Bungalow Nights(56)

The song that was playing ended and a new one began, another woman’s voice. Another woman left behind. God, where were the cheery, upbeat tunes that celebrated summer? “What is this, heartbreak radio?” she grumbled.

“Hey, I’m just happy to say I finally figured out how to turn on the outside speakers. Means I retain my stud status.”

She smiled a little at that. He’d been stomping around all month, his masculinity challenged by his inability to figure out the complicated stereo system. “Figures you’d solve the puzzle just days before we leave here.”

They lapsed into silence, the only sounds the wet rush of water and the soft music on the stereo. Vance’s feet shifted and she could feel his gaze on her. “Tell me about your real life,” he said. “So I can picture you and what you’re doing when this is over.”

Oh, good. He was thinking about uncoupling, too. She opened her mouth to answer, but those dark feelings rose again, filling her chest and making it hard to breathe.

“Layla?”

Swallowing hard, she set her untouched wine on top of the railing. “I’ve told you. I live in a little duplex inland and north of here. What I do there is pretty much the same as I do now. I get up early, bake cupcakes, go out with Uncle Phil to sell them. Get up and do it again the next day.”

“What about friends?”

Her seven-days-a-week schedule didn’t leave a lot of time for a social life. “I’m in a baking group,” she said. “We met in a food handling class, actually. About once a month we get together and have dinner, share recipes, just chat.”

She should spend more time with them, she decided. Once a month was too long to go between girlfriend fixes. They had busy lives, though, and would likely find it hard to fit her in. Angelica was a new mom, Patsy was planning a wedding, Gretchen and Jeanette lived far enough away from Layla that meeting them couldn’t be arranged spur-of-the-moment.

“But I admit I’m left with a lot of empty evenings.” And the thought of them stretching ahead only made her lonelier. “Uncle Phil once told me I should join an online dating service,” she added.

“Really?” Sounding surprised, Vance turned to face her. He was silent a moment. “Would you do that?”

She shrugged.

A heavy silence followed. Vance frowned through it, as if arguing with himself. Then he took a long swallow of his beer and met her eyes. “If you want, I know some guys I could introduce—” Breaking off, he looked away. “No. Sorry, but no.”

Was it her expression or some compunction of his own that had halted his offer? It didn’t matter—she couldn’t bear to have this discussion. “No,” she agreed, and forced some cheer in her voice. “Anyway, when I think about it, I’m going to be pretty busy. Uncle Phil is eager to start on that trip of his. I won’t be surprised if he leaves as soon as this month is up. Then I’ll be Karma Cupcake-ing all by myself.”

All by herself. Didn’t that sounded pitiful?

To Vance, too, she supposed, because he grabbed her by the arms and turned her to him. “You’re going to be okay. Wherever I go next—I’ll write. I’ll email you. Even overseas I get a chance to make phone calls on occasion.”

“You have your family to contact then.”

“I have you, too,” he said, giving her a tiny shake. “I’m going to be your friend, Layla.”

“That’s nice, thanks,” she said, stepping out of his hold. She took up her wine again and hoped he wouldn’t see her hand was trembling. God, she was a mess tonight.

At least the latest song was coming to an end, the woman’s wail about bad luck in love hitting its last note. Through the speakers, a new voice drifted into the night and Vance gave a soft laugh. “Hey, it’s your song.”

The slow, acoustic version of Eric Clapton’s “Layla.” Her chest went heavy again. “My dad called it that.”

“No surprise,” Vance said, and plucked her wineglass from her hand to set it beside his beer bottle on the railing. Then he pulled her into his arms.

“No.” Layla resisted. “What are you doing?”

He ignored her protests, drawing her closer. They were chest to chest, hip to hip, and he lifted her arms to circle his neck and crossed his at the small of her back. Then his feet shifted to the beat of the music.

Layla was stiff in the embrace. This wasn’t uncoupling. “Vance—”

“We gotta dance, pretty girl.”

“We’ve danced before,” she pointed out. “On Picnic—”

“That was my dance.”

She frowned at him. “And this one—”

“Is on the Helmet List.”

Layla stared up at Vance, the moon behind his left shoulder, the stars twinkling overhead, like diamonds tossed on dark velvet. He’d not mentioned the list lately, and she’d been content to just enjoy time in his company.

“This dance is for you and your dad,” he said now.

And with that the melancholy surged, growing from that heavy weight squeezing her lungs in her chest to a black shroud wrapping her entire body, trying to crush her to nothing. Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t inhale air, she could only release a soundless scream of sorrow.

This dance is for you and your dad.

“Layla.” Vance stopped moving, his eyes narrowed. “Layla, what’s wrong?”

With a wild shake of her head, she broke away from him and ran, leaping down the steps to the sand and speeding up the beach, legs churning. Distance, she thought, desperate for it. She needed distance. Not from the cloying bleakness and the clawing pain—she carried that in her heart and on her back and tangled in her soul—but distance from Vance.

He couldn’t see her in this state.

She ran out of breath before she ran out of beach. Her vague idea of making it to the cupcake truck wasn’t possible. But her gaze snagged on a build-up of sand ahead, a sort of dune at the base of the hillside, and she dove for it, dropping into its dark shadow. Drawing up her legs, she wrapped her shins with her arms and pressed her forehead to her knees, clutching herself tight—a human knot of sorrow.

No sound reached her ears except her harsh inhales and exhales of air. She was breathing again, and she supposed that was good, but the oxygen coming in only put more pressure on a chest already filled with unshed tears.

“Sweetheart,” a gentle voice said. “Layla.”

Vance! She jerked, then tucked into herself more tightly. “Go away,” she told him, the words muffled against her knees.

Even though her eyes were squeezed shut, she sensed him settling on the sand beside her. She felt the brush of his hand on her shoulder and hunched away from it. “Go away.”

His touch disappeared, but his voice remained. “Not a chance.”

Her eyes pinched tighter and she pressed her lips together to hold back a frustrated scream. Just be still, she told herself. Just keep it together.

“You know about the five stages of grief?” Vance asked.

Ignoring him, she rocked a little for comfort.

He groaned. “You’re killing me,” he murmured. She heard him take in a long breath. “The five stages of grief. The first is denial.”

That’s what she’d been in, Layla thought, denial—until moving into Beach House No. 9. But she’d been facing the truth since then, hadn’t she?

“The next are anger and bargaining.” When she didn’t reply, he spoke again. “Do you hear me, Layla? Anger and bargaining.”

Suddenly, his little lecture struck her as condescending, and temper added to the roiling mix of emotions inside her. “I know about anger and bargaining,” she said, her voice sounding rough. “I’ve been through those many times. Every time he left, don’t you think I was angry? Every day he was gone don’t you think I bargained with the universe?”

She was rocking again, the ache behind her eyes excruciating. “I didn’t step on cracks when I was little. Later, to get on fortune’s good side, I offered up prayers for drivers who cut me off instead of flipping them the bird.”

“Okay,” Vance said. “Okay. So that leaves just two others. Depression and acceptance.”

Why wouldn’t he go away?

“And I don’t think acceptance is possible quite yet, Layla. I really don’t.”

She turned her head to stare at him. “Oh, great. Are you telling me I’m stuck with depression? What kind of pep talk is that?”

“It’s not any kind of pep talk at all, sweetheart. It’s permission to feel bad. And it’s permission to start letting it out.”

Her eyes closed again and she shook her head. “No. No letting it out. A soldier’s daughter doesn’t cry.”

“When her soldier dad is never coming home again, I think she should.”