She clutched at him, her ragged breathing loud in the night, even over the shush, shush, shush of the incoming waves. But then he heard something else.
Footsteps on the wooden stairs.
His head shot up and he glanced back. Addy’s curly blond hair came into view. Dammit.
He looked back at Layla. “Sweetheart, I—”
But she was already stepping away, her stunned gaze on his face, her palms covering her red cheeks. “Uh-oh,” she said.
It almost made him smile. Uh-oh was right. He was pretty sure he’d lost his chance to have that straightforward conversation he’d planned to stymie all this.
Which meant he had a problem. And, he remembered, it got worse.
Because as far as his family was concerned, he also had a girlfriend.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SOUND OF BAXTER’S whistling warned Addy of his approach. In the small room designated as the Sunrise Pictures archives, she froze, torn between wanting to run to her purse for lipstick and a hairbrush and wanting to just...run.
She didn’t want him back in her life.
Not that he’d ever left it, if she was honest with herself. For years, he’d been her comfort crush, something she’d turned to like she’d turned to cookies and potato chips from the age of five until eighteen. Lonely? Bask in the memory of being in Baxter’s arms. Low? Call up the memory of the effervescence flooding her bloodstream as he swung her onto the dance floor. Who knew Baxter Smith could two-step? But he had, and he’d deftly taught her the rudiments, as well, shuffling the two of them through and around the other couples as the country band played “Like We Never Loved At All.”
The same Faith Hill/Tim McGraw tune Baxter was whistling now as he stepped into Addy’s workspace. The sound cut off as she turned to face him.
Her heart stuttered. Oh, wow. He was a gorgeous specimen of a man. Most of the males in her world were hungry-looking grad students, with hair barbered by their mothers or their girlfriends and clothes that came straight from laundry baskets that were filled straight from dryers, without any folding in between. Baxter had left the jacket to his suit behind, but his dark olive slacks were pressed and his white shirt starched. The leather of his dress shoes and matching belt gleamed.
By contrast, Addy felt nearly naked in her nylon running shorts, tank top and lightweight hiking boots. She wasn’t taller than five foot two, but it seemed there was an awful lot of bare skin between her ankles and the tops of her thighs.
Baxter appeared to be studying every inch.
She cleared her throat and his gaze took a lazy path upward. When his blue eyes met hers, he smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Her heart fluttered again. Oh, she was in such big trouble! She knew better than to like something too much—say, donuts or ice cream—and that applied to Baxter, as well. While he might be fine in the abstract, in the flesh there was the danger that she might find him addictive.
And wallflowers-by-nature like Addy March would only be heartbroken by hoping for something real and lasting with ideal men like Baxter Smith.
With that thought pinned tightly to her mental bulletin board, she returned to stuffing her backpack with supplies for her planned hike, including a couple of water bottles and a sandwich bag half-filled with raw almonds. “If you’re looking for Vance, last I saw him he was in the kitchen at the beach house.”
“I’m not after Vance.”
Then what was he after? She wanted to scream the question, but she wasn’t a nineteen-year-old who’d never been kissed anymore. Self-respect demanded she maintain a hold on her dignity. So she faced him again and lifted inquiring brows, feigning a cool indifference. “Oh? Then—”
“You know why I’m here, Addy.” He leaned against the doorjamb, his hands in his pockets, a faint smile on his impossibly handsome face. “You know exactly what I want.”
Oh, yeah, she knew. He’d tried going there yesterday. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to let that...that interlude between them go unacknowledged. Why? Did it not count as a bedpost notch if she pretended it never happened? She frowned at him, wishing his ego wasn’t demanding she speak her secrets aloud.
You were a wonderful first lover.
My girlhood dreams all came true that night.
I’ve never forgotten a moment of it.
Those were the truths she held close to her heart. But she was keeping them there, unvoiced. They were hers, and no one else’s.