Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
He glanced at her. He wasn’t surprised. Mirabelle had always considered Sienna a daughter. Whatever she’d told Gavin, she’d likely told Sienna. He’d stopped asking his mother about his father when he was about twelve, as she’d always get this intensely pained expression on her face and disappear into her room for hours afterward.
Gavin got the impression that not only wasn’t he a “great guy” but he’d been physically abusive. And so he could only be grateful that she’d taken him and left. They’d moved around a bit when he was a kid. They’d lived in Las Vegas for a couple of years, a town he barely remembered because he’d been so young, and then Atlantic City for a shorter time. Then they’d moved to Reno, where she’d found the job with Argus. It hadn’t been long before she’d taken little Sienna Walker under her wing, the seven-year-old girl who lived three trailers over . . . the one who’d first been his best friend and later his first love.
Maybe Mirabelle had simply been trying to find the place that felt the most like home with the few material possessions or prospects she’d had at the time, or maybe she’d moved them around for a few years because she didn’t want to be tracked down. But if it was the latter, apparently the man she’d been evading hadn’t been too serious about doing any tracking, because Gavin was a man close to thirty now, and he hadn’t ever seen hide nor hair of him.
Nor did he want to. If Mirabelle said he was a less-than-stellar person, he knew it was true.
The radio played quietly, and though Gavin’s mind had drifted for a few minutes, the mood was comfortable. The quiet easy. Beside him, Sienna looked like she was enjoying the chance to lay her head back and rest, the landscape gliding by along with the blur of headlights.
He exited the highway and made a couple more turns before finally pulling off the road and stopping in front of a guard shack, where he inserted the pass he’d bought a few days before when he’d looked up this place. The gate lifted, and Gavin continued on, then stopped in a small parking lot and shut off the lights.
They both stepped from the car, Sienna standing at the door for a moment as she stared out over the water and then pulled in a breath, looking at him over the roof of the car. He smiled.
She shut the door and then walked forward, across the small paved area surrounded by trees and grass. Tall, muted streetlights dotted the parking lot, casting a soft glow over the pond beyond, the swan clearly visible as he glided across the water.
“Otis,” Sienna whispered, stopping at the riverbank and sinking down onto the white wooden bench situated there. “You found him.”
Gavin sat next to her, enjoying both her proximity and her awe. “He’s been close by all this time,” he said. Gavin knew he never would have come here without Sienna, though, even if he’d known the location. It would have felt . . . wrong, and it would have only caused him to suffer. Sitting together and watching the beautiful creatures, as they’d talked about their plans and their dreams, had been special and peaceful and intimate. It was where he’d first kissed her. Where he’d gathered all his courage and turned his face to hers, moving slowly until their lips brushed and she smiled against his mouth. Sitting here like this, a swan gliding on the water in front of him, belonged to her and only her.
“Their cygnets lived here with Otis for a while,” he told her. “He was a good dad to them. And then, once they were old enough, they were moved to different locations. They’re all doing well.”
She smiled, tilting her head and watching Otis turn on the water and begin swimming in another direction. He was struck by how familiar this felt, how the look on her face was the same as it’d been then, how dreamy her eyes were. “I wonder if he’s lonely,” she said.
He watched Otis for a minute, too, before replying. “I read that they tried to introduce female swans to Otis, but he rejected them all. Apparently, he preferred to remain single.” He looked over at her. “I tend to think he just never got over Odette. No one ever measured up,” he finished quietly.
He watched her eyelashes flutter, and then she bit her lip, looking away, out to the distant shore, where palm trees stood unmoving in the still night air. “Whatever you’re doing, Gavin, stop it,” she said throatily.
But he couldn’t. Being there and watching the same swan they’d watched together in what felt like a different lifetime made longing rise up inside of him. Longing for what they’d been, what they’d had together. Once. They were different but the same, and he still felt that connection that he’d felt the moment he’d laid eyes on her the very first time. He’d been nothing more than a kid then, but he’d felt it, the same way he felt it still. It was thin and fragile now, a gossamer thread, but it was there, and he knew she felt it too.