Bungalow Nights

chapter EIGHT



ONE LATE AFTERNOON, following several hours spent poring through dusty boxes, Addy headed back to Beach House No. 9. Strolling along the sand, she caught sight of Skye Alexander up ahead, her attention on something in her hands.

Addy picked up her pace. Now was as good a time as any to provide a report on the progress she’d made cataloging the Sunrise Pictures archives. As she neared the other woman, the sole of her flip-flop found a pod on a string of rust-covered kelp. The bulb popped, the noise loud over the whisper sound of the surf.

Skye startled, dropping the papers in her hands. “It’s you,” she said, clapping one palm over her heart.

“Sorry,” Addy replied, grimacing. Then she bent to pick up the scattered sheets. Lined paper was covered by a distinctly masculine scrawl. “I didn’t think anyone wrote letters anymore,” she said, passing the missive to Skye.

Wearing a small smile, the other woman carefully brushed at the grains of sand clinging to the pages. “He’s overseas and doesn’t always have access to the internet. Our old-fashioned correspondence isn’t as instantaneous as email, but I like it. It feels more...personal.”

“I get it. A person’s handwriting can suggest their mood.” Addy grinned. “And there’s always the option of writing your response in purple ink to convey your passion.”

Skye’s gaze shot up. “Passion?” She laughed. “No, we’re just friends. Old friends from childhood.”

“You’ve been pen pals since you were kids?” Addy thought of all the letters she’d fantasized writing when she was a girl. Each one addressed to the beautiful blond boy who lived down the road.

Skye shook her head. “He used to spend his summers here—in Beach House No. 9 as a matter of fact—but we started writing to each other less than a year ago. Gage—Gage Lowell—is a freelance photojournalist.”

And Skye’s secret crush, Addy decided. She might claim they were just friends, but the careful way she was handling that letter said that its future lay in a special box alongside the others the man had sent her.

Of course, that could just be Addy’s overstimulated imagination. The hours she’d spent searching through the souvenirs of the silent film era and Edith Essex had made her preoccupied with love affairs and all their attendant complications. “You know,” she told Skye now, “I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any letters between Edith and her husband, Max. I thought they might tell a truer story than the gossip rags of the day, which said she married the owner of Sunrise Pictures for what he could do for her career.”

“But you think...?”

“I don’t know.” Addy sighed. “Later, there was also speculation that Max got out of the movie business to punish her for the affair and that flamboyant gift of jewelry...while also putting out the word he wouldn’t tolerate anyone else hiring her.”

“Not too nice.”

Addy shrugged, then shoved her hands in the pockets of her cropped white jeans. “She stayed with him, though, and they had a couple of kids in quick succession and then, only five years later, after giving birth to their younger daughter, she got pneumonia and died. Did she resent her husband’s actions? Did she regret the loss of her acting career to her dying breath?”

“The only family lore I can add is that my great-great-grandfather never remarried,” Skye said.

Addy sighed again. “Well, you told me Crescent Cove has had its share of broken hearts.”

Skye gave a lopsided smile. “I did, didn’t I? Though to be fair, there is—” She broke off, her eyes brightening as her gaze moved over Addy’s shoulder. “Teague,” she said, in pleased surprise.

Addy glanced around. A dark-haired man was heading for them, barefoot and dressed in shorts and an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt. Its edges fluttered in the breeze, revealing a chiseled chest and a pack of ab muscles worthy of a magazine spread. “Wow.” She looked at Skye. “I think one of us should start exchanging passionate letters with that guy.”

“Are you really interested?” the other woman asked, her eyebrows rising. “Though we’ll need to take his romantic temperature first—he had a recent disappointment.”

“Maybe.” Addy shrugged. Because perhaps a summer fling was what she needed to purge her lingering and girlish infatuation with Baxter. She hadn’t seen him since that day when she’d told him the past was past. But, dammit, his response continued to echo in her head. That leaves the present wide-open.

Not that he’d made any inroads into her present since then, she thought with a scowl. He’d likely found some svelte beauty that was the same twelve-on-a-scale-of-ten as himself. Someone he could picture in his golden life and golden future.

With an effort, she morphed her scowl into a smile as the good-looking guy joined up with them. He had a warm hand and a firm grip.

“Teague spent his summers here, too,” Skye explained after introductions were made. “Along with Gage and his twin brother, Griffin.”

“And their sister, Tess,” the man added.

Maybe it was her imagination going wild again, but the way he said the name made Addy suspect this Tess was the source of the blow to his heart.

Skye confirmed the suspicion when she sent him a pointed glance. “Are you okay?”

“Getting there,” he said. “I’m back to the beach, aren’t I? First time since she left.”

Addy felt a little embarrassed to hear this bit of personal business until he turned to her with a rueful grin. “I’m trying to exorcise a ghost, I guess. Last month I fell a little too hard for a lady who was already taken.”

“Already taken by a husband and four kids,” Skye put in.

“Yikes,” Addy murmured. “Four kids?”

“I like rug rats,” Teague said, and she gave him credit for not being at all abashed about the admission. “Comes from a childhood as a lonely only.”

“Lonely only?” Addy repeated. “Hey, me, too.”

“Yeah?” Teague’s gaze sharpened.

“Yeah.” Addy took in his handsome features, the dark hair tousled by the wind, the ripple of muscles. She had someone she wanted to exorcise from her life, as well, and why the heck not with this dark-haired hunk? “I’m a little lonely now, too, as a matter of fact.”

He smiled, revealing the deep crease of a dimple in one cheek. “This might be my lucky day.” Then his eyes shifted over her shoulder. A glint of humor kindled in them. “Or not.”

Addy turned—and took a quick step back, almost stumbling. “You.”

“Hi,” Baxter said.

As usual, he looked as if he’d come straight from a hard day at the office. His tie was loosened, his shirt’s collar unbuttoned. Its cuffs were folded back to reveal his strong wrists, the left one banded with a steel watch.

The wind tugged at the cuffs of his trousers, but didn’t dare ruffle his golden hair. The sun burnished the perfectly cropped layers, though, making him seem to glow. Addy swallowed, trying to appear unaffected, even as the memory of a naughty boss-secretary dream she’d been having lately bloomed in her mind. Miss March, I found four typos in this memo...

“Uh, hi,” she said, cursing the blush creeping over her face.

He frowned. “What’s going on?”

Addy crossed her arms over her chest. I’m preparing for an exorcism. It was imperative. She was certain of that now because it wasn’t healthy for a woman to go weak-kneed when some man arrived out of the blue. Some man who’d said, “That leaves the present wide-open,” but who’d then ignored her for several days thereafter, only showing up in her subconscious at night.

Miss March, come into my office and close the door.

“Addy?”

“Nothing’s going on,” she said, then slid a glance in Teague’s direction. “Just making a new friend.”

Baxter’s blue eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”

The dark-haired man held out his hand, his expression still good-humored. “Teague White,” he said. “I’m a nice guy, honest. Skye can vouch for me.”

“He’s a firefighter,” Skye added. “Can’t get more wholesome than that.”

A firefighter? Addy sneaked a second look at the man. Wholesome wasn’t the first word that came to mind, especially when the firefighter in question was absolutely hot and incredibly handsome. Maybe the exorcism thing could really work.

Baxter was frowning as if wholesome didn’t ring true to him, either.

He shook the other man’s hand, then glanced at Addy. “Look, can we go—”

“I was just about to ask her to have a drink with me at Captain Crow’s,” Teague put in.

Baxter didn’t look away from her face. “She can’t,” he answered flatly. “We have plans.”

The liar. “What plans?”

He stepped into her, so close his loafers were an inch from the toenails she’d painted a bright melon as a pick-me-up when he hadn’t called or stopped by. How silly she’d been to believe he might. She’d been smart enough to have no expectations of him before and she shouldn’t be harboring any now.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch.” The back of Baxter’s hand slid along her cheek. “I had to take an emergency business trip.”

The caress sent a line of fire running from her face, down her throat, between her breasts. Addy couldn’t breathe. “I don’t... You don’t...” She had no idea what words were coming out of her mouth.

Damn the man! He scrambled her brain, garbled her good intentions, messed with her mind with just a look from his blue eyes.

His hand slid from her face to the back of her neck. His palm covered the tender skin there, more fire racing along her scalp and down her back. Panic added to the heat in her blood. She couldn’t want him like this.

In childhood, she’d had her defenses—coping mechanisms to smother her feelings or escape her surroundings. She’d worked hard to eradicate the unhealthiest of them, but now she found herself still vulnerable. Baxter—wanting Baxter—could take her back, take her down, making her that weak girl again who lived in her fantasies instead of living her life.

He leaned close, his voice for her ears only. “I’ve thought of you.” The thumb of the hand that was curved around her nape stroked the edge of her jaw, just under her ear.

Oh, God. She shouldn’t listen. He had the power to make her yearn. After a childhood of pining for things she couldn’t have or couldn’t make right, she knew better than to let herself long for Golden Boy Baxter. Six years ago, despite how breathtaking the experience, despite the things he’d said afterward, she’d never let it become more than a blissful night of wish fulfillment.

She’d never expected there to be more.

The Addy Marches of the world never got to have a Baxter Smith. Not really.

But he seemed to be offering something now...and even if it was only something temporary, it was still tempting.

She should shut him down. Turn away and then purge him from her life so she wouldn’t pine for him.

“Addy,” he murmured, that caressing thumb seducing her again.

Seducing the wallflower. Wallflower Addy, who after years of hiding herself away had finally learned that when her shoulders were flat against a hard surface, it was time to push back. “All right,” she said, making a sudden decision. She shot an apologetic glance at the attractive Teague, then focused on Baxter once again. “Let’s go to your place.”

He blinked. “What?”

There was a way to exorcise him other than running off with another man. She and Baxter could have sex again. Maybe the problem was that her experience with him was squarely in the sentimental category of first times and girlish dreams come true. Now, older and more experienced, she’d realize he was a mere man.

And that there wasn’t anything especially captivating about Baxter’s tab A sliding into her slot B.

She’d purge all right. All the stupid stars from her eyes.

* * *

BAXTER DIDN’T KNOW WHAT was going on in Addy’s mind, but he knew one thing for sure. They were not going to have sex.

He’d done that with her way too soon six years before. So when he opened the door to his condo and ushered her inside, he reminded himself he was no longer a twenty-three-year-old hothead. Which, actually, was a weird reminder in itself, because he’d never been a hothead. Not at fourteen, not at eighteen, not at twenty-three. Baxter had been focused on the BSLS. Hotheadedness was Vance’s domain. The only time Baxter had been driven by impulse was that particular night six years before.

So, no, this wasn’t going to be a repeat of that rash act. There was plenty of safe daylight left. It was summer and just past six o’clock, the perfect hour to have a reasonable, adult, getting-to-know-you interlude over a bottle of wine and some appetizers on his twentieth-floor balcony.

Because he did want to get to know her better. It was much too hasty to be considering a serious relationship according to the Baxter Smith Life Schedule, but there was nothing wrong with furthering their acquaintance. After that hike around Crescent Cove, he’d found himself charmed by her enthusiasm, entertained by her tales of the silent film era and completely unwilling to merely settle for her acknowledgment of and his apology for That Night.

Because she did remember it.

As he watched her move out of the entryway and into his living room, that six-year-old memory welled in his own mind. Addy was crossing the carpet to approach the sliding glass doors and the city view they afforded, but in his inner vision they were at the family ranch. The summer’s night air was redolent with barbecue, watermelon and beer. The deep rural darkness was held at bay with strings of small bulbs edging the rooflines, wrapping around the trunks of the oak trees, crisscrossing above the designated dance floor. Still, even though larger spotlights illuminated the players in the band and the booths providing food and drink, there were plenty of pockets of warm darkness.

Baxter had taken to one, his shoulder braced against the heated stucco of his parents’ house, listening to the country performers who did damn good covers of the latest hits. He’d been watching the dancers when, through the circling couples, he’d spied a pixie. In a pale yellow sundress a near color match to her hair, she’d been standing on the edge of more shadows. He might have missed her, except that she was moving to the beat, just the tiniest bit, the swaying of her belled skirt catching his gaze.

Without thinking, he’d been on the move toward her.

He was on the move now, making his way into the galley kitchen. “White wine okay?” he called to Addy.

“Sure,” she said, turning from the vista of skyscrapers and SoCal traffic to follow him into the small room. “What can I do to help?”

He glanced over. Froze. At the beach he’d noticed what she’d been wearing. White jeans, a simple pair of flip-flops, a thin white-and-turquoise-striped tunic-type shirt that fell to her thighs and buttoned down the front. Then, it had been fastened to her throat.

Now it was open near to her navel.

No, not even close really, but damn, from certain angles it would reveal the top curves of her breasts. Like from his angle. He was tall enough that when he looked down he couldn’t miss the pale mounds of her skin. His mouth went dry, and his fingers curled toward his palms as impulse poured like adrenaline into his bloodstream. Touch, it insisted, while his common sense tried negating the thought.

Bad idea, it reminded him.

Addy stepped nearer, and he pressed the small of his back into the countertop. She reached around for the cupboard behind him. “Glasses in here?” she asked, going on tiptoe.

It was as if she didn’t realize she was nearly plastered against the length of his body. That if he moved his head just a fraction, his mouth could find the soft skin of her temple and from there slide down to the pink warmth of her mouth.

Baxter sucked in a breath.

And on her perfume, was taken back in time.

He’d slowly made his way around the dance floor to where the pixie had staked out her place in the half shadows. She hadn’t seemed to notice his approach, as absorbed as she was in watching the couples spin and turn. Some of them actually knew how to dance. Others were just using the music as an excuse to touch, hand-to-hand, hip-to-hip.

Baxter had tugged on the ends of the pixie’s long hair. She’d started, turned, then, even in the dim light, he’d seen the deep rose color overtake her face.

And he’d fallen back. Crap. Too young?

But he was nothing if not polite, so he’d introduced himself. She’d nodded, said her own name and, half afraid and half relieved, he’d attempted the all-important calculations. Because he knew Addison March, or at least of her. She’d lived down the road and surely...if his memory was correct... Then, Baxter Smith, a day away from leaving town to enter a world-renowned MBA program, was forced to ask a question because his brain was too muddled to add for himself.

“How old are you?”

Frankly, nineteen had still felt too young. Disappointed, he’d meant to make his excuses and walk away. But she was staring at him with big eyes and still wearing that pretty blush. Somehow he’d found himself asking her to dance.

She didn’t know how to two-step.

It was pretty evident from the way she trembled against him, from the way her breath came so shallow and fast, that Addy didn’t know how to do two-anything. Another clear warning to him.

They were just going to dance.

“Are you all right?” Addy asked now.

Yanked back into the present, he jolted, moving away from her tempting scent and penetrating gaze. Did she know what he was thinking?

“Would you like a soda instead?” he choked out. Yeah, they were adults and all, but surely alcohol wasn’t safe to add to this mix.

Addy shrugged. “Wine is fine. Or beer—if it’s light. I only drink light beer.”

She’d had one that night. It wasn’t Baxter’s fault. Somebody else had actually given it to her, she’d told him, a bottle of golden brew with a slice of lime from the Smith family ranch shoved into the neck. Before they’d danced, she’d set the empty down at her feet. And after the dance, seduced from his good intentions by the perfect way she’d fit in his arms, he’d tasted the citrusy tartness on her lips, tasted the smoky yeastiness of the beer on her tongue. Yeah, he’d kissed her.

He didn’t think she’d been tipsy. One beer hadn’t incapacitated her.

But he’d been drunk. Drunk on her kiss, her petite body, on the spontaneity of it all. So off-the-Schedule.

As they’d walked arm-in-arm toward the bachelor house on the other side of the oak grove, the spacious quarters that had separate suites of rooms for him and Fitz and Vance, he’d been just a little high on doing something he hadn’t planned beforehand. It had felt like falling in love, wild and impetuous and completely out of control.

Addy approached him now, her footsteps steady on the kitchen’s hardwood floor. Baxter tensed, unwilling to be the victim of his urges once again. They were supposed to be getting to know each other like grown-ups. In a responsible way. He was supposed to be considering whether he wanted to casually date her, which was the only option available at this time according to the BSLS.

“Baxter,” she said, shaking her head. There was a very adult look in her eye. An adult note of admonition in her voice.

“What?” he asked, fiddling with the end of his tie.

She took that hand. Placed it down at his side. Then, her knuckles brushing against his ribs, she grabbed the tail of silk and yanked him toward her.

“Wait,” he said, his other hand on her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

She blinked. “I have to tell you?” There was a very sensual, very knowing look in her eyes.

A look he’d put there. Six years ago, she’d been as ignorant about sex as she’d been about the two-step, and he’d taught her how to do both. Sweet Lord. What a turn-on.

“I didn’t want it to go this way,” he murmured.

Her brows rose, not in doubt but in challenge. “Is that right?”

His hand was no longer pushing her away, but instead caressed that small cap of her shoulder. He was supposed to be the master of his urges, but looking at her, at that tinge of a flush breaking across her cheekbones, at the darkness of her pupils almost swallowing the green of her eyes, he realized that while he might be the master of his urges, he was no match for hers.

She stepped away. But his tie was still gripped in her small hand and he moved with her as she backed out of the kitchen. Without asking, she found the interior hall, still taking him with her.

With a slight shake of his head, he indicated they should pass the first door on the right. “Extra bedroom.”

Her feet moved past the bathroom that came after that.

Then they were at the end of the hall and inside the big master bedroom. Dropping his tie, she looked around her, taking in the king-size bed, the large chest of drawers, the flat-screen TV on one wall. Her gaze landed on the sliding glass doors that afforded yet another view. It was still plenty light in the room even though the drapes were drawn. At this height, they weren’t really necessary for privacy, so he’d chosen only the sheerest fabric. He started his days early.

As Addy continued to stare at them, yet another memory rose in his mind.

He hadn’t taken her to the bachelor house with the focused intention of getting her into bed. After three dances in his arms, she’d mentioned she was cold and he’d volunteered to find her something from his closet. He would have dashed back to get a sweatshirt and then returned, but she’d offered to accompany him.

She’d already shared kisses with him at the dark edges of the dance floor. He’d not been averse to making out more.

A few more kisses couldn’t hurt.

Once inside the empty bachelor house, he’d found her a soft fleece jacket that she’d draped over her shoulders before draping herself on the couch. Though he’d taken a seat several cushions away, in moments they’d been in each other’s arms again. Her perfumed warmth against him, her cloud of hair in his hands, her pretty face upturned.

The bedroom then, like now, had been her idea.

Her small tongue in his mouth had melted all his objections. Within seconds of her proposing they go there, he’d ripped off his metaphorical merit badges and led her to his big bed. Six years ago, an expression of doubt had crossed her face as she first glimpsed the smooth bedspread and stacked pillows. The same one she wore now.

So he sought to reassure her in the same way. “Hey, we don’t have to do this.”

She responded with the exact same words. “Turn off the lights.”

Then, he had. Now he couldn’t. “Addy, there aren’t any on. It’s the sun.”

Her gaze turned toward the filmy covering on the glass sliders and her teeth worried her bottom lip.

“Addy...” He crossed to her and put both hands on her shoulders. “Look, second thoughts are fine.”

“Second chances don’t always come around,” she muttered, then whirled to face him. “Kiss me.”

His thought was to take the heat down a notch. To turn the fire down to simmer, so that they would have clearer heads with which to reconsider. But when his lips touched hers she kissed him the way he’d taught her, mouth instantly opening to reveal the hot, sweet juiciness inside.

His body hardened and when she pressed against it she moaned. Damn, he thought, his hand sliding down to cup her ass, she was as determined as she’d been six years ago. As dangerous to his defenses.

They were still dressed when they stretched out on the bed. Her scent surrounding them, she crawled over him, kissing his mouth, sucking on his neck. He breathed her in, he reveled in her taste, his body imprinting on hers so that he worried he might end up following her around for the rest of his life like a baby duck after its mama. For a while he let her have her way—he’d done that six years ago, too—but then he had to touch.

He ran his hand along her sleek spine under her shirt, then slipped his palm beneath the denim of her white jeans so he could knead one curved cheek. “Let’s get these clothes off you, sweetheart.”

She glanced up, her mouth still on the bare skin of his chest. She’d unknotted his tie and unbuttoned his shirt; her pubic bone was pressed deliciously tight to his erection, but it wasn’t enough.

With his free hand, he began to draw up the hem of her long shirt. “Please,” he said, feeling more than a little desperate.

Instead of cooperating, she rolled away. Her hands went to his belt. “I want to see you naked first.”

Who was he to complain? He let her fumble for a couple of moments, then decided that was too much torture and made quick work of it himself. As he tossed his shirt aside, getting completely naked, she grabbed at his tie, eyeing it, then eyeing him.

Uh-oh.

That wasn’t a game he’d taught her, nor one he’d played before. Vance called him stuffy and he supposed, with the exception of that mad night of passion with a near-stranger six years before, that he was pretty conservative when it came to sexual matters.

Okay, he wasn’t kinky.

But hell, maybe he could be. Baxter swallowed. “You want me to tie you up?”

She shook her head.

He swallowed again. “You want to tie me up?” That would be more of a challenge.

But that wasn’t it, either. She kneed her way over to him and pressed the silk fabric against his eyes. “Please, Baxter.” Tilting her head, she put her mouth to his as she made a knot at the back of his head. “Let’s do it in the dark.”

And like on that first night, he couldn’t refuse her anything.

He didn’t need his eyes to undress her. He didn’t need his eyes to touch her silky skin, to palm her full breasts, to urge her over him so he could tongue her nipples. They hardened, and he grunted at the goodness of that. She writhed against him, her denim pants abrading his shaft and he grunted again, rolling her over before any damage was done.

Finding the button and zipper of her jeans was easy. Feeling her wriggle out of them while he thrust his tongue into her mouth over and over was a kind of painful bliss.

Then there she was, flush against him. Bare.

Full frontal nudity.

He didn’t need to see anything to feel the ripe softness of her between her legs, that sweet, wet, swollen flesh that was because of his kiss, his touch. Him.

Any man could put a condom on with his eyes closed. But then Addy “helped” him, and his fingers fumbled when he felt her hot breath on the flesh of his belly. She laughed, he cursed, they both went searching for the errant rubber.

Of course she found it first. She could see.

So he groaned again as she rolled it over his length. He lifted into her touch, his hips ready to plunge, to take, to have her. Have Addy.

But once sheathed, he pressed her to the mattress again. Used his mouth to Braille his way from her lips to her nipples to the soft center of her. Holding her legs wide, he kissed her there, too, tongued her, loving the bite of her fingernails in his scalp. As she began to quake in climax, he slid up and inside her, letting her muscles clench him in rhythmic bliss before surging himself, thrusting, until he came.

Breathing hard, he pulled away and flopped to his back beside her. After a second or two, he dozed.

When he came awake, it was night.

No, no. It was his tie, still blindfolding him. He left it there another moment, trying to think. Now that he wasn’t under the influence of driving lust, he wondered what the silk fabric’s purpose had been.

She wanted to keep him in the dark? If that was the case, it had worked. He was as confused about them as ever and concerned about why his intentions were so easily derailed. Days ago all he’d wanted was to apologize.

Not for making love to her six years ago, but for the reckless things he’d said afterward.

I think I’m in love with you.

I’ll call you tomorrow.

He’d said that, though that very tomorrow he’d had plans to head off to business school across the country. As for Addy, after taking a post–high school gap year, she’d been signed up to begin college classes in a month’s time. Neither of their future plans had stopped him from saying more, however.

And we’ll find a way to be together. We have to be together.

But the next morning, as he packed his belongings in his car, Baxter had recalled the BSLS. This was not the time for a girlfriend. This was not the time to be dating, even. And for pity’s sake, he was much too young to be thinking about love. So he hadn’t picked up the phone, he hadn’t written her, he hadn’t left her any message...and then had agonized over not doing so during the entire three-thousand-mile trip.

Beyond that, too. For six years. Yet still he’d not made amends.

He fingered the soft swathe of material covering his eyes. She should have choked him with the damn thing while he was sleeping.

Great. So his little getting-to-know-you time had turned into a disaster. They’d gotten as close as two bodies could be, but the blindfold had kept her hidden from him.

It had allowed her an opportunity to escape him, he thought.

And, he realized when he stripped the tie away, she’d done exactly that.

He was once again alone.