Fitz lifted his arms. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m returning to Afghanistan,” Vance said. “Soon.”
“That’s why we’ll have it soon. You’re here at Crescent Cove until the end of the month, you told Mom. So the party’s scheduled for the last Sunday in July.”
“Fitz—”
“We picked that date just for you, Vance.”
“For me,” Vance repeated. “You’re doing this for me.”
“Hell,” his brother said, spinning around. “Never mind. But you’ll tell Mom you refuse, not me.” He began to stalk off.
“Fitz!” Layla called out.
With a sigh, he halted. When he turned back, the misery on his face made her feel sorry for him all over again. “I forgot my manners,” he said. “Goodbye, Layla.”
Without looking at Vance, she twined her fingers with his and addressed his brother. “You tell us where and what time—we’ll be there.” She didn’t dare look at the man sitting beside her, but she could feel his temper in his rigid posture and the way his hand tightened on hers. Still, it seemed like the right action to take, and if Vance couldn’t commit to it, she’d do it for him.
Anything else was retreat, and her father had taught her to never tolerate such a thing.
Fitz glanced from her face to Vance’s. “V.T.?”
“What the lady wants,” he said, shrugging, then lifted their joined fingers in order to kiss the back of her hand. “Whatever she desires.”
When Fitz was gone, Vance dropped her like a hot potato and rose to his feet. Layla looked up at him, uncertain about what mood he might reveal next. Happiness again, she hoped. But it was a vain hope; she knew it when he ran down the steps, racing toward the surf. Two chubby pigeons twittered in alarm and fluttered out of his way. One of the seagulls he’d befriended sailed close on the wind as Vance drew back his arm.
The gull tried snatching at the ring box on its long arc toward the water. But it missed, and the splash was small and silent as Blythe’s ring sank into the depths.
Vance was silent, too—though not small at all as he stalked back toward the house. His expression hard, he brushed past Layla to mount the steps.
“Are you all right?”
He grunted.
She scrambled to her feet. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to hunt down a calendar.”
Confused, she tried to keep up with him. “A calendar? Why?”
“In order to count down how many more goddamn days are left before I can get the hell out of California.”
* * *
ADDY KNEW BAXTER had returned. Though she didn’t look up from her laptop screen, she sensed him looming in the doorway of the Sunrise Pictures archives room. I’ll ignore him, she thought. Then he’ll go away.
She was done with him. She had to be done with him.
It’s what she’d been telling herself since that day in his condo. She’d kept herself busy since then, working by day on the archives and then distracting herself in the evenings by visits with old friends. She’d even gritted her teeth and managed a dinner with her mother and then another with her father.
Thoughts of Baxter hadn’t bothered her at all.
At least not as much as his silent presence was bugging her, as he continued to stand just a few feet away. “What are you doing here?” she groused, her gaze still focused on her computer. “Your reputation as All Business Baxter is going to be downgraded if you keep escaping your office like this.”
Instead of answering, he moved into the room. From the corner of her eye, she saw him riffle through one of the boxes. She’d been sorting the paperwork, and had put what she termed the “numbers stuff” into its own carton. The ledgers were bound by olive-green, cloth-covered cardboard, and she’d barely spared them a glance before separating them from the business and personal letters that she hoped held clues to Sunrise’s demise as well as the truth of the relationship between Edith Essex and her husband.
She’d scanned the correspondence page by page into her computer so she could examine it as much as she liked without damaging the originals. That process now done, she’d entered them into a database, arranged them by date and was now reading through them one at a time.
Baxter moved to stand behind her. “Have you found anything interesting?”
“No,” she said, but continued on in hopes of quickly satisfying his curiosity. Perhaps then he’d go. “From what I can tell, Sunrise Pictures was fine financially—though I confess I’m not an expert