Straddling the Line by Jaci Burton Read Free Book Online

all.”
    The look of surprise on her face made him smile.
    “How did you know that? You barely paid attention to me.”
    “Maybe I do know more about you than you know about me.”
    “Seriously. How did you know that?”
    “Your dad and I had some conversations. He was very proud of you. He said you could have done anything with your life that you wanted—you got your degree in special education and in journalism.”
    “And I chose journalism.” She looked out over the water. “I don’t know if that’s very noble.”
    “It’s what you wanted to do, isn’t it?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose at the time. It seemed more exciting to me. I had the opportunity to travel and I so wanted to get out of Oklahoma. Plus, I love sports. That’s why I chose journalism over teaching.”
    “Sports is exciting to me. I couldn’t dream of ever doing anything else. You think what I do is noble?”
    She opened her mouth, then closed it.
    “Okay, then. So neither of us is noble. Get over yourself, Haven.”
    She shook her head. “You don’t understand. At first I wanted to teach. I loved tutoring, loved the classes, but the lure of journalism was there, too. Hence the dual degrees. I couldn’t decide what I wanted more. And that’s why it took me longer to graduate, too.”
    “So you’re beating yourself up because you’re doing what makes you happy?”
    “Who says I’m beating myself up?”
    And he wondered if she was really happy. “I do. Journalism is an exciting career.”
    “Teaching can be, too.”
    “Teaching is a grueling, thankless career and you know it. I’m sure it was a tough career choice to make.”
    “But I loved it. I loved the classes, loved my students when I was tutoring, and student teaching. Why didn’t I choose that instead?”
    “Because you didn’t love it enough?”
    She sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like this—” She looked at him. “This used to fuel me. And the opportunity I had to do sportscasting for a network. God, a year ago I would have killed for a spot like that.”
    “But?”
    “But then, you know, the stuff with my dad happened.”
    “And it threw you off. It banked the fire some.”
    “I guess so. Lately I’ve been in some kind of funk and I can’t seem to drag myself out of it.”
    “Because you miss your dad, and that’s okay.”
    “It’s been long enough. I shouldn’t still feel this way.”
    “I don’t think you can put a timeline on grief. You feel it and it consumes you until it doesn’t anymore.”
    She looked over at him. “You speak like you know about it.”
    “I’ve lost some people I care about, so yeah. I do know how itfeels. And I cared about your dad, too. Losing him was hard on me. I still feel like there’s a hole, like something’s missing in my life.”
    She laid her hand on his arm. “I know you cared deeply for my dad. He loved you, too. He loved all you guys like you were his kids.”
    “Not as much as he loved you. He talked about you all the time. He was so damn proud of you, Haven. And no matter what choices you make, he’d still be proud of you.”
    She nodded, and he saw the tears fill her eyes.
    “Yeah.”
    She stood and started up the steps. “I think that’s enough playtime. How about we get back to work?”
    He’d started this with his conversation about her dad. She’d been relaxed and having fun, and now she was hurting again. Time to change the mood.
    “I don’t know. You look like you might need to get dunked.”
    Before she could object, he stood, swooped her up into his arms, and dunked them both underwater.
    She came up sputtering, parting her hair that had fallen in front of her face.
    “Goddammit, Trevor. Talk about a blindside.”
    He laughed and shook his head back and forth to clear the water from his eyes and his hair from his face.
    Haven pushed away, shoving her palm over the surface of the water to splash at him. She swam to the stairs and climbed