Written with Regret (The Regret Duet #1)(36)

“Are you expecting someone?” Beth asked.

“Well, I did get an email from a Nigerian prince. Maybe he came to personally deliver my fortune.”

“I’m serious,” she hissed.

“Relax. You’ve lived with a doorman for too long. My neighbors do occasionally stop by sometimes. It’s probably just cranky Jerry. He pops in a few times a week to bring me his recyclables. I tried to explain that all he has to do is put the bin next to the street, but he thinks I have some kind of magic that makes them disappear faster.”

“Why would he think that?”

Walking to the door, I answered over my shoulder, “Because I put his recyclables into my big rolling bin and then hand his back to him empty. If only I could train Nancy and her brood across the street to do the same.”

Just as I suspected when I opened the door, eighty-year-old Jerry Musgrave was standing on the other side, holding a green bin the size of a laundry basket. It was overflowing with various recyclables I’d have to sort later—my least favorite part of our arrangement—but it was the man standing a few feet behind him that made my heart stop.

He was wearing dark jeans, washed out at the thighs, and a gray fitted T-shirt that exposed black ink in the shape of feathers on his left arm, running from his wrist to his elbow. My mouth dried, and my skin flushed. It was seventy-five shades of wrong considering our situation, but I had two eyes and Caven was sexy as hell.

“I brought you the trash,” Jerry announced.

Caven’s stoic, blue gaze captured mine, ensnaring me until I was unable to look away. I frantically tried to get a read on his emotionless face to figure out if he’d come to deliver good news or bad. His scruff was longer than the last time I’d seen him, bordering on the verge of becoming a beard, and his cheeks and his nose were sun-kissed, but those were the only clues he was giving away.

“Would you…uh, like to come in?” I asked Caven.

Jerry’s bin bumped my stomach. “No. Just take this crap so I can get it out of my house. It’s too much. I don’t see why I can’t just put it in the regular bins like everything else.”

On instinct, my hands came up to take the bin from Jerry, but I never tore my eyes off Caven. It was a warm day, but I felt his icy gaze travel down my body head to toe. Of course I was wearing my stupid overalls. Karma would have it no other way.

He could have called. He had my number.

Maybe he’d come to deliver the good news in person.

Or maybe he’d come to witness my agony when he told me he’d never let me see Rosalee again.

“Hurry up,” Jerry chided. “I need my bin back. My sons came over for dinner last night and brought all their spawns. My house looks like it was hit by a tornado. I’ll have at least two more of these for you today.”

Ignoring Jerry, I asked Caven, “Is everything okay?”

“You have a minute to talk?” he replied.

I had approximately the rest of my life to talk to him if he wanted. Luckily, I managed to get out a somewhat casual, “Sure.”

But, first, I had to get rid of Jerry.

Making a mental note to buy him a rolling recycle bin first thing in the morning, I turned the container on its end, dumping plastic bottles, bits of wrappers, and cardboard all over my floor before handing it back to him empty. “I’ll come by and pick up the rest later. Don’t bring it to me. I’ll come get it. Got it?”

He looked thoroughly confused, but when I turned my attention back on Caven, a smile was twitching the corner of his lips.

A smile.

A smile couldn’t be bad, right?

Dear God, please don’t let his smile be a bad thing.

I kicked the trash out of the way as best I could and then plastered on a grin that I hoped didn’t look nearly as nervous as I felt. “Come on in, Caven.”

He stood, patiently waiting until Jerry hobbled down my three brick steps. They exchanged macho chin jerks, and Jerry grumbled something under his breath as he passed that made Caven chuckle.

Oh, sweet baby Jesus, a chuckle had to be good news. No one chuckled right before ruining another person’s hopes and dreams, no matter how funny a crochety old man may be.

I swallowed hard, rolling my thumb and my forefinger together as he made his way up the steps. He stopped directly in front of me, so close that I could smell his cool and crisp cologne, the trail becoming woodsy and warm, purely masculine, just like everything else about Caven Hunt.

And then that magnificent lip twitch of his made an encore. “You still making up for our carbon footprint the other night?”

“I looked it up. Your SUV gets thirteen miles to the gallon. It may take a while.”

He grinned.

I backed up, allowing him space to enter, tripping over an empty milk jug in the process.

“Shit,” I cried as I fell backward.

With the speed of a cheetah—or a father with experience in dealing with a clumsy, accident-prone Banks girl—he caught my arm. My breath hitched and I felt every one of his fingertips branding the inside of my bicep.

Dazed and a tad bit hypnotized, I peered up at him.

God, how I’d dreamed about him over the years.

In those dreams, he’d never been scowling at me or shouting like he had in his backyard. Nor had he been riddled with guilt like he had been at the diner. No. In my dreams, Caven looked at me with tenderness and longing. This was neither of those, but I’d happily accept the gentle amusement he was currently aiming my way.