She shrugged. “I talked about all this at lunch and I suspected then you weren’t listening. Vance calls you All Business Baxter, so I suppose while your body was sitting at Captain Crow’s, your brain was back at your desk or something.”
Or something. His brain had actually been recalling a summer night nearly six years before. The night of the Smith family’s annual Picnic Day, a noon-through-night celebration at their avocado ranch. Open to the public, it featured food, drink and a dance band. Lights were strung everywhere...except in the dark shadowy corners where kisses could be stolen.
And peace of mind lost.
Addy gave him a strange look, then bent to ruffle through the box he’d opened. “I’m a grad student in film studies. My thesis focuses on the history of Sunrise Pictures—the company famous for its silent films made here at Crescent Cove.”
She peeked into another box, then lifted it onto the tabletop. “That closet is supposed to hold everything from the studio’s business records to the original scripts to the correspondence from movie stars of the time. That’s what I’ve been told, anyway.”
“Oh.”
“I made a deal with the descendant of the original owner of Sunrise. I’ll spend the month cataloging what I find in return for unlimited access to the material.”
“Oh,” Baxter said again, because he wasn’t listening with any more attentiveness than he had yesterday. Then, he’d been unbalanced by the flood of memories seeing her had invoked. He hadn’t liked the feeling. He was a sensible, rational, always-on-an-even-keel sort of man. Seeing Addy had reminded him of the night that impulse had overridden common sense. The night that he’d done things and said things without considering the consequences. With no regard to the Schedule.
Afterward, the memories had preyed upon his conscience. Finally, he’d managed to assuage the reawakened guilt by promising himself he’d right things with her someday. The very next time he happened to see her.
Which had taken much longer than he’d expected to come about.
But that time felt too short now because broaching That Night with this near-stranger didn’t seem as if it would be an easy thing.
With a little cry of pleasure, she yanked out a handful of old-looking postcards, the ends of her hair seeming to vibrate with enthusiasm. Six years ago, she’d had masses of the stuff, curling like crimped ribbons away from her scalp and then floating in the air toward her elbows. The slightest breeze had wafted the fluffy strands over her features and across her chest, and he’d had to part it like clouds to find the heart shape of her face.
She wore a different style now, and he recognized an expensive cut when he saw one. The platinum locks had been sheared to work with her hair’s texture, the curled pieces a frame for her smooth forehead, her pointed chin, her amazing green eyes. It was short enough to reveal her dainty earlobes and her graceful neck.
As she dug back into the box, he saw her swallow, the thin skin of her throat moving in the direction of her collarbone. A dandelion, he mused, with that fluff of hair and slender stem of neck. One wrong breath and he’d lose her on the breeze.
As if she heard his thoughts, she jerked her head toward him. “What?” she asked, catching him staring.
His brain scrambled for something he could say. He couldn’t just launch into his apology, could he? “Well...” Glancing away from her questioning expression, he took in the boxes and tried remembering what she’d told him about them. “What made you pursue...uh...film studies?”
She was staring at him.
Had he gotten it wrong? “Or, um, film studios?” God, he sounded like an idiot.
“Film studies.” She returned her attention to the box. “I love movies. Always have, since I was a little kid.”
“I remember that.”
Her head whipped around. “You couldn’t. You didn’t know me then.” She looked anxious at the thought he might.
Baxter couldn’t figure out why. He frowned, searching back in his mind for a picture of Addy as a schoolgirl. But his memory stalled on her at nineteen, heat rushing to his groin as he pictured her blushing cheeks, her sun-kissed shoulders, her—
Stop! he ordered himself, shaking the images from his head. He shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. “I remember you getting a boatload of DVDs as birthday presents. Your parents threw a big bash for one occasion and invited the entire neighborhood. Vance and I breezed through...” His