Page 26 of Elijah's Hope
“You’ve met Shelby. You think she’s crazy?”
Another sigh. “No, I don’t. She’s a nice person and I see why you like her, but what’s the end game here? You date for two weeks and then you go back on shift? What then? She leaves, and you get bogged down in some long-distance love affair? You know how hard it’s going to be for you two when she’s back in Louisiana?”
“Or…” I said before I could stop myself from saying it.
Cal’s eyebrows arched. Like he knew what I was thinking and knew how stupid it was even to suggest it. So he beat me to it. “She can’t stay, Angel. You know that as well as I do. This place is barely fit for humanity much less a young woman from some suburban town down South. She won’t handle the winter. I’m surprised she’s keeping up with the summer.”
I tried to fight back the feeling of finality because I knew he was right. This place was harsh enough for the strongest of women. Shelby was everything that was delicate and fragile.
“It happened fast,” I said then coughed, because I probably sounded like some love-sick teenager, but it was true. “We…we’re pretty into each other.”
And that was without the sex. I didn’t want to think about how it was going to be once we started being intimate with each other.
“It’s the convenience of it,” Cal said. “The proximity, the intensity. Doesn’t mean it’s real, son.”
There it was again.Son. It was funny, but he only ever called me son. Not Ark, not Jackson. Just me. When he did, he made me feel like a fucking teenager.
I gritted my teeth. “You’re telling me I don’t know what I’m thinking? What I’m feeling? I don’t know if you have the right to do that, Cal. And I’m not your son. I’m a grown-ass man.”
He held up his hand. “Sorry, you’re right. I don’t mean to sound condescending. I’m saying I know what the real thing is and the real thing…it takes time. It doesn’t just spring up between two people trapped in some isolated setting.”
“Except it did.”
Shit. Did I really mean that? I didn’t want serious. Harmless fun, that’s all. Only it was impossible not to see there was more between us.
He frowned at that. “Then I’ll ask again. What is the plan? When you know she can’t handle it up here.”
Obviously, there was another alternative to her staying.
“Didn’t expect to stay in Hope’s Point, Alaska, for the rest of my fucking life, Cal.”
His mouth tightened. “I know that. But you’ve got a future with this company. I told you that. A couple more years up here and there will be other opportunities for advancement. You don’t want to throw away all that potential for a woman you will have known for all of a few weeks. But that’s just my advice because you are, in fact, a grown-ass man. Take it or leave it. Goodnight.”
He left, and I shut the door. It was hard not to consider what he was saying. Right now, my head and my body were filled with Shelby, so it was hard to think of anything else. Not even the future. But we were only a few days into this, and nothing needed to be decided tonight.
Right now, all I had to do was live for tomorrow.
And tomorrow was all about Shelby.
6
The next day
Shelby
I didn’t know the world could be so big. I looked out the window of the small two-seater—well, three-seater if we counted the pilot— plane and tried to take in everything I was seeing.
Same as I had done on the flight from New Orleans to Seattle. From Seattle to Anchorage. Then again to Hope’s Point.
So much space and land and nothing I had ever been able to wrap my head around. Like there was this whole world outside of my home state I didn’t know about. Well, surely I knew about it. Intellectually. Conceptually. But seeing it for the first time made it all so real.
Who would find me if I got lost in this big massive world? Where would they know to even start looking?
I was lost at the end of the world and loving it.
You should be on a plane to Seattle. You should be doing the work of starting your life over. This is not some damn vacation and Eli is not your knight in shining armor.
I winced. My logical self was harsh, if not accurate. I had told myself one more date. Then Eli had said he had plans for the weekend.
