CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AFTER LAYLA’S ABRUPT DEFECTION, Vance spent the days alone at Beach House No. 9, brooding over why she’d gone and concocting plans to get her back. Oh, he’d considered accepting it for the rejection it seemed to be and forcing himself to move on. Time would expunge the pain, right? He’d get busy in the groves and losing her would no longer feel as if winter had descended five months too early.
But the stubborn, hardheaded part of him wasn’t ready to surrender. And he found her early morning escape highly suspicious. If there wasn’t something profound going on, he figured, she’d have had the decency to say goodbye to his face. So he curbed his innate impatience and listened to his instincts. It would be better if she returned to him.
When the knock came on the door around 7:00 p.m. of the third day, the evening before his brother’s engagement brunch, he knew who stood on the other side. Schooling his expression, he crossed to the entrance, determined to remain calm.
His heart stumbled, however, when he caught sight of her on the doorstep. Her hair in a ponytail, she wore ancient jeans, a sweatshirt and a pair of flip-flops. Two oblong pink bakery boxes were balanced on her palms. She looked determined, but so exhausted that he wanted to snatch her up and hold her close.
His own sharp yearning startled him. Somehow she’d dug herself deep, and without her in his life he’d been left empty and aching. Never again, he whispered to her silently. I won’t let you run from me ever again.
She didn’t appear to notice her effect on him and just shoved the cartons forward. “Here,” she said, her low-pitched voice huskier than usual. “Best wishes to Fitz and Blythe.”
“That’s it?” Despite his effort to stay cool, his temper sparked, and he deliberately stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at her. “You’re not even going to come in?”
A huff of breath ruffled her bangs. “Why?”
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
She frowned, her arms still upraised, offering the cupcakes.
They were at a standoff. Though his nerves stretched tauter, Vance refused to give an inch. But he should have known the little soldier facing him wouldn’t crack easy, either, and several strained minutes passed.
Finally, she huffed again. “Just move out of the way and I’ll put these in the kitchen.”
Stepping aside, he let her go by. Relief buckled his knees and he braced an arm on the wall to keep himself upright. Okay. Okay. At least he’d gotten her this far.
After a moment, he took a breath and followed her into the kitchen. She whirled as he approached and pressed back against the countertop. He didn’t hesitate to get into her personal space.
The woman had wormed her way into places he hadn’t planned on, hadn’t she?
Layla touched the tip of her tongue to her top-heavy upper lip. “Uh, I hope you weren’t concerned about the cupcakes.”
“I knew you’d keep your promise.”
She flushed. “Still, I didn’t want anyone to worry. I called your mom and explained that I’d be dropping them off to you.”
“So she said.”
“Oh.” Her head bobbed up and down. “That’s right. You’re, um, patched up with them now, aren’t you? Did I tell you how great I think that is? It’s great. Really, really great.”
“It is,” he agreed, “though it’s only half of what I want.”
Her brows pinched together. “I’d think you have everything now. Is something wrong with the job at Smith & Sons?”
“No.”
She studied his face with her big brown eyes. “Well, I would have thought you’d be in a better mood then. Is it Fitz and Blythe’s engagement—”
“I’m ecstatic for them.”
“You don’t sound like it,” Layla said, frowning. “Though I can imagine it’s hard to get over—”
“If you mention another word about Blythe I’m going to strangle you.”
“Well, you were the one engaged to the woman,” she said in a snotty voice.
Her tone made him ease a little more. “I was stupid about that,” he confessed, and figured he owed her a better explanation. “I didn’t care about her for herself...I saw her as my ticket back into the family—and also as a poke at Fitz.”
“Oh,” Layla said.
“And I’ve apologized for it.” He smiled a little. “All’s forgiven, even though she’s signed herself up for a lifetime with my fucking perfect big brother.”
Layla made a face. “You don’t fool me. You love him.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. Then they stared at each other for another long minute. His nerves cinched again, going so tight he heard a high whine in his ears. “So—”
“I’ve got to be going,” she said.
“No.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I have something to give you. Don’t take a step.” Not trusting her to do as bid, he hurried away.
And she did move. His stomach swooped at the sight of the empty kitchen, but then he found her in the living room, her gaze focused out the glass slider. The sun was hovering at eye level in that odd, breathless manner it had of seeming to stay glued in place before taking its last precipitous dash for the horizon.
He came up behind her, close enough to smell the sweetness of cupcakes on her skin. “Layla,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
It made her jump and before he could stop her she was out the door and onto the deck. Gritting his teeth, Vance stalked behind her, following his prey until her belly was pressed against the railing.
Impatient now, he grabbed her by the arm and turned her to face him. “Here,” he said brusquely. “This is for you.”
She glanced down at the frame he pushed into her hands and then her gaze came back to his. “What?”
Was she blind? “It’s the Helmet List. The one your dad gave to me. I had it framed, along with a couple of photos. One is the picture of you he always carried.”
Her head bent again as she studied the item. The art shop had mounted the simple lined notepaper on a special backing. It took center stage, the crease marks and smudges of dirt and sweat still apparent. On the upper left, he’d had them place a photo of her father, something he’d taken from Griffin’s stash. On the lower right was little-girl Layla, the child he’d expected to host at Beach House No. 9.
The woman he’d fallen in love with looked up. “I...” She lifted one hand from the frame and made a helpless gesture. “Thank you. I...I’ve got to go.”
All his muscles and tendons seized. He opened his mouth, trying to recall a single one of the speeches he’d rehearsed during her absence. Not a word of them came to mind. Hell, he thought. What now?
A seagull swooped low, and his eyes shifted, his gaze once again landing on the sun. “We haven’t ticked off the green flash yet,” he said quickly. “Don’t you think—”
She shook her head, her refusal emphatic.
Vance’s mouth dried. It was like waking up to that empty bed all over again. The alarm he’d felt upon opening his eyes and discovering her gone had turned to dread when he’d read the note she’d left. Thank you, thank you so much for everything, she’d written, but now it’s time I go. Goodbye.
Maybe she’d really meant it, after all.
“Why did you leave like that?” he asked baldly. Those few words had felt a thousand times worse than Blythe’s long-winded Dear John. He swallowed, then forced out the question that had to be asked, though it put his pride on the line. “Is it because that night I told you I loved you?”
Her Bambi eyes flared wide. “What? That was me.”
He frowned. “No, I said it. I wasn’t sure you heard me before you fell asleep.” His heart started thumping, hammering in his chest, his throat, at the ends of his fingers, for fuck’s sake. Had she just implied she loved him, too? “I’m in love with you, Layla.”
Her knuckles went white on the frame, and then she shook her head again, clearly panicked. “I thought we were clear we didn’t want that.”
He laughed a little, trying to ease his anxiety. “Yeah, well, sometimes it just happens, remember?”
“That was chemistry,” she said, edging toward the stairs leading to the sand.
“Layla, stay put.”
Instead she kept moving. “I didn’t plan for anything like...like love.”
He held himself still, worried about frightening her away. “Well, it’s not something you plan,” he said. “Just ask Baxter. Or Fitz. But if you’re ready, and in the right place—”
“I’m not ready!” she cried out. “I’m not in the right place.”
“Sweetheart, what’s the matter?” Concerned by her distress, he took a careful step toward her. “Would the two of us...would love be so bad?”
“Yes.”
He blinked.
“Because it’s weakness,” she said. “And dependence and...and...”
“And what, honey? And what?”
“And heartbreak!”
“Heartbreak?” He blinked again.
“My mother didn’t make it to my third birthday.” She swallowed. “My father was in and out all my life and now he’s gone forever.”
Oh, sweet girl, Vance thought, as a crack crawled over the surface of his heart.
“So how do I know that what you say you feel will last beyond...beyond the next moment? Or the one after that? I can’t trust it.” Her brown eyes were as big as he’d ever seen them, and so, so serious. “Because the fact is, Vance, I’ve only ever been loved in very small doses.”
Oh, God. The fracturing organ in the center of his chest made him slow to react, so slow that when she whirled and leaped down the steps and onto the sand, he missed his chance to catch her. Keep her.
And this time he worried he might have lost her for good.
* * *
LIKE THE OTHER TIME SHE’D run from the beach house, Layla sprinted northward, frantic to outdistance herself from Vance and the confusing and conflicting feelings he’d provoked. He said it had been his whisper in the dark. He said he loved her.
The idea of it terrified her even more than knowing she loved him. If it was true, how could she ever leave him? And if she didn’t, how could she ever be safe from pain? Attachment is the source of suffering.
Her eyes and lungs were burning when she finally dropped to the sand, all breath gone. Her resting place was at the base of the same dune where she’d stopped before, the night he’d danced with her on the beach house’s deck. Air heaving in and out of her chest, she tried directing herself to calm, but the order wasn’t working. Realizing she still clutched the frame Vance had given her, she dropped it to her lap and buried her face in her hands.
“Layla? Are you all right?”
Her head jerked up. So unnerved was she by her confrontation with Vance, she hadn’t noticed that Jane Pearson was sitting on top of the dune, beside Skye. The brunette’s focus was out to sea, her arms wound tightly about herself.
“What are you two doing?” Layla asked, picking up the frame so she could clamber to her feet.
Jane glanced at Skye’s set face then looked back at Layla. “We’re getting some fresh air.”
“Something’s happened to Gage,” Skye said, her voice colorless.
“What? Your pen pal Gage?” Layla looked to Jane for confirmation. “Isn’t that your fiancé’s brother?”
“Twin.” Jane grimaced. “And his twin-sense has been tingling for several days. Then Skye called and said it’s been too long between letters from him.”
“Mail can be erratic from that part of the world,” Layla said. “Believe me. Even the military postal service isn’t always reliable.”
Skye shook her head. “He’s in trouble.”
“I...” Layla let her next platitude go unsaid. She knew how useless they were. People would tell you it would be all right. Have faith, be strong, think positive thoughts. None of that changed a thing.
You could avoid the cracks in the sidewalk, bargain with some higher power or just your inner fears, and the unthinkable still could happen. A mother would leave her husband and her small daughter. A man’s letter would fail to arrive. One day there’d be a knock on the door and the sight of the uniform on the other side told you everything you needed to know but never wanted to hear.
Loving someone meant you set yourself up for hurt.
“Do you want to come sit here with us?” Jane asked. “You look upset and like they say, misery loves company.”
Layla stared at the other two women, shaking her head. She didn’t want upset. After already losing people in her life, she didn’t want to position herself for miserable again. Her hands tightened on the frame until the edges dug painfully into her flesh. Glancing down, her gaze landed on the Helmet List, and then the last item listed on the notepaper.
That wasn’t her father’s writing, she thought with a frown. The others were in his precise, spare hand, but the last line was not. Someone else had written the final words: Keep Layla safe.
She stared at them, her earlier roiling emotions coalescing into a heated ball that burned in the pit of her stomach. Instead of feeling vulnerable and insecure, she glanced at Skye, then at the frame in her hands, and experienced a righteous rage.
Murmuring a quick good luck to the other women, she spun around and marched back to Beach House No. 9.
Her feet sounded loud on the wooden steps. Coming to a halt on the deck, she saw Vance rise out of a chair, his watchful gaze on her face. She hesitated a moment, tripped up by his face, that arrangement of tanned skin, masculine bones and blue eyes that would be almost pretty without the accompanying heavy musculature of his rugged body.
She thought of those long, hair-roughened limbs sliding against hers in the dark, the hot rush of his breath against her neck, those sinewy hands cupping her breasts and sliding between her thighs as he unraveled her in bed.
I love you. I’m in love with you.
He’d said that.
The liar.
Her ire rose again and she stomped across the painted wooden planks to confront him. “What’s this?” she said, shaking the framed list in his face. “What’s all this about ‘Keep Layla safe’?”
Rubbing the backs of his knuckles against his whisker-stubbled cheek, Vance regarded her warily. “Do you mean because it’s in my handwriting?”
“Hah,” Layla said. “So it is yours.”
He frowned. “Yes. On that last afternoon...he asked me to add it, and about that—”
“Well, I don’t need your pity promise,” she shot at him. “I know you, Vance Thomas Smith, and if you swore to my father you’d keep me safe, then you’d do whatever you must to make that happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
She poked him in the chest. “Telling me you love me...that’s your way of giving me the security my father wanted for me, isn’t it?”
“I keep telling you, I’m no hero. I wouldn’t—”
“You were going to be my friend, you said. You’d write me, email me, call me. But that wasn’t enough to appease your conscience, was it? Instead, you decided to tell me you love me and—”
“Jesus Christ, woman.” Vance scowled. “I do love you.”
He’d said it again, and those four words brought her up short. She’d thought he’d back down if she called him out on his game. It made her anxious again, her stomach roiling, her palms sweating. She stared at him, unsure how next to proceed.
“Sweetheart,” Vance said now, his expression softening, his voice gentle. “I love you.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll tell you a thousand times if I need to. I’m in love with you.”
She wrenched back. “That’s not keeping me safe!” Her whole body felt on fire now, her tongue a flame. “That is not keeping me safe.”
“I know,” Vance said. “And if the colonel was here right now, I’d have to admit that’s the one promise I made that I can’t keep. Love takes risk, Layla.”
She shook her head, aware her anxious voice was rising higher. “I don’t want any more risk. I can’t take any more risk without breaking into a million pieces.”
He stared at her a long, long moment, as if assessing her state of mind. “All right,” he said slowly. “I understand.”
The lump in her throat made it hard to swallow. “Okay. Good. You don’t love me. That’s better.”
“Oh, I still love you,” Vance said, with maddening calm. “And you can walk away from it if you want, if that gives you the protection you think you need. I won’t fight you on that—but it won’t extinguish my feelings for you, either.”
Layla wanted to tear out her hair. What was she supposed to say to that? Didn’t he get it? “Attachment is the source of suffering and—”
“No. Attachment is the source of joy. Parent to child. Brother to brother. Man to woman.”
Panic turned her cold then hot again. He was speaking of his family, and how could she deny what he said after meeting them? But still...
“How can we count on something we didn’t get to choose? Love—” and she put scare quotes around the word “—forced us—”
“No.” Vance interrupted her again. “Love didn’t force the two of us together, Layla. The two of us together create the love.”
Oh, it sounded pretty. But it would hurt so much to hope and feel and then someday to have it disappear or die. She opened her mouth.
“Wait.” His gaze had jumped over her shoulder. “Turn around,” he ordered. “Turn around right now.”
At his urgent tone, Layla spun. Her gaze swept the beach, uncertain what she was supposed to notice. Vance came up behind her, his big body crowding hers. His head bent to her ear as one hand landed on her shoulder and the other pointed to the horizon. “The sunset,” he whispered. “Watch the sunset.”
Layla stared westward, holding the framed Helmet List to her breasts. The sand had lost its golden luster and was a dark shadow spilling into the gleaming, silvery blanket of the ocean. Beyond that, the orb of the sun was more than half gone now, its curved edges distinct between the water and the thin clouds above that had taken on its orangish glow.
There was an orange reflection on the water, too, a narrow-to-broad cone that reached toward shore, but then pulled farther and farther back as the sun slid lower. The orange turned to yellow as the sun seemed to flatten. It became a disk, thinner than a dime, lying on top of the water. In a half breath it was almost gone, just the smallest spot of light. Then even that shrunk in on itself, going smaller...smaller...smaller—
Until shafts of green shot from the tiny point, a deep emerald flash.
Awed, Layla gasped, then gasped once more, as a dolphin leaped high from the water, its sleek body arcing as if to catch the jewel. Then it dove back under, and both were gone.
Vance squeezed her shoulder. His other hand crossed her waist, holding her to him. “Make a wish,” he said against her ear.
To be brave, a voice inside her whispered. Then it was Uncle Phil she heard, presenting two choices. You’ve got to decide if you want to do it my way—only on paper and in dreams—or if you actually want to step onto the plane and fly. And then, finally, it was Vance’s voice. The two of us together create the love.
She spun again, out of his arms, to stare at him, mouth dry, blood rushing in her ears louder than the waves on the sand. “Do you...do you really love me?”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “What did Jules Verne say again?”
“That a person who has seen a green flash can’t be deceived. That they’ve gained the power to read others’ thoughts.”
“So you tell me,” Vance said, reaching out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “What am I thinking?”
As always, his touch thrilled and burned and made her shiver. She swallowed. “That...that you love me and that you know I love you. And that I should stop being such a coward and instead be a little reckless so we can start being happy together.”
He tilted his head. “So...”
Her heart lurched as she gazed upon this beautiful man: soldier, healer, nurturer. Lover. As her father had said, there was something special about him.
Thinking of her dad, Layla felt herself smile, and for the first time it wasn’t tinged with the bittersweet pain of loss. She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if that green flash truly signified his soul had crossed over.
“So...” Vance prompted again.
Maybe it meant it was time she crossed over to a new life, as well. Heart rising to her throat, she turned to face her future. “So,” she said slowly, “I’ve decided I want to start being happy right this second.”
Then she launched herself forward and he caught her to him, his mouth finding hers to spread heat and magic all through her system. Yes, there’s definitely something enchanting about this place, she thought, before her mind misted over with happiness.
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT, when Vance was sleeping, she slid from his possessive grasp and crept out of bed. Unlike the last time she’d sneaked away, this time she went no farther than the dark kitchen. His laptop sat on the counter, and she used it to log on to her mail service. After clicking Compose, she stared a few moments at the blank screen and then wrote:
Dear Dad,
As usual, you picked the right man for the job.
Love, Layla
Closing the computer after hitting Send, she gave it a pat before returning to bed. Vance half awoke as she crawled under the covers. Opening his eyes, he looked at her face as he pulled her close again. “Why are you smiling?” he murmured.
She kissed his throat. “Because tonight, the ether doesn’t seem all that far away.”
# # #
Dear Reader:
Thank you! I hope you enjoyed the . I loved writing the story of Layla and Vance unexpectedly finding romance. Do you always look for the green flash when you watch the sun set over the water? I do!
Continue on to read some information about the real-life place that inspired the fictional Crescent Cove as well as view some photos of the area. If you want to hear my audio introduction to the story and your device does not support audio, you can find the mp3 file in which I talk about the book at my website, .
Interested in sharing your thoughts about Almost Everything with other readers? I hope you’ll leave a review for the book and look for the first two in the series, and . Almost Paradise is coming soon!
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I’ve also included here an excerpt of (Rock Royalty Book 1) and (Billionaire’s Beach Book 1).
All the best!
Christie Ridgway