Pratt laced his fingers with hers. “I’m gonna talk to them. Really talk, not fight, and if they don’t like it…” He shrugged. “Well, I guess they’ll need to make a choice. See me and agree to disagree on my career choice or forget they have a son.”
“Pratt,” Josie chided him.
Pratt lifted the right side of his mouth in a smile. “I’m kidding. I won’t let that happen.” He looked at Jack. “She’s a ball breaker.”
“Josie, you keep him in line, you hear?”
“I’ll do my best,” she said. “We’re just hanging out for a while, nothing serious.” She lifted her eyes to Pratt, and Jack could tell there was more to them than a couple of kids hanging out.
“Enjoy the now, Jack,” Pratt said.
“Thanks, Pratt. You too. Josie, watch out for snakes.” As they walked away, Jack caught a glimpse of Savannah hugging Elizabeth, then Aiden and Lou. I need to fix the past to enjoy the now. He looked away, thinking of when he’d first seen Savannah and how he’d assumed she was a spoiled city girl. Boy, was I ever wrong. They headed into the airport terminal, leaving him and Savannah alone under the warm afternoon sun. Her cheeks were flushed as she came to his side.
“You look different than you did when you arrived,” Jack said. “Prettier.”
A flush rose on Savannah’s cheeks. She put her hands in the front pockets of her jeans and looked at the plane. “You know, I thought you were such a selfish ass when you were so hard on Pratt when we first arrived.”
“And now?” He was afraid of what she might say, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The sun glistened, highlighting the blend of yellows and greens in her beautiful eyes. Jack didn’t think he’d ever forget the look in her eyes when her legs were wrapped around his waist in the stream—like she’d been dreaming of him her whole life. And even if she hadn’t, he was going to keep that image in his mind as inspiration to follow through with what he’d promised.
“Now I see Jack Remington, a man, a widower, and a soft-hearted-survivor-man-slash-pilot.” She licked her lower lip. “Who can be a real ass when he gets scared.”
“You had me there for a minute. I thought I’d made out like a bandit. Do you have to be brutally honest?”
“I don’t know how to be anything but,” Savannah said. “I’m afraid Bradens don’t lie very well. My big rancher father drove morals and ethics into our little brains on a daily basis.”
“I’m gonna miss you, Savannah,” he said. He stepped closer to her, breathing in her fresh, feminine scent, knowing it might be the last time he would be able to. His heart ached at the thought, and he swore to himself that he was going to do everything within his power to fix his life so he could be in hers. But Jack worried that a woman like Savannah would have her pick of better men than him.
“This all feels so weird. Two nights ago, I would have sworn we’d be leaving hand in hand today.”
He put his hand on her cheek, and she pressed her face into it. “You took a broken man, and in a few short days, you opened his eyes to what he was missing. You deserve so much more. You deserve a man who is whole.”
Savannah moved away from his hand. “People always think they know what other people deserve, and I’m so sick of it. What does it even mean to say that I deserve someone who’s not broken? Hell, maybe I’m broken. Have you ever thought of that?”
Jack smiled, though he didn’t mean to. He could tell from the way Savannah’s lips pinched tightly shut that she didn’t appreciate it, but she was goddamn beautiful when she was fired up.
“You’re not broken, Savannah. You’re hurt. There’s a big difference. You’re a smart, strong woman with a solid career and probably better things to spend your time on than worrying about my baggage.” He searched her eyes for understanding, but what he saw was anger and hurt. “Savannah—”
“You know what, Jack? Maybe you’re right.” She blinked away the dampness from her eyes and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll miss you, too.” Savannah picked up her bags and walked away.
Jack’s stomach twisted. She glanced back, and he raised his chin and tried to smile, unable to pull himself together enough to even manage a proper wave. She disappeared behind the terminal doors, and Jack let out the breath he’d been holding. He grabbed his gear and headed for the terminal, wondering if he was strong enough to face the life he’d abandoned.
Chapter Seventeen
SAVANNAH CLIMBED INTO a cab and gave her address to the driver. She stared out the window, thinking about how arrogant and cold Jack had been when they’d first seen each other at the airport and how she’d been turned on by everything about him. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. What am I doing? I went from a man who wants every woman on earth to a man who’s afraid of what wanting a woman does to him.
Savannah pulled out her cell phone and turned it on. Messages began flooding in. What had she been thinking? She usually couldn't go a day without checking messages, much less several. She was sure her voicemail would be full, and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with clients. She had another attorney covering for her, and he’d just have to cover for her a little longer. She needed a good, strong dose of sanity. She pushed her father’s speed-dial number.
“Savannah, how are you, darlin’?”
Hearing her father’s deep voice thickened the lump in her throat, and all of a sudden she was a little girl again, climbing onto his lap when someone at school had hurt her feelings. Hal Braden was six foot six, like her eldest brother Treat, and he was the epitome of a broad-chested aging cowboy: rugged, leather-skinned, and big-hearted. He was just what she needed.
“Hi, Dad,” she managed. “How are you?”
“Oh, doing fine, I suppose. We had two mares born, and Rex has been taking good care of them. Got buyers already.” Hal Braden was an affluent thoroughbred horse breeder, and although Savannah and each of her siblings had large enough trust funds that would allow for them to not work a day in their lives, he’d brought them up to work hard and to love with their whole hearts. Savannah wished she hadn’t taken the latter so seriously.
She smiled at the mention of her older brother Rex. Jack reminded her so much of Rex that she wondered if she should have called him instead of her father. He might be able to enlighten her on the ways of angry men.
“Enough about me. How’s my girl?” her father asked.
Forget Rex. Calling Dad was definitely the right move. She needed his familiar, caring voice to wrap around her in a virtual embrace.
“Good, Dad. I’m good.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she pressed her finger and thumb to them. “I…uh…I’m just getting back in town from that survivalist training camp I told you about.”
“Run by Jack Remington?”
“Oh God, Dad. How’d you know?” Savannah said.
“Treat did some research on the guy.”
The Braden grapevine travels swiftly once again.
Savannah watched the busy streets of New York as they drove toward her Manhattan apartment. Of course he did. “I’m a big girl, Dad. I don’t really need Treat tracking me down.”
“He wasn’t tracking you down. He was making sure you weren’t going into the mountains with a crazy man. He said anyone can put anything on the interweb. Besides, Treat’s always going to be Treat.”
Savannah sighed. “Internet, not interweb.” As the eldest, Treat had always taken care of and protected Savannah and her siblings. She shouldn’t be surprised or bothered by Treat following up on her trip, but she intended to give him hell just the same. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and she didn’t need other people deciding what was good or bad for her. Why couldn’t they see that she didn’t need protecting? Only my heart does.
“Interwhatever. This Remington guy, did he treat you all right? Your brother said he’s got a strong military background, no history of reprimands, solid pilot’s license.”
“Dad, he was fine. Really.” Why am I so annoyed? Treat’s always been overpro
tective.
“All right. It’s good that you made it out of the woods okay. Did you learn anything?” he asked.
She mulled over the honest answers she could give. That I love bad boys. That I now understand why women allow men to enter them in places I never understood before. That I’m weaker than I thought. That I want to run back to the woods and find Jack. Instead she gave him a safer, and still honest, answer.
“Yes, all the things I needed to know. I can now build a shelter, tie knots, and recognize plants that could kill me.” If only I could recognize the men who would be a danger to my heart before they actually did any damage.
“Well, I’m not sure why you need all of that in New York, but I guess you know best,” her father said.
Her father was always careful about supporting the things they did. Right then, she needed support of a different kind. “Dad, I’m a pretty strong person, right?”
“Other than your mother, you’re the strongest woman I think I’ve ever known, Savannah. Is there something on your mind?”
She pictured him leaning against the kitchen counter, his long legs angled out from his body, his thick eyebrows drawn together as he waited for her to lay her problems out before him. What am I doing? She couldn’t run to Daddy when things got tough. That alone would prove that she wasn’t strong or confident.
“No, Dad. I was just checking.”
“All right, but if you need me, you know where to reach me. You gonna make it to Hugh’s award ceremony?”
Hugh was always winning one award or another. They’d all head out to wherever the event was being held, and Hugh would flash a smile, dole out hugs, and inevitably get swept away by some leggy woman they’d never see again. She smiled. Hugh’s every woman’s dream come true—the face of Patrick Dempsey on Hugh Jackman’s body and with a love of all things risky. Regardless of how much she loved Hugh, all she could think was that he probably left a trail of broken hearts in his wake just like the men she needed to avoid.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she answered. “Good to talk to you, Dad.”
“Vanny?”
“Yeah?”
“You can learn all the fancy skills you feel you need, but the strength and ability to survive comes from within. You just remember that, darlin’. And you’re a survivor. There ain’t nothing this world can hand you that you cannot endure.”
The tears she’d been holding back sprang free. I hope you’re right.
JACK’S VINTAGE INDIAN Chief motorcycle snaked swiftly up the long gravel driveway of the Bedford Corners home that he and Linda had shared. Jack leaned into the curves that used to bring him such comfort. Now, riding beneath the canopy of trees that arced overhead felt strange, and the air beneath, oddly cold.
He parked his bike in front of his cedar-sided chalet and placed his helmet on the back. After Linda had died, he’d holed up inside for days, wallowing in guilt and hiding from both of their families, until seeing her ghost in every photograph and reliving the memories they’d shared drove him into darkness and he’d escaped to the mountains. He walked past a wooden rocker as he climbed the porch steps, remembering the day he and Linda had purchased it from a man who looked like Grizzly Adams at a farmer’s market on the outskirts of town. Jack unlocked the heavy wooden door. When he stepped inside, it wasn’t the cooler temperature that had him rooted to the floor of the open living space. It was the emptiness that came with it. The way a room felt when it had been uninhabited for too long. Stale. Lonely. Dead. Like a garden after the vegetables and leaves had withered away and all that was left were the brittle stalks.
Jack forced himself to step inside. He blew out a breath and closed the door behind him. He looked down at the wide slats of wood beneath his feet and followed their lines to the sunken living room tucked just beyond the dining room table to his right. The stone fireplace that once crackled with warmth now stood barren before the rich blue couches. He managed a few steps in that direction and felt the kitchen looming to his left. Linda had been a talented cook, and as he turned to look at the stainless-steel stove, he pictured her wide smile as she’d leaned over multiple pots atop the stove, her hips moving to imaginary music. He could almost feel her eyes lifting from a pot and catching his, could envision the tilt of her head and her blond hair spilling into her eyes as she blew him a kiss. His heartbeat sped up, and he turned his body fully in that direction.
Jesus, Jack. Get a grip. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the image was gone. He pushed through the tightening in his chest and his racing heart and forced himself to move past the kitchen to the staircase.
His legs felt like lead as he took each step up the open slatted staircase. At the landing at the top, two bedroom doors remained closed. He hadn’t been in them for months. He turned, his muscles trying to spur him into a hasty retreat, but his mind brought him back to Savannah and he fisted his hands, then spun back around with a growl.
“I’m not turning back.” He lowered his eyes and stormed to the first bedroom door, grabbing the cold metal handle and turning it fast and hard, then thrusting the door open. He stormed into the master bedroom, and anger boiled in his veins. Savannah’s voice sifted through his mind. Too bad you can’t live in the past, Jack. Heat spread up his neck and cheeks. He threw open the double closet doors. His chest expanded with every breath. Two years he’d lived with the strangling guilt and self-loathing. Two long fucking years. He reached into the closet and grabbed a fistful of Linda’s clothes, then yanked them from the hangers and threw them on the floor at his feet. His arms shook at the sight of them.
He reached in again, and his large hand grasped three outfits and tore them out of the closet with a loud snap as the hangers broke with the force of the pull. Adrenaline surged him forward, and he used both hands to rip the clothes out of the closet—and out of his life.
“Fucking Linda. Fucking storm.” Handful after handful of her clothes piled around his feet. He reached deep into the back of the closet and grabbed a white garment bag. Tears filled his eyes as he stepped forward and buried his face in the white plastic garment bag that held his wife’s wedding gown. His shoulders rounded forward as pain stewed is his gut, then traveled to his chest, where it swirled and gained strength before finding its release through his swollen throat, filling the room as an indiscernible, tortured wail. He gasped for breath, his chest convulsing with sobs. His biceps strained against his sleeves, shaking as he tore the plastic garment bag from its hanger and collapsed to his knees, burying his face in the cold plastic, his tears pooling against his skin.
It ends here. It has to end here.
Chapter Eighteen
TWO HOURS LATER, Jack carried several green Hefty bags full of Linda’s clothes out of the house and dropped them on the front porch. He circled back up the stairs and stood in the middle of the master bedroom. The mattress lay bare as bones, stripped of its sheets and comforter; the empty dresser drawers hung open and cockeyed. The closet doors were open wide, exposing the first space he’d conquered. He wiped his face with the crook of his elbow and drew in a loud breath. His eyes burned from the tears that had already fallen, and as he left the room and approached the other door off of the hall, he thought he didn’t have any tears left to shed.
He grabbed the knob and turned it slowly. His arms would not fling the door open. No matter how hard he tried, his muscles fought against his mind. The veins in his forearms snaked beneath his skin, thick and blue. He groaned and turned away, burying his hand in his hair and bending over as he spat, “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Several fast breaths later, he turned and faced the door again. He couldn’t bring himself to turn the doorknob. He clenched his fists and raised his powerful leg. One fierce kick broke the door free from its hinges, splintering around the lock. The next sent it slamming to the floor. Jack stormed into the room, his eyes locked on the crib beneath the window. He hulked across the floor and gripped the railing, fresh tears streaming down his face. He dropped his eyes to
the stuffed elephant in the corner of the crib and reached for it, then brought it to his chest as he lowered himself into the rocking chair in the corner of the room, clutching the stuffed toy as the memories rushed in again. Let’s get the nursery ready just to get in the mind-set of having a baby around. I’ll buy baby clothes and everything. She’d been so excited the month they’d put together the nursery. He’ll have your eyes, Jack. And your height. I hope he has your height. He brought the elephant to his face and pressed it against his cheek. What if it’s a girl? She’ll be as beautiful as you, he’d said to Linda. Let’s start trying Monday. It’s the first of the month. A great time to start! Oh, Jack, I’m so excited. Linda was a planner, always had been. The idea of trying to get pregnant and having a “start” date fit right into her organized and efficient lifestyle. Neither of them could have known that she wouldn’t make it through the weekend. He crushed the elephant between both hands and allowed his body to feel every soulful tear, every wrench of his heart, every kick in the gut of saying goodbye to the child they’d never even had the chance to try to conceive.
A STREAK OF light sliced through the window and moved slowly across the hardwood floor of the nursery. Jack’s tears had dried hours ago, but he hadn’t been able to move from his perch in the rocker. His throat was dry, and his chest ached. He rose to his feet, moving slowly as he opened the closet doors. He took the baby clothes from the hangers carefully, folding each little outfit and placing it inside the crib; then he took that pile of unworn clothes and moved robotically down the stairs, feeling defeated and relieved at once. It’s time. I’ve hidden long enough.
With the baby clothes packed neatly in a grocery bag, he set them on the front porch. He locked the door, then leaned against it and slid down to the floor, contemplating his next move. He’d been thinking about it all afternoon. There was only one thing he could do with Linda’s clothes, and it would require reaching out and mending a fence. He needed to call Linda’s sister, Elise, and give her Linda’s clothes, and the idea of making the call seemed impossible.
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