Page 52 of Bursting With Love
“You don’t sugarcoat things, do you?” Savannah looked at Danica, and she still had a serious look in her eyes. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s funny, you know? I’m with Blake, who had too many women for any one man, and here you are with the opposite problem, but the worry is the same. Savannah, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this even though I don’t really know your full history or what you’ve gone through in relationships. And I’m going to say this as the woman who married into your family. Not as a therapist but as a friend. I would imagine that the only thing you’re up against as far as picking the wrong guys goes is that you are very successful and beautiful, and that’s a threatening combination for many men. But beyond that, you’re just looking for your forever love, so follow your heart. If Jack turns out not to be ready—and there’s a hell of a chance that he’s not—then what have you lost?”
My heart. “A little self-respect.” Her cheeks grew warm again thinking about the things she and Jack had done in the woods. “I’ve already done more—and different—intimate things with him than I have with any other guy, and I wanted to.”
A smile stretched across Danica’s lips. She leaned in close and whispered, “That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. That means you’re wildly attracted to him.”
Danica watched Blake crossing the grass, and in her eyes Savannah saw love, want, and a hint of the intimacy between them. She wondered if the look that Treat had seen in her eyes earlier that afternoon, and Josh and Riley had seen when she’d listened to Jack’s message, was similar to what she saw in Danica’s. She felt her cell phone in her pocket, and she knew the answer was only a phone call away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE KNOCK WAS so faint that Jack almost didn’t hear it. He lifted his head from his arms and pushed himself from the spot on the floor where he’d been sitting since he hung up the phone with Elise. The second he opened the door, there would be no turning back. Jack tried to picture Linda’s sister. The last time he’d seen her was shortly after Linda’s accident. She’d been as torn up as Jack was. He took a deep breath and pulled the door open.
“Jack.” Elise walked in without giving Jack time to react, and she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face to his chest.
Jack’s breath caught in his throat. She was more than a foot shorter than Jack, and she’d always worn her hair in a short pixie cut, but now her blond hair fell past her shoulders, so similar to Linda’s that when his hand brushed against it, he had to swallow the sadness that rose. She drew away from him and shook her head. Her warm blue eyes held no anger or blame, and the smile on her lips offered Jack even more relief. He felt the tension in his shoulders ease.
“Hi, Elise,” he managed, closing the door behind her. “Come in. Let’s sit down.” Elise and Linda had been as close as sisters could get. She was twenty-eight when Linda died, and Jack remembered the devastation that had lingered in her eyes afterward—and how that devastation drove his guilt deeper and deeper into his psyche. Now that despair was evident only in the shadow that flickered in her eyes and left as quickly as it had appeared. Jack thought he might be the only person who would recognize it for what it was.
They sat on the sofa, facing each other, Elise with one leg tucked under the other and her arm across the back of the couch and Jack with his elbows leaning on his thighs. His heart felt heavier than it had a few moments before, and although he didn’t see blame in Elise’s gaze, his internal guilt tethered his eyes to the fireplace.
“Jack, I’m so glad to see you.” Elise touched his arm.
He turned his head and looked at her, praying he’d have the strength to say and do the things he needed to. He wanted to move forward, but suddenly the road between wanting and doing seemed paved with glass.
He forced a smile. “I never thought I’d see any of the Grays again, and here you are, sitting on my couch.”
Elise’s smile wasn’t forced, and when it lit up her eyes, Jack sat up, taking note of the similarities between her and Linda. The high cheekbones, the way a dimple formed beside her cheek when the smile reached a certain point, and a simple cock of her head, which brought Linda’s voice back to him, Oh, Jackie, don’t be silly. How many times had she said that with the same look in her eyes?
Elise dropped her gaze. “I know, Jack. I look just like her. I always have, but now that my hair is longer…”
