of a previous break. That was when he heard the bolt click and the safety chain slide into place.
For another moment, he was too stunned even to think, but then he began to replay the last few minutes in his mind, and gradually realization came to him. He slapped both hands to his cheeks. Good grief! She hadn’t invited him in; he’d just followed her like some lost puppy, right into her home! Her home, not his, not any longer. No wonder she’d freaked! He dropped his hands.
“Oh, hey,” he said to the door, feeling more and more like an idiot. “I—I didn’t mean to alarm you. I would never…that is, I—I used to live here,” he finished lamely.
She, of course, said nothing.
He closed his eyes, muttering, “Way to go, Cutler. Way to go. Probably scared the daylights out of her.”
Shifting closer, he tried to pitch his voice through the door without really raising it; he knew too well how thin the walls were around here. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
He waited several seconds, but there might have been a brick wall behind that door rather than a living, breathing woman. Actually, he had no idea if she was even still in the vicinity. She might have been cowering in the farthest corner of the room, though he couldn’t quite picture her doing so.
No, a woman like that wouldn’t be cowering. More likely she was standing there with a baseball bat ready to bash in his head if he so much as turned the doorknob. Clearly, a prudent man would retreat.
Despite recent evidence, Vince Cutler was a prudent man.
He turned and walked swiftly along the landing, then quickly took the stairs and swung around the end of the railing toward his truck. A certain amount of embarrassment mixed with chagrin dogged him as he once more climbed behind the wheel, his errand an obvious bust. Yet, a smile kept tweaking the corners of his mouth as he thought about the woman upstairs.
She was all dark gold, that woman, dark gold and vinegar. Spunky, that’s what she was. He recalled that the top of her head had come right to the tip of his nose. Considering that he stood an even six feet in his socks, she had to be five-seven or eight, which would explain those long legs. It occurred to him suddenly that he didn’t even know her name; that, more than anything else, just seemed all wrong.
As he turned the big truck back onto the street, he also turned his mind to mending fences. She still had his mail, after all, and he couldn’t let things lie as they were. Good manners, if nothing else, decreed it. The question was how to approach her again. Frowning, he immediately sought solutions in the only manner he knew.
“Lord, I don’t know what happened to my good sense. I scared that girl. Please don’t let her sit there afraid that I’d hurt her. The whole thing was my fault, and if You’ll just show me how, I’ll try to make up for it.”
Just then he drove by a minivan with the tailgate raised. It was parked in an empty lot and surrounded by hand-lettered signs touting Tyler roses, buckets of which were sitting on its back deck. A strange, unexpected thought popped into his head, one so foreign and seemingly out of nowhere that it startled him, and then he began to laugh.
That’s what happened when you relied on God to lead you. As his daddy would say, when you ask God for guidance, you’d better get out of the way quick. Now all he had to do was pick his time and his words very carefully. That was to say, very prayerfully.
Vince polished the toe of one boot on the back of the opposite pants leg, not a work boot this time but full-quill ostrich, one half of his best pair of cowboy boots. Armed to the teeth with two dozen bright red rosebuds, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and rapped sharply on the door. He counted to six before the door opened this time.
Green eyes flew wide, but he thrust flowers and words at her before he could find himself facing that door again.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t meant to frighten you or seem disrespectful.” When she didn’t immediately slam the door in his face, he hurried on. “I guess I just lived here so long that it seemed perfectly natural to walk inside. I didn’t think how inappropriate it was or how it would seem to you.” She frowned and folded her arms, giving her head a leonine toss. He found himself smiling. “Honest. I feel like a dunce.”
“You’re grinning like one,” she retorted, and then she sniffed.
His smile died, not because she’d insulted him—he didn’t take that seriously—but because she’d obviously been crying.
“Oh, hey,” he said, feeling like a real heel. “You okay?”
She swiped jerkily at her eyes and lifted her chin. “Yeah, sure I’m okay. You going to beat me with those flowers or what?”
“Huh?” He dropped his arm then quickly lifted it again, saying, “These are for you.”
One corner of her mouth quirked, and humor suddenly glinted in those clear green eyes. “Yeah, I figured.”
“For, uh, your trouble.” He shifted uncertainly. “The mail and all.”
“And all?” she echoed, arching one brow.
He gave her his most charming smile and waggled the roses in their clear plastic cone. “I said I was sorry.”
She reached out and languidly swept the flowers from his grasp, drawling, “Right. Thanks. I suppose you want your mail now.”
He nodded and fished a folded card out of his pocket, offering it to her. “I’ve already turned in one, but I thought you might want to drop that in the box yourself, so you’ll know for sure that it’s done.”
She glanced at the change-of-address card, and that brow went up again. “That’s you? Cutler Automotive?”
Nodding, he dipped into the hip pocket of his dark jeans and came up with a couple of coupons. “That reminds me. Maybe you can use these sometime.”
She tucked the change-of-address card into the roses and took these new papers into one hand, cocking her head to get a good look at them.
“Hmm,” she said, reading the top one aloud, “Fifty percent off service and repairs.” She looked him right in the eye. “This on the up-and-up?”
“Absolutely.”
“No catch? I don’t have to spend a certain amount or agree to some extra service?”
“Nope. You just present the signed coupon, we knock fifty percent off your bill.”
“No strings attached?”
“We don’t accept photocopies,” he pointed out, calling her attention to the smaller print at the bottom of the paper. “But that’s it.”
She nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay. Great. If you wait right here, I’ll get your mail.”
“These feet are not moving,” he promised, but the instant she turned her back, he craned his neck to get another look around.
She’d done wonders with the old place. Despite the dated furniture and faded fabrics, the apartment had a homey, put-together feel about it that he quite liked, and he told her so.
“Never
