Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) (26 page)

“That was very ambitious.” Not that she’d admit it, but that was the summer her crush had begun. She’d been waiting for fifth grade to start, dreading another school year where she’d be ignored, or worse, made fun of. Always a dreamer, she’d been ripe for falling for a teen heartthrob. The first time she’d seen him run by, it had been chance, but after that she’d sit in wait by her bedroom window, a box of Pop-Tarts and another of Cap’n Crunch beside her, munching and crunching until he passed her window as he left on his run. She’d be there on his return, too, a little sick on sugar and puppy love. “Five hundred miles.”

“They weren’t all logged on the road. My father and I assigned a mile value to other things—sets of tennis, a round of golf, laps in the pool.” He shrugged. “I think it was the next year that I developed the BSLS.”

“The Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”

“Yes. I’ve kept it all these years...kept to it. It’s a timetable of important dates and milestones. I listed my high school graduation date, college graduation. I already figured I wanted a year of work before getting my MBA. Then, after that degree, I’d go directly into a job with the family.”

She nodded. Baxter would be ordered that way. Precise in what he wanted, knowing it early, sticking to it like glue. It was the confidence thing again. That innate understanding of himself and his place in the world.

The golden boy.

Using the heel of his shoe, he rolled his chair closer to Addy’s. His left kneecap brushed her right one. She moved it quickly away.

“The BSLS didn’t just cover career plans,” Baxter continued. “I charted my future personal life, too, in a logical, sensible fashion. No serious dating until after business school graduation. No living with a woman until marriage. And no thought of matrimony, or even falling in love for that matter, until somewhere past my thirty-first birthday.”

Addy could think of nothing to say, though for the first time he seemed a little more human. Because only a man would come up with a prescribed system like that one.

“Oh, and that falling-in-love part? It would take six months, minimum, of dating before I’d even think of spilling those words.” Baxter slid his hand down his tie again. “So you see, what happened that night was just so...so antithetical to those plans of mine.”

“Off the Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”

He spread his hands. “Yes. And I’ve felt lousy about the way I handled things ever since I impetuously made those promises. I woke up the next morning, panicked, and for what it’s worth, I guessed and second-guessed myself over not calling you after promising I would. It’s eaten at me for the last six years.”

Addy turned back to her computer screen. “Well, don’t worry about it. I didn’t take you seriously. Like I said before, I didn’t pencil you into my life schedule then, not even for a moment. So we’re clear.”

An odd sound echoed in the small room. From Baxter? She turned her head, stunned at the frustrated expression on his face and the tufts of hair sticking up on his head. As she watched, his fingers speared through the golden stuff again, creating more disorder. Baxter was never disordered.

“What’s the matter now?” she asked.

“I want to see you, Addy. You know, go out with you. Date you.”

“No—”

“We could take our time. As a matter of fact, that’s best, right? Get to know each other, figure things out...”

Break her heart, when he finally opened his eyes and figured out an Addy March was not a proper match for a Baxter Smith. “No,” she said again.

He shoved out of the chair and started pacing the small room. Slightly alarmed, Addy watched his quick strides, his lean figure moving past the movie posters for
Country Caroline
and
The Ghost and the Girl
and then the wall of framed movie stills of Edith Essex as an intrepid explorer, a rising nightclub star, a heartbroken lover. He stopped in front of this last, staring at it, she thought, without really seeing it.

“Look, Addy, I can explore long-term relationships now.”

“But I can’t.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. Then he spun to face her. “We deserve a chance to see where this could go, don’t you think? Look, you know I’ve never forgotten you. And we’re great together in bed.”

“Baxter—”

“I’ve got a business trip coming up the first week of August. Seattle. Come with me and we’ll make a weekend of it.”

“Baxter, I can’t.” When he made to protest again, she held up her hand. “I’m leaving the country—I’ll be spending the next year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne. I leave the first week in August, which means it’s better we say goodbye now.”

“Paris. For a year.” He looked staggered by the news. She supposed the Baxter Smiths of the world were rarely stymied.

But she knew well how to handle giving up her heart’s desire, so she merely said, “Yes,” then turned away from him and focused back on her laptop. Still, she was hyperaware of him as he started moving again. His sandalwood scent reached her and she suppressed the desperate urge to turn toward it, ignoring the yearning she had to bury her nose against his neck and warm her suddenly cold face against the heat at his throat.

Goodbye,
she whispered in her mind.
Live well. Be happy.

“This box of ledgers,” he said at length. “Can I take it with me? Page through them?”

“Sure,” she replied absently, hardly aware of the question as her own misery closed in on her. Think of the Seine, she told herself. Of studying in the City of Light. Of some future French lover, dark-haired and seductive, who would whisper to her, demanding a kiss.
“Donne-moi un bisou.”

Except all seductive men in Addy’s fantasies were golden-haired Americans who whispered, “Dance with me.”

Desolate, she glanced over just as Baxter breached the exit. She’d wanted him gone, she reminded herself. Out of the archives room, out of her life. But then she noticed the box in his hands, the one she’d given him permission to take...and realized she’d also given him a reason to return.

CHAPTER TWELVE

V
ANCE FOLLOWED HIS NOSE
across the parking lot of Captain Crow’s toward the Karma Cupcakes truck. The scent of baking made his mouth water. An ocean breeze plastered the back of his shirt to his spine, displacing sweetness with a briny smell, and he wondered if he’d ever breathe in one or the other of those two aromas without thinking of this summer. Without thinking of Layla.

As he drew nearer, Phil Parker climbed out of the truck. Vance paused, a wave of guilt slapping at him. He hadn’t considered having to face the older man this morning. With the single purpose of getting things back on track with the niece, he hadn’t even remembered the uncle.

Phil glanced up as he seated himself at one of the bistro tables. He slid a dog-eared stack of travel guidebooks onto the tabletop. “Good morning,” he called with an easy smile. “Come join me.”

“I’ve come to collect Layla,” Vance replied. “I don’t really have the time.”

Phil pushed out the chair beside him with a sandal-clad foot. “I’m sure you can sit for a moment or two.”

Hell. Vance tried not to scowl as he lowered himself to the wrought-iron seat.

Phil smiled again. “So...how’re you two getting along?”

More guilt.
Well,
I got Layla to pretend to be my girlfriend. Worse, I ignored my scruples and listened to my inner horndog, Phil. I had wild monkey sex with your beautiful niece.
Except wild monkey sex would have been less disturbing than what had really happened. He’d stroked her, enjoyed her,
savored
her. Even now he could feel the satin of her skin against his fingertips, hear the sweet need of her husky moans.

Instead of expressing any of that, though, he cleared his throat. “What does she say?”

“She’s been pretty quiet. I’m a little worried.”

His gut tightened. Disturbed by that visit from Fitz, Vance had kept clear of her for a couple days. That wasn’t exactly courteous behavior from a lover, no matter how temporary, how casual the hookup. But she hadn’t complained.

Instead, she’d just gone ahead with her usual routine without ever taking him to task for keeping to himself even more than usual.

No, until now he’d thought it was only him that was all messed up, still smelling her on his sheets, even though he’d changed them. Still remembering her pebbled nipple on his tongue, the rhythmic clasp of her body on his cock. The silk of her hair wound around his fingers. When she was in the same room with him he couldn’t think of anything but the taste of her.

That’s why he’d struck upon today’s plan. He was going to spin time backward, returning things to the way they were those first days at Beach House No. 9. They’d been two strangers then. On the forefront of his mind had been her father and fulfilling his promise to the man.

“The loss of my brother is eating at her,” Phil said, almost as if he’d read Vance’s mind. “Sometimes she goes still, and the sadness on her face...”

Damn,
Vance thought, his gut tightening again. He didn’t want to be wondering or worrying about the state of her heart. It wasn’t his job to heal her in that way—in any way. His glance landed on one of the books in Phil’s stack. It was a Lonely Planet guidebook to Nepal, the cover showing Everest and a string of prayer flags, and it reminded him of the older man’s spiritual interests.

“You should talk to her,” he told her uncle. “Don’t you have some Buddha voodoo spell that will make it all better?”

Phil glanced down, picking at a frayed end of the macramé-and-wooden-bead bracelet he wore on his left wrist, then his gaze returned to Vance’s face. “Something tells me I’m not the one who has the magic right now.”

“Don’t look at me,” Vance said, pressing back in his chair. “What do I know about overcoming grief?”

“Buddhism teaches that you can’t overcome it,” Phil said.

“Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

The other man continued as if Vance hadn’t spoken. “And that there are two places grief can take you. Toward the negative—where you waste time desiring to undo the past or create an impossible future. Or toward the positive—where your grief gains you a new understanding of the transience of life. That gives you a greater appreciation for the world and a greater well of kindness for your fellow human beings.”

“Like I said,” Vance grumbled, “Buddha voodoo.”

Phil smiled. “I—”

But the truck’s door opened, interrupting him. Layla stepped out. Vance got to his feet. “There you are,” he said. “I’ve come to get you.”

In an instant, her expression turned guarded. “Why?”

Shit. Was Phil right? Her wary tone suggested there was something beneath the surface of her postsex laid-back demeanor. Damn woman was just too good at hiding her true emotions.

He scowled because now he felt like an ass for not looking beneath the convenient facade. “We need to work on the list today.”

“Oh,” she said, then hesitated, as if she was considering refusing him.

“Please,” Vance said.

Another hesitation. Then she sighed. “All right,” she finally answered. “Do I look okay?”

He didn’t bother checking. “You always look okay. Better than okay. You know that.”

“I mean for what we’re going to do.” There was a hint of annoyance in her voice. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments.”

This time he let his gaze linger on her. She must have a closetful of little summer dresses, he decided. Each and every one designed to make a man unable to forget the tempting slope of her shoulders, the golden smoothness of her long legs. This one was bright blue, sleeveless, with a decorative zipper down the middle that ran from the scooped neckline to the full skirt.

“I’m complimenting you, anyway,” Vance said gruffly, trying not to think of how easy it would be to peel it off of her. “You look great. Perfect for what I have scheduled.”

“Which is?”

“A surprise.”

She obligingly kept her mouth shut during the half-hour drive northward, though her gaze surveyed the snazzy beach town they entered with interest. That gaze became even more curious as he pulled into the parking lot of an elegant day spa just off the main boulevard.

“Beauty Day,” he said, slanting her a look.

Her brows came together. “What?”

“I’m not making this up. It’s an item on the Helmet List. Actually, I’m knocking off two. One is Beauty Day, and after that we’re going to have tea at a shop around the corner.”

Her confusion cleared. “Oh. Beauty Day.” She swallowed, hard.

Shit. Vance thought she might be fighting tears. Apparently what he’d considered an odd entry for the gruff colonel to put on the list meant something pretty profound to her. “Let’s go,” he said, reaching for the door. “You shouldn’t be late for your appointment.”

But she poked along after him, so he was forced to twine his fingers with hers. It was the first time he’d touched her since that morning after they’d had sex, and the usual sexual zing fired through his blood, heating the back of his neck and stirring his cock. Trying his best to ignore the reaction, he pulled her into the spa’s anteroom. It was quiet there, the only sound coming from a fountain in the corner, where water burbled over polished river rocks. The receptionist spoke in hushed tones and Vance followed suit, confirming Layla’s appointments for a facial and mani-pedi.

His companion didn’t say anything, but he sensed her amused surprise. “Mani-pedi,” he repeated, turning his head to narrow his eyes at her. “Yeah, I said it. I even know what it is, because I have a brain in my head and because Addy set this whole thing up for me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man say mani-pedi before,” she mused, and then sucked on her cheeks as if she was trying not to smile.

“Twice,” he reminded her. Then he pointed his finger toward the door that led to the treatment rooms. “Now go. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

With a last amused glance at him, she followed instructions. Vance settled on a comfortable chair in the seating area and picked up a magazine. Her mood seemed more upbeat now, he decided, then frowned. No. Her mood was none of his concern.