selection of tiered plates that held tiny sandwiches, little tarts and bite-size scones. He hadn’t expected to get full on the stuff, but there was plenty for both of them. The tea itself wasn’t terrible.
Layla looked at him over the rim of her delicate china cup. “I didn’t peg you as a hot tea drinker.”
“It’s not so bad,” he said with a shrug.
Setting down her cup, she looked about the room. “This is all so much better than not bad. Better than the place we went for tea on my twelfth birthday...the party my dad missed.”
“Ah,” Vance said. The colonel hadn’t explained about that.
“Instead of taking four girls to tea, he went—” She broke off, shook her head. “I don’t remember now.”
“And Beauty Day? He skipped out on that, too?”
“No.” Her lips curved. “I think he added that entry because I was always after him to paint my fingernails and toenails when I was little.”
“Somehow I don’t see the colonel hunkering down with a tiny bottle and brush.”
“But I didn’t have a mom to do those things, so I persisted. It was one of the few times he out-and-out refused me.” She sighed, then picked up her cup, studying the contents as if she could read the scattering of leaves on the bottom. “But he made up for it today.”
“Yeah.”
She lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “You made it happen for me today. Thanks, Vance.”
There were tears in her eyes. They didn’t brim over, but they made those eyes shine, and it was like looking into freshly washed windows. Vance felt as if he could walk straight through the glass.
And he could see straight inside...of Layla. There was a chilly breeze on the back of his neck, a cold premonition of trouble ahead. But it didn’t impede his vision. There, plain as the nose on her face, was Layla’s tattered, vulnerable heart. Aching. So he ached, too.
Damn. He’d been trying to wind the clock backward...but come to think of it, perhaps he had. Because the fact was, it had always been like this between them, even when they were two actual strangers. There’d been the cold wind on his neck, the pretty woman with the big brown eyes, the attraction and the connection he’d felt from the instant they’d met.
* * *
VANCE WAS STILL BROODING over his afternoon with Layla when Baxter showed up at Beach House No. 9 that night. He greeted his cousin with a nod, then led the way into the living room. It was dark beyond the sliding glass doors. The sky was clear, and he noted the half moon and the bright star to its right. Hell. As if he needed another reminder of the colonel’s daughter.
Baxter glanced around the room. “Uh? Addy? Layla?”
“They went for a drink at Captain Crow’s. Girls’ Night or something with Skye.”
It was too damn quiet with the women gone. But Vance had been all for it, shooing them out before the dinner dishes were done. Layla had studied him with those soft Bambi eyes of hers, and he’d turned away from the scrutiny. He didn’t want her catching a hint of the turmoil inside of him.
For some inconvenient, unfathomable reason, the exposure of her soft side only pulled harder at his sexual side. Yeah. That glimpse of her heart had made his cock hard and nothing he thought or did convinced the bad boy to lie down and behave.
“Classy, huh?” he murmured.
“Are you talking to me?” Bax asked. “And why haven’t you offered me a beer?”
His cousin’s testy tone caused Vance to give him a second look. Whoa. His cousin wore beat-up jeans, a T-shirt that was decorated with—paint splatters?—and a pair of rubber flip-flops. “Who are you and what have you done with Baxter Smith?” He waited a beat. “On second thought, just leave him wherever you stuffed him. You look a lot more fun.”
Baxter sent him a sour look. “I’ve never been fun.”
“We should do something about that right away,” Vance said, and headed for the kitchen. He ducked his head in the open door of the refrigerator. “Uh-oh. Out of brewskis.”
Hovering in the doorway, Baxter groaned. “Don’t tell me that.”
“No worries,” Vance said, and pushed his cousin back into the living room, toward the sliding doors. “We’ve got libations just up the beach.”
“Captain Crow’s?” Baxter frowned. “And interrupt Girls’ Night?”
“We won’t interrupt,” Vance said. “We’ll just have our own Manly Night. We’ll discuss sports stats and porn stars.”
Baxter rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin.