I should be gentler with her, he thought. I should think of more ways to please her during these last days that we’re together.
“Vance?” his mother said, casting him a glance.
“Hmm?” Layla was still on his mind, and he was surprised by a sharp little pang at the idea of sleeping without her on the next pillow.
“I asked Layla if you two would come out to the house for dinner tomorrow night.”
His focus sharpened in an instant. “What? No. We were just there for Picnic Day. We’re already coming again for Fitz’s engagement brunch.”
“But this would be different. This would be about the two of you.”
She was definitely a battering ram. A sneaky, manipulative battering ram. He opened his mouth to refuse, but then she set aside the wet cloth and reached up to brush at Layla’s bangs. “These look good on you,” she murmured. “I was always too leery of grow-out issues to have them myself.”
Layla just smiled as his mom continued to smooth her hair. And damn, it was the smile that got to him. A little more mothering would please the colonel’s daughter, he could see that.
“Vance?” his mother prompted.
He sighed. “What time?”
* * *
THE SUN HAD LONG SINCE SET when Layla and Vance returned to Beach House No. 9 following their afternoon at the farmers’ market. The night was clear but chilly, so she changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt as she tried ignoring the melancholy that once again surged.
Hoping the ocean breeze would clear it away, Layla wandered onto the deck and leaned against the railing. The view of the sky was unobscured by city lights and she gazed up at the glitter of a thousand stars and the silver disc of moon. She shivered a little, noting its wavering reflection in the endless blanket of ocean before her. How small she was in comparison. How alone.
While the cove felt delightfully secluded during the day, tonight it seemed oppressively isolated.
It’s just you and me, moon, she thought. The stars were too distant to be considered companions.
Soft music started floating through the air, a woman singing something slow and sultry—no, now it was slow and sad. The man was gone, the day was done, yeah, baby, night instead of sun. Layla glanced at the house to see Vance pulling back the glass slider. He walked onto the deck, a beer in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other. The moonlight illuminated his rangy body and handsome face, and her gloomy mood deepened as the woman’s voice swelled into the chorus.
She should stop sleeping with him, Layla decided. It was time to put distance between them. Then maybe the upcoming goodbye wouldn’t weigh on her so. If she told him he snored, he’d probably see through it as the excuse it was, but he wouldn’t challenge the assertion because it was an easy way out for them both. They needed to start uncoupling and he would recognize the wisdom in that.
He pushed the glass of wine into her hand. Her fingers curled around it. “Thanks.”
“Hungry?” he asked, taking a spot beside her at the rail.
“Not after that pizza.” They’d stopped to eat on the way back.
The song that was playing ended and a new one began, another woman’s voice. Another woman left behind. God, where were the cheery, upbeat tunes that celebrated summer? “What is this, heartbreak radio?” she grumbled.
“Hey, I’m just happy to say I finally figured out how to turn on the outside speakers. Means I retain my stud status.”
She smiled a little at that. He’d been stomping around all month, his masculinity challenged by his inability to figure out the complicated stereo system. “Figures you’d solve the puzzle just days before we leave here.”
They lapsed into silence, the only sounds the wet rush of water and the soft music on the stereo. Vance’s feet shifted and she could feel his gaze on her. “Tell me about your real life,” he said. “So I can picture you and what you’re doing when this is over.”
Oh, good. He was thinking about uncoupling, too. She opened her mouth to answer, but those dark feelings rose again, filling her chest and making it hard to breathe.
“Layla?”
Swallowing hard, she set her untouched wine on top of the railing. “I’ve told you. I live in a little duplex inland and north of here. What I do there is pretty much the same as I do now. I get up early, bake cupcakes, go out with Uncle Phil to sell them. Get up and do it again the next day.”
“What about friends?”
Her seven-days-a-week schedule didn’t leave a lot of time for a social life. “I’m in a baking group,” she said. “We met in a food handling class, actually. About once a month we get together and have dinner, share recipes, just chat.”
She should spend more time with them, she decided. Once a month was too long to go between girlfriend fixes. They had busy lives, though, and would likely find it hard to fit her in. Angelica was a new mom, Patsy was planning a wedding, Gretchen and Jeanette lived far enough away from Layla that meeting them couldn’t be arranged spur-of-the-moment.
“But I admit I’m left with a lot of empty evenings.” And the thought of them stretching ahead only made her lonelier. “Uncle Phil once told me I should join an online dating service,” she added.
“Really?” Sounding surprised, Vance turned to face her. He was silent a moment. “Would you do that?”
She shrugged.
A heavy silence followed. Vance frowned through it, as if arguing with himself. Then he took a long swallow of his beer and met her eyes. “If you want, I know some guys I could introduce—” Breaking off, he looked away. “No. Sorry, but no.”
Was it her expression or some compunction of his own that had halted his offer? It didn’t matter—she couldn’t bear to have this discussion. “No,” she agreed, and forced some cheer in her voice. “Anyway, when I think about it, I’m going to be pretty busy. Uncle Phil is eager to start on that trip of his. I won’t be surprised if he leaves as soon as this month is up. Then I’ll be Karma Cupcake-ing all by myself.”
All by herself. Didn’t that sounded pitiful?
To Vance, too, she supposed, because he grabbed her by the arms and turned her to him. “You’re going to be okay. Wherever I go next—I’ll write. I’ll email you. Even overseas I get a chance to make phone calls on occasion.”
“You have your family to contact then.”
“I have you, too,” he said, giving her a tiny shake. “I’m going to be your friend, Layla.”
“That’s nice, thanks,” she said, stepping out of his hold. She took up her wine again and hoped he wouldn’t see her hand was trembling. God, she was a mess tonight.
At least the latest song was coming to an end, the woman’s wail about bad luck in love hitting its last note. Through the speakers, a new voice drifted into the night and Vance gave a soft laugh. “Hey, it’s your song.”
The slow, acoustic version of Eric Clapton’s “Layla.” Her chest went heavy again. “My dad called it that.”
“No surprise,” Vance said, and plucked her wineglass from her hand to set it beside his beer bottle on the railing. Then he pulled her into his arms.
“No.” Layla resisted. “What are you doing?”
He ignored her protests, drawing her closer. They were chest to chest, hip to hip, and he lifted her arms to circle his neck and crossed his at the small of her back. Then his feet shifted to the beat of the music.
Layla was stiff in the embrace. This wasn’t uncoupling. “Vance—”
“We gotta dance, pretty girl.”
“We’ve danced before,” she pointed out. “On Picnic—”
“That was my dance.”
She frowned at him. “And this one—”
“Is on the Helmet List.”
Layla stared up at Vance, the moon behind his left shoulder, the stars twinkling overhead, like diamonds tossed on dark velvet. He’d not mentioned the list lately, and she’d been content to just enjoy time in his company.
“This dance is for you and your dad,” h
e said now.
And with that the melancholy surged, growing from that heavy weight squeezing her lungs in her chest to a black shroud wrapping her entire body, trying to crush her to nothing. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t inhale air, she could only release a soundless scream of sorrow.
This dance is for you and your dad.
“Layla.” Vance stopped moving, his eyes narrowed. “Layla, what’s wrong?”
With a wild shake of her head, she broke away from him and ran, leaping down the steps to the sand and speeding up the beach, legs churning. Distance, she thought, desperate for it. She needed distance. Not from the cloying bleakness and the clawing pain—she carried that in her heart and on her back and tangled in her soul—but distance from Vance.
He couldn’t see her in this state.
She ran out of breath before she ran out of beach. Her vague idea of making it to the cupcake truck wasn’t possible. But her gaze snagged on a build-up of sand ahead, a sort of dune at the base of the hillside, and she dove for it, dropping into its dark shadow. Drawing up her legs, she wrapped her shins with her arms and pressed her forehead to her knees, clutching herself tight—a human knot of sorrow.
No sound reached her ears except her harsh inhales and exhales of air. She was breathing again, and she supposed that was good, but the oxygen coming in only put more pressure on a chest already filled with unshed tears.
“Sweetheart,” a gentle voice said. “Layla.”
Vance! She jerked, then tucked into herself more tightly. “Go away,” she told him, the words muffled against her knees.
Even though her eyes were squeezed shut, she sensed him settling on the sand beside her. She felt the brush of his hand on her shoulder and hunched away from it. “Go away.”
His touch disappeared, but his voice remained. “Not a chance.”
Her eyes pinched tighter and she pressed her lips together to hold back a frustrated scream. Just be still, she told herself. Just keep it together.
“You know about the five stages of grief?” Vance asked.
Ignoring him, she rocked a little for comfort.
He groaned. “You’re killing me,” he murmured. She heard him take in a long breath. “The five stages of grief. The first is denial.”
That’s what she’d been in, Layla thought, denial—until moving into Beach House No. 9. But she’d been facing the truth since then, hadn’t she?
“The next are anger and bargaining.” When she didn’t reply, he spoke again. “Do you hear me, Layla? Anger and bargaining.”
Suddenly, his little lecture struck her as condescending, and temper added to the roiling mix of emotions inside her. “I know about anger and bargaining,” she said, her voice sounding rough. “I’ve been through those many times. Every time he left, don’t you think I was angry? Every day he was gone don’t you think I bargained with the universe?”
She was rocking again, the ache behind her eyes excruciating. “I didn’t step on cracks when I was little. Later, to get on fortune’s good side, I offered up prayers for drivers who cut me off instead of flipping them the bird.”
“Okay,” Vance said. “Okay. So that leaves just two others. Depression and acceptance.”
Why wouldn’t he go away?
“And I don’t think acceptance is possible quite yet, Layla. I really don’t.”
She turned her head to stare at him. “Oh, great. Are you telling me I’m stuck with depression? What kind of pep talk is that?”
“It’s not any kind of pep talk at all, sweetheart. It’s permission to feel bad. And it’s permission to start letting it out.”
Her eyes closed again and she shook her head. “No. No letting it out. A soldier’s daughter doesn’t cry.”
“When her soldier dad is never coming home again, I think she should.”
“No.” Her head went back and forth again, her hair swirling in her vehemence. No, no, no.
“Yes, Layla.” Vance reached over and grasped her, hauling her into his lap even as she fought him. He curled himself around her, ignoring her struggles and slaps. “I’m not letting go until you do.”
She opened her mouth to shout at him, to yell and scream and curse him. But instead, to her horror, a sob released. And then another. And then she was wailing like the women on the stereo, the notes of her sorrow a song about grief and loneliness and feeling as if she’d lost her roots.
Vance turned her into his body and she buried her face against his chest. “I’m so alone,” she said through her choking tears. “I’m so alone.”
“I’m here,” Vance said, a hand against her hair. “I’ll always be here.”
The lie only made her cry more.
Exhaustion finally quieted her. Maybe fifteen minutes had passed. Maybe three hours. Vance’s sweatshirt was wet and she shivered, suffering from an intense emotional hangover. He brushed a kiss to her hair.
“Let’s go back to the house,” he said.
She started to shake her head again.
“Shh,” he said, kissing her once more. “You’ll be better now. It’ll be easier.”
“Vance...” She needed to tell him they’d be sleeping in separate beds. She needed to make sure he understood that things had changed now. He’d been too close already and now he was the only man who had seen her fall apart. That kind of intimacy was unbearable.
He helped her to her feet.
“Vance...” she began again.
“I’ll hold you all night long,” he said.
And Layla was too worn out to resist.
Back at the house he washed her face with a warm, wet cloth then undressed her like a child. One of his T-shirts was pulled over her head and he tucked her under the covers. He spooned her, his knees curled behind hers, his arm across her belly to hold her against his wide chest. It was a Vance she hadn’t experienced before in bed. No seduction, no demands, but a solid source of strength and comfort.
This is temporary, Layla reminded herself. Impermanent. If they were not yet uncoupled, she had to hold on to the thought that it would never last.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LATE THE FOLLOWING afternoon, Layla and Vance made the drive to avocado country again, with him expertly managing the tricky turns in the road. Since waking alone in bed that morning, Layla had moved around Beach House No. 9 in a listless state, but Vance hadn’t pushed her. He’d been quiet, too, likely preoccupied by the thought of another uncomfortable visit with his family.
His hand was on the small of her back as he pushed open the front door of his childhood home. She decided it was nice that he hadn’t knocked or pressed the doorbell first. It meant he still felt, at least in some small way, that he belonged here.
It was heated summer outside, but inside, pleasantly cool, probably due to the home’s thick plaster walls and polished terra-cotta pavers on the floors. The rooms were painted in earth tones and the furniture was oversize, the dark blues and golds of the upholstery matching the Persian area rugs.
The foyer opened into a spacious living room, empty of people. But a delicious smell permeated the air. Vance looked down at her with a quick grin. “Lasagna. My mom made my favorite.”
Through an archway came the distinct clack of billiard balls. A movement caught her eye. Fitz. Both the sound and the sight had snagged Vance’s attention, too.
Layla gave him a little push. “Why don’t you go play with your brother?”
“You come, too,” he said.
She shook her head. The sound of female voices could be heard from the opposite direction. “I’ll find the kitchen. I bet your mother is there and I can give her the wine we brought.”
Handing over the bottle, he studied her face. “Sure?”
“I’m good,” she said firmly. It was good for them to go their separate ways. Even after last night, especially after last night, it was a priority to end this attachment to Vance.
Inside a large and charming country kitchen she indeed found Katie Smith. Huddled wi
th her at a granite island was another woman who had to be her twin—Vance’s aunt Alison—and Fitz’s fiancée, Blythe.
At Layla’s “Good afternoon,” all three heads popped up. Vance’s mother and aunt smiled, while Blythe quickly closed and pushed away a magazine the three had been examining.
“You’re here!” Vance’s mom cried, coming forward.
Layla held out the bottle of wine, but the older woman merely set it on a counter and kept coming, close enough to wrap her in a warm hug. At the unfamiliar maternal act, a hot pressure built behind Layla’s eyes. After a second’s hesitation, she responded with a short squeeze.
Then she drew away, embarrassed by her reaction to the welcome. Pinning on a smile, she nodded at the other women in the room. “I’m Layla,” she said, reaching out to shake the hand of Vance’s aunt. Next she addressed the cool blonde. “It’s good to see you again, Blythe.”
It would be better if the other woman didn’t look so elegant. She was in silk again, a thin, ice-blue T-shirt tucked into buff-colored tailored slacks. Clearly, she didn’t eat cupcakes.
Definitely one of those low-carb dieters.
Layla smoothed the cotton skirt of her dress and smiled again when Vance’s mother asked if she liked lasagna. “Absolutely. And it smells fabulous. Is there something I can do to help?”
“Oh, no, it’s all taken care of for the moment,” Katie said, with a wave of her hand. “We ladies are hanging out in here so that we don’t make the men nervous with—” She broke off, her gaze shifting in Blythe’s direction.
Layla looked there, too.
Fitz’s fiancée wore an embarrassed expression and she had her hands spread wide over the magazine cover, as if she wanted to mask its title. But Layla read it, anyway—Bridal Boutique—and understood the situation. “Were you working on your wedding plans?”
Blythe’s face turned pink. “We can do it another time...”
“Don’t stop because I’m here.”
Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) Page 28