Read Online Where Forever Lies by Tara Neideffer - Free Book Online Page A

he
thought she was pretty with her long wavy brown hair. He liked the
way she carried herself and thought she was probably the type of girl
who knew what she wanted out of life. The little girl was the cutest
thing he had seen, with red curls bouncing above her shoulders as she
ran. He watched them as they walked to the playground and saw the
woman jogging to keep up with her excited daughter. He began to
wonder what it would be like to have a little girl, someone he could
refer to as ‘daddy’s little girl.’ He had wanted to
have a girl and a boy, but after having his son and realizing the
marriage was not working out, they ended up getting a divorce.
    Now, he had been single for six
years and had been completely fine with it but he noticed a strange
tug pulling at him lately, almost as if his subconscious was telling
him that there was something missing in his life. He’d been
feeling the loneliness creep up on him in the past several weeks, but
he’d been desperately trying to push it away. He just didn’t
have the time for anyone right now. Also, he didn’t want to
rush into anything and make the same mistake he’d made before,
so he continued to remain gun shy of getting serious.
    As he watched the young girl
push her daughter on the swing, he felt a sense of sadness at the
thought of not having a complete family, again. He had enjoyed being
married, that wasn’t the problem that caused them to get
divorced in the end; he realized he just wasn’t with the right
woman. They had been completely wrong for each other and he didn’t
want Brandon to grow up and see his parents argue and fight every
day.
    “Hey, Dad, catch!”
He heard Brandon shout at him and turned from his daze just in time
to catch the ball before it blasted him in the face.
    “Hey, you had better be
prepared because I’m going to smoke you at this game,” he
told his son, as he reverted his attention to the game by running up
and doing a slam-dunk into the basketball goal.
    “Oh, yeah, well, watch
this move.” Brandon took the ball and did a sneaky dribble
between the legs then passed the ball over his back to his dad who,
he realized once he threw the ball to him, was not paying attention.
“Dad, catch the ball!” Brandon shrieked.
    “What?” Tyler jumped
sideways trying to snag the ball, but lost it and watched as it flew
past him and towards the bench where the young girl was sitting.
    “Shit!” he yelled,
but it was too late to do anything about it now.

    ♥♥♥

    Paige felt the warmth of the sun
relaxing her and closed her eyes for a moment to indulge in feeling
her stress slowly dissipating. It was nice and she let herself go
with it. Her jaw muscle loosened, her eyes relaxed and as all her
tense muscles let go, she realized just how stressed she had actually
been. She was thinking about making this park visit a weekly routine,
just so she could de-stress, when she heard someone behind her yell,
“Watch Out!” Paige turned her head around and BAM a ball
struck her on the side of the head.
    “Ouch!” she yelled,
as her hand flew up to her head. Her vision blurred for a moment and
then, as it slowly returned, she noticed a shadow hovering over her.
    “Ma’am, are you
okay?” she heard a deep voice in the distance ask.
    Paige was rubbing her head and
feeling like a complete idiot when she looked up and noticed a
good-looking guy standing above her.
    Great , he just had to be
cute, she thought .
    “Yeah, I’m fine. Uh,
just a little embarrassed,” she remarked. She looked up at him
and felt her cheeks get hot. So
much for relaxing now, she
thought as she felt a headache coming on.
    “I’m really sorry,
ma’am, my son can get a little carried away playing basketball
and I tried to stop it, but it slipped out of my hands. He likes to
see if he can get some fast passes by me and sometimes his aim is a
little off,” he said, feeling bad for smacking her in the face
with the ball. “I can be a little clumsy sometimes,