Like Flying

Prologue

A heart wants what it wants and a logical mind has no say in how a person feels about another person. Celeste Green never meant to hurt anyone, least of all herself, but sometimes the person her heart wants is unavailable. Celeste's blue-green eyes hurt but she refused to cry. She was done crying, she told herself.

Once she fell for that guy who would never stick around, she remembered as she glanced in her rear view mirror. Her sister knew, maybe Celeste even knew, Cavan Hale was not the type of man to settle in one place for long.

"Maybe someday he'll be ready to settle down," Celeste said to herself, "Maybe he'll find someone who wants to travel long roads with him, or maybe his happiness doesn't depend on any person other than himself." She figured he was probably one of those people who didn't consider marriage or a relationship a goal. Love was something she sought so she hadn't actually believed people like that really existed. There certainly weren't any of them in the books she liked to read.

Cavan had worked all manner of odd jobs in his life and had stopped briefly in all manner of places. His most prized possession, his only possession as far as Celeste was concerned, was a 1997 Harley-Davidson Sportster. Technically, she knew he also owned a cabin and a small patch of forest near the Appalachian Mountains that his grandfather had left him. It doesn't matter, Celeste told herself, travel is a part of him and he wasn't going to change for anyone but himself. He had chosen not to change. Celeste couldn't fault him for leaving; he'd never promised to stay. Only she'd had this romantic notion that he would take her with him when he left. He hadn't chosen to take her with him, either.

She'd lost love before. She knew the fire that was faith, hope, and love was burning inside her still even if those fires were banked for a time. Celeste refused to continue her depressing trudge down a less-than-romantic memory lane. Instead she turned the radio back on and tried again to find a station playing a song about something other than love or a broken heart.

As she drove toward her new place in New York she felt as if she'd love him and feel the pain of it forever. Her logical mind told her it wasn't true but foolish heart wasn't convinced. She could not control how she felt or the person her heart had chosen. She could control her actions. Celeste would start her life over again.



Chapter One

The first time Celeste flew she had a window seat on a cloudy day. Her then-boyfriend told her she could have the window seat because it wasn't much of a view. He explained to Celeste that all she would see would be clouds. She was twenty-four years old that year.

The plane took off and it was terrifying and brilliant and beautiful. She will always remember feeling as if her mind had expanded infinitely in that moment. She stared at the clouds that rolled like hills and climbed like mountains. She stared at the sky above the clouds, clear and lit by the setting sun. Celeste felt closer to deity at that moment. She thought to herself that it was a miracle of some kind that such marvelous beauty had gone on above the world for centuries before mankind learned to fly without anyone ever seeing it. She felt special somehow for the gift of such a sight when so many would live and die without ever getting on a plane. She could still remember the sun setting and the deep, rich blue of the sky as the last light of the sun faded to black. When the plane landed it was dark, the stars were out, and she was a different person.

Years later she had that feeling again. Seeing him for the first time was like flying for the first time. She was a bit awestruck. She felt, upon seeing him for the first time, that it was a miracle he could have lived his entire life without her knowing he existed. She felt as if she were lucky to know now and to have seen him. She thought he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. His eyes barely registered her. They rode the same subway every morning without speaking to each other. She wrote amazing brilliant stories in her head about what he did for a living, his life, and his family. She never spoke to anyone on the subway and even if she had been tempted to say hello to him there was a gold band on his ring finger that would have stopped her from ever starting a conversation. It went on that way for six months before he finally spoke up.

"You and I have been riding the same subway for a while now and we've never said hello," the beautiful man said one day, out of the blue. She'd been speculating whether or not he would have an accent.

"It's been about six months, actually," Celeste replied, so shocked she was barely aware she was responding to his statement until the words were already out of her mouth.

"That's a shame," he said, "I'm Devin O'Ceiran."

"Celeste Green," she responded, wondering if she was still asleep in her bed. If so she hoped it was Saturday or Sunday because she'd hate to oversleep on a workday.

"Celeste is a beautiful name. Are you going in for work or for school?" he asked her. She was reminded of the fact that she would forever look like a young teenager when he referenced school.

She nervously pushed a lock of painfully straight, blonde hair back over her shoulder. She had always called it deer-hide blonde. She had light brown, blonde, white, and red highlights in her hair. Last year she had been stopped on the street in New York by a woman demanding to know where she had her hair colored. The woman had been disbelieving and livid when she'd told her it was natural.

"I haven't been in school for a few years now," Celeste's voice was tinged with amusement.

"How old are you?" he asked, surprised.

"Twenty-five," she responded, not mentioning that she'd been twenty-five for three years running, "And you?"

"I'm thirty-two," he told her, smiling, "What do you do for a living?"

"I work as the receptionist at a law firm in midtown," she responded.