Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) (22 page)

“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.

CHAPTER TEN

I
F DANCING WITH
L
AYLA
hadn’t made his brain mush, Vance would have seen the trap coming and taken evasive maneuvers. As it was, Fitz had already moved off with the colonel’s daughter—what the hell?—and he was left looking into Blythe’s irrefutably beautiful face.

Blythe, who was his ex, and his brother’s girlfriend.

Didn’t that make him feel stupid? Vance shoved his hands in his front pockets and tried wiping his face of any expression.

“You’re looking well,” Blythe said, color rising up the pale skin of her neck. “I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you at the tavern the other day, but you, uh, you looked well then also.”

“Thanks,” he said tersely, recalling that afternoon and how he’d fed Layla chips laden with guacamole. He’d been in a shitty mood then, too, until she’d teased him about the dip’s aphrodisiac qualities. Thinking of that laughing light in her eyes, he almost smiled.

“So...” Blythe said, drawing his attention back to her and the present. She made a vague gesture with her hand.

Unlike Layla, Blythe had never been much of a chatterbox. God, their dates must have been made up of many long silences. He’d probably found it restful.

Now it struck him as too quiet. Passive.

Boring.

“Vance, I...” she began.

“Yes?” He could play polite.

Another moment of quiet plagued his patience. “I thought we should talk,” she said, and then more words seemed to elude her.

Talk?
How about not,
Vance thought. “Go ahead,” he replied, anyway.

But Blythe went mum for another long ninety seconds. “Well...” she finally said, swinging out one graceful arm.

Vance followed the movement, and his gaze caught on Layla and Fitz. They were, indeed, dancing, and he saw his brother’s hand on her delicate shoulder. His stomach roiled as he watched her hair brush the back of the other man’s knuckles. Something bitter-tasting coated his tongue.

Even more than he didn’t want this conversation with Blythe, he didn’t want Fitz’s hands on the colonel’s daughter, Vance decided. He could still feel her against
his
chest, could still feel the trusting curl of her fingers against
his
palm, could still feel the balm of her smile invading
his
heart.
Mine,
a voice whispered in his head, the single syllable as hard as steel.

Moving past Blythe with a murmured excuse and without a backward glance, he strode into the crowd of dancers, his gaze on Layla.
Mine.

The primitive possession in the word poleaxed him. He halted, suddenly shocked by his fierce response.
Shit,
he thought, quickly backing off the dance floor. Had he actually thought
mine?
“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered to himself as he avoided everyone by returning to the oak grove.

The other food vendors were already packed and gone, leaving the area dark except for the spotlight on the Karma Cupcakes truck. He leaned against its metal side, blessing the solitude. Just what he needed. Some quiet alone time to recoup from the hormones that must have supercharged his system while he’d danced with Layla.

Sweet God, she slayed him, and even the awkwardness of facing his ex, the beautiful Blythe, hadn’t yanked him to the straight and narrow.

Yet it was imperative he clear his head, he thought, sucking in oxygen. Screw it on right. Regain his cool so he could go back to Beach House No. 9 with Layla and leave behind this craving to screw her brains out.

A few quiet minutes passed, calming him. Okay. He was solidly centered again, he decided. Feet firmly planted, common sense reestablished, wayward inclinations leashed.

With his composure regained, he decided to ready things for their return to Crescent Cove. He transferred the few leftover cupcakes to the pink boxes they’d arrived in, stored the bistro tables and chairs in the truck then moved toward the garbage can sitting nearby. Just as he pulled the liner free, a man walked out of the shadows and into the light. Vance started, gave an inward groan, then wiped any reaction from his face.
Don’t lose your cool.

“Dad,” he said with a nod. Before this moment, he’d intentionally kept his distance from the older man—and suspected William Smith had done the very same thing. It was the coping mechanism they’d used the rare times they were forced together over the past years. As casually as he could, Vance tried tying off the bag, but his cast made him fumble and he cursed.

“I’ll do that,” his father said, reaching out.

Vance tightened his grasp on the plastic. “I’ve got it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the other man snapped, getting ahold of the bag. “Let go.”

Looking down at his father’s fingers, a sudden memory bubbled in Vance’s brain. He’d been, what—four?—and learning to ride a bike on the long driveway here at the ranch. His dad had been running alongside him, keeping a steadying clasp on the handlebars. But Vance hadn’t wanted steadying. He’d wanted to fly under his own steam and he’d been fierce about it. “Let go!” he’d shouted. “Let go!”

His father had acquiesced, and Vance had taken off, legs spinning as he sped away on a wave of exhilaration. He remembered grinning.
I’m a big kid now.
The new independence spurred him to pedal even faster....

Straight into the fence post at the end of the drive.

He’d lost a tooth, busted his lip, split open his chin. It was his first visit to the E.R. After stitching him up, they sent him back for X-rays twice. But it was only soft tissue damage, turned out. Broken bones came later.

Now, to prove he’d matured a little, he released his grip on the garbage liner.

It left his father holding the bag and staring at the cast on Vance’s arm just as his mother had done back at Beach House No. 9. “Well...” the older man said, pulling a long breath into his lungs. “Well.”

Vance didn’t like the way his chest was beginning to tighten.
Keep that cool.
He ignored the feeling and tried for politeness. “How are you, Dad?”

His father tied an efficient knot in the plastic and set it down at his feet. “Tired,” he said, sounding irritable. “About this time every year it occurs to me what a damn lot of work we go through for Picnic Day and I swear this will be the last one ever.”

Vance thought his father did look worn. He’d made a brief stop at the house eight months ago—on the eve of his latest deployment, as a matter of fact. His imminent leave-taking had gone unannounced—instead, he’d broken the news in a brief email once he was already out of the country, sparing himself the discomfort of witnessing his mother’s certain dismay. Sitting in the kitchen with her that night, drinking coffee, he’d had a glimpse of his father. The other man had come in, they’d exchanged nods then he’d gone back out.

Though the contact had been brief, Vance was sure the spokelike lines bracketing the outside corners of his father’s eyes were deeper now. He looked thinner, too, the wear in the leather belt around his 501 jeans testifying that he’d cinched it to the next hole. “You should get Fitz and Baxter to do more of the work. I ran into Uncle Roy and he said Bax didn’t even show today.”

“It’s my ranch,” his father replied, his voice tight. “My decision.”

“That’s right.” Vance worked hard to hold back any flicker of reaction. “It’s always been up to you.”

Then he turned to the truck, his chest feeling as if it was wrapped by a belt fastened even more tightly than his father’s.
Breathe,
he told himself.
Be calm.

“You’ve hurt your mother,” his father called out.

Old news, Vance thought, suddenly as weary as the other man claimed to be. “I’m sorry for it,” he said. “When I go back, I’ll try to send a few more emails.”

“Emails.” His father made a sound of disgust. “Is nothing serious with you?”

Vance hung on to his calm with everything he had, even as he spun to face his father again. “War is pretty serious. I take it that way.”

The older man’s mouth set in a harsh line of disapproval. “You’re determined to go back, then?”

Vance hesitated. Under the circumstances, he could request a medical discharge, dispensing with the remainder of his service obligation. But then what? Right now it was a question he didn’t have an answer for. “I’m going back.”

“What about your girl?”

What about her? he almost asked. Layla had no place in his future. “It’ll give her a chance to dump me,” he said, pissed at how bitter he sounded. “There’s a precedent for that, as we both know.”

His father winced, then his voice took on an almost conciliatory tone. “Vance, your brother...”

“No.”
Just like that, the calm was gone, a spike of rising anger in its place. And all the bitterness he’d kept at bay flooded him, his fingers curling into fists. He couldn’t listen to his dad defend Fucking Perfect Fitz. Not now.

Not ever. God, Vance thought, he never should have returned here for Picnic Day.

His father appeared pained. “Look—”

“I don’t want to talk about Fitz.” Vance’s chest was tightening again, but now the pressure was all from the inside. His temper was lava-hot and ready to blow. “Or about that.”

“But you landed on your feet, son, like you always do. You’re with Layla.”

Layla. Thinking of her did nothing to reduce that suffocating heat building inside him.
Just admit to it,
he urged himself,
because you’ve always been a lousy liar
.
Tell him she’s nothing to you.
Clear up this stupid charade.
“Layla is—”