Nighttime Guardian. Amanda Stevens

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СКАЧАТЬ he calculated the years, shocked again to realize how much time had passed since he’d last seen her. And yet the moment he’d heard her name, he’d felt that old, tingling sensation along his backbone. That old awareness.

      She’d been nine that first summer, and Nathan had been ten. Older, wiser, he’d naturally stepped into the role of her protector, even though they’d been about the same size—and both small for their ages at that.

      Shelby was still petite. When they’d stood talking, she hadn’t even come up to his chin. And she’d seemed frail somehow, as if maybe life hadn’t been exactly kind to her. The notion made Nathan a little sad because he’d always imagined Shelby Westmoreland living a charmed life, maybe because he’d never gotten over his first impression of her.

      In his mind, he could still see her sitting so prim and proper on Miss Annabel’s front porch, nibbling a strawberry ice-cream cone that was the exact color of her dress. Even in the shade of the porch, her blonde hair had shone like new money, and her eyes were wide and clear, forget-me-not blue.

      Nathan had been out fishing that day. His bare feet were muddy, and his clothes reeked of the river. To this day, he remembered how daintily Shelby’s perfect little nose had turned up in displeasure as he climbed the porch steps and held up a string of catfish for Miss Annabel’s inspection.

      “Nathan, this is my granddaughter, Shelby. She’s going to be staying here with me this summer. I’m very lucky to have her, but I’m afraid she might get a mite lonely, what with just the two of us out here. How about you come around every chance you get and help me keep her company?”

      “Okay,” he’d mumbled, tongue-tied, having not the faintest idea how one entertained such a creature.

      But to Nathan’s amazement, he and Shelby had become best friends that summer. In spite of her delicate appearance, she’d been game for almost anything. The pink dress had soon given way to shorts and shirts that had grown, under his expert tutelage, almost as ragged and disreputable as his own clothing.

      He’d taught her how to dig for worms in Miss Annabel’s flower beds, how to bait a hook, where to find the best fishing holes. He’d taught her how to clean a catfish and how to cook it over a campfire. How to run a trotline. How to dive. Where the currents were safest to swim and where they weren’t. He’d shown her his hidden spot—a secret he would have guarded with his life, if necessary—for finding the highly coveted mussels. He’d taught her everything he knew about the river, and then some. All the while, he’d kept his adoration to himself—then, and as they’d grown older—because he’d always been afraid that if she’d suspected his true feelings, she would be so embarrassed and disgusted that she would never want anything to do with him again.

      Starting his ignition, Nathan turned on his lights as the last police car moved in behind the hearse. But he didn’t put the Bronco in gear because he couldn’t quite tear his gaze from the rearview mirror. It came to him, as he watched Shelby in the mirror, that she had seemed like a woman who was badly frightened of something.

      Of what? Surely that summer night had long since faded from her memory. There were no monsters, nothing to be afraid of here. Not for her.

      But the old protective instinct rose in Nathan anyway, and he had to fight the urge to swing his truck around and go back to make sure she was safe.

      He tightened his grip on the wheel. They were adults now, and Shelby was a married woman. A lot of years had passed since he’d tried to slay dragons for her. And monsters. He was out of practice, and besides, the boy who had once had such chivalric tendencies had grown up to be a man with weaknesses of his own.

      A man too flawed to be anyone’s hero.

      NOT UNTIL the last flash of red taillights disappeared around the bend in the road did Shelby turn and start across the yard toward the house.

      Police cars. A violent death. Not exactly a desirable welcome home. Certainly not a scenario she would have chosen.

      Halfway across the lawn she hesitated, glancing up at the house. Rising on stilts, the looming white structure, so charming by daylight, had always seemed a little spooky to Shelby in the darkness. It wasn’t so much the house itself that was eerie as the area beneath. Enclosed in whitewashed latticework, the spider-infested space was used to store everything from garden tools to trunks of old schoolbooks.

      Once upon a time, Shelby and Nathan had commandeered the enclosure as a secret clubhouse. But after that fateful summer night, Shelby had considered that cool, smelly dankness a prime hiding place for her monster. She wouldn’t go near it.

      Even now, she could almost feel eyes staring at her from the darkness, and she hurried up the porch steps, resisting the impulse to glance down. Or over her shoulder at the river.

      A light shone through the lace curtain at the front door, and Shelby breathed a sigh of relief. Her grandmother had said Aline Henley had been keeping an eye on the place since the accident and had come by today to tidy up and stock the refrigerator. Annabel must have cautioned Aline to leave a light on for Shelby.

      Using her grandmother’s key, she opened the door and stepped inside, glancing around at the familiar surroundings. This was better, she thought. Homey. Comforting. Nothing the least bit frightening in here.

      Everything was exactly the way she remembered it, although the plank flooring was a little duller, the furniture a little shabbier. But with her grandmother’s touch almost everywhere, it still felt more like home than any place Shelby had ever lived with her parents.

      The living room was to her left, a long, narrow area decorated with an old-fashioned settee, velvet tufted chairs and a Tiffany-style lamp that gave off a soft, greenish glow. There were ferns everywhere, hanging at the windows that looked out on the river and in terra-cotta frogs and turtles flanking the brick fireplace. The fronds stirred gently under the ceiling fan, and the sluggish movement, coupled with the verdant lamp glow, gave the room an odd, underwater feel that Shelby had never noticed before.

      Leaving the front door open, she went back out to the car to get her bags. The scent of the river followed her back inside. Setting her suitcases in the hallway, Shelby turned quickly to close and lock the door as a sense of aloneness settled over her.

      She wondered if Nathan was still her nearest neighbor, and wished suddenly that she had asked him earlier if he was living in his father’s house. Knowing that Nathan was nearby had once been a great comfort to Shelby.

      But he was right. Things had changed since then.

      She recalled what he’d said about fate playing strange tricks. His words disturbed her, not because of the melancholia they invoked, but because of the edge of bitterness she’d heard in his voice. The hardness she’d glimpsed in his eyes. When she’d thought about Nathan Dallas over the years, she’d pictured him traveling the world, living the fascinating, adventurous life he’d always seemed destined for.

      As a kid, Shelby couldn’t imagine how he could ever top diving for pearls. It had seemed like the most romantic profession in the world to her then, and she’d thought Nathan just about the bravest, most exciting person she’d ever known. She’d suffered from a bad case of hero worship that first summer, but, of course, she hadn’t let him know that. He’d been too full of himself as it was.

      As Shelby had grown older and learned more about the pearling industry from her grandmother, she’d come to understand what a truly grueling occupation diving was. And dangerous, with the river’s treacherous currents СКАЧАТЬ