen that we don’t mean for, and a lot of hurt tends to happen along the way.” He offered his hand and his voice grew softer. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

Joel was right about the deer, but Shelby hated that the animal had died. She slipped her hand into his and her gaze darted to his eyes.

It would be nice to have someone around who could get to know her without viewing her as the guarded baby sister, the way the entire town did.

Perhaps this time Joel wouldn’t be only Caleb’s friend.

Maybe he’d be her friend, too.

* * *

Joel gulped. Man alive, Shelby was pretty.

Lights from his pickup splashed across the pavement, illuminating her. He marveled at her creamy skin. Red-brown hair cascaded just over her shoulders in waves, a couple of freckles dusted her nose and her eyes were as green as a summer meadow. The set of her regal little jaw told him she was trying her hardest not to cry about the deer.

If it was humanly possible, he’d kick himself. Dummy. He was so used to being around men at the firehouse; he needed to remember to phrase things more gently when talking to women. She probably thought he was some animal-hating brute, and for a reason he didn’t want to think about, it bothered him that Shelby might peg him wrong on their first meeting as adults.

It felt more than nice, though, to have someone holding his hand like Shelby was. Tight—as if she trusted him already. No one had ever held on to him like that. Well, honestly, had he ever held someone’s hand? Not counting the police officers who had pulled him away from his mother all those years ago. No.

He eyed the gash on her temple. “Are you dizzy at all?”

With her free hand, she hugged her stomach tightly. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Joel glanced at her busted car. The rust bucket of a vehicle was a goner. He shrugged. A police report could wait until morning. “Come on. Let’s grab your personal stuff from your car and get you into town.”

“I have my purse. Everything else in there should be fine.” She patted the small bag.

Good. At least she wasn’t one of those women who toted around half of her belongings in a suitcase-sized bag.

He hesitated. “You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”

Shelby tipped back her head and laughed loudly.

Joel scratched his chin. “Does that mean no?”

“I own a dog-walking business. I got in the wreck on my way home from a dog-sitting gig. What do you think?”

“Well, that’s good, because my guy, Dante, is in the cab. He’s harmless, though. I promise. Where am I taking you?”

“I live on the main square, above Gran’s Candy Shoppe.”

“Unreal. That place still exists?” Joel rounded the truck and opened the passenger door for her.

Dante yelped and lurched forward, his tongue going into full action mode as he soundly licked Shelby’s cheek. Most women would have shrieked, but Shelby scratched Dante’s head and kissed him right on the muzzle.

Joel let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Accepting Dante was as good as accepting him, if not better. Shelby Beck had just passed the most important test to winning Joel’s trust.

* * *

The truck boasted a hole the size of a baseball on the floor. Shelby positioned her feet around the spot. Joel pulled onto the highway, the trailer carrying his motorcycle creaking along behind them. She stared at the radio dial. No sound. Maybe it was busted. Or he didn’t like having it on. Either way, Shelby couldn’t stand the silence.

She ran her fingers over the silky hairs of the dog’s head and noticed his shape and colorings. He possessed the black-and-white blending of a border collie, but had patches of brown, as well. The dog gazed at her with crystal blue eyes. “This is an Australian cattle dog.”

Joel looped his hand over the steering wheel and regarded her. “The lady knows her dogs.”

Shelby shrugged. “Occupational hazard. He’s beautiful. I love his markings. It’s a boy, right?”

“Yeah. This is Dante. He’s partially deaf so if you talk to him and he doesn’t look at you, don’t take offense. He’s an old boy now, so he moves slow. But he’s my best friend.” Joel patted the dog on the rump and then left his hand resting there. “We found each other eight years ago and have been inseparable ever since.”

“You found each other. That sounds intriguing.”

The lights of the small downtown strip of Goose Harbor came in to view.

Joel kept his eyes on the road. “It wasn’t a good time for me. I was...in between homes and found Dante wandering in an alley. He was so scrawny. His rib cage looked like blades jutting out of his body.” He rubbed his hand over Dante’s back. “I brought him to a local vet. The doctor recognized him right away. I guess they don’t get a lot of Dante’s breed in that town.”

Recognized? “But you didn’t have to give him back?”

“Turns out his owner died and neither of her two adult children wanted to take Dante, so instead of finding him a home they brought him into town and dumped him on the street.”

“That’s awful.” Shelby gasped. “How can people be so cruel?”

“People—most people—just don’t care beyond themselves.”

The truck’s tires thumped over the brick-paved block that made up the main square of the town.

“But how could someone not want Dante? He seems so sweet.” Shelby scratched behind his ears and the dog sighed happily. “Who wouldn’t want to open their home to him if they could?”

At the single stoplight in town, Joel bowed his head. Eyes closed, he took a deep breath. “They just didn’t want him. No one wanted him. That’s all there was to it,” he whispered.

The light turned green and he pulled around the corner and parked in front of Gran’s Candy Shoppe. A streetlight illuminated the interior of the truck’s cab. Joel’s smile was gone. His brow furrowed.

They just didn’t want him. No one wanted him.

Joel had been in the foster system when he’d lived in Goose Harbor. An older couple from their church had taken him. After Joel disappeared, the couple had sold their home and moved to Florida.

She listened to Dante’s even breaths for a minute. “Dogs are wonderful. I love them because they don’t judge. They don’t care if something’s wrong with you. That’s why I started working with them.”

“Exactly. He’s become everything to me.” Joel scratched Dante’s back.

Shelby leaned across Dante and placed her hand over Joel’s. “I’m glad he found you.”

“Me, too.” The trace of something that wanted to be a smile pulled on his lips. He fished a pen and a folded receipt from one of the truck’s cup holders. “Let me give you my number. Promise me that if you start feeling worse or your head starts hurting or you get dizzy you’ll call me.”

“Sure.” She reached to take the piece of paper from him.

He didn’t let go of it. “Anytime of the night. I’m serious.”

She met his eyes. The intensity of his gaze made her catch her breath. “I promise,” she whispered.

He let go of the paper. “Have a good night, Shelby.”

“You, too.” She grabbed her purse. “And take care of sweet Dante.”

“Will do.” Joel saluted her.

She laughed and made her way to the door on the side of the building that led up to her apartment, the whole time keenly aware that Joel hadn’t pulled away until she was safely inside.

* * *

Joel straightened his shirt, took a deep breath and then stepped into the fire chief’s office. Three chairs and a mammoth mahogany desk filled the small room, leaving him no choice but to stand in the small square of space in the open doorway.

Chief Wheeler hopped to his feet when he spotted Joel, a boisterous laugh making his red beard waggle as he offered his hand. “Great to see you again, Palermo. Are you settling into your new place all right?”

“I only just got in last night. I haven’t even unpacked yet, sir.”

“Well, take time to enjoy the town this week—chief’s orders.” He plunked into his chair.

“Will do.” Joel sat in the seat across from Wheeler. “Is there anything else you need from me before I start?”

“Nothing I can think of, other than never call me sir again.” He laughed.

“Chief?” A light tap sounded on the door. “Do you have a minute.” Shelby Beck popped her head into the office. “Oh, I’m so sorry. You’re busy. I can come back later.”

“Hogwash. You know I always have time for you.” The chief motioned for her to join them. “Shelby, I want you to meet our newest fireman, Joel Palermo. I believe he’s about your age. If I recall correctly, he’s also single.”

A small grin played over Shelby’s face. “We’ve met.”

“I see.” The chief winked at them.