Bursting With Love

by Melissa Foster

  “Well, that’s good, because I have a few more things for you. They’re not as exciting, but I think you’ll appreciate them.” He handed her a bag, and Savannah withdrew the contents.

  “Toilet paper? Body wipes? Flannel pajamas? A bathrobe. Indoor-outdoor slippers? Are you trying to tell me something?”

  Jack smiled. “Only that I love you. I know how you hate going to the bathroom in the woods, and you can’t always shower in the stream. If you’re going to come on any survival weekends with me, I want you to be comfortable. The toilet paper and wipes are biodegradable, and the bathrobe is in case you do decide to take a dip in the stream. It’ll keep you warm afterward. And these…” He held up the pajamas and slippers. “Are for when you get cold at night. Although you’ll be in my tent, and I plan on keeping you very, very warm.”

  The seduction in his voice and the hungry look in his eyes drew her lips to his.

  “You’re so thoughtful. I love everything. Thank you.”

  Jack kissed her again. “After Siena and my mother left, I had time to do some thinking.”

  Savannah’s pulse sped up at the mix of sensuality in his eyes and the seriousness in his voice. Before she could decipher what it might mean, there was a knock at the door.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Jack asked.

  Savannah went to answer it. “No.” She looked through the peephole. “I don’t know who it is. A man.”

  In a few quick steps, Jack was between Savannah and the door. He pulled it open, and Savannah saw his body stiffen. She peered around him, and the resemblance between the two men was undeniable. The same dark eyes, the same high cheekbones, the same broad chest.

  “HELLO, JACK.”

  His father stood before him in a gray suit and tie, and for a breath, Jack’s world stood still. “Dad,” was all he could say. How did you find me? Why are you here? He felt Savannah’s hand on his lower back, and he stood between the two of them. His father could hurt him with his harsh stares and whatever else he had in store, but he wouldn’t allow any of that nonsense toward Savannah. He put his arm around her and, feeling torn between pride for his strong, war-hero father and remembering how much it had hurt the evening before when he hadn’t accepted his apology, Jack raised his chin and did the only thing he could—he showed Savannah that despite what might happen in the next ten minutes, he was proud of her and proud of himself.

  “This is my girlfriend, Savannah. Savannah, this is my father, James Remington.”

  Savannah’s trusting eyes smiled at his father. James shook her hand and smiled, and Jack felt a pang of hope—and tried not to let it carry him away. After what his mother had told him, he knew this was not going to be an easy fence to mend.

  “Nice to meet you, Savannah. Please excuse the interruption into your evening. My daughter gave me your address, and while I should have called first, I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should have been.”

  His father had always exhibited good manners, which, Jack realized, was one reason he was so struck by the way he’d treated him the previous night.

  “Don’t be silly. You’re welcome here anytime. Come in, please.” She stepped back and allowed him to pass.

  Savannah touched Jack’s hand, but he was busy trying to figure out how to politely take whatever conversation was about to happen out of earshot from Savannah to respond. She slid her hand up his arm and squeezed his forearm.

  “I’ll just take my things back to the bedroom and give you some privacy,” she said.

  Jack watched her gather her things. He couldn’t find his voice to say thank you, but as Savannah touched his cheek on the way to the bedroom and her green eyes reassured him, he knew he didn’t have to.

  “Would you like to sit down?” he asked his father. Jack’s nerves were tangled in knots. He’d promised his mother not to reveal what she’d shared with him, and he knew his father never would. Which left him wondering what the hell could possibly be done to bridge the gap between them—something he wanted more than almost anything else at that moment. The thing he wanted most was to move forward with Savannah, but no matter how contentious things had become between them, his father owned a hunk of his heart that would never belong to anyone else, and Jack wanted to move forward with his new life with a whole, fulfilled heart.

  He followed his father to the couch, then opted for a chair instead so he could look him in the eye.

  “Your mother doesn’t know I’m here, so before we talk, I’d like to ask that you don’t tell her I came.” His father rubbed his hands together, then settled them in his lap.

  Jack had never seen his father act any other way than in complete control, and now, watching his hands unclasp and rub the thighs of his slacks and his eyes dart around the room, he saw a different man emerging, and Jack wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “Okay.” Breathe. Just breathe.

  “Son, I’m not here to berate you, so you can put your shoulders back down where they belong.”

  Despite his nerves, Jack breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Ever since you were a boy, you wore your emotions on your sleeve. I recognize the tension in your body and the worry in your eyes, and I’m sorry that seeing me instills such a reaction. But I think maybe it always has.”

  “No, Dad—”

  His father raised his hand. “Please. If there’s one thing I know, it’s truth. And I’m well aware of the choices I’ve made in life. Jack, when you were born, my entire life changed. The minute I held you in my arms, the responsibility that pressed in on me was all-consuming.” His stare softened as he continued. “Your mother handled it differently, though she was equally, if not more, enamored by you and amazed by the magnitude of responsibility that comes along with having a child. She believed that we needed to love and support everything you did, even if it was, for lack of a better word, stupid.”

  Jack looked away. That crack cut him to the bone. I wasn’t stupid for missing Linda.

  “You know how hard your mother works on her sculptures and paintings, and I know you remember her toiling in the garden for hours so our family could eat organic vegetables, of all things. But you may not remember the day you thought you’d make your own sculpture while she was off taking a shower or something. You gathered all of the vegetables—every last one of them—and you brought them into her studio and used pounds and pounds of clay to create a garden sculpture. It was one big gloppy mess of clay with vegetables stuck haphazardly throughout. Your mother had a gallery deadline to meet at the time, and of course it was a Sunday evening, so getting her hands on more clay before the next morning wasn’t even an option. Being the resourceful kid that you were, you washed up and never said a word until she was putting you to bed hours later. Do you remember how she used to say good night and then she’d toil away in her studio for hours while I was on kid duty?”

  Jack vaguely remembered something about her garden and clay, but he couldn’t reconcile the story—or his father taking over their care—to any concrete memory. He shook his head.

  “No. I guess you wouldn’t. When your mother came back inside, she didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. The light in her eyes was gone. When I saw what you had done, I was livid. I knew your mother was devastated to have lost the clay she relied on, and I knew the idea of her hard work in the garden being for naught was even worse, because she’d grown them for us. For you kids. I laid into you, Jack. As I believed I should. I told you how irresponsible you were being, and I made you work for the next month doing anything your mother asked—in the garden and in her studio.”

  Jack shook his head. “Dad, I don’t even remember that.”

  “Maybe not, but I remember every second of it. You said you hated me, and I thought”—he raised his eyebrows and smiled—“that’s okay, because you’ll learn from it and it’ll make you a better, more responsible man.”

  “Dad, how does this have anything to do with what’s going on now?” Jack leaned forward, trying to understand.


  “Because I remember that like it was yesterday. And I did more of that, pushing, instilling harshness upon you, trying to strengthen your resolve and make you understand the importance of being a responsible man. Jack, you were my first child. I had no experiences to fall back on or learn from. I know now that kids do silly things all the time, and I know you didn’t make that sculpture out of anything other than a child’s curiosity or wanting to do something you thought your mother might be proud of, and I’m sorry for pushing you so hard.” He looked away and clenched his jaw, and when he looked back, his eyes were damp. He blinked away the dampness, and Jack lowered his eyes, ashamed to see his father as a weaker man. No. He raised his eyes and met his father gaze. You’re not weak at all. You’re human.

  “Jack, when you turned your back on your family and on everyone, I took that as a personal affront. I saw it as my fault, because I taught you how to be a man. And the only way I could diffuse my own guilt was to thrust that guilt back on you.”

  Jack swallowed past the growing lump in his throat. He sat back and clutched the armrests of the chair, not out of anger, but as a way to gain control of the emotions that were seeping out of his heart and swelling his chest, working their way out of every pore of his body and threatening to tear him apart.

  “You’re more of a man than I could ever be, Jackson, and I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry for how I treated you and for how I raised you. I’m ashamed of the way I thrust on you the things my father thrust on me.”

  All the air in the room dissipated. Jack could only stare at the man he’d looked up to and disliked all at once. He couldn’t think about the words he’d said or the way his eyes reached for forgiveness. He could only rise to his feet, cross the floor, and embrace him. His father’s large hand pressed against his back, and at that very second, Jack was sure he heard his mother’s voice whispering, He’s a good man, Jack. Just like you.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  SAVANNAH PACED THE bedroom floor, dying to know what was going on out in the living room. She hadn’t heard any yelling and assumed that had to be a good sign. She jumped to her feet when the bedroom door cracked open.

  “Hi, angel,” Jack whispered.

  The concerned look on Jack’s face and the way every muscle in his body tightened had her thinking the worst. She ran into his arms. “Are you okay? You’re shaking. What happened?”

  “I’ll explain it all tonight, but first, there’s something I want to do. Would you be okay if we stayed at my house tonight?”

  “Your house? What about—” Her mind spun in fifteen directions, and she couldn’t hold on to any coherent thoughts.

  He pressed his finger to her lips. “Please?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Jack, I’m happy to do anything you need or want.” She pulled a bag from her closet and began packing clothes for the night.

  “There’s something I need to do, and I want you and my father there.”

  Savannah stilled. “Is your dad still here?”

  Jack nodded. “He’s going to follow us out.”

  “Jack, you’re worrying me. What’s going on?” She tried to read his expression, but it hovered someplace between happy and scared, and again, she felt lost.

  “We’re moving forward.”

  Chapter Forty

  THEY’D BEEN DRIVING for more than an hour, and Savannah had been a good sport about riding on his motorcycle, though he’d have liked to have had a safer vehicle to share with her. Just another thing on my “New Life List.” He was thankful for the motorcycle on one level, though. He’d had enough time to think on the way over to know he was doing the right thing, and he hoped that Savannah would think so, too.

  He glanced in his rearview mirror and spied his father’s Lincoln a safe distance behind. He patted the zipped pocket of his jacket and felt the package he’d purchased earlier in the afternoon. He finally felt almost whole again—almost.

  Jack drove in the back way to his house, descending the steep hill toward his driveway. He pulled the motorcycle over where the pavement dipped to the left, exactly eighty-seven paces from his property line, and he parked in the grass. His father parked behind him, and while Jack helped Savannah off of the bike and set their helmets down, Jack tried not to concentrate on the blood rushing through his ears or the adrenaline pumping through his veins, causing his pulse to race.

  “Jack, where are we?”

  Savannah looked around, and Jack knew she couldn’t see the hidden driveway, and she wouldn’t think anything of the gaping emptiness in the otherwise overgrown woods across from them. She couldn’t see the flashing lights or feel the burn of the flames as he’d rushed over the edge two years earlier. Savannah couldn’t smell the pungent smell of burning oil and rubber, and—as Jack rubbed the back of his arm—he knew her heart wasn’t racing as his was, just as it had been the night of the accident, when he’d sped down the driveway after hearing an earth-shattering crash amid the thunder of the raging storm. She wouldn’t have to squint to see through the driving rain, as he had, and she wouldn’t feel the thick metal carving a path through his arm—almost to the bone—as he tried to free Linda’s lifeless body from the car. Savannah would never know that less than sixty seconds after he dragged her away from the burning car, he covered her body with his own, shielding her from the explosion. He rubbed the thick, rough scar, feeling the pain anew. She would not feel the searing heat as debris blew into his back, and she would never know the torture of the exact moment Jack realized that even with his body pressed against Linda’s, he couldn’t feel her heartbeat. And there was absolutely no way that she’d ever put the pieces together and realize that in that blink of an eye, his heart had stopped beating too—until he’d met Savannah.

  He looked at Savannah’s trusting eyes and folded her into his arms. Her heart beat strong and true against his. Hopefully, what Savannah would know tonight was that Jack said goodbye to Linda—and his past—for good. He hoped she’d remember that tonight he promised his future to her and her alone, and that all the anger and all the guilt she’d helped him heal from and all the energy that he’d poured into holding on to the hurt would now be redirected. And every moment of every day he’d show her the man he was always meant to be. Her man.

  “Son?”

  Jack held Savannah’s hand as he turned to face his father, and for the first time in two years, there was no fight left in his father’s eyes, either. The guilt that had once swallowed Jack was now a shadow, fading a little more with each passing breath.

  “Thanks for coming, Dad.” Flanked by Savannah and his father, he led them across the street. Jack reached for his father’s hand and felt it stiffen, then relax and, finally, embrace his large hand. Savannah held tight to his other hand. A million unanswered questions hung in her eyes.

  “Savannah, this is where the accident occurred. The break in the woods is where Linda’s car spun out of control and flipped, landing upside down atop a number of trees that crumbled against the crushing impact of her car.”

  Savannah wrapped her arms around his left arm and kissed his muscle, then rested her cheek against him. Jack drew strength from her love.

  She slid her hand up the back of his shirt and over his scars, and when she looked up at him, he saw the question in her eyes.

  He nodded, and knew she understood where his scars had come from, or at least that they happened that night, and that was enough. He loved that she didn’t push him for more. He would have told her whatever she wanted to know, but he would rather spare her the pain of knowing what he’d gone through.

  “Dad, I thought you might need this final goodbye as much as I did.” He had no reason to believe that his father would know that he was giving him an open invitation to leave his past behind, too. All he could do was hope that he would take the opportunity to let it go.

  Jack took a deep breath and closed his eyes, recalling every image of the night of the accident as if it were unfolding before him anew. He knew that he would
never forget what had happened or the agony that followed, and he wasn’t trying to. He needed to see it one last time before releasing the hold it had over him and leaving it behind for good, so that when he walked away with the man who raised him and the woman he adored, he would be whole, without the weight of a ghost around his shoulders.

  He opened his eyes and squeezed Savannah’s hand. “It’s time to say goodbye once and for all. It took me a long time to believe this, and with Savannah’s help, I can now see clearly what you, Dad, and everyone else who loves me, was trying to tell me all along. Linda’s death was not my fault.”

  He felt his father’s large hand on his shoulder.

  “That’s right, son. Leave it all behind.”

  Jack nodded, hoping his father was doing the same. He turned and stood eye to eye, man to man, and for the first time in his life, truly felt like his father’s equal. “Dad, I think you can leave the guilt of your past here, too.” He knew his father would interpret his words to be related to the conversation they’d had at the apartment, and that was good enough for him. His father had carried more burdens than any man he knew, for too many years, and just because he didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve didn’t mean they didn’t exist. He hugged his father and whispered against his rough cheek, “Let it go, Dad. I love you.”

  Savannah was as selfless as ever, offering him support and strength while giving him the grace of silence to say his goodbyes. When the air around them lightened and Jack felt the oppression of the past ease, he said, “Dad, I needed you here with me.” He covered his heart with his hand. “Thank you. I think I’m okay now.”

  His father nodded.

  “Please go see Mom and tell her that we’re okay. She’s been so worried.”

  His father didn’t utter a word. He pulled Jack into another hug, tighter than before; then he put his hands on Jack’s cheeks and kissed his forehead. His paternal touch infused Jack with so much love that he could not hold back the tears that streamed from his eyes, and he didn’t want to. Jack was finally ready to feel everything life had to offer.