CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS FOUR DAYS FOLLOWING their visit to the ranch before Vance suggested that he and Layla make another attempt at witnessing the green flash. Before that, an unusual July fog had rolled in, obscuring the view and wrapping the beach house in a gray blanket. Outside, the visibility was down to a mere dozen feet and it might have made the interior of No. 9 feel too couple-cozy except that Layla spent most of the days with her uncle Phil at the food truck—apparently gray skies didn’t stifle cupcake cravings in Southern California. In the evenings, Addy was in the mix for dinner and a baseball game on TV or dinner and a girl-movie on TV, depending upon how the postmeal coin toss went.
To be honest, Vance had been grateful for a reprieve from Layla’s exclusive company. After their time at the ranch and then their stop at the tavern...well, he felt a new strain to the relationship. She knew things about him now he hadn’t intended to tell her. There’d been something in that kiss in front of his brother and his ex that went beyond role-playing.
A little distance seemed a fine way to smooth out the new edge, and he suspected she’d been keeping herself busy for the exact same reason.
But he’d made promises, so the Helmet List could not be ignored. With the sun once again visible in the sky, they were going to watch it set.
As they left No. 9, Vance had a new appreciation of Crescent Cove’s clear air and the boundless vista of open ocean. Instead of doing their sunset-viewing from a spot on the sand, he proposed they climb to the top of the cliff directly south of the beach house. There were several footpaths snaking up its rock-and-shrub surface, and he trekked along one of the easier routes behind her, telling himself he was watching her butt to make sure she didn’t fall.
Yeah, right.
Because even with Layla out of the house during the day and Addy in the house at night, his awareness of Colonel Parker’s lovely daughter hadn’t been deactivated.
She was beautiful, of course, in nothing more elaborate than a simple pair of cropped sweatpants and matching long-sleeved T-shirt, but he also couldn’t put from his mind how she’d gone to bat for him when his mother had made her appearance. And then again with Fitz and Blythe at the tavern. That first meet with his ex could have been hellishly awkward, but Layla had smiled them all through it. And instead of focusing on the blonde who’d dumped him, Vance instead had been hyperaware of the sexy, sunny brunette who’d been sitting across from him.
Which went a long way toward explaining the incendiary quality of that kiss in the tavern, though didn’t for a second lessen the simmering sexual tension. At that thought, he looked at her, only to catch her glancing over her shoulder at him. They both quickly diverted their attention.
He sighed. Yes, there was definitely a new strain to things between them.
Upon reaching the cliff’s summit, he led the way toward a level spot that, while well away from the edge, was at the farthest end of the promontory jutting into the ocean. Water surrounded them on three sides, and when he settled beside Layla on one of the blankets he’d spread, she gave him another quick glance.
“From here, it’s like we’re the only people in the world,” she said, draping a smaller throw over her lower legs.
“I could sign up for that,” Vance said. “You’ll do all the cooking and cleaning, of course, and I’ll do...whatever manly things need to be done.”
“I wonder why I’m highly suspicious of this proposed division of labor,” Layla replied, a thread of welcome humor in her voice. “Oh, maybe it’s because you can’t come up with any of your own duties besides ‘manly things.’”
“Hey,” he said, spreading his fingers. “I’m the soldier.”
“If we’re the only two people in the world, it occurs to me we won’t have need of your combat skills.”
“Until there’s spiders to manage,” he reminded her. “Or killer dolphins.”
“Killer dolphins,” she scoffed. But she was smiling and the tension between them eased even more. He smiled back, his spirits lifting, too. Maybe they’d meet with success tonight.
According to sailors, when the flash appears, it means a soul has crossed over.
As if she caught his train of thought, her smile died and she went silent again. Her expression pensive, she turned her attention toward the horizon. The sky was a wash of pinkish-orange, the water the gray of gunmetal, the round sun glowing like molten lava. Vance breathed deep again, and over the shush of the ocean tossing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, he heard Layla sigh.
He turned to her. The wind had caught her long hair and it swirled around her face. He grabbed a long skein of the stuff and tucked it behind her ear. “You okay?”
“Hmm.” She drew up her knees and linked her arms around them, then flicked him a quick look. “This morning I spoke to your mother about Picnic Day. Details. How many cupcakes she thought we might need, what time we should get the truck to the ranch, that kind of thing.”
He swallowed his groan. “I thought we were the only two people in the world,” he said. “In which case there is no upcoming Picnic Day.”
“Nice try,” Layla said. “But you can’t bury your head in the sand.”
Why not? It was effectively what he’d done when he’d joined the army all those years ago. With relations between him and his family in shambles, he’d buried himself in the sand of war. Stretching out his legs, he fumbled in the pouch of his ragged sweatshirt. The flask he’d stashed there clunked against his cast, and he pulled it out, glad he’d thought to bring it.
“Whiskey,” he said, unscrewing the lid with his unencumbered right hand, thanking God for his renewed mobility. He’d put the brace away three days before. A hefty swallow of the liquor went down smooth. A clean burn of unpleasant thoughts. “You want?”
She eyed him. Then took a sip, sputtered.
“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot you’re only good with tequila.”
As if she took the remark as a challenge, she tipped the flask for a second sip. Color flushed her cheeks as she passed it back.
Jesus, she was something. She did something to him, with that soft skin, the top-heavy mouth, those long-lashed eyes that now faced forward again. As he watched, her back stiffened.
“Here we go,” she said, groping for his hand.
After four days of avoidance, he keenly felt her touch. It was as if the small fingers twining with his also had some clutch hold on his heart. Trying to ignore its ache, he turned to the horizon. The sun slipped lower, moving fast now, as if it had suddenly remembered a previous engagement. A golden reflection of it spread against the dappled water and the wind suddenly died. The breakers seemed to quiet, too, as if nature was holding its breath.
Vance knew he was. Tightening his fingers on Layla’s, he leaned his shoulder closer to hers. She trembled a little, and he pressed against her, sharing his warmth. His strength.
The orange orb dropped. And dropped. The top edge seemed to spread and flatten as it slipped the final bit. And then—
Nothing.
His heart twinged in more sympathetic pain, and he damned the thing. It had been nicely numb after Blythe’s defection, but thanks to Layla it now seemed determined to mirror his every mood. Her every mood.
He glanced over. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“Yeah,” she said, her gaze on the now-empty sky.
“We’ll see it next time. I’ll pick the right sunset, and then we’ll see it.” God, once he started on the promises, he couldn’t seem to stop.
“Sure.”
The melancholy on her face made him nuts. “We’ll make a wish on it then,” he said.
She turned her head, perking up a little. “A wish?” Her lips curved.
“Yep. That’s a bit of folklore I picked up.” He touched the pillow of her bottom lip with the tip of his forefinger. The surface was unbearably soft. “Tell me, lovely Layla, what does your heart desire?”
Her smile fell. Her lashes swept down to hide her eyes. And Vance cursed himself. Her heart’s desire? It would be to have her dad beside her right now, you idiot, not some substitute. Pissed at his own stupidity, he fumbled again for the flask and took another drink. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Just ignore me.”
Instead, she took the whiskey from him and sipped, grimacing as if it was medicine. “What about you, Vance? What would you wish for?”
“That you wouldn’t be sad,” he said, and meant it to the marrow. “That I could take the pain away for you.”
Her head bent as she seemed to consider it. “Maybe you should save that wish for yourself,” she replied after a long moment, lifting her gaze to his. “You’re sad, too.”
“Me? No.” He had annoyances. Grievances. Frustrations. But sadness? “Not that.”
Layla took another sip from the flask. “Come on. Fitz and Blythe...”
He snatched the liquor from her. “I don’t want to talk about them.” It was another reason he’d spent four days avoiding her. There was no need to dig around in that old nonstory.
“We’re going to have to.”
In the waning light, he frowned at her. “I don’t see why.”
“Because we’ll be at your family’s ranch.” She hesitated. “Look, I know we’ve been stepping over the elephant in the living room, but we can’t do that forever. If we’re going to do the pretend girlfriend/boyfriend thing again on Picnic Day, I need to have a better understanding of—”
“What, you haven’t had a boyfriend before?” he asked, throwing the question out like bait. Anything to redirect the conversation.
She made a face at him. “I told you. I’ve had experience. I’ve kissed. I’ve been in relationships.”
Ah, yes, thank you, God. His little fish had gone right for the worm. “Forgive me for finding it hard to see your tough-as-nails father allowing you to kiss anybody.” Even as he said it, he worked hard to put their kisses from his mind, the sweet plumpness of her top lip, the soft velvet of her tongue.
Her laugh was rueful. “Okay, I admit it. He was an impediment in my younger teenage years. I wasn’t allowed to attend many parties or go out on one-on-one dates. I thought I might die a ninety-five-year-old virgin.”
Vance wasn’t surprised that the colonel had tried to shelter his only daughter. “But in your older teenage years?”
“I had more freedom.” She found the flask that he’d dropped on the blanket between them. “I was a freshman in college when Dad’s latest deployment left me with an empty house—Uncle Phil was at a meditation center for the weekend. So I devised a battle plan to put an end to my untouched status.”
It was almost dark now, but he turned toward her, anyway, intrigued—no, appalled. “A battle plan?”
“A strategy, if you will,” she said. “An agenda. An approach to finally learning what it seemed as if everyone else in the world my age already knew.”
Wow, Vance thought. No romantic daydreams for this girl. No getting swept away by emotion or even hormones for Layla. The soldier’s daughter thought in terms of tactics and maneuvers to get what she was after.
She swigged some more from the flask. “Here’s the truth. I’d had exactly one date that ended in exactly one kiss before the night I engineered to experience the whole shebang.”
“Shebang,” he echoed. “She-bang?”
“Whoops.” Layla released a husky, half-tipsy giggle. “Bad choice of word.”
He snatched the metal canister away from her. “I think we can leave it at—”
“So I had this battle plan,” she continued. “I’d been to the doctor for birth control, I had condoms, I bought a slinky nightgown, I picked a guy who seemed respectful and who I kinda liked.”
“You kinda liked him?” Vance asked, now almost aghast.
“Well, no,” Layla admitted. “I actually liked him okay, but I amended it later...when, you know.”
A chill rocketed up his spine. “No, I don’t know.” And how can I find this asshole? “Did he...what did he do?”
“He just didn’t do it for me.” Layla was silent a moment. “And then he seemed somewhat irked when I pointed that out.”
Good God. Vance rolled his eyes skyward, to see the first stars shining above them. On the heels of a single kiss, she’d attempted the full monty with all the sentimentality of an officer drawing up combat plans in a war room. No wonder she’d been left unsatisfied. By a guy she liked okay.
“Frankly, now that I think of it, he probably wasn’t any more experienced than me. He’d moved around a lot, too, which cuts down on a person’s ability to get close to others. But I figured, as another army brat, that meant he wouldn’t become too attached to me.”
Good God, Vance thought again.
“Now you,” Layla said.
“Me...what?”
“Your first,” she said, sounding disgruntled. “I shared. Isn’t that what boyfriends and girlfriends do?”
Ignoring the boyfriends and girlfriends remark, he forced his mind away from Layla’s story and thought back. His first? “It wasn’t nearly as well planned as you’re describing, that’s for sure.”
“No?”
“It was more...impetuous. I had a rubber, mind you, and managed to remember to roll it on, but I’d had months of fooling around with Marianne Kelly before we did the deed when we were sixteen.”
With a little smile, he lay back on the blanket to stare up at that star-studded sky. Layla was hovering over him, her features obscured by the darkness. “Maybe that’s where I went wrong,” she said, a mournful note in her voice. Then she positioned herself beside him, her head pillowed by one arm, her shoulder brushing his. “No fooling around before doing the deed.”
Vance could guarantee it. Still smiling, he thought of those heady hours with his high school girlfriend. No empty houses, no satiny nightgowns, no cold-blooded arrangements. “We snatched time together wherever we could. In the front seat of my first car. On the couch at her house, with her parents just a room away. She even braved the avocado grove once.”
“No,” Layla said, clearly disbelieving. “No girl gets naked when there’re spiders around.”
He clucked his tongue. “Layla, Layla, Layla. There’s fun to be had over clothes. Or by sneaking a hand under them.”
They were lying so close and it was so quiet that he heard her breath catch. His body went on sudden alert as she shivered. He rolled his head toward her. “Cold?” he asked, his voice low.
She shivered again. “A little.”
He reached for the second blanket that was puddled near their feet and pulled it upward, over their bodies. As he drew it toward Layla’s chin, the side of his pinkie brushed her breast. She twitched, and her breath hiccupped again.
Vance’s hand stilled. A breeze found the back of his neck but it was nothing against the new heat pouring through his body. He should stand up now, he thought. It might be a little awkward with the sudden stiffness poking at the placket of his jeans, but the two of them should probably leave here, where they felt as though they were the only two people in the world. Return to Beach House No. 9...
Where, since Addy was out for the evening, they’d be the only two people within the four walls.
Still, maybe between the cliff top and the confines of the house, he’d manage to corral this irrepressible lust, this shouting, insistent, reckless need to touch her, kiss her, teach her what he knew.
Hell! His good sense knew he couldn’t afford that complication.
But then Layla made the internal argument moot.
Her fingers found his. Not to brush them away, but to press them to the sweet, swelling mound of her breast. Sweet Christ. Four days of avoidance, four days of good intentions and four days hoping to cool the smoldering tension disappeared in a burst of steam.
With a groan, he surrendered to the goodness of her under his hand. He rolled to his side, ignoring the awkwardness of the forearm cast between them, and fastened his mouth to hers. She opened instantly, and he painted the inner surface of that heavy upper lip with his tongue. Her body arched, and the stiff jut of her hard nipple was evident under her shirt and bra. He circled it with two fingertips as he kissed her more deeply, plunging now, driving into the wet heat.
She angled toward his body, offering herself to him. His lips drew away from her and traveled across her cheek, finding the hollow behind her ear. He was breathing heavily and when he touched his tongue there, he could feel her reaction to his hot breath. Her skin rose in goose bumps and he roamed over them, wetting them.
“There’s fun to be had over clothes,” he murmured again. “Or by sneaking a hand under them.” Then he slid his hand from her breast and burrowed it beneath the hem of her shirt.
She jerked as his touch found the bare flesh of her midriff. Her head twisted, her mouth seeking his. Her kiss was desperate, full of gratifying need, as he finger-walked up her ribs. One of his knuckles touched the underside of her breast and they both moaned.
Her bra was of a thin, stretchy material. He skated across it until he found the upper edge. Then, in a quick yank, he pulled the fabric beneath the plump rise. Layla stilled, and then she arched toward him, sucking on his tongue when he thrust it inside her mouth.
Her intense, instant reaction was heady stuff. He loved the way she clutched his shoulders, the bite of her nails testament to her need. He thumbed the bare nipple, then gently pinched it between two knuckles. Layla’s legs moved, restless, and he threw his top thigh over them, making her his captive. She moaned, her body thrashing a little as if to test the bond, but he didn’t give way.
The restraint seemed to accelerate her desire. Little sounds came from deep in her throat, short moans that were their own demand. Vance knew she wasn’t going with any plan right now, wasn’t thinking of tactics or strategy; she was moving on impulse, letting her yearning build to a heedless pace, finding the power in being passionate. Impetuous.
Like he had been for so long, Vance thought. And it wasn’t always bad, was it? But he was in control now, fascinated, and also committed to nurturing the craving he felt in the thrumming quiver of her lovely body.
“Vance,” she moaned, then bit at his lower lip as if she couldn’t help herself. “Oh, God.”
He damned the awkward arm cast. There were so many places he wanted to touch her! Pushing her flat to her back again, he shifted under the blanket, then stopped teasing her breast to raise the hem of her shirt. His mouth found the naked nipple and he licked it, reveling in her husky groan.
The vibrations of it went through his fingertips as he insinuated them beneath the waistband of her sweats. Her stomach muscles jittered at his touch and she went still again. Vance jerked his mouth from her, needing to suck in some harsh breaths as he found the elastic band of her panties, riding low on her hips.
“Oh, God,” Layla said again, lifting into his touch.
He allowed her to part her legs, and then he pressed the weight of his thigh back across them. She stilled again, and he could sense the need building inside of her. “That’s right,” he whispered against her breast. “Let me touch you. Let me make it good.”
Complications. The word whispered through his mind, but he pushed it away. This was simple. So simple. Her heated skin beneath his fingers, against his tongue. Her desire, which she’d tried to experience through agendas and arrangements, under his control now. He teased it, stoked it, blowing on the flame to create the fire that would sweep over her.
It was a...a kindness. Not a complication.
His tongue curled around her nipple as his fingertips slid beneath her panties. He parted her for his sure touch, stroking into the soft, layered petals. She moaned when he discovered her wetness. He reveled in it, his heart pounding hard and fast, his fingertips drenched in her liquid heat. Driven himself now, he yanked his hand from beneath her sweatpants and took it to his mouth, tasting her essence.
She made an urgent, almost panicked noise.
“Shh,” he soothed, then swiped his tongue against his fingertips once more. He shifted to kiss her again, sharing the flavor of her need. She went a little wild, her body arching high, and he pressed his thigh more firmly against her twitching legs. That urgent noise came from her throat again, muffled now by his mouth, and he took the hint, sliding his hand low again, against her belly, under her panties, to the knot of nerves at the apex of her sex.
He rubbed there, circled, toyed, tapped. Then rubbed again.
And she went wild.
It was a beautiful thing, all he’d wanted for the woman who’d never fooled around. Who had efficiently sought out sex without being driven by the hot-blooded need to climax. He took her orgasmic cries into his mouth as her body shook against his.
He gentled his kiss and his touch as she calmed. Her breathing slowed and her lashes swept up, her gaze on his face. They looked at each other, and reality whomped Vance on the side of the head.
Oh, hell. With a silent groan and an aching body, he rolled to his back beside her, no longer touching her. What a way to lose his head!
She was so sweet and tempting and desirable and...
He gritted his teeth. And off-limits.
Layla cleared her throat, a nervous sound. “Um, hey. Do you... Don’t you...” Her fingers brushed his arm. “We can—”
“No,” Vance said. “I— No.”
“But—”
“It just seems smarter to keep it simpler, don’t you think?”
She cleared her throat. “Sure, but it doesn’t seem fair—”
“I’ll be fine.” Tortured, but he deserved it. With a surreptitious movement he made an adjustment to his still-tight jeans. Yeah, he was going to hurt for a while, but it was a fitting punishment for letting his own impulses get away from himself. For allowing Layla to come, thus creating only more complications.
* * *
MIDMORNING OF PICNIC DAY, Layla let Vance drive the Karma Cupcakes truck to the Smith ranch and wished she’d roped Addy into attending, as well. If the other woman had also been in the vehicle, Layla would have had a cheerful companion. Someone to talk to.
Someone who wasn’t brooding in silence.
The silent brooder was Vance, of course, and she might entirely chalk it up to the upcoming interaction with his family if he hadn’t been in a distinctly preoccupied mood since that night they’d watched for the green flash. Her stomach tightened at the memory of what had gone on under the blanket, and she snuck a look at the stony-faced man behind the wheel.
Okay, she glared at him a little. It wasn’t that she could blame him for a moment of it—well, of course he was responsible for every kiss, every caress, every jolt of sweet satisfaction—because the true guilty party wasn’t a person at all. It was the magnetism that had pulled them together from the very first. That attraction that had burned her fingertips and made her insides melt like heated marshmallows even now.
As if he felt her gaze, he glanced over.
Just like that, it happened. A string seemed to tether them together, and it pulled tighter the longer they looked at each other. Her belly clenched again, and Layla pressed one leg against the other, trying to dissipate the ache between them. Vance’s jaw tightened and she saw his lips press into a taut line.
Unfortunately, that only sent her mind to the incredible moment on the cliff when he’d taken his fingertips straight from her body to his mouth. He’d made a little sound of appreciation as he’d absorbed her taste, and her skin had flamed with both a deep embarrassment and an almost uncivilized surge of desire.
God, she thought now, feeling an echo of that heat radiating from her bones outward. The unselfconscious lustiness of the gesture had been so...so male.
As Vance directed his attention out the windshield again, she allowed herself a little shiver. She needed some outlet for the sensual pressure bottled inside her.
Vance cleared his throat. “You’re cold? I can turn down the air-conditioning.”
“No.” She almost laughed. He’d posed that question before, and she hadn’t been trembling due to the chilly temperature then, either. It was as if she had a sexual furnace inside her, one that was constantly stoked by the smallest things. The flex of his long thigh muscle as he braked into the next sharp curve. The gold tips of his hair, longer than it had been when they’d first moved into No. 9. The look of his lean fingers as they gripped the steering wheel. His right arm was lifted to the two o’clock position, while the left, the one with the cast, lay in his lap. Two fingertips rested on the bottom curve of the wheel.
She imagined herself sucking them. Then sucking him.
Shocked by the thought—in broad daylight! In the cupcake truck!—she made a little noise. When he glanced over, she whipped her head toward the passenger window.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Maybe she should just get it out into the open. You put strange thoughts in my head. I woke up last night hot and restless. I want to taste you. His quiet mood didn’t invite confessions, however. And he hadn’t mentioned anything about their sunset interlude himself since that night when he’d thought it “simpler” for the sexual satisfaction to be one-sided. She’d agreed, and then, in silence, they’d picked their way down the cliff in the starlight.
She supposed there wasn’t much more to say, anyway, but...
Had he decided it should stop there because he was concerned she’d make too much of it? Did he worry she might get too attached?
“I’m fine,” she told him again.
Because she didn’t make too much of anything, ever. And army brats knew better than to count on permanence.
Soon they were approaching the Smith ranch. In deference to the expected traffic, she supposed, there were temporary caution signs set up along the way. It made sense, given the hairpin turns, though Vance navigated them smoothly, and soon they were pulling into the sprawling courtyard that lay between the two big houses. At the center was a low stage already crowded with musical instruments and audio equipment. Nearby were long rows of adjoined picnic tables, sunshades erected above them. Vance steered the truck beyond, to the stand of massive oaks. There was enough room between the trunks for vehicles to park, and it was here that the food vendors were setting up for the event. Already she caught a whiff of meats being tended over large grills. Vance set the parking brake and then took a breath. “Showtime,” he murmured.
Layla slid him a sidelong look. He couldn’t be looking forward to this, but you wouldn’t know it from his calm posture. He sat in the seat in his worn jeans, navy blue single-pocket T-shirt, and a beat-up pair of running shoes. Apparently Picnic Day was a casual affair.
She’d counted on that, though she was wearing a dress instead of shorts for this second visit to the ranch. It was a soft cotton, halter-style sundress, with a swirling pattern of umber and gold colors that she thought set off the light tan she’d gained from her days at the beach. She didn’t wear much makeup, opting for a double layer of mascara and a sheer lipstick that held just a hint of bronze.
Flipping down the visor overhead, she checked her face in the mirror.
“You have to know how pretty you are,” Vance said, as if it was a personal insult.
She turned to him, frowning, and he winced, apparently catching his harsh tone. “Sorry,” he said. “I just want this damn day to be over.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Layla agreed. Then she hauled in a deep breath and blew it out. “Shall we get moving then?” Yeah, let’s just get this damn day over with.
They were ready by the noon opening. The awning was erected, the small bistro tables and chairs set out, the cupcakes transferred from the bakery boxes she used for transport to the glass display cases. She and Vance worked well together and he did all that she asked, but the quarters were close and she realized he was being careful not to touch her—or even get too near.
Katie Smith came toward the truck just as the first visitors arrived, dragging a garbage can behind her. Vance hopped out to take it from her. Her face lit up at the sight of him. “You’re free of the wrist brace,” she said, and then her smile turned teary as he bent to kiss her cheek.
“Mom,” he admonished, shaking his head, but she only let out a watery laugh and pushed him away.
“Go find a good place for the can. I want to see your girl’s wares.” Then she perused the selections with great interest. “These look delicious.”
“Would you like one?” Layla asked. The “your girl” had sent her pulse stumbling. She’d had second and third thoughts about Picnic Day and had even considered bowing out altogether, Vance’s cool detachment making it even more difficult to pull off a pretend relationship.
But she’d sympathized with his family dilemma and she’d made a promise to his mother, so she pinned on a smile. “We have our famous devil’s food cupcake, a new lemon flavor that I just started featuring and, in honor of today, a vanilla-avocado cake with milk chocolate frosting.”
Katie blinked in surprise. “Avocado in a cupcake? We’ve used it with zucchini to make a bread, but I’ve not attempted a lighter crumb.”
So she bakes, too, Layla thought, inordinately pleased. “It works. It’s a fat replacement, really. I’m pretty happy with the results.”
“Let me get Vance’s father over here,” Katie said. “He’ll love an avocado cupcake...and I’m sure he wants to meet you.”
“Sure. Great,” Layla said, not letting go of her smile. Facing the Smith patriarch had to be done, she knew. The uncomfortable day wouldn’t be over until she’d made that acquaintance. But before her nerves had a chance to really get jangling at the idea, there was a line in front of her, four deep.
Slipping into the rhythm of taking orders, making change and delivering desserts, she barely looked up when Katie reappeared at the window. “William,” she said, turning to the figure behind her, “this is Vance’s girlfriend, Layla...”
“Parker,” Layla finished for her, and stripped off her food prep glove so she could shake the man’s hand. He stepped up and her heart stuttered. Oh. There was Vance, thirty or so years from now. Though the golden hair had turned silver, father and son shared the same tall, lean body and the same blue eyes. The same guarded expression.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, with polite reserve.
“And you, too,” she replied, then glanced around the interior of the truck. “Hey, Vance, your dad...” He’d ducked out, she realized with a frown. Intentionally avoiding the situation, she was sure. She turned back and pretended not to be annoyed. “I’m sorry. He was just here.”
An expression crossed the older man’s face and now she saw his son Fitz in him, too. The two men were similarly bad at hiding their troubled emotions when it came to the younger Smith brother. “I’m sure I’ll catch up with him sooner or later,” William Smith said. “Thank you for coming.”
“You’re welcome. It looks to be a great event.”
“Yes. Sure.” He shoved his hands in his front pockets. “Well, uh...” He looked as if he wanted to ask her questions but didn’t know where to start.
In the distance, a voice shouted his name, and relief crossed his face. “I’m sorry, maybe later we can...”
She was already smiling again and waving him away, and then she was quickly consumed by managing the clamoring crowd when the event really started swinging. As the temperature climbed, she heard a fiddle and a banjo break into a bluegrass tune. Somebody whooped as they walked by with a plate of ribs and an ear of bright yellow corn.
Vance reappeared and once again pitched in. She managed to corner him for a moment, noting his grim expression. “Are you all right?” she asked.
He was silent as he studied her face. “Do I need to apologize for being a moody ass?”
His rueful smile melted her. “Memories bringing you down?”
“I’m just trying to float on top of them,” he said, then brushed her cheek with a knuckle and went back to work.
The hours flew by. When there was a brief lull in demand, Vance left the truck and returned with platefuls of food, as well as the teenage daughter of a neighbor. The girl took Layla’s place at the counter so she could eat. There was a heaping mound of potato salad, skewered strips of barbecued chicken, tortillas and beans. Thick slices of creamy green avocado speared by long toothpicks had been drizzled with a vinaigrette.
Though Vance wandered off to consume his meal—still trying to avoid her when he could?—Layla took a stool near her temporary helper. It was while she was sitting that she caught sight of Fitz and Blythe in the distance. The blonde looked as though she belonged at the country club instead of in the country. Her tailored, sleeveless shirtdress was silk, her long platinum hair tied back in a sleek tail.
She’s so lovely I want to stick a pin in her, Layla thought, instead stabbing a chunk of potato with her now-empty avocado toothpick. Then she noticed Vance sitting against a tree, his gaze on his brother and his ex, and stabbed another, with more viciousness. Was he still floating on top of the memories or had he fallen into pining after the elegant beauty?
The thought made her a little bad-tempered as she returned to duty. Vance stepped inside, and praise be, his mood seemed improved—by the food or perhaps because he saw the end of the day in sight. Unfortunately, Layla only became more irritable when she ran out of lemon cupcakes, then the avocado ones, just as it was turning dark. She’d been so sure she’d baked enough of every flavor to make it through the entire event.
“Won’t this day ever be over?” she muttered, as she tried breaking into a shrink-wrapped package of napkins.
Opening the darn thing seemed impossible. “Great,” she complained aloud. “Now they’re childproofing paper goods.”
Vance approached, and in the truck’s well-lit interior she saw he held a small knife in his hand. She glared at him. “You can put your weapon down, okay? I’m not actually dangerous.”
He raised a brow. “I was going to offer to get that open for you.”
“I’ve got it.” Still seething, she snatched at the knife. There was a sense of pressure, a quick slash of heat, and then she was staring at the shredded fingertip of her glove. And blood.
“Oh,” she said. It all caught up with her: the tension, the frustration, the long hours on her feet. She felt her knees go soft.
From far away she heard Vance curse. Then he had an arm around her to hustle her toward the sink. He flipped on the water, stripped off the glove and thrust her hand under the flow. She shivered in reaction to the cool liquid on her skin as the cut began to throb.
Vance cursed again. “You have bandages in here?”
But her dizzy brain couldn’t formulate an answer. With another muttered curse, he wrapped her finger in a paper towel. His arm still around her, he hustled her down the steps.
“Wait,” she protested, “we can’t leave the truck.”
“We’re leaving the truck,” he said, but he set her in one of the bistro chairs while he lowered the awning and locked up. Then he had her back on her feet and was helping her toward the courtyard.
Next thing she knew, she was sitting at one of the picnic tables beside the dance area, surrounded by people talking, eating and laughing. Vance had found an elastic bandage somewhere, and he was hunkered down, bent over her wounded finger. The strings of fairy lights overhead caught the gold threads in his hair. Bemused, she watched him unwrap the paper towel with tender care.
“I’m fine,” she said.
He glanced up. “Drink the cola.”
She blinked, realizing he’d brought along a can with the first-aid equipment. Her free hand circled the sweating aluminum and she tilted her head to take a long draft of sugar and caffeine—nearly half of it in one go. “Good,” she said, and pressed the cold container to her throat.
Vance wrapped the bandage securely about her finger, then looked up again. “Your hand’s fine—”
“Told you.”
“—but you need to hydrate. Finish that and I’ll get you some water.”
She made a face. “Yes, Grandpa Vance.”
One brow rose. “My grandpa switched me when I sassed.”
“Liar.” With the cola almost finished, she was feeling much better. Or maybe it was because he continued to cradle her hand. It was the closest they’d been to each other since that night on the cliff. “Bet your mom would confirm it.”
His eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t mean I won’t spank you.”
Some imp invaded her body. Spoke through her mouth in a soft, teasing tone. “But not because you’re mad at me.”
He abruptly stood, and she rose, too, drawn up by his hand. His gaze dropped to where they were joined, as if he’d just realized he still had her in his grasp. In the next moment, the band started playing again. No bluegrass now, but a country ballad. Love gone wrong.
“Dance with me,” she said, another impulse she couldn’t stifle.
“We could go now,” Vance replied, his expression guarded. “Back to the beach house. We’ve more than put our time in.”
That’s what she’d wanted all day. For this command performance to be over. Until now.
“Dance with me,” she repeated. And without waiting for an answer, tugged him toward the couples who were already moving to the music under a canopy of crisscrossed lights.
With a sigh, he let himself be led. Then he released another as she moved into his arms, his big male body sheltering her in a way that made her acutely aware of her feminine differences. They swayed together, their feet barely moving, her arms around his neck, his fingers linked at the small of her back. He rested his chin on the top of her head.
Layla’s body started to hum, a force pulsing under her skin. It made her feel edgy in Vance’s arms and at the same time as if she’d found the most comfortable place on earth. The thought startled her, and she instinctively tried to retreat, shuffling back.
She glanced up as Vance tightened his hold.
Their eyes met and she couldn’t look away. Or move away, either.
He groaned softly. “I’ve tried everything I can to control this...”
Well. They were finally going to address the issue.
“...but it continues to be a problem.”
“It’s not my fault,” she protested.
“I didn’t say it was.” The fingers at the small of her back rubbed a little, and the pulse beneath her skin turned into a throb. Low in her belly, heat clenched like a fist, then released, sending fiery sparklers of sensation through her body. “I keep thinking it’s my fault,” Vance continued.
She shook her head. “It isn’t. It’s a force of nature, like...like the green flash.”
“I looked that up, you know. It has to do with the atmosphere’s density gradient and refraction.”
What? Her brain was too tired for science, and she wouldn’t allow him to change the subject now. Vance’s leg moved between hers. It was rock-solid and the denim scraped deliciously against sensitized skin. “That doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“Neither does this,” he grumbled.
“Don’t think I commemorated it in my diary with big happy letters,” she shot back, a little insulted. “I wasn’t prepared for this...this attraction thing to just show up. I assumed I’d have more of a choice.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t think sex is always like that time you strategized your own deflowering.”
Now she narrowed her own eyes. “Yuck.”
“Exactly what I thought when you told me about it.” He heaved another sigh. “The truth is that yeah, sometimes it does just happen—the flash, the flare, the...”
“Burn,” Layla supplied. So he’d felt like this before...with someone else? With Blythe? In her belly, a green-eyed monster twitched its tail.
“The burn. Jesus, Layla,” he said under his breath. “What only you can do to me.”
Only you. The monster subsided and, feeling a bit smug, Layla found herself smiling at Vance.
Which made him glare at her, though she detected an answering smile deep in his eyes. “Hey. I find it extremely inconvenient, lady.”
What could she say to that? It wasn’t as if she found it any easier to deal with than he. So she closed her eyes and kept dancing. The band segued into another slow song—more heartbreak—but Vance didn’t stop moving. Instead, he pushed her head against his chest and she nestled her cheek there and breathed him in.
The sexual fire settled a little, as if it could be banked when he was this close. Her gaze took in the other dancers, the twinkling lights, the beauty of the warm night. Picnic Day had likely looked this same way thirty years before. “This event’s gone on every year of your life,” she murmured.
“Mmm. We have photos of me from the first one, being carried around in a baby backpack.”
She allowed her fingers to sift through the short hair at the back of his neck. “What’s the best Picnic Day you remember?”
He was quiet a long moment. “Actually, this one’s turned out not so bad.”
“Yeah?” Surprised and a little pleased, her head came up.
Vance looked down at her, his lips curved. “Yeah.”
Had she wished the day could be done? Layla thought. Not anymore. Right now she wanted the night to last forever.
And Vance was about to kiss her, she could read the intent in his eyes, so she lifted her chin to make sure he knew she’d welcome it. To shorten the distance between their lips, she even went on tiptoe.
But then she fell to her heels when Vance’s brother appeared beside them, Blythe at his elbow. “Shall we switch partners?” Fitz said.