Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) (17 page)

Blythe was an interior designer, Layla learned. The other woman answered readily enough, even though she kept sneaking glances across the table, whether at Fitz or Vance, it was impossible to tell. Upon closer inspection, Blythe was also not any less attractive than Layla had originally thought. She wore her straight hair in a ballerina bun at the back of her head and was dressed in a tailored khaki skirt and white silk shirt that would be appropriate in an executive suite—or for decorating one.

By comparison, in her shorts and T, Layla felt like a camp counselor after a sweaty day of weaving lanyards and making name tags from popsicle sticks and macaroni letters. Still, she didn’t let her lack of self-confidence show on her face. Instead, she shared stories about starting up Karma Cupcakes, their current flavor offerings and that she’d be bringing the food truck to the upcoming Picnic Day at the Smith family ranch.

Fitz, who’d been silent up to now, slid a look at his brother. “Picnic Day?”

“Yeah,” Vance said. “Mom came by the beach house. We ended up driving her home.”

“I’m glad she had a chance to see you,” his brother said stiffly.

Vance shrugged. “She got to meet Layla.” He idly played with her hand now, his lean fingers sliding up and down against the sensitive inner skin of hers.

Layla flushed again, she couldn’t help it, and when she shifted her legs restlessly, Vance caught them between his. Her head jerked up to find his gaze on her face. It felt like a caress.

Before the warmth of it had died, a stranger came up to the table. “Vance!” he cried in happy greeting and then immediately launched into some remember-when conversation that made clear they were long acquaintances. The other man brought Fitz into the discussion, as well, and soon it turned into something about baseball that—to Layla—was indecipherable. While the brothers each spoke to the newcomer, it was obvious they weren’t speaking to each other.

The sensation of being watched tagged her consciousness and she turned her head to see that Blythe was staring at her. Layla saw her swallow. “He’s a really good man,” the other woman said, under the cover of the men’s talk.

Layla couldn’t help but give a little dig. “Fitz?” she said, tacking on an unspoken
You mean the guy who stole his brother’s girl?

Blythe dropped her gaze. “Vance.”

“That’s right,” Layla said, with a light snap of her thumb and middle finger. “You two, uh, dated for a while.”

“So much contained energy,” the blonde said. “All that life buzzing under his skin.”

Oh, yeah, Layla thought. Even when he was quiet, even when he acted as if he had ice in his chest like her father, there was a force to him, a leashed power that said he was prepared to uncoil in an instant and launch into battle. Fight hard. Take no prisoners.

It was attractive.

Exciting.

Then she thought of the Vance she’d seen at the ranch. The one who’d envisioned himself managing the groves. Growing things on the land instead of patching up men on the battlefield. She could see that, as well. He’d be decisive then, too. His hands gentle on the fruit. His natural vitality infusing each root, each branch, each leaf.

She supposed it would be a healthy, good way to employ the innate restlessness that had driven a little boy to make mischief.

“The fact is,” Layla murmured, half to herself, “the big bad combat medic is a nurturer.” And why did that feel like such a dangerous thought?

Blythe frowned a little. “I’m not sure he’d approve of that description.”

“What description?” Vance said, from across the table. The friend who’d occupied him was moving away.

The two women glanced at each other. Then Layla smiled at the man who was running his thumb across the top of her knuckles. “That you’re a handsome, generous studmuffin,” she said. “
My
studmuffin.”

His lips twitched, and he glanced at the now-empty bowl of guacamole. “How much of that stuff have you eaten?”

She waggled her eyebrows at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I would.”

And it was as if the other couple had slid beneath the table. Actually, there was no one else in the restaurant. Only Vance and Layla remained, smiling into each other’s eyes. Clasping each other’s hands. The heat captured between their palms shot up her arm and tumbled over her body.

“Time to go,” he said, still holding her gaze.

They murmured their goodbyes to Fitz and Blythe, who seemed relieved to see them leave. Vance slid his arm around Layla as he led her toward the door. His mouth nuzzled her temple. “That was great. Thanks for being such a good...friend,” he murmured in her ear. “Just one more scene, okay?”

“Huh?” she asked, but instead of answering, right at the door, in view of everybody at the restaurant including his brother and his ex-fiancée, Vance laid his lips against hers.

Claiming her. Cementing her position as his girlfriend.

It was just a role, she tried reminding herself, as she opened her mouth to the gentle thrust of his tongue.

A role that had turned even more dangerous than she’d supposed, she thought, shivering against him. Because right now it didn’t feel like playacting at all.

CHAPTER EIGHT

O
NE LATE AFTERNOON
, following several hours spent poring through dusty boxes, Addy headed back to Beach House No. 9. Strolling along the sand, she caught sight of Skye Alexander up ahead, her attention on something in her hands.

Addy picked up her pace. Now was as good a time as any to provide a report on the progress she’d made cataloging the Sunrise Pictures archives. As she neared the other woman, the sole of her flip-flop found a pod on a string of rust-covered kelp. The bulb popped, the noise loud over the whisper sound of the surf.

Skye startled, dropping the papers in her hands. “It’s you,” she said, clapping one palm over her heart.

“Sorry,” Addy replied, grimacing. Then she bent to pick up the scattered sheets. Lined paper was covered by a distinctly masculine scrawl. “I didn’t think anyone wrote letters anymore,” she said, passing the missive to Skye.

Wearing a small smile, the other woman carefully brushed at the grains of sand clinging to the pages. “He’s overseas and doesn’t always have access to the internet. Our old-fashioned correspondence isn’t as instantaneous as email, but I like it. It feels more...personal.”

“I get it. A person’s handwriting can suggest their mood.” Addy grinned. “And there’s always the option of writing your response in purple ink to convey your passion.”

Skye’s gaze shot up. “Passion?” She laughed. “No, we’re just friends. Old friends from childhood.”

“You’ve been pen pals since you were kids?” Addy thought of all the letters she’d fantasized writing when she was a girl. Each one addressed to the beautiful blond boy who lived down the road.

Skye shook her head. “He used to spend his summers here—in Beach House No. 9 as a matter of fact—but we started writing to each other less than a year ago. Gage—Gage Lowell—is a freelance photojournalist.”

And Skye’s secret crush, Addy decided. She might claim they were just friends, but the careful way she was handling that letter said that its future lay in a special box alongside the others the man had sent her.

Of course, that could just be Addy’s overstimulated imagination. The hours she’d spent searching through the souvenirs of the silent film era and Edith Essex had made her preoccupied with love affairs and all their attendant complications. “You know,” she told Skye now, “I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any letters between Edith and her husband, Max. I thought they might tell a truer story than the gossip rags of the day, which said she married the owner of Sunrise Pictures for what he could do for her career.”

“But you think...?”

“I don’t know.” Addy sighed. “Later, there was also speculation that Max got out of the movie business to punish her for the affair and that flamboyant gift of jewelry...while also putting out the word he wouldn’t tolerate anyone else hiring her.”

“Not too nice.”

Addy shrugged, then shoved her hands in the pockets of her cropped white jeans. “She stayed with him, though, and they had a couple of kids in quick succession and then, only five years later, after giving birth to their younger daughter, she got pneumonia and died. Did she resent her husband’s actions? Did she regret the loss of her acting career to her dying breath?”

“The only family lore I can add is that my great-great-grandfather never remarried,” Skye said.

Addy sighed again. “Well, you told me Crescent Cove has had its share of broken hearts.”

Skye gave a lopsided smile. “I did, didn’t I? Though to be fair, there is—” She broke off, her eyes brightening as her gaze moved over Addy’s shoulder. “Teague,” she said, in pleased surprise.

Addy glanced around. A dark-haired man was heading for them, barefoot and dressed in shorts and an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt. Its edges fluttered in the breeze, revealing a chiseled chest and a pack of ab muscles worthy of a magazine spread. “Wow.” She looked at Skye. “I think one of us should start exchanging passionate letters with that guy.”

“Are you really interested?” the other woman asked, her eyebrows rising. “Though we’ll need to take his romantic temperature first—he had a recent disappointment.”

“Maybe.” Addy shrugged. Because perhaps a summer fling was what she needed to purge her lingering and girlish infatuation with Baxter. She hadn’t seen him since that day when she’d told him the past was past. But, dammit, his response continued to echo in her head.
That leaves the present wide-open.

Not that he’d made any inroads into her present since then, she thought with a scowl. He’d likely found some svelte beauty that was the same twelve-on-a-scale-of-ten as himself. Someone he could picture in his golden life and golden future.

With an effort, she morphed her scowl into a smile as the good-looking guy joined up with them. He had a warm hand and a firm grip.

“Teague spent his summers here, too,” Skye explained after introductions were made. “Along with Gage and his twin brother, Griffin.”

“And their sister, Tess,” the man added.

Maybe it was her imagination going wild again, but the way he said the name made Addy suspect this Tess was the source of the blow to his heart.

Skye confirmed the suspicion when she sent him a pointed glance. “Are you okay?”

“Getting there,” he said. “I’m back to the beach, aren’t I? First time since she left.”

Addy felt a little embarrassed to hear this bit of personal business until he turned to her with a rueful grin. “I’m trying to exorcise a ghost, I guess. Last month I fell a little too hard for a lady who was already taken.”

“Already taken by a husband and four kids,” Skye put in.

“Yikes,” Addy murmured. “Four kids?”

“I like rug rats,” Teague said, and she gave him credit for not being at all abashed about the admission. “Comes from a childhood as a lonely only.”

“Lonely only?” Addy repeated. “Hey, me, too.”

“Yeah?” Teague’s gaze sharpened.

“Yeah.” Addy took in his handsome features, the dark hair tousled by the wind, the ripple of muscles. She had someone she wanted to exorcise from her life, as well, and why the heck
not
with this dark-haired hunk? “I’m a little lonely now, too, as a matter of fact.”

He smiled, revealing the deep crease of a dimple in one cheek. “This might be my lucky day.” Then his eyes shifted over her shoulder. A glint of humor kindled in them. “Or not.”

Addy turned—and took a quick step back, almost stumbling. “You.”

“Hi,” Baxter said.

As usual, he looked as if he’d come straight from a hard day at the office. His tie was loosened, his shirt’s collar unbuttoned. Its cuffs were folded back to reveal his strong wrists, the left one banded with a steel watch.

The wind tugged at the cuffs of his trousers, but didn’t dare ruffle his golden hair. The sun burnished the perfectly cropped layers, though, making him seem to glow. Addy swallowed, trying to appear unaffected, even as the memory of a naughty boss-secretary dream she’d been having lately bloomed in her mind.
Miss March, I found four typos in this memo...

“Uh, hi,” she said, cursing the blush creeping over her face.

He frowned. “What’s going on?”

Addy crossed her arms over her chest.
I’m preparing for an exorcism
. It was imperative. She was certain of that now because it wasn’t healthy for a woman to go weak-kneed when some man arrived out of the blue. Some man who’d said, “That leaves the present wide-open,” but who’d then ignored her for several days thereafter, only showing up in her subconscious at night.

Miss March, come into my office and close the door.

“Addy?”

“Nothing’s going on,” she said, then slid a glance in Teague’s direction. “Just making a new friend.”

Baxter’s blue eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”

The dark-haired man held out his hand, his expression still good-humored. “Teague White,” he said. “I’m a nice guy, honest. Skye can vouch for me.”

“He’s a firefighter,” Skye added. “Can’t get more wholesome than that.”

A firefighter? Addy sneaked a second look at the man.
Wholesome
wasn’t the first word that came to mind, especially when the firefighter in question was absolutely hot and incredibly handsome. Maybe the exorcism thing could really work.

Baxter was frowning as if
wholesome
didn’t ring true to him, either.

He shook the other man’s hand, then glanced at Addy. “Look, can we go—”

“I was just about to ask her to have a drink with me at Captain Crow’s,” Teague put in.

Baxter didn’t look away from her face. “She can’t,” he answered flatly. “We have plans.”

The liar. “What plans?”

He stepped into her, so close his loafers were an inch from the toenails she’d painted a bright melon as a pick-me-up when he hadn’t called or stopped by. How silly she’d been to believe he might. She’d been smart enough to have no expectations of him before and she shouldn’t be harboring any now.