Page 11 of Shelter for Shay
The doorbell rang.
Shay’s pulse kicked hard. She stood so fast her legs bumped the tray table beside her mother’s bed. The water glass wobbled but didn’t spill. Pulling open the bedroom door, she turned, glancing over her shoulder.
“Sweetheart?” her mom asked, licking her dry cracked lips.
“I’ll be right back.” Shay tugged the door closed. She hadn’t wanted to tell her that she thought maybe her special visitor was here just in case it was someone else and not Moose.
Shay jogged down the stairs and crossed the house in a few quick strides, suddenly aware of how messy everything looked. The stack of medical forms on the hallway console. The coffee mug she’d abandoned hours ago on the living room side table. Her own flannel shirt half-buttoned over a tank top and worn leggings—comfy, yes, but definitely not first-impressionmaterial. But this wasn’t about her, it was about her mom—and Moose. Their goodbye. Shay was just going to be the person standing in the corner. She smiled at the thought. Her mom would’ve laughed so hard at the joke.
When she reached the front door, she hesitated for just a second before pulling it open.
And there he was.
Broad-shouldered. Quiet-eyed. A presence like a force field she could feel even from the other side of the threshold. His hair was slightly tousled, his expression solemn but open, and his gaze locked on hers with a kind of stillness that made everything in her spin a little off-axis.
He wore fitted dark jeans and boots. Nothing flashy. Just grounded. Steady. But there was a roughness around the edges too—a tension in his jaw, a faint shadow under his eyes. He looked like he’d seen hell and walked out of it carrying the weight on his shoulders.
And yet… there was kindness in the way he looked at her. A softness that called to her heart.
“Hi,” she said, her voice unexpectedly soft. “You must be…”
“Matthew Rhoades,” he said with a faint smile, “but everyone calls me Moose.” God, even the voice. Low and warm and just gravelly enough to sound like trouble if she let it.
Her mom had told her he was charismatic, even as a broken teenager. The man standing before her was more than that.
“You’re… you’re taller than I thought,” she said before she could stop herself.
His smile deepened, just slightly. “I get that a lot.”
She moved to the side, clearing her throat. “Come in.”
He stepped through the doorway, ducking his head slightly. That must have been instinctive for a man built like a linebacker. He took it all in—eyes scanning the room, the corners, the exits—like someone who didn’t know how not to.
Shay shut the door and turned to find him watching her. “Thank you for coming,” she said quickly, needing to fill the air. It wasn’t that he made her nervous, but something shifted inside her, as if finally meeting him brought her mother’s circle of life together in a way that mattered.
“I’m glad I made it in time,” he said, setting down his duffel near the wall. “I did make it in time, right?”
“She’s resting now,” Shay explained. “The last few days have been… rough. But I know she’ll want to see you.”
He nodded and glanced toward the hallway. “This place hasn’t changed much.”
“You’ve been here before?” she asked. “My mom never mentioned that and she never mixed her work life with her personal one.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t mean the house. Just the area. The neighborhood. I grew up in the village, so not far from here. I used to walk around a lot when I was a kid, not wanting to be at home, and I’d often find myself wandering this neighborhood. I’m sure I passed this house many times, not knowing this was where she lived.”
There was something in the way he easily gave that information—allowed a piece of the past to tumble out in a wave of vulnerability—that made her want to wrap her arms around him and hold on tight.
“You left Lake George when you were a teenager?” she asked, moving her thoughts to small talk. Anything to push past the insane sensation of feeling like she honestly knew this man—could draw strength from him—when in reality, he was a perfect stranger.
“I was eighteen.”
“What made you leave?” she asked. Even though she knew the answer, she wanted to hear his version and maybe just listen to the timbre of his voice a little while longer.
He hesitated, gaze drifting to a framed photo of her and her mom on the mantle. “Needed space. Distance. Time away from this place. I joined the Navy.”
“But you stayed in touch with her.”
He nodded. “Your mom… she didn’t give up on people. Even when they gave up on themselves.” He waved his hand. “But she made me promise her that I’d write her back. Let her know that I was vertical. That I’d found something better than…” He let the words trail off. “Well, then what I was living here.”
