Guilty Needs(11)

The sight of the jug had him frowning. It was the same kind of water that Bree took with her while she worked. He glanced out the window toward the gardens.

They were pristine. Perfect. They looked better now than they had the entire time he had lived here and that was what clued him in. One look at the blooming flowers and carefully cultivated shrubs and trees, and Colby knew why the house looked so damn good. Why there wasn’t any dust, why the house was clean, the grass was cut and the mail wasn’t piled up to the ceiling and back.

Bree had been taking care of everything.

Everything—well, maybe not everything. She couldn’t be paying the bills. But he realized, less than ten minutes later, that she had been doing that too.

Not just taking care of the house, the mail, the gardens. She’d taken up accounting too. Skimming his accounts, he saw that regular mortgage and utility payments had all been set up to automatic payments and his royalty checks were being deposited into his account. Bree was the only person who could be doing it. He couldn’t think of another soul who would take care of the landscaping, the house…and his bills. Not to mention that there were only two people who had a key to his house—Bree and Callie Watkins, the lady who came in a couple of times a month to clean. And he couldn’t quite see Callie doing all of this.

Something heavy weighed on his chest. Shit. Yet another reason to talk with her. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he couldn’t avoid it.

He really didn’t want to see her or talk to her.

Not all of it had to do with the fact that seeing her was going to rub salt into open wounds. He could deal with reminders of Alyssa. Hell, sometimes he went out of his way to find things that reminded him of his dead wife.

What he had a harder time dealing with were all the guilty needs that punched through him on the rare occasion that he let himself think about Bree.

With the anniversary of Alyssa’s death coming up in less than a week, he definitely didn’t need his mental mess about Bree raining down on him.

But apparently fate had other plans.

He heard the truck coming just a little while later as he sat in his office going through his accounts. The records were meticulous, notes made in a neat ledger about each deposit, listing the amount, the payer and the date deposited. The checks had been from his two publishers and the check stubs had been filed accordingly.

Also filed away were several letters, some that had come via postal mail, others that had come through email and all of them were from either his agent or his editors. The last one was dated six months ago. He wondered briefly if they’d given up on him and then he paused to wonder if he even cared. The answer to that was no. At least not now. He didn’t have a story in his head and he had no desire to try forcing one.

He’d finished up the books he had left on his contract a while back. He’d been ready to start discussing a new contract right about the time Alyssa found out she had cancer and he’d hadn’t been able to think about anything other than her at the time. At least he didn’t have to worry about breach of contract.

Colby blew out a breath as the truck headed up the drive, pulling up behind his beat-up old car. He’d sold the Lexus a few months ago when money had been really tight. The clunker in front of the house definitely didn’t seem to fit. Pushing back from the desk, he headed out of the office and saw Bree.

For one second, his heart all but stopped at the sight of her. Tall, her short hair tousled around her pretty face, her body clad in the simple, casual work uniform she wore—a green T-shirt and khaki shorts. Shit, the things that woman could do for clothes. Colby suspected she could wear sackcloth and ashes and he’d still feel his heart stutter in his chest at the sight of her.

Swallowing, he took a deep breath and hoped he could manage to speak around the knot in his throat. Moving closer, he watched her through the windows framing the front door.

Through the glass, he saw her reaction when she caught sight of him.

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened. She slicked her tongue across her lips as she slowed to a stop.

For a moment, neither of them moved and then he made himself take a step forward just as she did the same. She reached the door before he did, but instead of coming inside, she just waited. Frowning, Colby opened the door and stood to the side, studying her. “Since when don’t you just walk in?”

She swallowed. He could see her throat work under the smooth gold of her skin and he had the urge to bend down and press his lips to that soft, smooth skin. Her shoulders moved in a restless shrug. “I dunno.”

He gestured for her to come inside and finally, she did, but he got the impression she really didn’t want to. “You’ve been taking care of things for me.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

He opened his mouth to say something—he didn’t know what—but Bree took off down the hall, leaving him standing there with his jaw hanging open. He jerked it closed with a snap when he realized he was watching the slow, lazy sway of her hips as she headed away. She had a pair of work gloves tucked into her back pocket but nothing could detract from the absolute perfection of that ass.

“When did you get home?”

Forcing himself to uproot his feet, he followed her into the kitchen and watched as she poured herself a glass of water. “An hour ago.”