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And nervous. Her fingers combed through the ends of her long hair as she went on tiptoe to scan the area. When she settled back on her heels, she bit down on her bottom lip.
God, didn’t he know that mouth?
He wouldn’t have forgotten kissing those lips, would he?
Still puzzling it out, he narrowed his gaze. He was thirty and she was about five years younger, which crossed her off his list of high school hookups—even if one might have coincidentally ventured here, an hour from home environs. As for more recent conquests—until six months ago he’d been in a yearlong, serious relationship. Meaning if this lovely little mama was part of his past it would have been in his wild and crazy years...wild, crazy and hazy.
He glanced over at Baxter, who had been his partner in crime—okay, he’d been the designated driver—whenever Vance could pry him free of his Aeron office chair. “Cuz.”
Baxter started. He’d been watching Addy, who’d been watching the waves curl toward shore. “Uh, what?” His hand smoothed over the tasteful stripes of his preppy tie even as he slid a last look at the blonde seated beside him.
Vance couldn’t cipher what was going on there, not when he had to determine the identity of the leggy girl at the hostess stand. “Don’t be obvious, but check out the woman waiting for a table.” He saw his cousin lift his gaze in the right direction. “Do I know her?”
Bax’s eyes flicked back to Vance’s face. “Huh? How would I be aware of all your acquaintances?”
“It’s a long shot, but...” But he had this dreadlike feeling that she wasn’t a mere acquaintance. He fought the urge to ogle her again, though the guy in him was clamoring for a second look. It was a bad idea, though. If she was a former...interest of his, he didn’t want to attract her attention. He’d become a little classier—and a lot less of a party animal—over the past few years, and it would only embarrass them both if she attempted reacquaintance and he was forced to admit he’d forgotten her name and how he knew her.
How well they might have known each other.
Could I really have forgotten that mouth?
Hooking a foot around a leg of his chair, he gave it a little twist, presenting more of his back to the brunette. “Never mind.”
“Um,” his cousin said, his gaze drifting over Vance’s shoulder again. “I guess she’s given up waiting on the hostess. She’s walked onto the deck and it looks as if she’s coming in this direction.”
Hell! Vance did a rush shuffle through his memory banks. In college, he’d double majored in hedonism and procrastination until dropping out to join the army. Returning to California after his four-year stint, he’d briefly gone back to his bad boy ways. Though he’d soon straightened up and begun a relationship with a woman he’d thought was his future, it still left time for him to find then forget the wavy-haired woman he could practically feel from here.
He took a chance and glanced back. She was standing still again, scanning the restaurant’s patrons with a hint of anxiety in her expression. He hoped some asshole hadn’t stood her up. As he watched, her eyes started to track toward their table and Vance hurriedly turned his head. Sliding lower in his seat, he made to grab a menu from the table to use as a shield, then froze.
What the hell was he doing? If he hid behind the vinyl folder, Addy would think he was addled. Bax would laugh his ass off. Vance considered himself an idiot just for having the craven impulse.
Anyway, no chance I would have forgotten that face.
Preparing to start some relaxing small talk with his companions, he cleared his throat. Addy and Baxter both looked at him and then, as one, their gazes transferred to a spot above his head. Vance’s belly tightened. A delicately sweet scent reached him on another of those cold, cautionary breezes.
“Vance?” a throaty, feminine voice asked. “Vance Smith?”
That slightly scratchy timbre goosed him somewhere deep inside, waking his previously snoozing sexual urges with a start. Shit, he thought, tensing. Now wasn’t the time for this. Now was the time for Layla Parker to show up. And if the girl arrived this very minute, then an awkward encounter with the female he’d forgotten could get lost in the flurry of meeting the colonel’s daughter. His libido would settle back to its deep sleep. Without moving a muscle, he waited a beat for his wish to come true.
When his hope went unfulfilled, Vance swallowed his sigh of resignation and slowly half turned in his seat.
“So...The Breakers?” he asked, naming one of his old hangouts as he shifted. “Or was it Pete’s Place?”
“What?” she asked.
He made himself look into her eyes. They were big and a soft brown, circled with thick dark lashes. Damn, Vance thought, those eyes, that mouth, the whole package stirred him up.
And stirred a memory, but for the life of him, he couldn’t place it.
“I’m trying to recall where we met,” he clarified. There was nothing to do but confess, though the way his body was responding it seemed unbelievable her identity wasn’t burned in his brain. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know...”
“Oh.” She shook her head, and a pair of gold hoop earrings swung. “We haven’t met. I took a guess. You have the shortest haircut out here.” Her lips curved just a little and—
It clicked. That tiny smile snapped the missing piece into the puzzle. It was the same one worn by the bear-toting kid in the officer’s photograph.
His gut knotted. Hell, he thought, stunned. Oh, hell.
She was right; they’d never met, but he knew her all the same. As a matter of fact, he’d been waiting for her. Yes, Colonel, she is beautiful.
So damn beautiful Vance felt a little sick.
The sexy woman standing two feet away was none other than Layla Parker. Layla Parker, the “little girl” whose dreams he’d been charged with making come true.
Good God, he thought. This changed everything, didn’t it? The little girl was all grown up.
* * *
VANCE WAS SO UNBALANCED he didn’t get to his feet, he didn’t speak, he might not have been breathing. Baxter’s manners kicked in, thank goodness, and it was he who shepherded the colonel’s daughter to the empty chair beside Addy. Layla let herself be led away from Vance and gave her attention to his cousin and the woman he’d hired to live at Beach House No. 9 with him and the little girl.
The little girl who wasn’t a little girl in the least.
Still trying to come to grips with that, he let Baxter and Addy initiate introductions and continue the conversation. Layla smiled and spoke, even as Vance didn’t hear a word she said.
Her big browns kept stealing glances at his face. She was clearly puzzled by his continued silence, but he couldn’t do more than try to ignore his body’s reaction to her while thinking of the speediest way to put an end to this impossible situation.
A server, apparently noting every chair at their four-top was occupied, hurried over to discuss the menu and take requests. He considered telling the aproned girl they wouldn’t be sticking around that long, but Baxter—who’d apparently changed his mind about leaving—and the others were already making decisions and communicating food orders. There was nothing he could do but ask for a sandwich and iced tea.
So they’d have lunch. Share a meal before bidding goodbye. Layla was more than twice the age he’d expected and surely she had better things to do than hang out at the beach with a virtual stranger.
Just as he had the comforting thought, she addressed him. “My dad wrote me about you.”
Vance blinked, looking up from the photograph he’d tossed on the table before, now half-obscured by a place mat. “He did?” They’d known each other, of course—the officer had held a keen interest in the men under his command and he’d been deeply respected and admired in return—but their real closeness had come on that fateful day when Vance had been one of the patrol accompanying the colonel across the valley to his meet with a tribal elder. Fighting to save someone’s life brought about a profound intimacy.
Her gaze dropped to the stack of thin metal bracelets circling one delicate wrist. She spun them one way and then another. “He sent me long letters, describing the people he worked with, the scenery around him, that sort of thing.”
Vance thought of the stingy emails he tapped off to his family and for the first time experienced a pinch of guilt. “Ah.”
“He was a good storyteller,” she said in that sweet rasp of hers. “If he hadn’t been a soldier...”
Her words dropped away, leaving behind an awkward pause. The fact was he had been a soldier and they all knew how that had turned out.
Addy broke the uncomfortable silence. “What is it you do?”
Yeah, Vance thought, good lead-in. Layla would want him to know she had a life that made spending four weeks at Crescent Cove inconvenient, if not downright impossible.
“Karma Cupcakes,” she answered.
Karma cupcakes? He didn’t know what the hell she meant, but it reminded him of something else. “Where’s your uncle?” he asked abruptly. For God’s sake, surely the man should have realized Vance had been operating under a misconception. I was expecting a ten-year-old, Phil!
Layla shrugged. “About now? When he can, he practices tai chi in a city park from noon to one.”
Didn’t that just figure. Namaste. It only solidified Vance’s burgeoning belief that the man was flaky enough not to pick up on the oddness of the situation he’d arranged for his grown niece. No wonder Layla’s father hadn’t entrusted his last request to his brother. “And after that?”
“He drives the cupcake truck.” Glancing around at their confused expressions, she released a laugh.
A little husky. Young.
Yet dangerous miles more mature than the laughter of the female he’d been expecting to entertain at Beach House No. 9. God, what a joke.
“We operate a mobile bakery, Uncle Phil and I,” Layla informed them.
Addy looked interested. “Gourmet food trucks are the new big thing.”
“Exactly,” Layla said, nodding. “We’re called Karma Cupcakes, and we make the batter and bake the cakes in our truck. Then we sell them at various locations in Southern California. We have a regular schedule of farmers’ markets and popular stopping points. Our customers happen upon us or track our whereabouts via social media.”
Baxter straightened in his chair. “I read this article in Commerce Weekly—”
“That’s got to keep you very busy, Layla,” Vance said over him. He’d moved into Beach House No. 9 that morning, but because he’d let go of his apartment upon being called up, since returning to Southern California he’d squatted in the second bedroom at Bax’s city town house for a few days. It was more than enough time to know that the other man devoted himself to business twenty-three-and-a-half hours out of twenty-four. His cousin could go on forever about some dry article he’d read in a financial journal, only postponing the understanding at which Vance and Layla needed to arrive.
The understanding that they’d part ways as soon as he took care of the lunch check. “And summer’s probably a hectic time of year for you,” Vance added.
“Sure,” she agreed. “But we have it worked out so I can stay at Beach House No. 9, if that’s got you worried.”
Of course that had him worried, dammit.
“Uncle Phil can make friends in a minute, including with the couple who owns this restaurant. Once they heard our story, they agreed to let us park the truck overnight in their lot adjacent to the coast highway. In the mornings I’ll do the mixing and baking as usual, in the afternoons, we can...” She shrugged.
We can... Oh, God, he was a bad man, because the we cans instantly spread across Vance’s mind like a set of erotic playing cards. Blame it on the dearth of female companionship a combat tour offered. Blame it on the train wreck that was his last romantic relationship. Hell, place the blame squarely on the beautiful young woman who was sitting a tabletop away, the summer sunshine edging her feminine figure. Who could blame him for his sudden and sharp sexual response? She was big eyes and a tender mouth, soft tresses and golden skin. Nothing could stop his gaze from tracing the column of her throat to the hint of cleavage revealed by the V neckline of her dress.
Unbidden, he pictured himself nuzzling the fabric aside with his mouth, tasting the sweet flavor of her flesh, finding her secret points of arousal and exploiting them with his hot breath and wet tongue. Her long legs would move restlessly, creating a space for his hips, and she’d open to him with a blissful sigh of surrender that was the single best turn-on a man could experience.
A man who’d made promises to her father.
Dammit!
His gaze refocused on the little-girl photo on the tabletop. “This isn’t going to work,” he said, emphatic.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Vance stifled a groan and met her eyes. “Look, I didn’t expect you—uh, it to be like this.”
She stared at him, clearly perplexed. “But you said my father spoke about it. About me being here.”
“Yes, yes. You were in his thoughts at the very last. However...” Vance could feel Addy and Bax looking at him like he was a monster, but hell, he felt like a monster. Juiced up on sex and ready to grab the fair maiden and abscond with her to his deep, dark den. As a reaction it was near violent and damn embarrassing. “Maybe we could meet for a walk someday and talk about it. Or perhaps a phone conversation would be better. I know, I’ll tell you the whole story in an email.”
“You said July at Beach House No. 9,” Layla insisted, her brows meeting over a small, straight nose, betraying she had more backbone than he’d assumed at first glance. “That was my dad’s request—it was his last wish and I think I should fulfill that. It’s what you said you wanted, as well.”
Yeah, he could certainly understand that the colonel’s daughter felt compelled to follow through with what her father had asked of them. It was something he took very seriously himself. But...but...
I thought you were a little kid!
He’d have to find some way to let her down easy. What kind of man would admit he was afraid of getting behind a closed door with her? It would have to be some other excuse, an emergency, or...
He was considering and discarding options when the server reappeared, a tray of drinks in hand. She rearranged items already on the table, scooting the photograph closer toward Layla to make room for a sweating glass of tea.
Layla’s gaze landed on it and her brows came together in another small frown. Shit. Deciding he’d only feel more foolish if she knew of his misunderstanding, he shifted forward to grab the picture before she could connect the dots.
Only to realize he still had a lapful of teddy bear. Wonderful. He was worried about his dignity while sharing a chair with ten pounds of stuffing and fake fur. What else could he do but get rid of it?
“I forgot,” he said, half standing to thrust it in her direction, “this is for you.”
Layla stood, too, automatically reaching for it, then froze, Teddy clutched between her hands. Her gaze flicked to the photo, flicked back to the bear, flicked again to the photo. A flag of bright pink appeared on each cheek. “Oh,” she said, her voice going small. “Oh, God.”
Consider dots connected, Vance thought. Grimacing, he reached out with his casted arm to snatch the picture off the table.
Now she was staring at the colorfully covered plaster wrapped around his hand and wrist, her face losing its pretty blush. “How...how did you do that?” she asked slowly.
He looked down. Damn Baxter. “They’re not real tattoos.”
She made a little face. Her mouth wasn’t wide, but it was top-heavy, the upper lip more prominent than the lower.
Sue him, he found it fascinating.
“I know that,” she said. “I meant...how did you get hurt?”
He hesitated.
“I heard... Uncle Phil said...” She swallowed. “It was while you were trying to save my father, right?”
“It was while I was trying to get us both out of the danger zone,” he admitted, never wishing more that the attempt had turned out differently. “To my deep, deep regret, I wasn’t successful.”
Layla sank back to her seat.
Vance shot a glance at Addy, who immediately scooted closer to the other woman. “Are you all right?”
“Of course.” But Layla’s gaze didn’t move off him, even as he dropped back into his own chair. “Now I understand why you’re worried about our month together, though.”
He was pretty certain she didn’t have a clue that his concerns ran to the limited power of cold showers over a suddenly raging, adolescent-like libido. “Yeah,” he said, anyway.
“Well, you don’t have to be concerned any longer.”
“Good.” She must understand it wouldn’t work, he thought. And if she decided against the plan, he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about the cancellation.
“Your injuries won’t affect our month together at all, though.” Her shoulders squared as if she was shrugging off her earlier embarrassment. “Because, of course, I’ll help you while we’re together at Beach House No. 9.”
Oh, damn, she didn’t understand anything. “Layla, no.”
“It’s only right.” She’d gone from soft gold to steely spine. “You were hurt while trying to save my father’s life. So now it’s my turn.”
