Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 51131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“I can’t believe you have a study on your boat,” I say, leaning forward to poke my head inside. “Parker would love this.”
“It’s pretty much a whole house,” he verifies. “We lived on it for a year while our house was being built.” He reaches for me, taking my hips and pulling me around to face him.
On instinct, I wrap my arms around his neck and gaze up at him. “You lived here?”
“For a time. I used to love the ocean. Felt more at home out here than I did on land.”
“What happened?” I ask, though I think I have an idea. Maybe it’s better if he tells me himself.
Hayden sighs, his arms settling around my waist. His gaze shifts away from my face, but his grip seems to tighten. “Six years ago, I was at work on a Saturday. I wasn’t supposed to be. It was my day off, and I guarded those pretty fiercely back then. I wanted to spend all the time at home that I possibly could. Like you, I wanted to soak up all the moments.”
I smile faintly when his gaze flickers back to mine, but he averts it just as fast.
“But on this particular Saturday, I decided to go in. Wanted to impress the partners with my dedication to the case. We’d been planning to take the boat out that day. I told Sally we’d do it Sunday instead, but Landon was determined to go out on that boat, he didn’t want to wait. Sally decided there was no reason they couldn’t go out without me. We loved to boat, so we could go out again Sunday if we felt like it. It wasn’t even unusual for them to take the boat out without me, they did it all the time. So, they did it that day. And like a hundred other times before, they jumped off the boat and swam around in the ocean. They were both strong swimmers, so they liked to splash around and have fun.”
He pauses, his gaze drifting to the window. I know the ocean is out there, but right now the water isn’t peaceful and beautiful. It’s dark and terrifying, an abyss you could easily get lost in.
“Landon was twelve. He was the only eyewitness, so it’s impossible to fill in the gaps, but he said they were just swimming and playing in the water when suddenly he realized the only sounds he heard were his own. He turned around, thought she must have been waiting underwater to pop up and startle him, but he didn’t see her anywhere. He swam around in circles, looking for her head in the water, looking for the shape of her body underneath. He looked up on the deck, thinking maybe she’d climbed back on the boat, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. He dove back in the water, and he dove, and he dove, and he dove. He screamed for her, and finally, one of the crew came to see what was going on.” He shakes his head and looks straight at me. “The ocean betrayed me that day. It swallowed her up.”
I caress his hard jaw, trying not to envision Landon as a desperate little boy searching for his mother when she was already gone.
“There’s no closure with a death like that,” he finally says. “The ocean is vast and full of predators. They never found her body. For days, weeks, months, I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe she was out there somewhere. Maybe somehow, I’d get her back. But I knew it wasn’t true. I could feel it in my bones. I brought the boat out time and time again trying to find her, but once I accepted that she was truly gone and I wasn’t going to find her no matter how much I looked, I brought the boat in and never took it out again.”
“I’m so sorry, Hayden,” I whisper.
He meets my gaze. “For years, I’ve been haunted by the same dream. We’re out on the boat, and she’s alive and there with me, but something feels off. It feels like a mean trick, but I can’t completely understand why until it happens. One minute, she’s there on the deck with me, and we’re just enjoying one last day together, and the next, she’s jumping in the ocean. That’s when it hits me. If she goes into the water, she’ll never come back up, but it’s too late. I call out to her, and I lunge, trying to catch her to pull her back up, but she disappears beneath the water. I can jump in, I can dive and dive like Landon did that day, but I can never get her back.”
Something that sounds almost like fear can be heard in his voice. It’s powerful and deeply rooted, and I wish I could scoop it out of him and throw it in the ocean.