Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(71)

He nodded.

My lips thinned, and I started to flip it open. His hand came up so fast that I never even saw him move.

He clamped the wallet shut. “Don’t do that. Not yet,” he rumbled.

I slid my hand up his chest, curling it at the base of his neck. “Caven, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I accepted that it was gone.”

“Your wallet?”

“No. My mother’s necklace. It was tucked in the front pocket. And I know Hadley, and I know she sold off pretty much anything of value. But now, I’m standing here, staring at that wallet, knowing it’s yet another impossibility but hoping like hell that maybe it’s still in there.”

I pushed up onto my toes and kissed his plump lips. “So maybe we should open it and find out.”

He shook his head. “It’s not going to be in there. There’s no way.”

“But what if it is? Think of how spectacular that would be. You never expected to see that necklace again, right? So if it’s not in there, nothing changes. Rosalee still has the matching one that you had made for her. Keira has the matching baby bracelet you had made for her. And we go on about our lives, knowing that pieces of your mother are living, breathing, and waiting on a diaper change just down the hall. We have everything we need, Caven. Necklace or not. We have everything.”

His blue eyes searched my face for a long second. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

He took the wallet from my hand and sat on the couch, motioning for me to join him.

Together, side by side, we held our breath as he opened the wallet. His driver’s license was still in the front, and a few random credit cards lined the other side. There was a yellow piece of paper folded up in the cash compartment in Hadley’s handwriting that read:

IOU-$167 Damn, cabs are expensive in the city.

Yep. That was Hadley. I laughed as I took it from his hand and traced my finger over her handwriting.

He sucked in a deep breath and looked at me one more time.

“I’m right here, Caven. Always and forever.”

He smiled weakly and then dug his finger into the small pocket. I waited, staring at him, searching for any sign of what, if anything, was inside. But his forehead crinkled as he pulled out another small, folded piece of yellow paper.

My heart sank when I thought it was another IOU, this time for the price of the irreplaceable necklace. But Caven made hurried work of opening it.

A heart-shaped necklace fell out onto the palm of his hand.

I gasped, gripping his forearm.

I waited for the relief and joy to hit him, but as he read the paper, it was a loud laugh that sprang from his throat. He handed me the paper and then immediately got busy untangling the chain.

The note read:

You know who would love a hideous necklace like this? My sister. You saved her life once. So in a way, you saved mine too. Sorry I thanked you by stealing your wallet. I’m complicated. Willow’s not though.



And then, at the bottom, she’d left him my name, my address in Puerto Rico, and my phone number.

She was right. Hadley had been complicated. And I had no idea why she’d left that note because she’d never given Caven his wallet back. Or how it had gotten into a purse I had personally gone through years earlier.

But then again, maybe Caven had been right and everything—even the timing of us finding that necklace—happened for a reason.

Or maybe we had always just been two players in serendipity’s greatest game of all.

Because the smile on my husband’s face as he looped that necklace around my neck was one of the most spectacular things I would ever witness.

“I love you, Willow,” he murmured against my temple.

I sucked in a deep breath and squeezed the heart charm hanging at my throat, relishing in the wonderful life that man had given me. “I love yo—”

“Willow!” Rosie yelled. “Are you coming? She really stinks!”

Yeah. That was our life. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

I laughed, tears of pure happiness filling my eyes.

He kissed me again and then put his fist on his flat palm. “Rock, paper, scissors.”

I grinned and mirrored his position as we both counted off, “One, two, three… Go.”





THE REGRET DUET


THE END