Bungalow Nights(16)

Great.

She was still grinding away on that when they approached the deck at Captain Crow’s. It was a much different place from where she’d eaten lunch a few days before. Then it had been relaxed. Quiet. The tables half-full.

Now a rock band was playing in one corner. People were sitting, standing, dancing. Drinking.

As they entered the throng, a man let out a loud whoop and lifted a scantily clad woman to his shoulders, where she swayed to the heavy beat. Vance leaned into Layla and spoke directly into her ear. “This place is nuts. Let’s go back.”

For another session of her nerves on the torture rack? No, thank you. Pretending not to hear him, she side-scooted around another piggyback-dancing couple. Addy had to be around somewhere.

A guy with curly blond hair, wearing board shorts and a tan, grabbed her arm as she went by. He swung her onto the dance floor, a good-natured grin on his face. “I’m Ted,” he shouted over the guitar licks. “I bet you like to dance.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but a different hand found her wrist and spun her away from her would-be partner. It was Vance. Her back to his front, he held her against his body with his half cast and used the other arm as a shield of sorts to push them through the throng and toward the bar.

He had the devil’s own luck, or maybe it was his set expression that had two stools opening up just as they approached. He half lifted her onto the leather-strapped seat and then took the other. It was quieter here than near the dance floor, so she didn’t have to resort to lip-reading to hear his opening remark. “This was a bad idea.”

She frowned at him. “I might have wanted to dance, you know.”

“What? With that surfer dude? He was drunk.”

Her chance to retort was interrupted by the bartender, who slapped a couple of napkin squares in front of them and asked for their orders. Vance wanted beer. Layla put in for a margarita.

It didn’t add to her dignity that the guy pouring drinks followed up by requesting her ID and from the corner of her eye she saw Vance smirk. Ignoring him, she fished her license out of her sundress pocket and at the bartender’s satisfied nod reiterated her desire for a margarita and tacked on an order for a tequila shot, salt and a slice of lime.

Vance made a noise. “Do you think you should—”

“It’s a patriotic choice,” she hissed at him.

“Today’s July Fourth, not Cinco de Mayo,” he said as their drinks were delivered.

Instead of answering him, she grabbed up the saltshaker that had been placed in front of her. With her tongue, she wet the web of skin between her left forefinger and thumb, sprinkled salt on the damp spot, then traded the shaker for the shot glass. After licking at the salt, the tequila went down fiery and hot, and she chased the flames by biting into the tangy citrus pulp of the lime.

Then she smiled at Vance.

His expression didn’t tell her anything. He watched her coolly over his bottle of beer, unnerving her again, so she turned to the margarita and took a hefty swallow. The chill of the blended drink mitigated the burn in her belly, the combination creating a warm glow that traveled through her blood.

Feeling more relaxed than she had in days, she lifted her margarita glass again.

“Maybe you should take that slow,” Vance warned.

Before she could even roll her eyes, someone on the other side of Layla spoke up. “What you doing drinking with such a Danny Downer, pretty lady?” a man’s voice said.

Two guys crowded near her left elbow, both holding beers and wearing smiles as bold as the Hawaiian shirts they were wearing. “Hey,” the one in the orange shirt said, nudging his friend in blue. “That’s more than a pretty lady. That’s the cupcake girl. Remember, we bought a dozen from her this morning after surfing?”

The second man’s eyes went wide. “Hot damn, you’re right.” He leaned in closer, whispering as if he had a secret to tell. “Never tell my mom I said this, but you beat out anything she ever baked for me.”

Layla laughed, then lowered her voice, too. “I’ll keep that between the two of us.”

“Wait just a minute,” his friend protested, tapping his own chest with his half-full bottle of beer. “I saw her first. I realized she was Cupcake Cutie. No sharing sweet nothings with my woman.”

Layla laughed again as they started squabbling about the rules of first flirtation rights and who’d ignored those very same rules just last Saturday night with the “awesome red-haired babe” at “that bar on Second Street.” Clearly, the pair spent a lot of time together cruising for female companionship.

As the not-quite sober, almost entirely serious discussion continued, the blue-shirted man paused the conversation to address Layla. “Excuse us for just a minute,” he said. “We’ll get back to you as soon as we sort this out.”

Layla could only smile at them. They were clearly harmless and actually quite good-looking if you weren’t blinded by the ultraloud shirts. “I’ll be right here waiting.”

“Oh, God,” Vance muttered. “Don’t encourage them.”

She turned to him. “What’s the matter, Danny Downer?”

His eyes narrowed at the nickname. “They’re idiots,” he told her. “Boozed up and bored. They’re the kind of men you should give a wide berth.”

Oh, yeah, he was going all big brother, wasn’t he? Doling out unsolicited advice and treating her as if she’d never been to a bar or handled a couple of flirtatious men.

Maybe he didn’t think she was appealing enough to actually have been approached by the male species before, she thought in annoyance, taking another swallow of her margarita to cool her snap of temper. “I’ve dated before, Vance. Kissed men. Even—don’t faint—had sex. I know what I’m doing.”

His mouth tightened. “Not with guys like that you don’t.”

Layla glanced over her shoulder at them. They were still engrossed in arguing the finer points of bro etiquette. In her judgment, their XY was of the nontoxic variety. They’d had a few beers, but so what? Yet her escort continued scowling in their direction.

She shook her head at him. “Listen, every person isn’t a Boy Scout, Vance.”

He turned his frown on her. “What?”

“I’m talking about you,” she said, gesturing toward him with her glass. “Just because you’re a squeaky-clean, always-in-control ice man—”

“Actually, I was the rowdiest party animal you’d ever have the misfortune to meet.”

“What?” Layla blinked in surprise.

“You heard me.” He set his beer onto the bar. “I excelled at wild and stupid from the day I bought my first fake ID until I was well into my twenties.”

Her mouth dropped, then she swallowed. “What happened then?”

Vance shrugged. “Cleaned up my act.”

There had to be more to the story. “Because...?”

“Because I grew out of stupid. Then I met a woman who made me...made me think. Eventually I asked her to marry me.”

Layla thought her eyes might pop out of her head. “You’re engaged?”

He retrieved his beer and took a swallow. “Was engaged, until about six months ago. But the point is, I recognize your friends Tweedledum and Tweedledee. That was me. Going nowhere good fast.”

She still considered him too harsh on the other two, but that didn’t concern her now. Vance had been engaged. And not that long ago, either. For some reason she couldn’t pinpoint, the idea irritated her as much as or more than his big brother act.

Shouldn’t he have told her he’d wanted to marry someone? Shouldn’t she have sensed it? He’d presumably been in love with the woman. Was he still in love with her?

The question was on the tip of Layla’s tongue when the clack of a shot glass against the polished wood surface in front of her redirected her attention. “Top shelf tequila,” the bartender explained, then nodded at the pair in Hawaiian shirts. “From your buddies.” He also slid over another wedge of lime and nudged forward the salt.

“I’ll take that,” the guy in orange said, scooping up the shaker and shouldering his friend away from Layla. Catching her eye, he lifted his hand and made a loose fist. Then he wet the skin between his thumb and forefinger with his tongue. “Lick the salt off me, Cupcake Girl, it’ll make your tequila shooter so much tastier.”

A strangled sound came from the other side of Layla. Vance reached across her, snatching the shaker from the other man. He was standing now, drawn to his full height of six foot three, all the muscles he had from packing pounds of equipment and weapons radiating threat. “Can it, buddy. The only man she’ll be licking is me.”

She might have laughed, but he didn’t seem the least bit aware of the suggestiveness of his remark. Neither Hawaiian-shirted guy found it amusing, either. Hands up, they backed away, murmuring all the while. “No offense” and “Sorry to bother you” and “Didn’t mean to trespass.”