Lucky Lifeguard (River's End Ranch Book 28) Read online

She read it over a time or two, rearranged some words, changed a comma, changed it back, and finally hit send. It was terrifying and liberating all at once. She was saying what needed to be said, words that came from a genuine place in her heart, words that weren’t used to being spoken. She realized that she was afraid of being mocked or being called lazy or being told she was ungrateful for everything she’d been given, and in that same moment, she realized that she had to push forward against that fear. If she wanted a life that was truly her own, she had to create it and stand up for it and defend it.

  She sat back and pressed her shaking fingers together, trying to still them. She had no doubt that she’d done the right thing. Now to see what came next.

  ***

  Joey walked up to the Copper Cabin, put his right foot on the bottom step, changed his mind, and walked away. Then he turned around and went back, this time staring up at it.

  He felt someone walk up beside him. It was Amber, Wes’s wife, and she stared up at the cabin with him. After a moment, she whispered, “What are we waiting for it to do?”

  “I’m trying to get up my courage to knock on the door,” he replied.

  “That’s it?” She sounded disappointed. “I thought it was going to sprout wings or something. You got my hopes up for nothing. Knocking’s easy. See?” She ran up the stairs, knocked, and ran back down them. “It’s everything that happens afterward that’s the hard part. You’ve got this.” She winked as she walked away.

  Joey shook his head. She was so . . . Amber sometimes.

  And then the door opened, and he swallowed. “Hi, Chelsea.”

  “Hi. Thanks for giving me a minute to get off the couch. This knee wrap still kind of slows me down.”

  Oh, good. So she hadn’t been watching him through the window, wondering what he was doing. That would have been plenty embarrassing.

  She invited him in, and they sat down. Joey had no idea how to begin this conversation. Maybe he should have asked Amber to come in with him, since she was so gung ho about overcoming fears and stuff.

  “Chelsea, listen,” he said after a long moment of awkward silence. “There are so many things bouncing around in my head right now, so many things I want to say and ask and clear up, and I’m a little worried that if I don’t say them right now, I might not get another chance. I have no idea what tomorrow’s going to bring, or the day after that, and right this minute is all we really have.”

  She looked at him, her eyes wide and solemn. “All right. I’m listening, Joey.”

  He got up and walked over to the fireplace. He couldn’t seem to hold still. “I need to know why you broke up with me when you transferred schools. You weren’t that far away—we could have had a long-distance relationship and seen each other on breaks.”

  She didn’t answer for a long minute, and he turned around to see her wiping her eyes. “I broke up with you because I hated myself,” she whispered.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “The scholarship. That stupid, stupid scholarship. I accepted it because it would give my parents something more to brag about, and I knew you had nothing—no way to pay for school at all. I couldn’t handle the guilt of it.”

  “But you said yourself that they weren’t there to give scholarships to the guys. You didn’t take anything away from me—we weren’t in direct competition.”

  “See, I knew that logically, but at the time, I had stolen from you. Or at least, you were the symbol of other deserving students, and I stole from them. Don’t you see? That money should have gone to someone else, but I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I wanted them to love me. I threw people under the bus to win my parents’ love.” She wiped her cheeks with both hands. “It was cruel and selfish. I should have turned down that scholarship and asked that they look for someone else.”

  Joey was trying to wrap his head around what he was hearing, but it was still confusing. “So you broke up with me because you felt guilty. Didn’t that make you feel even more guilty?”

  “No. In a way, it felt like justice. If I was going to be that selfish, then I didn’t deserve to be with someone as unselfish as you are.”

  Joey shook his head. “That’s just . . . that’s just so not right, Chelsea. We learn to be unselfish by watching the actions of unselfish people, not by throwing them out of our lives.”

  “I know that now,” she said. “You have no idea how many thoughts and feelings and realizations I’ve had over the last twenty-four hours, Joey. If I could go back and fix my life from top to bottom, believe me, I would. There’s so very little that I’m proud of. I would give back every trophy and every medal if I could be a kinder person. My priorities were so messed up that I couldn’t see what was real, what was important. I had no balance, no understanding of what it meant to have a life outside of the pool. I wish I could change all of it. Especially how I treated you.”

  Joey didn’t know how to reply for a minute. He could hear the anguish in her words, and he didn’t want her to feel that pain. At the same time, he was almost glad to hear it because he knew it meant that she was ready to change, and those changes were going to be beautiful. They would allow her to be the person he’d always seen on the inside, the real butterfly that had been trapped inside the cocoon for too long.

  “The night of the meet, I was going to give you this,” he said at last, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a ring. “It’s not a diamond—it’s a promise ring. I wanted you to know how I felt, that I wanted to marry you as soon as we were able to. It was in my pocket when you called me. And I carried it in my pocket for a long, long time after you left.”

  “May I see it?” she asked, holding out her hand, her fingers trembling.

  His were trembling nearly as much when he gave it to her. “It’s not much,” he said, wanting her to understand that. “It’s not anything like what you deserved.”

  “I think it’s beautiful.” She turned it around, studying it from all sides. “Rose gold and white gold vines intertwined.”

  “I thought you’d like it. It’s unique, like you are.”

  “I do like it, but I’m not sure I could have appreciated it. I keep trying to tell you, Joey—I have been a prideful, selfish person, but you’ve never believed that of me. Why can’t you just believe it?”

  “Because I can see the real you,” he said simply. “And the real you isn’t that way.” He took the ring and put it back in his pocket. “I need to leave—we’re taking off early tomorrow, and if I don’t get some sleep, I won’t be of any use to anyone. But I want you to think about what I said, all right? And I’ll think about what you said, and when I get back, we’ll talk more.” He bent down and kissed her forehead. “All right?” he asked again.

  “All right,” she replied, smiling up at him.

  He carried that smile out the door with him as he left.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Get that underbrush cleared out of there!”

  Joey wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, then took his ax and began to chop away at the bushes that surrounded him. He and the other firefighters on his team had been asked to clear a trench across this section of land in hopes that the fire would die out for lack of fuel. They’d been working hard since they arrived, and the people they were replacing looked worn right out.

  This fire was one of the worst that area had seen. Joey had been following it since it first broke out, figuring it was just a matter of time before he’d be asked to help. It had devastated huge swaths of land, misplacing people and animals from their homes, and it didn’t seem to be losing any power. This trench might not do any good at all, but at least they were trying.

  Hours ticked by, the roar of distant flames coming closer, the smoke becoming more than anyone could bear. They covered their noses and mouths, but still they worked. Someone had brought in a backhoe and that was making their progress go faster, but there was much to do, so little time.

  When Joey finally tumbled
into his bedroll, he couldn’t even move to take off his boots, he was so tired. And he had no idea if they’d helped. Only time would tell that story.

  ***

  “No, Dad, wait. I was watching that.” Chelsea craned her neck to see the TV better as her dad flipped it back on. The screen was showing coverage of the Walla Walla fire, with maps indicating how far it had spread. It was startling to see that much devastation.

  “There are forest fires all the time. Why are you so interested in this one?” he asked.

  “Because that’s where Joey went. I told you the other day, remember? He’s on the S&R team?”

  Her parents looked at each other, and then her father sat down next to her. “Chelsea, sweetheart, your mother and I think it’s time we had a talk about this lifeguard friend of yours.”

  “His name is Joey Peterson.”

  “Yes, Joey. I remember. We’re just concerned that you’re getting a little too caught up in him. You’ve been talking about him quite a lot, and we’re worried that you might not be keeping your options open for other nice young men who might come along.”

  “I’m at a resort in the middle of a state where we know no one, and you hired Joey to spend most of his time with me. How am I supposed to meet any of these other nice young men who might be bopping around out there?”

  “We just don’t want to see you getting entangled right now.”

  Chelsea looked back and forth between her parents. “I’m not getting entangled, but if I were, I’m not sure why you’d have a problem with it.”

  “We just have dreams for you, sweetheart,” her mother said. “And a lifeguard can’t help you fulfill those dreams.”

  Chelsea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He works as a lifeguard to earn money for college—he’s actually pre-med, going into sports medicine. A doctor, Mom. Isn’t that impressive?”

  “It is, yes, but so much better if he was in a different specialty, don’t you think?”

  Chelsea shook her head. “I don’t understand. I thought we were moving past all this.”

  “Your mother and I are trying to understand what you want—we really are. But there are some things that we can’t just throw out the window, and we want to see you settled with someone who can provide for you, give you a stable home, and treat you how you should be treated.”

  “Haven’t we established that I want a simpler life? I don’t need a ton of money. I can live on less. I want to live on less. And I’m not marrying Joey, so I don’t understand the problem!” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, a little voice inside her head said, Why aren’t you marrying Joey?

  She pushed the thought aside. It was too crazy to think about just then. “I’m heading over to the spa for a massage. Please, you two—try to loosen up about this, all right? We’re not better than he is just because we have money. You can’t judge a person’s character by the thickness of their wallet.” She pushed up out of the couch and limped a bit over to the door, glad that she was now able to make it down the cabin’s front steps by herself. It was easier to make a dramatic exit that way.

  ***

  “Chelsea! Wait up!”

  Not that she was going very fast, but she slowed down and turned. Nick was trotting toward her, a wide smile on his face.

  “Hey, I heard that you’ve been laid up a bit with your knee. I wanted to come over sooner, but the ranch’s website crashed, and I had to do a ton of rebuilding.” He did look tired—dark circles under his eyes, a ghostly pallor, and all the other things stereotypically associated with computer geeks who never emerge from their basements to see the light of day. She smiled at the imagery.

  “That’s all right. Some other things came up, and I’ve been kind of busy.”

  He nodded. “So, can I take you out to lunch today? Unless you’ve already eaten, in which case, can I take you out to dinner?”

  She cringed just a bit. She really didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she had to be honest—if she’d learned a lesson at all since coming to the ranch, it was the importance of the authentic self and speaking the truth always. “Nick, you’re a great guy—”

  “But you don’t see this going anywhere.”

  She smiled. “I see us being friends and maybe chatting a few more times before I leave, but yeah, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’ve realized this week that I have a lot of work to do on myself before I’ll be ready to be in any sort of healthy relationship. I hope you can understand that.”

  He looked into her eyes before smiling. “I can, and thank you for telling me how you feel instead of just brushing me off. I appreciate that.”

  “You’re welcome.” And it did feel so much better to share what was really going on inside.

  Now if Joey could just come back safely . . . deep breaths. She knew he’d be gone another day—she had no call to be impatient.

  ***

  Blisters on both hands, on both feet, on his face. Joey felt as though he’d been standing in an oven, shoveling ashes, hauling hoses, carrying buckets. He was so tired that the flickering flames sometimes looked like dancing devils, mocking him, torturing him. They never spoke, but they pointed at him and laughed, and he had to blink the sweat out of his eyes before they reverted back to their true form.

  He was so tired, he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Every bone was made of lead, every muscle made of wood, and his brain had long since stopped working. He couldn’t imagine what the others felt like, those who had been out here since the beginning of the fire. They had a strength and a fortitude that he could only begin to imagine. He still had half a day left and he wanted to curl up in a ball and hide. This was hard—so much harder than anything he’d ever done before.

  His own words came back to him, the words he’d spoken to Chelsea. He was doing this to protect others from having to go through the same thing. He was doing it to keep the families safe, the little ones, those who couldn’t do it for themselves. With those thoughts, he pushed forward again, finding the strength to go just a bit farther, do just a bit more.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Excellent, Miss Chelsea,” Dr. Michelle said, easing Chelsea’s leg back onto the table. “The swelling has gone down, and I can safely say that all you did was strain it the wrong direction. Are you going to do that again?”

  “No. Absolutely not,” Chelsea replied.

  “Good. Go ahead and start to swim again, but gently. Don’t kick too hard, all right? Let your arms do most of the work.”

  Chelsea grinned. “I can do that.” This time, she’d be swimming because she wanted to, not because she was expected to. She was looking forward to what that felt like.

  Now if she could just get her parents to understand about Joey.

  Maybe she’d been naïve to think that they’d change overnight, that one heart-to-heart conversation would undo years of prejudice and thinking a certain way. Maybe she’d hoped for too much, and she was putting unfair expectations on them just as they’d been doing to her. She was certainly willing to think about that.

  What she found impossible to think about, however, was living with their continued shortsightedness where social status was concerned. If they couldn’t reevaluate their stance on this, she’d get a place of her own instead of coming home during school breaks. She needed the freedom to keep exploring how she truly felt about the world around her, and if they refused to change, it would only cause a greater rift to stay under the same roof and fight about it constantly. She wouldn’t cut them off completely—she could never do that. But she could establish some healthy boundaries, see them for meals and special occasions, and they could all grow at a pace that was right for them.

  That felt good—that felt right.

  She walked back to the cabin and found the piece of paper Joey had left for her. She dialed the first number, waited for the girl on the other end to answer, and said, “Hi, Catherine? This is Chelsea McAllister. Joey said you might be able to lifeguard for me while he�
�s away. Do you have some time this afternoon?”

  ***

  Stepping into the water again was like being kissed by an old friend. Even though she’d only been out of the pool for two days, Chelsea had missed it. Her very skin missed it. She allowed herself to drift forward, just bouncing lightly on the toes of her good leg, moving her arms back and forth to stay upright. This was being in the water just for fun. She had the overwhelming urge to splash someone, but there was no one close enough to splash. That was disappointing.

  After a few minutes of simply enjoying herself, she pushed off into a gentle stroke, moving from side to side, allowing her muscles to reacquaint themselves with the movement. She’d never made the correlation before, but it was similar to dance, the way that one side of the body moved and then the other reacted to create balance and harmony. There was beauty to it, artistry, not just the need to go faster or more efficiently. Not just the need to win the medal or take home the trophy. She was dancing in water, at one with the water, feeling every strength and every weakness of her body, feeling it all click into place with the strengths and weaknesses in her character.

  She laughed, lifting her face to the sun. She would be all right. She knew that now on the deepest level of knowing. She would heal, as would her mind, as would her flawed perceptions and her aching heart and her relationship with her parents. She simply needed to believe, and to try, and to strive for the very best within herself. And of course to celebrate each day for the gift it was instead of trying to force it to give her things that maybe she shouldn’t even have.

  ***

  “Rain!”

  The cry went up along the line of firefighters. Joey pushed back his helmet and looked up into the sky, eager to feel a drop on his scorched face, on his lips. He didn’t feel anything, and he dropped his head, getting back to work. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up like that—rain right now was too much to ask for.

  But then it started to come down in earnest.

  It started in the west and came down in sheets, drenching the workers where they stood and making them laugh with relief. It hit the flames and sizzled. It mixed with ash and made a paste. It rained and it rained and it rained, and all Joey could do was stand in the middle of it and give thanks. They had done everything they could do. They had put all their energy, all their souls, every speck of themselves into it, and they were powerless. Now the rain had come, and it not only washed the earth, but it washed them and cooled their burns and rinsed the sweat and soot from their faces. It was over. It was all finally over, and the men and women who had been battling for weeks could go home at last.