Page 51 of Bursting With Love
Savannah shook her head. “Boring and no kids. Those were deal breakers for me. But they were nice guys and they were professionals, no other glaring issues.”
“So why do you think you have the issue?”
Savannah took a deep breath. “I stayed with Connor for almost two years. He cheated time and time again, and I kept going back, and now…now I’m interested in a guy who is emotionally available only some of the time. When his past bogs him down, he’s blocked off by a wall so thick I can’t break through.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I thought this was going to be easy. You know, I tell you my trouble and you say, Oh, Savannah, it’s because you’re insecure because your mother wasn’t around to nurture you, or you’re too stubborn for any man to love you. Hell, I don’t know.” She turned away, embarrassed by her inability to even get having an issue right.
“Savannah, I didn’t say you don’t have some issues. We all do. I said I don’t see a pattern with your choices in men. So, this recent guy, is he so blocked off you can’t get through or you won’t make the effort to get through? In other words, are you trying and he’s resisting?”
“Damn it, Danica. This is why I don’t go to therapists. You ask the hard questions that I don’t want to answer.” Savannah was irritated but only with herself.
“Hey, you came to me. We don’t have to talk.” Danica pushed herself to her feet and brushed off her jeans. Savannah reached up and pulled her back down.
“That’s another thing. Don’t therapists have any fight in them? You’d walk away and leave me all conflicted?”
“Sometimes the only way to work things out is to reach deep inside and pull out the muck so you can see a little clearer. If I’m here to dig you out every step of the way, you’ll never want or need to clear the way yourself. God, I really do sound like a therapist. It’s been years since I closed my practice, and here I am spouting off this shit.” Danica laughed.
Savannah watched Riley whisper in Josh’s ear, and again she longed for that closeness. “See, even you don’t like it. But the truth is, I need you to push me.” She loved Danica and she trusted her, and something told her that she needed to reach out with honesty in order to get some answers. “It’s Jack Remington. He’s the one I hooked up with over the weekend, and he’s the one I can’t stop thinking about.”
“And he’s the one whose wife died.” Danica put her hand on Savannah’s arm. “That is a tough one, but unless he’s sleeping with multiple women, there’s no connection to what you experienced with Connor, so it’s still not a pattern.”
“He’s not. Before me, he hadn’t had sex with a woman for two years.” Savannah waited for Danica’s jaw to drop or for her to laugh and say, No really, how long has it been? But Danica didn’t do either of those things. She nodded and drew her eyebrows together.
“Wow, that’s a lot of hurt, and if he really did become as reclusive as Blake said, then he’s probably buried it all beneath some other emotion.”
“Anger,” Savannah admitted. “He is pretty gruff when you first meet him, and he’s riddled with guilt, but not always, and when it falls away, he’s tender and loving, and passionate, and…”
“Does he have angry outbursts? Is he aggressive?” Danica asked.
“No.” Savannah shook her head. “When I first met him, he was just walled off. And he spent a lot of time trying not to look at me. Or talk to me. You know the type. He spoke forcefully no matter what the topic was, one firm tone. No smiles, except when he spoke to the little boy who was there. He actually smiled when he spoke to him.”
“He does sound a little boxed off. How’d you two come together? What changed?”
Savannah leaned back and put her weight on her palms. She crossed her legs at the ankles as she remembered the night she’d seen the bobcat and how scared she’d been. “I went into the woods at night to go to the bathroom, and there was a bobcat that I hadn’t seen. And suddenly Jack was there, rescuing me. Before that there was all this attraction between us, a buildup of sexual energy that was red-hot, but we both had these brick walls up—me because of Connor and him…well, you already know why. And when he saved me from the bobcat, it was like all those walls came tumbling down, whether we wanted them to or not.”
Danica leaned back beside Savannah. “Well, that all sounds very normal to me, not at all worrisome. Now, if you were really the one who pulled him out of his celibacy, then that could go one of two ways. Either there’s some meaningful connection that can’t help but continue to grow, or he’ll deal with his shit and move on. Like you broke the dam, and it was wonderful, but he might want to explore what else washes in.”
