Best of My Love (Fool's Gold) (3 page)

She reached for her coffee, then realized her hands were trembling and put down the mug. “Kip left when I was about ten. He was a great skier and went off to train. He swore he would always be there for me if things got bad.” She felt her mouth twist. “That’s how we described what happened. In terms of how bad it was.”

Had he put her mom in the hospital this time? Were there broken bones? Because like so many families dealing with something awful, they spoke around the truth.

“I remember asking my mom why she stayed and she said it was because she loved him so much. It didn’t make sense to me, but I knew in my heart she would never go. And he didn’t hit me, so we just lived like that. With the unspoken rules. Don’t make Dad mad. Don’t try to protect my mom. Don’t get in the way.”

There had been so many awful times. Nights when she’d cleaned split skin and held ice against bruises. Times when she’d tried to figure out if a bone was broken and whether or not she should call 911.

“And then I turned thirteen.”

Shelby still didn’t know what had set off her father. Whether it was her birthday or the onset of puberty or what. But the day after she turned thirteen, he hit her for the first time.

“It hurts,” she said quietly. “I’d heard her scream a million times, but until he decked me with his fist, I had no idea how much pain there could be. The shock of it stunned me. The sense of betrayal, of helplessness. My mom tried to stop him, but he pushed her into the wall and kept coming after me.”

She’d been knocked unconscious. There had been dozens of bruises but no broken bones. To this day, she didn’t know if she’d had a concussion because going to the doctor was out of the question.

“I called Kip the next morning. He was home in twelve hours and he got me out of there. He was already on the ski circuit, with endorsements and stuff. So he could afford to put me in a boarding school. I stayed there through high school. My mom would visit. Only my mom. I didn’t see my dad again for years.”

Funny how she could get through all this without tears. Maybe she’d cried herself out years ago. She wasn’t sure.

“I would plead with her to leave him,” she continued. “Kip would get us an apartment. Dad never had to know. But she wouldn’t do it. She kept talking about how much she loved him and how he loved her.”

She looked at Aidan and was grateful for the lack of emotion on his face. His dark eyes gave nothing away and that was how she preferred it.

“She was always bruised. She did her best to cover it up, but I knew what to look for. She would stay with me for a few days, then go back to him.”

She shifted in her seat and put her hands on her lap. “We lived like that for years. Then she got cancer. It was bad. By the time she told me about it, she only had a few weeks to live. I went back to be with her. Which meant being with him.”

She squared her shoulders. “It all started again. I knew more and tried to protect myself, but he would come after me while I was sleeping. I would wake up with him beating me. It was horrible. More horrible than you can imagine. Kip was just starting back with his training after winning at the Olympics. I didn’t want to bother him, but I didn’t think I could take it anymore. Then he was injured and in the hospital in New Zealand. The doctors weren’t even sure he would walk again. I knew I had to get through my mom’s last weeks on my own. For her. I had to do my best not to let him surprise me. But it’s hard not to sleep. A couple of times I got a hotel room for the night, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. I was genuinely scared for my life when these two men showed up.”

Her tension eased as she remembered the shock of opening her mom’s front door and finding Angel and Ford on the steps. “They were from CDS. Mayor Marsha had sent them to protect me.”

Aidan’s brows rose. “How did she know what was happening?”

For the first time in several minutes, Shelby smiled. “You’re asking the wrong person. All I knew was that it was a miracle. My dad was arrested on multiple charges. Apparently he wasn’t only a bad guy at home. I stayed with my mom until she died and then I moved here.”

Aidan leaned toward her. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. I didn’t want to dump all that on you, but I didn’t know how else to explain what I want to do.” Now came the hard part. “There have been men in my life. Boyfriends. Sort of. I want what most people have. Love and a family. But I’m not good at picking the right guy.” She rested her hands on the table. “Because of what happened with my dad, and my mom dying, I started seeing a counselor. She helped me realize that I always pick a guy who can’t commit. The delightful charmer who will never stay or be faithful, or the guy who isn’t over his last relationship. On the surface, I look like I’m so together, but on the inside, I keep myself from getting involved with someone who can love me back because I’m afraid. Except for Kip, I don’t actually trust men. Because of that, I pick ones that are so flawed, the relationship can never work. That way I’m never truly at risk.”

* * *

A
N
INTERESTING
SET
of facts, Aidan told himself, but it had nothing to do with the building rage inside of him. He didn’t know where Shelby’s father was right now, but he wanted to go find him and give him a taste of what he’d been doing to his family. He wanted to reduce the man to a bloody, broken mass of pain and suffering. Then he wanted to wait a few days and do it all again and again.

He could understand being annoyed or pissed or even furious. But there was no excuse to take out any of that on someone else. He’d grown up with four brothers, so he’d been in plenty of fights as a kid. But there were rules and one of them was you stick to your own size and gender. And after about age fifteen, you give it up. Aidan believed his own father was an asshole, but even he’d never hit a woman.

“Aidan?”

He looked at Shelby. “What?”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“Sorry. It’s your dad. Where is he now?”

“In prison. He’s serving consecutive sentences. Even with good behavior, he won’t be out for about fifty years.”

“I want to go find him and punish him.”

She reached across the table and lightly touched his hand. “Thank you. I appreciate the thought, but it’s not necessary.”

“I need to hurt him.”

“It won’t change him.”

Probably not, but that wasn’t what had him telling himself to let it go. Beating up her father wouldn’t help Shelby. That was the real point of it.

“I wish I’d known you then,” he told her. “I would have helped.”

Her breath caught and she cleared her throat. “Thank you for saying that. I believe you. Which is part of the reason I wanted to talk to you. About my problem. And yours.”

“That you pick the wrong guy because you’re not willing to trust a man not to physically hurt you and that I pick the wrong woman because I don’t want to get stuck?”

She nodded.

He tried to remember the last time he’d had a conversation this honest and couldn’t. Shelby had laid it all on the line. He figured he had to do the same.

“I’m not looking for home and hearth,” he admitted. “I just want to stop being a jackass.”

She laughed. “A worthy goal.” Her humor faded. “I thought I was doing better. I thought I was healed. Then I went out with a guy I knew was a total flake. He swore he was seeing only me, but he wasn’t. It was then I realized I wasn’t as far along as I thought.”

She pointed to the cupcakes between them. “Everything else is great. I went to culinary school and discovered I’m more of a dessert-pastry chef. I moved here and bought into the business. I have friends, I’m going to be an aunt in a couple of months. It’s all good.”

“Except for Mr. Right.”

She nodded.

He was no longer as concerned about what she wanted from him. Shelby had been through a lot and if he could help, he wanted to. If she was looking for the perfect guy, by now she knew he wasn’t even close. Anything else was doable.

“Where do I fit in?”

“I need to learn that I can trust a man who isn’t my brother,” she told him. “I was hoping we could be friends. Real friends who do things together. I thought if we could do that, we could get over what’s holding us back. You obviously need to start seeing women as something other than short-term sexual partners. I thought we could work on this together. Hang out. Get to know each other. Develop a relationship based on trust and respect.” She wrinkled her nose. “Without the complication of the whole boy-girl thing.”

Honest to God, Aidan didn’t know what to say. Friends? Her points were valid and he could see how her plan might work, but damn.

“Would there be a time limit?” he asked.

“Sure. I don’t know. How long until we’re both better? Six months?”

So until June.

“Just friends.” Because he wasn’t sure he’d ever been friends with a woman before. Not since maybe high school. “Nothing else.”

“Nothing,” she said firmly. “We’ll do stuff and talk and you’ll see that women are more than a booty call and I won’t be scared anymore. In six months we’ll both be better people and we’ll go back to our regular lives.”

He wanted to protest the booty-call comment but knew he’d earned it. Friends. Just friends. Was it possible? Did he want to bother?

The thing was, if he didn’t, wouldn’t he stay exactly where he was? And he knew he didn’t want that.

“Maybe,” he said slowly.

She brightened. “So you’ll think about it?”

There were a lot of ways to answer the question, but he figured they both deserved the truth. “Shelby, I’m pretty sure I won’t be thinking about anything else.”

CHAPTER THREE

A
MBER
D
UTTON
CLOSED
her eyes and made a low moaning sound at the back of her throat. “You’re killing me.”

Shelby did her best not to preen. Impressing her customers was one thing, but impressing Amber was harder. Amber had owned Ambrosia Bakery for over ten years. She knew the business inside and out and she’d tasted more than her share of chocolate mousse.

Amber broke off a piece of the dark chocolate shell that held the mousse and put it in her mouth. She let it melt on her tongue before swallowing. “Amazing. You made these, too?”

Shelby nodded. “It’s not that difficult. I’ve been working on the recipe for a while. I thought we could try adding more upscale desserts to the inventory. Maybe start on certain days to see if there’s any interest. With the city’s online connection, we could send out an email to men, suggesting the high-end desserts as a special surprise to take home to the women in their lives.”

“We just have to give out a few samples and we’ll be flooded with interest.” Amber took another bite of the mousse. “This is going straight to my hips and I genuinely don’t care.” She pointed with her spoon. “I thought that bread you did last week was the best new thing, but this is better.”

“I have a lot of ideas.”

“Hiring you that first day was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

Amber dug her spoon into the mousse. Shelby smiled as she basked in pride and happiness. She loved the creative side of her job. Back at her small apartment, she had an idea file overflowing with different items she wanted to try. Cupcakes and brownies, mousses and breads. On her days off she often played around with recipes. Finding the exact combination of ingredients, the right presentation and flavors took time. But the work was so fun and fulfilling.

Culinary school had been a revelation for her. She’d discovered that there were other crazy people who dreamed up recipes. She’d loved the technical classes as much as the practical information. She’d wanted to know more and more. Getting her first job had made her giddy. Then her mom had gotten sick and everything had changed.

Being trapped in that house, knowing her father was going to find that vulnerable moment and hurt her, had left her feeling shattered. While the bruises and welts would heal, every day that she was with him had drained her spirit, and she’d worried about that a lot more than the damage he would do to her body. Having Angel and Ford show up when they did had saved her. The invitation to go to Fool’s Gold had come with an introduction to Amber. Working in the bakery had been exactly what she’d needed.

Now she was a part owner and there were so many possibilities. Next on her bucket list was having Aidan agree to her wild plan so she could complete her healing and move on with her life.

Amber finished the mousse and dark chocolate shell, then licked her fingers. “I’m going to have to walk an extra hour on the treadmill to burn off those calories and it was so worth it.”

“You don’t have to do anything to burn off the calories,” Shelby told her. “You always look great.”

Her business partner—a tall, curvy, dark-skinned woman with beautiful eyes and long braids—laughed. “If only that were true. I passed forty nearly two years ago. I’m fighting gravity and a slowing metabolism, but I’m determined to win.” She walked around to the front of the display case. “The blue-and-white cookies are adorable.”

“I thought they’d be a quirky addition for the week.”

Patience had finally given birth to her son two days before. Shelby had decided to make some baby-inspired cookies. There were little ducks and small rattles and a square frosted cookie like a baby block. The latter had taken a lot of time, so it wasn’t a practical addition to their everyday menu, but she’d had fun with it.

“Maybe we could talk to Dellina,” Shelby said. “Show her some samples and see if she wanted to offer the custom cookies to her clients.”

Dellina Ridge was an events planner. She handled everything from weddings to corporate functions. Shelby had been trying to start a business relationship with her since she’d been hired at the bakery. Although Amber wasn’t opposed to the idea, she also wasn’t that enthused. Shelby told herself she could see the other woman’s point. The bakery did really well already. Amber had an established business in the town where she’d grown up. Why do more?

But Shelby couldn’t help wanting to expand things. There were so many possibilities.

“You exhaust me with your enthusiasm,” Amber told her with a laugh. “Even so, I’m starting to see your point about working with Dellina. We could do custom work for her. It would be more time, but we could charge more. My biggest concern is the labor. We’d need extra help and I’m not sure where we’d get it. We don’t need anyone on a daily basis, so this would be by the job. That’s hard to find.”

“You’re right. Let me think about it. There has to be a solution.”

Amber sighed. “To be that young and enthusiastic,” she said with a sigh. “I’m envious. You work on the problem and I’ll go pay our vendors. We’ll meet in a couple of weeks and discuss it all. How does that sound?”

“Perfect.”

Amber took a step toward the back office, then paused. She put her hand on her stomach. “I’m having the weirdest sensations lately. I just don’t feel right.”

Shelby didn’t like that sound of that. “What do you mean?”

“Things are off in my tummy. I keep thinking it’s going to be my time of the month, but it’s not. My hormones are a mess.” She grimaced. “I can’t be going through the change, can I? I’m way too young. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. And if I’m not, I’ll eat more of your mousse.”

“It’s in the refrigerator in the back.”

Amber groaned. “I so didn’t need to know that. Now I’m going to be thinking about it all day.”

Shelby watched her go and hoped everything was all right. Probably just a stomach bug, she told herself.

Before she could get serious about worrying more, the door opened and a very pregnant Isabel Hendrix waddled in. Shelby looked at her and did her best not to wince. It wasn’t that Isabel was so very far along as the fact that she was carrying triplets.

Her friend groaned. “Yes, I know. I’m a whale. And one of the really big ones. Which, in case you were wondering, is a blue whale. They can grow to over ninety feet. Unlike the smaller killer whales that tend to top out at thirty feet.”

Shelby stared at her. “How do you know that?”

Isabel grinned. “Very random, huh? And impressive. I mentioned being a whale to Felicia and she gave me a brief lecture on the species.”

Not a surprise, Shelby thought. Felicia was some kind of genius who knew just about everything. She organized all the festivals in town with a precision that left most of the citizens both dizzy and appreciative.

Isabel rested her right hand on her large belly. “You know why I’m here.”

“I do and I have two loaves put aside for you.”

“Thank goodness. I swear I would have started sobbing if you hadn’t.” She shook her head. “There is so something wrong with me.”

“No, there isn’t. You’re pregnant and dealing. Give yourself a break.”

Shelby had never been pregnant, but if Isabel was anything to go by, the cravings were powerful. Her friend had developed a love for pretzel bread that bordered on fanatical. Two months before, the bakery had run out and Isabel had cried piteously. Shelby had felt so badly about the upset that she’d stayed late, baking a batch. When she’d delivered it, Isabel had cried again, this time out of joy.

Talk about powerful weapons, she thought now. If someone learned to control hormones they could rule the world.

“I have the bread on the baking schedule,” she told her friend. “We’ll always have it for you. And if we happen to run out, I have a half-dozen loaves of dough in the freezer.”

Isabel rubbed her belly. “I’m sorry to be such a freak. I can’t seem to help it. You’re very good to me and I owe you. Seriously, if there’s anything you ever need, tell me and I’m there. If I’m busy changing the three or four thousand diapers I’m going to have to deal with every week, I’ll send Ford.”

An impressive offer, Shelby thought, considering Ford was a successful businessman and former navy SEAL. She doubted there was anything he couldn’t accomplish.

“You’re on,” she said. “I will call you first in a crisis.” For a second she thought about asking Isabel if she knew Aidan very well. They’d grown up in the same town and were about the same age. But asking the question probably meant explaining why and she wasn’t ready to share her slightly offbeat plan with anyone else. Not until Aidan had said if he was game or not.

She mentally crossed her fingers that he would see that she was right about both of them. Six months of being friends wasn’t a huge hardship and at the end of the time, they could both be healed. A worthy goal. But would he see it that way?

She had no way of knowing, so rather than dwell on the what-ifs, she got Isabel her bread and told herself she would hear when she would hear. If he told her no, there were other men she could approach. None immediately came to mind, but now that she knew the best way to move on with her life, she wasn’t going to let anything stop her.

* * *

A
IDAN
DID
A
second check of the equipment, making sure bindings were secure and edges clean and smooth after the last trek. Taking novices out on their first snowshoeing adventure was both fun and stressful—the former for them, the latter for him. He had a perfect safety record and there was no way he wanted to risk that.

The weather was on his side. The reports were for the temperatures staying well below freezing. The trails he used for beginners had a nice base of snow without a lot of ice. More snow was predicted. After the mostly dry winter last year, extra snowpack was welcome news.

Aidan put the snowshoes back on the rack, then made sure the door leading outside was locked before he returned to the office.

Aidan’s mother had started Mitchell Adventure Tours when her children had been little—mostly to provide some steady income for the family. His father’s volatile personality combined with heavy drinking had meant dangerous outbursts. Not in the way Shelby had endured, he thought. Ceallach didn’t hit his children. Instead he turned his temper toward his other creations. Because he was an artist who worked with glass, a couple of hours of throwing and breaking could destroy months’ worth of commissions. Despite his fame and the amount people paid for his pieces, there were times when money was tight. His mother had filled in the gaps.

At first she’d offered a few walking tours of the city. Other local businesses had pitched in by recommending her to tourists. Eventually she’d started driving small groups around in the family minivan. As Del, his oldest brother, and Aidan had become teens, they’d pitched in.

Although Del was expected to take over the family business, Aidan had been the one to step up. He’d quickly grown the company, broadening the offerings and taking groups camping and fishing in the summer. Winter sports had followed. He’d bought out his mom nearly eight years ago and had added “Adventure” to the name.

Four years ago he’d moved the company to its current location. The new building had a big reception area with lots of wall space for maps, pictures of their excursions and a list of the tours the company offered. He had a private office in back, and there was a large room for the staff. In the back was the equipment storage, along with his repair shop. The equipment he bought was expensive and he believed in keeping it in good shape.

He walked into the office, where Fay Riley was handing over tickets to a group of twentysomethings. College kids, he thought. Here for a day of snowshoeing.

They looked to be in shape, which helped, but they were also going to be a handful. They always were. Unlike his older customers, the college crowd rarely listened. He made a mental note to make sure he brought enough GPS trackers for everyone. No one was getting lost on his watch.

Fay was in her late thirties and a relatively new transplant to Fool’s Gold. She and her husband had ended up settling in the area after their daughter, Kalinda, had been badly burned and started treatment with a burn specialist at the local hospital. Rather than return to their hometown, they’d decided to stay close to her doctor. Fay had started working for Aidan part-time and was now the office manager. She was the perfect combination of organized and mothering. Not only did she manage the schedule, she was great with the summer help he hired every year.

“They’ll be fun,” she said, motioning to the college students studying the pictures on the wall. “You head out first thing in the morning. It’s a six-hour tour. They wanted longer, but I told them to start slow.”

“I’m surprised they listened.”

“I can be persuasive.”

Aidan grinned. “You mean bossy.”

“That, too.”

Fay had told him once that her daughter’s horrible accident had changed her in ways she couldn’t explain. She’d had to learn to be strong. To make demands. To face the unthinkable and do it in a way that kept up Kalinda’s spirits. He supposed that life’s adversities offered a fork in the road, so to speak. Either you learned your lesson and were a better person for it, or you got crushed.

He’d been successful at everything else he’d put his mind to—his current situation wasn’t going to be any different. He didn’t like who he’d become, so he was going to change. Find a better way.

“The blonde is pretty,” Fay added playfully in a low voice. “Last I saw, you were on a blonde kick. Of course, redheads and brunettes are nice, too.”

He didn’t bother glancing at the group. “No, thanks.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you feeling well?”

“I’m fine. I’m not going to do that anymore.”

Her expression turned quizzical. “I don’t understand.”

The college students left. Aidan leaned against the counter. “I’m not going to date tourists anymore.”

“You don’t date them. You do them. Or whatever it’s called. Hook up. It’s not a relationship.”