Page 40 of Promise of a New Beginning
The cordless house phone rang, startling him out of his thoughts. Jack carried a cell phone, but he rarely used it, and he never gave out the number. As he listened to the house phone ringing for the third time, he wondered what Elise had forgotten to tell him, or if she was calling just to be sure he really was still there.
“Hello?”
“Jack?”
Before he could stop himself, he gasped a loud breath. “Savannah.” Her voice was so sweet and tentative that he wanted to crawl through the phone and see her beautiful green eyes and wrap her in his arms.
“Hi. I got your message,” she said.
Jack’s eyes darted around the room. He didn’t know what to say. He just knew that he needed to see her, to be with her. “Sorry I rambled.”
“I like rambling. How are you?”
He heard the smile in her voice, and his heart soared. “Good. A little better, even. Savannah, can I see you?” He didn’t mean to be so blunt, or to say it so forcefully, but he had no control when it came to Savannah. Her allure was too strong.
“I thought you had to deal with your life.”
Jack paced. “I am.”
“In a day?”
He pictured her arching her perfectly manicured eyebrows, and it made him smile. “I didn’t say I was healed. I said I was dealing with it. Savannah, I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She lowered her voice to a seductive cadence. “That’s because we did all those dirty things, and it’d been so long since—”
“No, Savannah, it’s not, so you can just stop right there. I’ve never been a guy who gets off on sleeping around, and that part of me hasn’t suddenly changed. There have been plenty of women who tried to bed me. It doesn’t take much to find a person to fool around with if you want to.”
“Tobedyou?” She laughed, but Jack could tell she didn’t think it was funny.
“You’re so frustrating. You know what I mean. There have been opportunities, and if that’s all I was looking for—if I’d beenlookingat all—I’d have hooked up with them, but I wasn’t looking.”
“Are you now, Jack?” Savannah asked.
The question threw him for a loop, and before he could configure an answer, honesty slipped from his lips. “No, I wasn’t looking then and I’m not now. I swear, Savannah. I have no idea why or how you got to me, but you did, and that’s something, isn’t it?”Isn’t it?Or was he so out of touch with his emotions that he didn’t even know what was real anymore?
“I wasn’t looking either, Jack.”
He shook his head and covered his eyes as a different type of tears filled his eyes.What on earth is wrong with me?Jack’s stone-faced facade cracked, and he didn’t know how to handle it. He lowered himself onto a chair, and with a shaky voice, he said, “You weren’t looking, and you called back. I couldn’t stay away. Maybe we were fated to meet.”
“Fated,” Savannah whispered.
“I want to see you.”
Her voice took a seductive turn. “I want to see you, too.”
“Forgive me for being lame, but it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like this.”
“Called a woman?”
“Well, yes, that too, but I was thinking more along the lines of even setting up a date.” Jack sat up straighter. With Savannah, even the most uncomfortable things were easier to handle.
“A date? Like, a Friday-night-date type of thing?”
The idea of waiting that long to see her was torture. “It’s only Tuesday.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Home.” The word resonated in a way that it hadn’t in a very long time. “Bedford Corners.” Jack rose to his feet, and four determined strides later, he had his keys in his hand. “An hour ten away if I go fast.” He stood with his phone in one hand, the keys and the doorknob in the other, while he waited for her answer.
