CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS NEARING MIDNIGHT when Baxter walked along the sand toward Beach House No. 9. As promised, he’d waited for the police, listened while Skye reported the incident then stuck around a little longer to help gather up the papers on the floor. Now he could collect his car from No. 9’s driveway and go straight home.
But instead of walking between the cove’s last cottage and its neighbor in order to reach his Beemer, he climbed up the deck steps. Addy had left the archives room before him, anxious to check on Layla. Baxter, in turn, found himself anxious to check on Addy.
It looked like everybody inside the cottage was already asleep, though. The windows were dark and—no, there were two small, odd glows coming from the living room. Curious, he strode toward it and peered through the glass of the sliding door.
A smile curved his lips. Addy. Curled up on the sofa. He knocked lightly.
Her head jerked up and she pressed the book she’d been reading to her chest. Damn. He’d scared her. He waved, hoping to ease her fear.
It worked. In seconds she was on her feet and at the door. She unlocked the thing and slid it back. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice low.
Without waiting for permission, he slipped into the room. “Making sure you’re okay.”
“Apparently,” she grumbled, “I survived the heart attack you just gave me.”
He grimaced. “Sorry about that. I peeked in to see if anyone was awake and was a little startled myself by your twin points of light.”
“Oh.” She put her hand up, touching the glasses she wore. A beam emitted from each side of the frame. “I was reading.”
“In the dark?” He sat near her spot on the cushions and patted her place. “Come sit down.”
“Why?” There was a frown in her voice. Suspicion.
“So we can have a conversation.”
“I was into my book.”
Ouch, Baxter thought. Hostile. “We can start with that.” He patted the cushion again. “Come on, sit with me.”
She took the bait, approaching the sofa and dropping down. He noticed she still wore the zipped hoodie and formfitting jeans she’d had on at Captain Crow’s. It struck him again how petite she was, her waist tiny, her bottom appealingly round.
“So,” he said, as she drew her bare feet up beneath her. “What’s your book’s title and why are you reading it in the dark?”
“I always read in the dark.”
Baxter blinked. “Always?”
“I mean when it’s night. A habit I started as a kid. I’d hide under the covers with a flashlight so I didn’t get caught staying up past bedtime.”
“Ah.” This was what he was after. More Addy information. “Strict parents?”
She hooked her finger in the glasses, removing them and switching off their beams. The room was very dark now, except, he saw, some barely glowing embers in the fireplace across the room. “They wanted me tucked away so they could hold rabid arguments without worrying about a witness.”
The bald way she said the words didn’t hide the pain behind them. And he’d been right, he thought, back there in the Sunrise archives room. He’d said it from instinct, but he knew it was true now. She wanted to believe that love could survive. “I’m sorry,” he began. “That must have been—”
“What’s the point of you being here, Baxter?”
Jeez. She didn’t give a guy an inch. “I don’t know. I just like talking with you. Being with you.”
Leaning toward the coffee table in front of the sofa, she grabbed up a plate. Then she sat back and picked something from it, taking the object to her mouth. Before she bit down, she paused, releasing a little sigh. “Would you like some of my snack?”
In the dark, it looked like pretzels—or worms. “What is it?”
“Green beans. Steamed, blanched, drizzled with a little low-calorie Italian dressing.”
“You call that a snack?” He remembered what she’d carried on her hike. Water and a handful of raw nuts. “Woman, do you need an introduction to ice cream? Can’t Layla hook you up with some cupcakes?”
Her green bean was still crunchy enough to snap when she bit into it. “If you don’t like vegetables, just say so.”
“I actually do. Even Brussels sprouts.”
“Figures,” she said, sounding disgusted.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You need a flaw, Baxter,” she muttered. “Your bathroom appeared sterilized. I noticed that your pantry was organized alphabetically.”
“I’ve shared my self-diagnosis. Slight case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
“Yeah, and when it manifests as tidiness and cleanliness, it’s only another asset.”
“I think you just said you like me,” Baxter replied, smiling. “Which is convenient because I’m serious about the two of us dating.”
“I told you—”
“I remember. France.” The knowledge of her impending departure had walloped him when she’d first shared it, but he’d decided not to give up so easily. “We still have time, though.”
She bit into another bean. “Time for what?”
God, Addy the Obstinate. “There are things I’d like to know about you. I remembered something interesting you said the other day. I want to understand what it means.”
“Not a good idea,” she said, putting the plate aside.
His gut tightened. Was she going to kick him out? Because he could tell she was shoring up her defenses like mad and if he walked out that door without her softening a little, he’d never find a way back in. He reached over, took her hand.
Of course, she tried tugging it away, but he held firm. “Two people, here in the dark. A perfect time for secrets.”
She jerked a shoulder.
“The other day you said, ‘I pretended I was pretend people. I could pretend I was pretend people for days on end.’”
“So?”
Belligerence, thy name is Addison March. He threaded his fingers through hers, and they were as delicate as the rest of her. A perfect match for his pixie in the yellow dress. “I should have asked you why, Addy. I should have asked why you needed so much to pretend.”
Her shoulder jerked again. He rubbed his thumb over hers, soothing her. “Can you explain that, Addy?”
“I told you about my parents. They vacillated between icy disdain for each other and red-hot rage. Unfortunately, they didn’t divorce until I was almost out of high school. So I found ways to comfort myself...and to escape. I read books. I watched TV. I became mad for the movies.”
All of which she could do in the dark, he thought. Meaning she must feel comfortable in the shadows, so he took a chance and scooted closer, slipping his hand from hers to draw her against him with an arm around her shoulder. “I wish it hadn’t been that way for you.”
Though she didn’t pull back, her body refused to relax against his. Stifling his frustration, he toyed with the ends of her feathery hair, twisting a piece around his finger then letting the curl spring away before doing it again with another lock. Finally, she broke the silence between them. “Look. I really, really, really don’t want to date you, see you, whatever you want to call it, before I go to France.”
Three reallys, but he continued playing with her hair. God, she was killing him. “Why?”
Another beat of reluctant, weighty silence. Then she finally said, “I don’t want goodbye to hurt.”
Now, Baxter thought, relieved. Now they were getting somewhere. He turned his head and placed a kiss on her temple. “Addy.”
Her face turned toward him and then the kiss was lip-to-lip, sweet. He thought he tasted a yearning inside her. It couldn’t be all on his side. He touched his tongue to the seam of her mouth and she opened, her own tongue brushing his. With a little moan, she broke away.
“Baxter, no.” Her voice sounded strained. “I told you, I don’t want goodbye to hurt.”
He captured her hand again. “Won’t it already?”
“No,” she said, pulling free again and swinging around on the cushions in order to face him. “Because I’m still certain, here—” she thumped her fist on her chest “—that I don’t get to have you.”
“Wha—”
“An Addy March doesn’t get a Baxter Smith.”
He stared at her, trying to decipher the puzzle of her words. This close, even without any light, he could see she was serious. Determined. Near furious.
“Honey, I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
She huffed out an impatient, irritated breath. “How many ways do I have to say this?” she asked, lifting her arms. “Here’s how it is— You’re the golden guy. I’m the plain fat girl.”
His brain couldn’t keep up. What? What, what, what? She could fit in a thimble. “I’m having trouble here.”
Her feet thumped on the hardwood as she jumped up. “You don’t remember me as a kid.”
“Uh...” Not really. He remembered her as a concept—until That Night. As a kid he’d known the couple down the road had a girl, younger than himself and his cousins. Just with that, she had been dismissed from his consciousness. “Maybe I saw you passing in a car, or...?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She was pacing. “I told you, I developed ways to deal with the ugly atmosphere at my house. Stories in every form. Pretend. Food. I’ve burned every picture of myself between the ages of eight and nineteen.”
Oh, Addy.
“Home was hell. School was hell. Then, for a high school graduation present my dad offered me a summer at fat camp.”
Baxter couldn’t think of one thing to say. But his heart was giving him grief, squeezing so hard that it seemed to constrict the beat. “That...that couldn’t have been the gift you wanted.”
“Are you kidding?” She rounded on him. “It was a great gift.”
He should keep his mouth shut. He really, really, really should. “Okay.”
“I had a chance to get away from my toxic household. I had a chance to think about me and what I wanted. I deferred college a year—I told you that—and I found new ways to cope. I learned some healthier habits.”
“That’s good.”
“Damn good.”
“Damn good,” he echoed. “But why can’t we—”
“Because when I see myself in the mirror, more than half the time I don’t see this me.” She faced him, and even in the dark he could see her vibrating with emotion. “Instead, I see the old, miserable me, unhealthy, unhappy, and I’m just a breath away from hiding from my reflection in those former habits.”
“Honey—”
“I can’t do it.” Her voice sounded tense. “I can’t spend more time with you and then leave the country. It’s bad enough that I might come to...miss you, but to be emotionally brittle and living in the land of croissants and chocolate?”
“Addy...”
She shook her head. “I just can’t do it.”
It still sounded as if she liked him, though. Baxter couldn’t dismiss that. He didn’t want to dismiss that—he cared too much. Rising off the couch, he approached her. She didn’t try to evade him, even when he curled his fingers around her upper arms. “It doesn’t have to be disaster. The way I feel—”
“You don’t get it!” She shook her head. “We’re not suited. We’re that kids’ game made literal. You know, One of These Things Is Not like the Other.”
“Bullshit.” He shook her a little. “That’s just bullshit.”
“God, Baxter.” Her voice went hoarse. “Tell me something about yourself that’s less than perfect.”
His stomach sank. Not because he thought he was flawless by any means, but because he didn’t think there was anything he could say that would appease her. Still, he tried. “Addy, I’m going to suck at this.” The BSLS didn’t have a line item for self-examination.
“Give it a try.”
“Uh...I hardly ever floss.” He thought harder. “I can’t work up an interest in ice hockey.”
She made a disgusted sound. “I knew it.”
Desperate, goaded, Baxter opened his mouth again, hoping something persuasive would fly out. “I hate my job.” It wasn’t until he felt her new, rigid stillness beneath his hands that he heard his own words. I hate my job.
Had he said that?
Had he really said that?
To escape answering his own question, Baxter dropped his hands and strode from the house.
* * *
THE MORNING FOLLOWING the break-in, Layla meandered her way from the Karma Cupcakes truck back to Beach House No. 9, aware she was—literally—dragging her feet. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the physical evidence in the skid marks in the sand. She’d slipped from Vance’s bed at dawn, while he was still asleep, and now she’d have to face him in the glaring light of day.
The shift in their relationship worried her.
The shift in herself worried her.
I thought you were sugar and spice and everything nice. But maybe you have a naughty side, after all.
A shiver wiggled down her back as she remembered his dark, drugging words. And then his other words, the ones that were graphic and...and crude, except they hadn’t felt crude, they’d seemed just another element of the hypnotic spell he’d cast with his deep kisses and knowing caresses. His demands.
Straddle me, sweetheart. Put your breast to my mouth.
Touch yourself and come for me.
How was she supposed to look at him after that? After she’d done exactly as instructed and then been blissfully rewarded?
But she’d been the one to start it, hadn’t she? He’d suggested they head to separate beds and she’d decided not to waste that sizzling sexual force that existed between them. It was gratifying to remember how little it had taken to persuade him.
She slowed even more as she began mounting the steps at the bottom of No. 9. Vance wanted her in his bed for the rest of the month now. Nerves jittered in her belly at the thought. Deciding to sleep with a man a single night at a time was one thing. Going into it as a sort of...of living arrangement, no matter how fleeting, felt like something different altogether.
What if that somehow left her wanting more—despite knowing never to count on such a thing? Maybe she’d better run back to Uncle Phil and ask for one of his vaunted lectures on the Buddhist principal of nonattachment.
She was so intent on her thoughts that she blinked as she arrived on the deck, startled to see people there she didn’t recognize. Her head whipped around. In her distracted state, had she approached the wrong beach house? But there was Vance, breaking away from a couple of strangers to come her way. “Hey,” he called out. “There you are.”
He caught her fingers in his and drew her farther onto the deck. “Are you okay?” he asked softly.
“I’m great,” she replied, going for bright and confident instead of embarrassed and unsure of her next step. “You have visitors?”
“Our predecessors, in a sense,” he said. “Jane Pearson and Griffin Lowell.”
Layla shook hands with the woman first. She was sandy-haired and her light gray eyes picked up the blue in the sleeveless shirt she wore over cropped jeans. “Cute shoes,” Layla told her, taking in the wedged espadrilles that were dotted with small seashells arranged in the shape of flowers.
“My librarian’s trademark,” Griffin said, grinning. He was dark and lean with piercing blue eyes and a strong grip. Then his smile died. “I knew your father. And admired him. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Layla’s throat tightened. “Thank you.”
Vance rubbed her arm with the back of his knuckles, a gentle, sympathetic touch. “Remember? Griffin was embedded with us. He brought with him some photos from that time—of your dad and others—if you’d like to see them.”
Would she?
“Even one of your favorite combat medic, too,” Griffin added. “They’re in the house.”
A photo of Vance. Vance, at war.
Before she could respond, Skye arrived from the beach, wearing her usual sloppy pants and sweatshirt, a black Lab at her heels. “Private rushed me along. I guess he’s excited about the wedding, too.”
Layla looked at the couple. “Is that why you’re here? You’re really going to say ‘I do’ at No. 9 next month?”
“Any longer might give my honey-pie time to come to her senses,” Griffin said.
Jane smiled at him. “I keep telling you, chili-dog, with a ring or without one, I’ll still be your grammar girl.” Then they both laughed as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hair.
Vance shook his head at them. “I’m too polite to retch at those nicknames, Griff.”
“They started as insults,” Jane confided, “but now they’ve kind of grown on us. More Beach House No. 9 magic, I guess.”
“Speaking of which,” Griffin said, turning to Skye, “we’re sure this place will be available on the wedding date, right? Have you heard any more from the mysterious August tenant who went AWOL?”
“Yes. The balance was paid, finally. And I informed Mr. Fenton Hardy that I’d waive his late fee in exchange for the use of this place on the last weekend in August.”
An odd expression crossed Griffin’s face. “Did you say Fenton Hardy?”
Skye’s brows came together. “Yes. Do you know him?”
He glanced at his fiancée, who went still for a moment and then opened her mouth. “Isn’t that—”
“A really fortuitous turn of events,” Griffin said over her, and then he turned to gaze about the deck. “I’m sure we’ll have enough room here. It’s going to be very small. A few friends, family.”
Jane nodded, her smile aimed first at Griffin and then at Skye and Layla. “And we’re accustomed to small, since we’re living together in my tiny one-bedroom until we find the perfect bigger place—we hope near the beach.” Her voice turned more casual. “Have you heard from Gage lately, Skye? We don’t have a clue as to whether he’ll make it back for the nuptials.”
The other woman blinked, and her hand crept to her stomach. “You...you think there’s a chance he might be in the States next month?”
Jane flicked a glance at Griffin, then shrugged. “You hear from him more than anyone. What’s your opinion?”
“His last letter didn’t say a thing about it.” Skye bit her lip. “He mentioned he had a new contact, was hoping to take a trip into territory he hadn’t been to before. Nothing about returning here.”
“Well—” Griffin began.
“He can’t come to Crescent Cove.” The words rushed from Skye. “I mean, he’d never like it here. Not anymore.” Then, clearly flustered, she sped toward the steps and was gone.
“I don’t think I understand,” Layla said.
Jane grimaced. “I don’t think any of us do, including Gage. He’s been exchanging letters with Skye for months. She’s clearly smitten—but clearly terrified by the idea, too.”
“Why?”
“For good reason,” Griffin said. “My twin lives for hard-edged excitement. Skye has too much of a soft underbelly. She’ll get hurt.”
Jane sighed. “People warned me away from you, too.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “People? Like who?”
“Oh, that’s right, it was you.” She grinned at him.
“A man can change,” he grumbled.
“So might Gage,” Jane pointed out. “Especially if he’s exposed to the Beach House No. 9 magic.”
Vance groaned. “Feeling the need to retch again.”
Jane laughed and threaded her arm through Griffin’s. “We can’t have that.” She tilted her head toward Layla. “Would you like to see the photographs? They’re inside the house. You can keep any you like.”
“I...” She swallowed. “Okay.”
The couple moved toward the sliding glass door, but Vance held Layla back. He turned her to face him. “Really. Are you okay? Last night...”
Heat flowed up her neck to her face. “Do we have to talk about it?”
A smile slowly spread across his face. “‘Talking about it’ seems to work well for us.”
“Vance.”
He leaned in and took her mouth in a searing kiss. Then his fingertips floated over the small bump on her scalp. “Head okay?”
At her nod, his hand moved lower, his thumb exploring beneath the open collar of her shirt to touch a place low on the side of her throat. “Did I leave a bruise?”
The heat was everywhere now, prickling beneath the hair on her head, tickling the sensitive backs of her knees. She took hold of him, tucking her fingertips under the waistband of his jeans at his sides so she didn’t fall to the deck where her melting body would slide between the cracks in the floorboards to be lost forever.
Maybe that would be best. It would certainly be better than falling for Vance, a soldier, like her father. A man who’d be gone from her life in less than two weeks.
“Do you really want to see the photos?” he asked now. “They’ll understand if it’s too much.”
Colonel Parker’s daughter could face them, Layla told herself, and straightened her shoulders. No more melting, under any circumstances. “I do. I want to see them.”
Vance touched his lips to hers, just brief contact. “I looked already. Smiles and laughter. Nothing upsetting.”
He’d looked at them for her, she realized. Checked them over, so she could feel confident there would be no image that would startle or disturb her. She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed his chin, touched by his consideration. “Let’s go.”
Inside the house, there were a dozen or so photographs spread across the coffee table, most five-by-sevens, some larger. Layla sank to the cushions, her gaze moving slowly over them. “Oh,” she said, with a little smile, and glanced at Vance, who took the seat beside her. “There’s Dad playing chess.”
“He did it often,” Griffin said. “With anyone who’d take the other side of the board.”
Her father looked so handsome, she thought. Tanned, hair regulation short, a little thin, perhaps, but he’d always been a little thin.
Another showed him bent over a battered desk. In a different shot he was throwing a horseshoe. Each one showed Colonel Parker at work or at rest, looking his usual capable, calm self.
Her hand moved to reveal one picture that was half-hidden. Vance. Her fingers froze. In the shot, he was kicked back on a bunk, laughing. His face was a little dirty, his hair a little sweaty, but it was him, finding humor even though there was a gun slung from a peg just within reach.
Vance, at war.
“Layla, what’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She kept staring at the photograph. “May I have them?” she asked Griffin. “May I have them all?”
“Of course. We brought them for you.”
She stacked them carefully, putting Vance’s on top. The visitors were preparing to leave, calling for their dog, Private, talking to Vance about the war memoir Griffin was currently writing, which apparently had brought him and Jane together at Beach House No. 9 in the first place. Only half listening, Layla finally returned to the present as the engaged couple bid her goodbye.
She stood and, with Vance, walked them to the front door. When they made it back to the living room, her gaze immediately fell on that image of him. The dirty face. The laughing grin. The gun.
Vance, at war.
She was definitely too smart to fall in love with him. But that didn’t stop her from suddenly reaching for him. Putting her arms around his lean waist, she hugged his big body close.
“What?” He smiled down at her. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” She was safe now, wasn’t she?
His mouth met hers in a kiss that went from warm to wild in mere seconds. Gasping, she had to pull away. “Vance.”
“I like the way you say that, all breathless and needy.” He gave her another knowing smile. “You’re blushing again.”
“It’s ridiculous of me, I know. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a healthy bout of consensual sex,” she said, knowing she sounded prim but unable to help it.
He laughed. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“I’m annoyed with myself for feeling embarrassed.”
Vance laughed again, dark and low as they both saw Addy push open the glass slider. “I’m going to embarrass you again as soon as I can get you alone,” he said in her ear. “And then all night long.”
Feeling her flush deepen, Layla sketched a wave at Addy and turned back to collect the photos. She’d weathered this morning-after better than she’d thought. The pictures would make sure she remembered not to fall for a soldier. So nothing had changed as a result of last night, after all. Feeling eyes on her, she glanced back. Vance, watching her, with definite lascivious thoughts in mind.
All night long.
Yes, nothing had changed...except, she thought with a delicious, dangerous shiver, for the sleeping arrangements.