aloud. “‘Food, dancing, fun for everyone.’”
“It’s a yearly summer thing,” Vance said. “They open the ranch to the public, give tours, sell stuff like barbecue and corn on the cob, bring in some ponies for the kids.”
“The date’s coming up,” Layla said.
“Yeah,” he agreed, then strode away from her as if he could distance himself from those memories, too. Didn’t work for shit, because he could see his grandfather in his mind’s eye, a spare and straight Clint Eastwood look-alike, welcoming visitors with a smile and a slice of buttery avocado on a long toothpick.
Vance, his shadow from the time he could toddle, standing at his elbow, feeling all cock of the walk as one of the successful Smith family. Never seeing ahead to a time when he’d lose his promised future among them.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to an avocado tree,” Layla said, a little breathless, he thought, from trying to keep up with him.
Again, Vance had to glance around to ascertain exactly where he was. They were standing at the edge of the grove that was closest to the family compound. Without being aware of it, he’d picked his way across the now-dry creek that ran behind the houses. The trees began right there, an old growth that reached up and over a low mountain.
Layla took a step forward and peered into the deep shade caused by the leaves. The trees were planted between fifteen and thirty feet apart, but their spreading branches created a roof overhead and swung low to the ground. The pebble-skinned fruit were plentiful and about the size of a woman’s fist, ready for harvest at any time. They only ripened once picked.
“I bet you could get lost in there,” she said, taking a step into the shadows.
“Or caught by spiders and trussed up for their next meal.”
It was more shriek than squeal that erupted from her mouth and the next thing he knew, he had a warm and very pretty woman cuddled against his chest. Her fingers clutched his T-shirt. “Tell me you lie.”
His mouth twitching, he shook his head. “Well, they might have trouble capturing a grown woman, but I brought some girls here when I was a teenager who swore they just escaped with their lives.”
Without putting a breath of air between them, she shot him a look. “Oh, I understand your ploy now. Scare the ladies into your arms.”
He slid one around her waist without a twinge of guilt. She felt that good against him and being here, back at this place that had once been everything to him, had made him feel just lousy enough to need the distraction. He breathed in the scent of her hair as she turned her head, gazing into the grove again with cautious eyes.
“Still,” she said, “the idea of great big spiders could put me off guacamole forever.”
“Oh, don’t deny yourself one of life’s great treats,” Vance said.
A smile curved her lips. “I admit it’s a weakness of mine.”
That mouth of hers could be his, Vance thought. “You know, avocados were once known as the fertility fruit. Decent women refused to eat them.”
Her dark eyebrows came together. “Uh-oh. I’ve been indulging for years. What does that make me?”
Tempting. Delicious. Irresistible.
Maybe she read the words on his face, because she stepped back, putting a breeze-worth of distance between them. “I don’t know how you could leave this place,” she said, turning in a circle to take in the oaks, the avocados, the sprawling houses in the distance.
“I didn’t leave,” Vance said without thinking. “They threw me out.”
Layla spun toward him, her mouth dropping. “No.”
“No,” he conceded. “It didn’t exactly go like that.” But the result had been the same. The spoiled young prince banished from the kingdom.
“How did it go, exactly?”
He tilted his head, staring up at the blue sky. “My grandfather bought a small grove as a young man—this grove right here—and kept buying more land as he prospered. Avocados weren’t as popular then as now. He also grew tangerines and oranges—we still do—and the smell of their blossoms is as much a part of my childhood springtimes as the pollywogs swimming in the creek.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“Was,” Vance agreed. “And I always assumed I’d be part of the Smith ranch just like my dad and his brother. My grandfather taught me everything he knew about growing our products and I assumed I’d go into that end of the business. Bax was a business guy—he always says he might as well be