Bungalow Nights (Beach House No. 9) by Christie Ridgway Read Free Book Online Page A

certain soft-eyed brunette who just happened to make his mouth water.
    “You should hear me out,” he said, keeping his expression harmless and his voice mild.
    Layla was already edging toward the house. She touched the handle of the sliding-glass door. “Not—”
    Addison slid it open from the inside. “There you are!” she said, stepping onto the deck and effectively pushing Layla toward Vance again. Addy had a yogurt cup in one hand, a spoon sunk inside like the business end of a butter churn. “Our host was looking for you earlier, knocking on my door in the dead of the night.”
    “The sun was up,” Vance said, and tried signaling her with his eyes. Go away, Addy.
    The message went unheeded. She crossed straight to Vance’s lounge chair and, much as Layla had done minutes before, plopped herself beside him. He could barely remember Addy as a kid, but she was a curvy fairy now, with a fluff of platinum hair ringing her small head and tip-tilted green eyes. Her mouth seemed always ready for a mischievous smile.
    Vance gave her a second look. If his libido was reawakened, how about Addy? She smelled like strawberry soap, was sexy in a handle-with-care kind of way, and he’d made no pledges to her papa. Maybe she’d consider a summertime fling....
    “Why are you looking at me like that?” Frowning, her green eyes crossed. “Is there something on my nose?”
    “Just a sprinkle of freckles,” Vance said, shaking his head. “They’re cute.” But they did nothing for him, he realized, damn his perverse horny urges. Punishing him for his misspent youth, he supposed, through an uninvited and inconvenient fixation on Layla.
    As if on cue, the brunette cleared her throat. “I’m glad to have a chance to talk to you, Addy. I have some free time on my hands and I was thinking I could spend some of it helping you with your research.”
    Addy halted her spoon midtwirl and looked up. “You’re interested in the silent film era?”
    “Uh...I could be.”
    Vance decided Layla was more nervous than he thought warranted. He hadn’t been that out of line. One little cupcake comment that he’d followed with a lighthearted apology shouldn’t send her screaming for the books. He narrowed his eyes and saw her throw him a quick nervous glance, her face coloring.
    She cleared her throat again. “Tell me some more about what you’re investigating.”
    With her spoon, Addy gestured around the cove. “This place was magic in the heyday before the talkies. All the palm trees and tropical vegetation? Trucked in. Coastal California hillsides are normally sage scrub and manzanita. Thanks to the creek running through here, though, everything from the banana plants to hibiscus bushes took hold. Et voilà, a South Seas atoll for pirate stories, a rainforest for cannibal movies and, in one particularly famous case, Cleopatra’s ancient Egypt.”
    Obviously Addy was enthused by her subject. Using her spoon again, she pointed down the beach. “There’s a small room attached to the art gallery beside Captain Crow’s that’s an archive for business papers and memorabilia from Sunrise Pictures—the company that operated out of the cove. I’m the first scholar given access to all of it.”
    “Fascinating.” Layla darted another glance at Vance, then her tongue came out to touch that top-heavy upper lip.
    Off-limits, he reminded himself. And you’re way past your days of reckless rule-breaking. Even if the rules are of your very own making.
    Layla smoothed the skirt of her dress with her palms. “Well, if you could use me, I’m free after my morning baking’s done.” Again, she slid him a look.
    Huh, Vance thought, not knowing what to make of the strange vibe he was getting from her. It wasn’t just wary, it was...
    “While I’m here, I’d like to keep myself very busy,” she continued. “Very, very busy.” This time she studiously avoided his gaze.
    And then he finally got it.
    Hell, he thought, surprised by his