Gavin (A Redemption Romance #3) Read Free Page A

mood, but chalked it up to the deployment that was coming all too quickly. I wanted to talk to Dawn, to explain what I’d meant, to ease her bruised pride, but I’d never been given the chance.
    Considering that she lived across the street, it was odd that I hadn’t seen her. She must have been working hard to avoid me. I had one chance left, just one, before I was gone for who knew how long.
    Kissing my mom’s cheek one last time, I left her standing in the living room of her house with tears in her eyes. She’d been an Army wife and now had two sons in the military, so she was a pro at the hardest goodbyes.
    I walked out, looked at my truck and over to Dawn’s house. Her car was in the driveway and her mom’s wasn’t. This was my chance.
    Jogging across the small, quiet street, lined with old, small houses, I made it to her front door. No lights were visible inside, no noise, nothing at all. Was she hiding from me still?
    I knocked loudly and rang the bell a few times, but heard nothing from within. She either wasn’t home or wasn’t coming to the door.
    Glancing down at my watch, I saw that my time was up, I had to go. I’d waited too long, she’d avoided me too well, I wasn’t going to get the chance to talk to her now.
    In total frustration and sadness, I slowly walked back, climbed into my truck and started to drive away, almost certain when I glanced over at her house once more, that someone was watching me from the front window.

Chapter 1
    Dawn
    Why the hell is he here? I asked myself for the fifth time, looking at Gavin McNeil for the first time in eight years. I knew it was him, walking into Aurora’s house, his body had changed, his face was somehow different, more angular, harder, but his eyes, those laughing chocolate eyes that hid so much, were the same.
    He hadn’t noticed me, I wondered if he would. I knew he wouldn’t have forgotten me, it had been a long time, but we’d been close for too many years. Besides, my mom still updated me on his life, though not as much since his mom had gotten married and moved. Maybe he was seeing someone and would have someone meet him here later. That would be good, or bad, ah hell, it didn’t matter. This would be awkward regardless.
    Shit, he’s coming over here , I thought, wondering if I could sneak out somehow. Could I escape down the hallway or out the back door?
    Forcing my attention away from him, and engaging with Hope and Aurora again, I made a mental note of the location of my purse, and considered how long it would take to grab it and run out the front door. I tried to come up with a suitable excuse, something to get me away from the man I never wanted to see again, without looking totally rude.
    I’d loved Gavin like only an innocent girl could. In my mind, he’d been perfect, he’d been the man for me, unfortunately, I learned a long time ago that I wasn’t and never would be the one for him, or anyone else.
    Through the years following my horribly embarrassing mistake, I thought a lot about my mom. She’d loved my dad so much, that after he left her, pregnant and alone at the age of eighteen, she never found anyone else, she never even tried.
    It seemed that I was fated for the same outcome. At least my mom never had to see my father again, he’d left her with a promise to come back, not knowing that she was carrying me, but he’d never returned.
    I knew that she’d waited for him, believing him, for years. Now, I knew she hadn’t given her heart to anyone else, because my father would always own it, he hadn’t given it back.
    I felt the same, I had at least tried, sort of. I didn’t really want to fall in love, not anymore, it was too much trouble. I didn’t think I would be able to give that much of myself to anyone.
    I figured that someday I’d get married, to someone I could trust, someone who wouldn’t leave me high and dry and I would be content in my own life. The love I’d offered to Gavin that stupid night, hadn’t