Bungalow Nights(40)

He frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“You’re you, and I’m me. Pl—plain Addy.” She’d almost said “plump,” but no need to go into that. “Nose-in-a-book, eyes-on-a-screen, head-in-the-clouds Addy March.”

He just stared at her.

“You know Little Women, the book by Louisa May Alcott? The ‘little women’ are the March sisters. I used to pretend that I was one of them. They performed plays and told each other stories and had their loving Marmee and Father.” When Baxter continued to stare at her she thought she wasn’t making herself clear. “I pretended I was pretend people. I could pretend I was pretend people for days on end.”

He still looked puzzled. “If this is about swapping childhood stories, I should probably tell you about the BSLS.”

It wasn’t about swapping childhood stories, it was about why they were ill-suited for each other, but now she was intrigued. “All right, I’ll bite. BSLS?”

“The BSLS. The Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”

“Huh?”

“I’m a very, uh, goal-oriented person. Maybe a little obsessive-compulsive. Even as a kid, I made lists, developed agendas, tracked my progress on spreadsheets. The summer after eighth grade, I got into running. I had a target. In the twelve weeks before school started—and the high school cross country season began—I wanted to log five hundred miles.”

“That was very ambitious.” Not that she’d admit it, but that was the summer her crush had begun. She’d been waiting for fifth grade to start, dreading another school year where she’d be ignored, or worse, made fun of. Always a dreamer, she’d been ripe for falling for a teen heartthrob. The first time she’d seen him run by, it had been chance, but after that she’d sit in wait by her bedroom window, a box of Pop-Tarts and another of Cap’n Crunch beside her, munching and crunching until he passed her window as he left on his run. She’d be there on his return, too, a little sick on sugar and puppy love. “Five hundred miles.”

“They weren’t all logged on the road. My father and I assigned a mile value to other things—sets of tennis, a round of golf, laps in the pool.” He shrugged. “I think it was the next year that I developed the BSLS.”

“The Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”

“Yes. I’ve kept it all these years...kept to it. It’s a timetable of important dates and milestones. I listed my high school graduation date, college graduation. I already figured I wanted a year of work before getting my MBA. Then, after that degree, I’d go directly into a job with the family.”

She nodded. Baxter would be ordered that way. Precise in what he wanted, knowing it early, sticking to it like glue. It was the confidence thing again. That innate understanding of himself and his place in the world.

The golden boy.

Using the heel of his shoe, he rolled his chair closer to Addy’s. His left kneecap brushed her right one. She moved it quickly away.

“The BSLS didn’t just cover career plans,” Baxter continued. “I charted my future personal life, too, in a logical, sensible fashion. No serious dating until after business school graduation. No living with a woman until marriage. And no thought of matrimony, or even falling in love for that matter, until somewhere past my thirty-first birthday.”

Addy could think of nothing to say, though for the first time he seemed a little more human. Because only a man would come up with a prescribed system like that one.

“Oh, and that falling-in-love part? It would take six months, minimum, of dating before I’d even think of spilling those words.” Baxter slid his hand down his tie again. “So you see, what happened that night was just so...so antithetical to those plans of mine.”

“Off the Baxter Smith Life Schedule.”

He spread his hands. “Yes. And I’ve felt lousy about the way I handled things ever since I impetuously made those promises. I woke up the next morning, panicked, and for what it’s worth, I guessed and second-guessed myself over not calling you after promising I would. It’s eaten at me for the last six years.”

Addy turned back to her computer screen. “Well, don’t worry about it. I didn’t take you seriously. Like I said before, I didn’t pencil you into my life schedule then, not even for a moment. So we’re clear.”

An odd sound echoed in the small room. From Baxter? She turned her head, stunned at the frustrated expression on his face and the tufts of hair sticking up on his head. As she watched, his fingers speared through the golden stuff again, creating more disorder. Baxter was never disordered.

“What’s the matter now?” she asked.

“I want to see you, Addy. You know, go out with you. Date you.”

“No—”

“We could take our time. As a matter of fact, that’s best, right? Get to know each other, figure things out...”

Break her heart, when he finally opened his eyes and figured out an Addy March was not a proper match for a Baxter Smith. “No,” she said again.

He shoved out of the chair and started pacing the small room. Slightly alarmed, Addy watched his quick strides, his lean figure moving past the movie posters for Country Caroline and The Ghost and the Girl and then the wall of framed movie stills of Edith Essex as an intrepid explorer, a rising nightclub star, a heartbroken lover. He stopped in front of this last, staring at it, she thought, without really seeing it.

“Look, Addy, I can explore long-term relationships now.”

“But I can’t.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. Then he spun to face her. “We deserve a chance to see where this could go, don’t you think? Look, you know I’ve never forgotten you. And we’re great together in bed.”

“Baxter—”

“I’ve got a business trip coming up the first week of August. Seattle. Come with me and we’ll make a weekend of it.”

“Baxter, I can’t.” When he made to protest again, she held up her hand. “I’m leaving the country—I’ll be spending the next year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne. I leave the first week in August, which means it’s better we say goodbye now.”

“Paris. For a year.” He looked staggered by the news. She supposed the Baxter Smiths of the world were rarely stymied.

But she knew well how to handle giving up her heart’s desire, so she merely said, “Yes,” then turned away from him and focused back on her laptop. Still, she was hyperaware of him as he started moving again. His sandalwood scent reached her and she suppressed the desperate urge to turn toward it, ignoring the yearning she had to bury her nose against his neck and warm her suddenly cold face against the heat at his throat.

Goodbye, she whispered in her mind. Live well. Be happy.

“This box of ledgers,” he said at length. “Can I take it with me? Page through them?”

“Sure,” she replied absently, hardly aware of the question as her own misery closed in on her. Think of the Seine, she told herself. Of studying in the City of Light. Of some future French lover, dark-haired and seductive, who would whisper to her, demanding a kiss. “Donne-moi un bisou.”

Except all seductive men in Addy’s fantasies were golden-haired Americans who whispered, “Dance with me.”

Desolate, she glanced over just as Baxter breached the exit. She’d wanted him gone, she reminded herself. Out of the archives room, out of her life. But then she noticed the box in his hands, the one she’d given him permission to take...and realized she’d also given him a reason to return.





CHAPTER TWELVE



VANCE FOLLOWED HIS NOSE across the parking lot of Captain Crow’s toward the Karma Cupcakes truck. The scent of baking made his mouth water. An ocean breeze plastered the back of his shirt to his spine, displacing sweetness with a briny smell, and he wondered if he’d ever breathe in one or the other of those two aromas without thinking of this summer. Without thinking of Layla.

As he drew nearer, Phil Parker climbed out of the truck. Vance paused, a wave of guilt slapping at him. He hadn’t considered having to face the older man this morning. With the single purpose of getting things back on track with the niece, he hadn’t even remembered the uncle.

Phil glanced up as he seated himself at one of the bistro tables. He slid a dog-eared stack of travel guidebooks onto the tabletop. “Good morning,” he called with an easy smile. “Come join me.”

“I’ve come to collect Layla,” Vance replied. “I don’t really have the time.”

Phil pushed out the chair beside him with a sandal-clad foot. “I’m sure you can sit for a moment or two.”

Hell. Vance tried not to scowl as he lowered himself to the wrought-iron seat.

Phil smiled again. “So...how’re you two getting along?”

More guilt. Well, I got Layla to pretend to be my girlfriend. Worse, I ignored my scruples and listened to my inner horndog, Phil. I had wild monkey sex with your beautiful niece. Except wild monkey sex would have been less disturbing than what had really happened. He’d stroked her, enjoyed her, savored her. Even now he could feel the satin of her skin against his fingertips, hear the sweet need of her husky moans.