Bungalow Nights - Christie Ridgway

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It’s Baxter.”

      Vance’s brows rose. “What does my cousin have to do with it?”

      Addy jumped to her feet and started muttering. “I saw him yesterday, okay? Well, you know that. It’s just, he... Never mind.”

      Still muttering, she stalked back into the house, slamming shut the glass door behind her. Vance and Layla both stared after her, and then he shifted his attention to the colonel’s daughter once more. After a moment of tense silence, she met his gaze.

      Her tongue touched her top lip and he worked not to notice it. “Do I want to know about this ‘calendar’?” she asked.

      “It’s nothing bad,” he assured her. “And not so time-consuming that you can’t hang with Addy if you want, or just spend time soaking up the summer air.”

      Layla stepped a little closer to him, her wariness apparently lifted for the moment. “That sounds nice,” she admitted. “I haven’t taken any days off from cupcakes since we bought the truck.”

      “Your dad said you deserved a vacation. He wanted this one for you on the beach.”

      She drew closer, her eyes searching his face. “You...There was time? He really had time to talk to you about me?”

      “Yeah.” Vance softened his voice. “He wasn’t in physical pain, Layla. I was able to make sure of that.”

      He saw her swallow. She stepped closer yet, sank again to the cushion beside him and pushed her hair away from her temples with both hands. Then they dropped to her lap. “What’s this calendar all about?”

      Her father’s face flashed in his mind, sweat-streaked and pale, but determined as he fumbled with the precious papers in his headgear.

      Isn’t she beautiful, Vance? You’ve got to do something for her. You’ve got to do something for my girl.

      He’d sworn he would, and nothing as temporary or as ill-advised as surrendering to his baser urges would get in the way of keeping his word. “Your father gave me a piece of paper he always kept with him—a list of things he wanted the two of you to do together. Things he thought he’d put off for too long.”

      “Oh, Dad.” Her thick lashes swept down to hide her eyes. She brought the back of her hand to her nose. “I’m not crying. Tears always upset him—Uncle Phil, too—so I don’t do that.”

      She was worming her way under his skin again, this stoic little soldier. Under other circumstances, Vance would have put his hands on her. As a medic, he understood the comfort of human touch. But right now it didn’t seem wise. “I pledged to take his place—to do them with you,” he said.

      She slanted him a glance. “And what are they exactly?” she asked, her voice thick.

      “A surprise. Are you okay with that?”

      Her laugh sounded more sad than amused. “He liked surprises, the goof.”

      This time Vance allowed himself to reach out. His fingers caught in her hair and he managed to tuck a piece behind her ear. “He called it his ‘Helmet List,’” Vance said, softly. “And I promised to share it with you.”

      As his hand fell, Layla caught it with hers, squeezing. And God, the sexual thrill was there, undeniable, but the buzz that goosed his libido also sent an electrical current toward the center of his chest. It was some kind of weird sorcery. Because the heart he thought Blythe had stomped dead thumped once. Twice. In that instant reanimating, like Frankenstein’s monster bolting upright on the table.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      BAXTER SHOT HIS CUFFS, smoothed his palm along the silk of his striped tie and then peered around the doorjamb into the small room. Narrow windows ran along its roofline and the walls were decorated with framed movie posters and black-and-white stills, all looking to be from the silent movie era. At the room’s center sat chairs arranged around a rectangular table, a closed laptop resting on its surface. No one was inside. He frowned. The salesperson of the adjacent art gallery had directed him here.

      It was where he was supposed to find Addison March.

      Baxter’s glance landed on his Cordovan loafers and he frowned again, noting the dry film of fine sand along their shiny tops. It took him just a moment to withdraw his white handkerchief from his back pocket and dust the particles away.

      When he straightened, he saw movement across the room, at the closet entrance he’d missed on first inspection. Backing out of it was Addison March’s ass.

      Addison—Addy, she’d told him she liked to be called all those years ago—March had a very fine ass, and he leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and allowed himself a moment to admire it as she dragged a carton into the main area, her body bent nearly in half, her feet shuffling backward, her denim-covered bottom leading the way. He wasn’t aware he did anything to give himself away, but suddenly Addy froze. A moment passed. Then, instead of rising to a stand, she turned her head and glanced around her bent elbow.

      Her green eyes caught Baxter’s gaze.

      With a yelp, she leaped a couple of feet into the air. Upon landing, she spun to face him, her hand covering her heart. “You scared me!”

      Oops. He should apologize, Baxter thought. That’s what he’d come to do, after all, though not for startling her. He’d come to talk about That Night. That Night he’d thought he’d purged from his mind until seeing her yesterday afternoon.

      She frowned at him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

      He took a step into the room. “Hello?”

      Without a greeting of her own, she returned to dragging the box from the closet. It was unclear how heavy it was, because Addy was such a little thing he figured a ream of copy paper could make her break a sweat. His mother had worked hard to instill in him good manners—even though he might have ignored some of them after That Night—so now he moved quickly to come to her aid.

      “Let me help,” he said, reaching around her. She ignored him, though, her backward trajectory putting that cute ass on a collision course with his crotch. It was Baxter’s turn to leap.

      She gave him another around-the-elbow glance. “I’ve got it.” With awkward tugs, she dragged the carton toward the room’s table, then left it to return to the bowels of the dim closet.

      He followed her, noting the stacks of cartons inside. “Do you want all of them out?”

      Rather than answering the question, she said, “I’ve got it.” Again.

      It annoyed him. He was here to make things right between them and her stubbornness wasn’t helping. His arm bumped hers as he shouldered past. “Just point to the one you want.”

      At her silence, he threw a glance over his shoulder. “Well?”

      She had an odd expression on her face. Then she cleared her throat. “Honest, I don’t need your help. They’ve been in there a long time, Baxter. They’re dirty.”

      “I’m not afraid of a little grime.”

      “Really?” She tilted her head. “Because you look a little...prissy.”

      Insult shot steel into Baxter’s spine. He played mean and stinky roundball with his old high school buddies on Saturday mornings. He regularly signed up for 10K races—beating his own time the past five outings—and just last month he’d participated in the Marine Corps’ mud run. Nobody he knew had caught him taking that yoga class and he’d only agreed to it because the woman he’d been dating at the time had promised banana pancakes afterward.

      Wait—were banana pancakes prissy?

      The internal question made him glare at Addy, even as he noted the self-satisfied smirk curling the corners of her mouth. Without a word, he turned back around and started stacking boxes and hauling them from the closet.

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