Bungalow Nights(58)

Now she didn’t even have a father to walk her down the aisle.

Oh, God, the tears were stinging again.

“Layla?” Vance’s mother patted her arm. “Are you okay, honey?”

Blinking rapidly, she held the back of her hand to her nose. “Just a tickly nose,” she said, aware her voice sounded scratchy, too.

“Everybody gets those sometimes,” Katie murmured. Then she placed her palm between Layla’s shoulder blades and rubbed a soothing circle.

The touch brought her back under control. She hauled in a steadying breath, then picked up her wine. “You’re very kind,” she said to the other woman, just as Vance’s dad came up behind his wife.

“And beautiful,” he added, grabbing Katie’s glass from her hand and taking a swallow.

“Moocher,” she said fondly. “You remember Layla.”

“It’s good to see you again,” she started—and then found herself at a loss for words when William Smith took her outstretched hand in both his big paws. He smiled, and it was devastating, just like his son’s.

“Welcome,” he said. Then he leaned close. “I appreciate what you shared with me about my son on Picnic Day. I’ve thought of it often.” Then he smiled again, and she realized that he was definitely a charmer when he wasn’t at odds with Vance. He stayed in the kitchen with the ladies, offering groan-worthy opinions on wedding regalia and teasing his wife about their wedding day until she whapped him with a dish towel.

His brother came into the kitchen next, and Layla met yet another handsome Smith male—though he was about three inches shorter than the quite tall William. Apparently the elder Smiths had been joined in a double wedding and Roy told them how his brother’s tuxedo had been delivered to him and vice versa, causing a four-alarm panic until they managed to get control of their groom jitters long enough to figure out what happened and swap clothes.

Then it was Fitz who wandered in. He made his way to Blythe and laid on her a lavish kiss that turned the pale blonde’s cheeks pink again. She made an embarrassed protest, which he ignored as he went on to enthusiastically buss the cheek of his aunt, then his mother. Finally, he grabbed Layla and squeezed her in a bear hug.

Vance had mentioned in a grumpy tone that Fitz could be impossible not to like, and she had to admit that was true.

Katie scolded him, though. “Son, are you sure Layla wants to be manhandled like that?”

Fitz met her gaze with laughing eyes. “She thinks I’m perfect. Just ask her.”

Pressing her lips together, she let her eyes laugh back. Fucking Perfect Fitz. Yep, impossible not to like.

Conversation continued in the crowded kitchen, topics rambling and circling while the last details of dinner were completed. Layla found herself smiling and laughing and feeling entirely comfortable as they included her in everything from a squabble about a recent movie to tossing the salad.

When it was nearing time to sit down, Katie wondered aloud about Vance’s whereabouts. Fitz said he’d gone up to his old room, so Layla was dispatched to retrieve him from “upstairs, first door on the left.”

On her way out of the kitchen, a burst of laughter had her pausing to glance back, a smile on her face. Her gaze roamed the small crowd who had welcomed her in, a warm feeling running through her.

They were so nice, she thought. So nice, it was quite likely she might be a little bit in love with Vance’s family.

But surely that wasn’t the case.

She hadn’t fallen for the family any more than she’d fallen for Vance.

* * *

WHEN LAYLA REACHED Vance’s room, she hovered in the open doorway, her eyes going everywhere. The floor was like the rest of the house, polished pavers covered with expensive-looking area rugs. Under the windows directly across from where she stood was a massive desk fitted with little drawers and black iron pulls that gave it a Spanish flavor. To her left, flanking a dresser that matched the desk, were two doors, presumably leading to a bathroom and closet. On her right was a heavy, queen-size bed with a navy coverlet.

Lying atop it was Vance, who appeared asleep.

She rapped her knuckles lightly on the doorjamb.

He blinked, rousing, then lifted onto his elbows to peer at her through drowsy eyes. “Hey,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”

“I think that’s my question for you.”

His brows came together, and he looked about, as if puzzled by his surroundings. After a moment, he sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he said. “I came up here in search of my old softball mitt. Just stretched out for a second...”

The night before, she’d slept the deep sleep of emotional exhaustion. But perhaps he had not had a peaceful eight hours. Maybe she snored.

“I’m disturbing your rest, staying in your room at the beach house. Tonight I’ll go back to my own,” she said. The relief she felt at getting out the words let her know it was the right move. Self-protection was clearly in order. Separation from him a first priority.

His brows came together again. “I sleep with you just fine. As a matter of fact...” He crooked his forefinger. “C’mere.”

She clutched at the doorjamb. “I’m supposed to be bringing you down for dinner.”

“Not until you come here for a minute.”

On a sigh, she stepped into the room. “What?”

He smiled at her, the charming smile he’d inherited from his father. “Come a little closer, baby.”

The coaxing tone ran down her back like a seductive caress. Cursing her wilting willpower, she approached the bed, then yelped when he lunged forward to grab her wrist and pull her onto the mattress. “Vance!”

“Layla.” With a villainous laugh, he rolled so his long body loomed over hers.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m fulfilling a lifelong fantasy. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about getting a girl in this bed.”

“You thought about getting your high school squeeze, Marianne Kelly, in this bed,” Layla said, and promised herself her lower lip wasn’t pushing out in a pout.

Vance gave it a light bite, anyway. “I wasn’t mature enough to imagine the vision that is you,” he said, framing her face with his big hands. “You are so stunningly pretty, you know that? I’ll be seeing these big brown eyes in my dreams for the rest of my life.”

Because that’s the only place they’d be together—in dreams, she thought, but dismissed her sadness. She’d gone into this with big brown eyes wide-open, hadn’t she? Temporary lovers...because sometimes a person just needs to be held. Her very own words.

“Stunningly pretty,” he said again, his voice going softer.

Her melting response was a clear warning, and she tried pushing at his shoulders. When he didn’t budge, she frowned at him. “Are you telling me you didn’t sneak girls up here? I thought you were the resident bad boy.”

“Even I had a line I wouldn’t cross,” he said. “Once out of high school I moved into the bachelor house on the other side of the oaks and my bedroom rules were my own.” He bent as if to take her mouth.

She turned her head to the side, so he kissed her cheek. Separation, she knew, meant curtailing the lip to lip. Her gaze caught on the one wall she hadn’t seen while standing in the doorway. It was covered with shelves that were packed with trophies and photographs. “What’s all that?”

Vance glanced over his shoulder. “Souvenirs of my misspent youth.”

“Misspent? The trophies seem to tell a different story.” She pushed harder at him now so she could disentangle her body from his.

With a sigh, Vance let her up, then followed her off the mattress to inspect the memorabilia, starting at the left. A collection of little silver-and-gold baseball players perched on top of foot-high faux-marble pillars. She slid him a glance. “That looks pretty tame to me. America’s favorite pastime and all that.”

He just shrugged, and she moved farther along the shelving. Two hooks held a selection of medals suspended on ribbons, one for downhill skiiing, another for snowboard racing. Beside them were framed pictures of Vance. In each he bore the evidence of injury: a casted foot, a splinted set of fingers, a shaved patch of skull decorated by stitches.

“I think my mother put these on display in hopes they’d slow me down.”

“And did they?”

Instead of answering, he gestured to the right. Now it was trophies and medals for motocross and dirt bike races. They were partnered with more photos of a young Vance. In two he was in leathers and sporting a cut lip. A third showed him holding his arm in an odd position across his chest. She peered at it, then glanced at him.

“Broken collarbone.” Then he picked up a shark’s fin–size fragment of bright yellow fiberglass. “My first surfboard—or what’s left of it after we both wound up hitting some rocks. Damn, I loved that thing.”