She glanced over her shoulder at Captain Crow’s restaurant, a little shiver tracking down her spine as she remembered the moment the afternoon had gone completely haywire. While attempting to sign his credit card receipt, Vance had fumbled the pen. It had rolled across the table toward Layla and when she’d scooped it up and offered it to him, their fingertips had met.
Hers still burned.
She rubbed them against the silky fabric of her dress and directed her focus to the ring on her left index toe. It was hammered gold embedded with a tiny mother-of-pearl quarter moon. “What would you say if we just close shop and head up the highway? We can drive to Zuma. The Malibu crowd loves our cupcakes.”
“I thought you were going to move into Beach House No. 9 this afternoon,” Uncle Phil said, sounding puzzled.
“Maybe I should drop the idea.” That was Vance’s intention. No, he’d declared about their upcoming month together, even after she’d invoked karma. Not gonna happen. Then he’d mumbled something about her father apparently forgetting she was all grown up. She’d been prepared to persist until that moment when they’d touched.
A car whined past on the nearby highway, then she heard the squeak of the food truck’s door and the muffled scrape of her uncle’s hemp sandals on the asphalt. He lowered himself to the opposite chair. “But we talked about all this. When he contacted me, you said yes.”
“I knew it’s what Dad wanted, so it’s what I wanted, too. But that was before I met Vance.”
Uncle Phil straightened in his seat. “He did some—”
“He didn’t do anything,” she said. “Nothing like you’re thinking.” It was what she’d done—how she’d reacted to that simple touch. It felt as if her soul had attempted to jump out of her suddenly scorched skin. She didn’t like it.
“He’s rattled you,” Uncle Phil observed. “That’s a first.”
Exactly. At twenty-five, she didn’t have a legion of exes, but she’d had her share of relationships. They’d been enjoyable and ended amicably, due, she believed, to her training as a soldier’s daughter. She was accustomed to goodbyes, absolutely aware that tears didn’t solve anything, and she didn’t foolishly hope to have a long-term lock on anyone. Dating had been casual and fun, and not once had she felt as though her nerve endings had been set on fire.
Now she was proposing to spend a month at the beach with the one man who lit her flame. A man who was a soldier to boot.
“I’m just thinking the plan’s a mistake.”
Uncle Phil merely raised a brow. He rarely gave out advice, and she loved that about him—that and how he’d stuck around all those times her father was deployed when she was a kid so she’d have clean clothes in her drawers and three meals on the table. He might not always have the strongest grasp on details—which might go some way to explaining why her father had instead picked Vance to carry out his last request—but her uncle had managed to sign every one of her permission slips. Maybe now she could return the favor.
“You’ve been going on about your trip around the world for years and my month in Crescent Cove was postponing your departure date,” she said. “If I bail now, you can leave right away.”
“My passport’s expired.”
“I saw the application in the food truck. If you pay extra they’ll expedite it.”
Uncle Phil rubbed a palm over the silvery whiskers on his cheek. “Well, if you’re going to renege, you better get down to that beach house and let the man know.”
She hesitated. Even though Vance had told her their month was off, he’d also told her he had some things of her father’s to hand over. Maybe Phil could take care of that for her.... But look what had happened when she’d left him in charge before! “You’re right,” she said, rising. “I’ll go see him.”
For the final time.
* * *
VANCE HAD GIVEN Layla written instructions to Beach House No. 9 that included a hand-drawn map. The bungalow was situated at the opposite end of the cove from the restaurant, which meant she had to get back on the highway, then turn off it again onto a narrow road that led to an even narrower track. The path of crushed shells was only wide enough for one car and took her along the backside of the enclave of unique homes, all of them stuccoed or shingled in natural colors and accented with shades that reflected the poppies, bougainvillea and tropical greenery thriving in the summer sunlight.
At the end of the route was the place she was looking for. It was larger than most in the cove, two stories of dark brown shingles and rough-sawn trim painted the blue-green of mermaid scales. Layla parked her compact in the driveway that led to a double garage, then was forced to give herself a stern talking-to in order to exit the car.
Even then she didn’t head straight for the entrance to Beach House No. 9.
Instead, chin down to keep her profile low, she sidled between it and the much smaller cottage next door. A few breaths of clean ocean air would brace her for the conversation ahead. She didn’t flatter herself that Vance Smith would wilt with disappointment because she was leaving without further argument, but she also didn’t want him prying into the reasons for her acquiescence. What would she say?
You make the back of my knees sweat.
I’m allergic to so much sex appeal.
How could I possibly sleep under the same roof as you?
When Layla felt the give of soft sand beneath her feet, she continued onward, not stopping until she reached the angled shelf of damply packed grains left by an outgoing tide. Only then did she lift her gaze, and her heart stuttered a little, overwhelmed by the beauty of her surroundings.
On her left was a craggy bluff that reached like the prow of an ocean liner into the gray-blue water. Behind her and to her right sat the charming abodes of Crescent Cove, maybe fifty of them, stretched along the sand or nestled against the vegetated hillside. In front of her was the expanse of the Pacific, an undulating surface that drew the eye toward the horizon. Above that, the sun hovered like it did in a child’s painting, an unabashed yellow orb against a sky so deep an azure it appeared one-dimensional.
Her father had wanted to bring her here.
Layla’s throat tightened as she heard his voice in her head. I’ll help you build an entire city of sand castles someday, he’d promised her once when they’d had to cancel a planned beach outing due to an emergency at the base. We’ll have weeks together, he’d told her on another occasion as he’d packed in preparation for heading back into combat. Time to relax with a clean wind on our faces and the cool Pacific at our feet.
It would never happen now.
Ducking the truth of that was exactly why she’d allowed Uncle Phil to handle the communication with Vance, she realized. By taking herself out of the loop, she’d put a layer between herself and the reality of her father’s death.
The reality that he was never coming here to Crescent Cove. That he was never coming back anywhere.
You weren’t the child of an active-duty soldier without contemplating the fact that your parent might not return alive. Her father had loved his work—the army was his passion, his identity, his occupation, his preoccupation. He’d accepted the risks. And dutiful daughter that she was, she’d responded with years of cheerful goodbyes, newsy letters and upbeat emails.
If anyone had asked, she’d have said she was as prepared for what might come as anyone could be, though she didn’t dwell on potential disaster. The life of an army brat—and the tutelage of Uncle Phil—had