Nighttime Guardian. Amanda Stevens

Annabel had said with scorn. “But one of these days, the river is going to claim a price.”

      Maybe it already had, Shelby thought, glancing at the shrouded stretcher being loaded into the hearse.

      She could feel Nathan’s gaze on her and she glanced up at him. “You’re still a reporter, I take it.”

      He shrugged. “Some might say that’s debatable. I work at the Argus now.”

      “Your uncle’s paper?” Memories of past headlines flashed through Shelby’s mind. Virgil Dallas had pursed her relentlessly after her monster sighting that night. His stories had drawn reporters from all over the country, had made her a celebrity, but like everyone else in town, he’d turned on her after James had told his lies. “Why did you come back to Arcadia?” she asked Nathan. “As I recall, you couldn’t wait to get away from this place.”

      Something flickered in his eyes, an emotion Shelby couldn’t define. “Things change.”

      “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “They do.”

      He paused, his gaze deep and unfathomable in the moonlight. “I’ve thought about you over the years, Shelby. Wondered where you were, how you were doing.”

      The way he said her name sent a soft shiver up her spine. “I’ve thought about you, too,” she admitted.

      “Have you?” He sounded surprised. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how the more things change, the more they stay the same? Look at us. For years we lived on opposite sides of the country, thousands of miles apart. And yet here we both are. Back where we started.”

      “Full circle,” Shelby murmured. “Maybe it’s fate.”

      “Yeah,” he said, smiling. But there was an edge of bitterness in his voice when he added, “Fate can play some pretty strange tricks all right.”

      NATHAN CLIMBED into his Bronco and waited for the procession of police cars and the hearse to pull out so that he could fall in line behind them. From his rearview mirror, he could see Shelby standing in the yard, gazing after them. He couldn’t see her face in the darkness, but the way she lingered on the lawn, looking a little lost, reminded him of the way she’d seemed that first summer she’d come to live with her grandmother.

      Mentally 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