The Promise of Paradise (10 page)

“I haven’t fixed
anything yet.”

She cocked her head.
“Yeah, but you had it towed here. And you saved me last night.”

“What, from all the
muggers in Paradise?”

She smiled, and Eddie
loved the way it lit up her face, turning her eyes from brown to
green. Desire kneed him right in the gut. “Exactly. So do you want
pizza or subs?”

He shrugged. He didn’t
much care, if it meant he was going to see her again soon. “You
decide.”

She turned to leave.
“Okay, but remember you said that.”

He watched the sway in
her step until she disappeared. Then he eased himself back under Mrs.
Myers’ car. Oil leaks. That’s what he needed to be thinking
about. Not good-looking upstairs neighbors. Not long legs and eyes so
big he could lose himself inside them. And definitely not small
waists or smiles that ended with a biting of the bottom lip and pink
that spread from cheek to cheek when she laughed.

Eddie reached for a
wrench and adjusted his droplight, trying to ignore the throbbing in
his groin. When he scraped open a knuckle a few minutes later, he was
glad for the pain that drove Ash from his thoughts once and for all.

“I got both,” Ash
said two hours later, her arms filled with bags from Lou’s Sub Shop
and a six-pack of soda. Behind her, on Frank’s desk, Eddie spied
the corner of a pizza box. His stomach rumbled, but not before the
scent of her, feminine and floral, drifted over to him.

“Great. Smells
terrific.”

He headed for the sink
in the corner and spent a few extra minutes scrubbing.
Jesus, why
does she do that to me?
He glanced at his reflection in the paper
towel dispenser. Why did Ash leave him stuttering around like a fool?
Women never threw Eddie West into a tailspin. Usually it was the
other way around. Usually they fell for him, called him, waited
around for him. But ever since Ash had moved in upstairs, things had
changed. He felt unsteady on his feet around her. And the trouble
was, they weren’t even dating. A heavy whisper of possibility just
hung over every moment they spent together. Eddie splashed water on
his face. Did she feel it too?

“You don’t get your
ass over here, I’m gonna eat the whole pie and both subs,” Frank
called across the shop.

“Like hell you will.”
Eddie pulled up a chair and propped one knee against the desk. Ash
sat a few feet away, a salad balanced on her lap. She’d changed
into one of those halter-tops that clung to her curves, one that made
him see swells in all the right places. A pair of shorts, frayed
around the hem, rode up on her thighs. Eddie reached for a soda and
forced himself to look away.

“It’s the
distributor cap,” he said after a few mouthfuls of Italian sub.

“On my car?” Ash
said. “Is that bad?”

He shook his head.
“Nope. Take me ten minutes to replace it.”

“That’s it?”

He finished the sub and
reached for a slice of pizza. “That’s it.”

“How much will it
cost?”

He thought about
teasing her, about telling her she couldn’t afford it unless she
meant to spend the next week cooking him dinner. But he couldn’t.
The way she looked at him, with that wide, trusting expression,
twisted his heart halfway around. “Forty bucks.”

Frank snorted. “For
the part, maybe.” He winked at Ash. “Guess he’s throwing in the
labor for free. Must be your lucky day.” The telephone rang, and he
reached over to answer it.

Eddie watched the blush
spread its way across Ash’s cheeks, enjoying the way it made her
eyes shine.

“Thanks,” she said
to Eddie, as Frank stood to take the call on the other side of the
office. “I really appreciate it. You have no idea.”

“Better than having
it towed back to your mechanic in Boston.”

The way she started in
her chair caught him off guard.

“What do—oh.” She
raised a hand to smooth a few curls away from her face. “Right.”

“You have someone you
take it to, regular?” Eddie asked.
There’s that look again.
Like she has to watch her words. Or watch her back.
Ash hadn’t
told him anything about her life before Paradise. In fact, she
avoided it every time he brought it up. But her silence, and those
nervous glances every now and again, made him more curious than if
she’d dropped hints and tried to tease him into guessing the
details of her story. And everyone had a story. He knew that better
than anyone.

She shrugged. “I
usually just take it to whoever I can find.”

Frank hung up the phone
and scrawled something on the giant calendar that hung on the office
wall. “Everyone’s god-damned air conditioning goes at the same
time,” he grumbled. “God forbid anyone thinks about trying it out
before June. Then they get their panties in a knot ‘cause I can’t
see ‘em until next week. What the hell do they expect?”

Ash laughed.

“So how you liking
Paradise?” Eddie’s boss returned to his chair, springs creaking
under his giant frame, and laced thick fingers behind his head as he
leaned backwards.

“It’s nice.”

Frank grimaced. “Don’t
know how nice it is if you’re used to livin’ in a city. ‘Less
you been born here, I can’t see there’s much reason to stick
around.”

“No, really, I like
it,” Ash insisted. She turned to look out the plate glass window
behind them. “The square, and all the little shops downtown, and…”
Her voice drifted off, and suddenly, Eddie felt sorry for her.

“Guess every place
has some redeeming qualities, huh?” he finished for her.

She glanced up at him.
“Guess so.”

“Hey, how’s this
for a crazy idea?” he said after a minute.

“What?”

“Let’s have a
party.”

A furrow appeared
between her eyes. “What kind?”

“A regular party. At
our place. With lots of food and lots of beer and—” He pulled off
his baseball cap and rubbed his head. “It’ll be like a
housewarming party. We can have it outside, on the porch roof.”

She thought a minute.
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Jen told me it was the perfect
place. I think it needs some work, though. There’s loose boards in
that one corner, and the big patch with no paint...”

He shrugged. “No
biggie. We can do some repairs.”

“Jen's brother Lucas
is really good at all that. I could ask him if he could come up for a
day. I mean, so you don't have to worry about it.”

“Either way's fine.”
He grinned, loving the idea already. “So it’s settled.”

“Do it for Fourth of
July,” Frank suggested.

Ash cocked her head. “I
like it.” Her gaze met Eddie’s and washed over him.

He cleared his throat,
and though he wanted to say something else, wanted to keep the
connection hovering between them, he didn’t have a chance. The bell
on the front door rang, and Cassandra Perkins breezed in, with a
sweep of auburn hair and a perky little ass sashaying below it. Eddie
cringed.

Cass. Great. The last
person he needed to see. Too much history there. He wished suddenly
he could rewind the day, just five minutes in reverse, so he could
lock the door and keep that part of his past where it belonged. Then
he could watch Ash laugh, watch the way she tucked her hair behind
her ears, and spend the rest of the afternoon remembering her smile
and thinking about the way it burned him clear through to the core.

* * *

The buxom redhead
wiggled her way across the office, leaving a cloud of cloying perfume
in her wake. Ash inched back in her chair, to give the scent and the
woman attached to it some room.

“Hi, darlin’.”
She bent over and planted a kiss in the center of Eddie’s forehead.
Pendulous breasts swayed from a tube top that had inched its way down
from almost-modest to porn star wannabe.

Eddie turned almost
purple with discomfort. “Hi yourself, Cassandra. What the hell are
you doing here?”

The redhead tossed her
hair. One hand tugged at her top. The other dropped to her hip and
hung there. “Stopping by to say hi, that’s all.” She pushed out
her lips in a faux pout. “It’s been a while. You haven’t
stopped by the salon.”

Eddie shrugged. “Don’t
need a haircut.”

Cassandra plopped
herself onto his lap. She twined one arm around his neck and began
running her fingers through the waves that fell around his ears. “Oh,
I might argue with that,” she purred. One leg crossed over the
other, and she gave a throaty laugh. “Been longer than six weeks,
hasn’t it?”

Eddie placed two large
hands on her hips and steered her back to a stand. “Lunch break's
over. I gotta work.”

Undeterred, the
twenty-something siren twisted a lock of hair around an artificial
fingernail, painted bright pink. “I’m still waiting on that rain
check you promised me.”

Ash’s chest
tightened. She tried to look away and couldn’t. For a few moments
during lunch, she’d almost felt as though she belonged here, in
Eddie’s world. Talking to him, laughing with Frank, watching the
same mothers roll the same strollers back and forth down the
sidewalk, she’d almost felt a niche begin to carve itself out. In
the last few weeks, she’d begun to know her way around Paradise.
She’d begun to understand the flavor of the people who lived here.
And part of her—a big part of her—had begun to like it.

But one look at this
woman reminded her how far she was from home.

“Aw, get off him,
Cass,” Frank said. “Can’t you see he’s got a friend here?”

For the first time, the
woman turned toward Ash. A long look up and down, through
heavy-lidded eyes drenched with mascara, and her smile disappeared.
Without saying a word, she tossed her hair again. This time, though,
the motion held less flirtation and more simmering jealousy.

“So? I can’t stop
by and say hello to my boyfriend during his lunch break?”

Eddie stuffed his
baseball cap back onto his head as he stood. “I’m not your
boyfriend, Cass.”

Sidling up to him, she
wound one arm through his and leveled an unmistakable look at Ash.
“Maybe not at the moment, sweetheart. But even the best lovers need
some time apart, hmm?” Her chin lifted, and she stood on tiptoes
until her lips brushed his cheek. Her next words were a stage
whisper, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“
Don’t forget
who was there for you that night. Don’t forget who held your hand
when the doctors told you there was nothing else they could do.
And don’t forget what you told me the morning after. Take as much
time as you need. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

Eddie felt her gaze on
him before he awoke, beyond the twitching and the feeling of falling
that always plagued him in these dreams. Nightmares, he corrected
himself in the fog of sleepiness. Not dreams. No dreams could haunt
him, day after day, night after night, the way these did. Behind his
eyelids they played: one red light, like the eye of an indifferent
god, changing to green—he was sure it was green—and then glass
shattering and the wail of a siren. Finally, his brother’s moans.

Eddie lunged up from
the loveseat, eyes wide open, fingers damp with perspiration punching
into empty air. Ash sat next to him and stared.

“Eddie?” Her voice
was quiet, fearful.

He sank into the
cushions, took a deep breath, and tried to push the nightmare away.

“What was that?”
Her eyes grew larger as he fought to breathe normally.

“Ah, just a bad
dream.” He tried to laugh it off.

“In the middle of the
day?”

He loosened his fingers
from the fists they’d tightened themselves into. “Sometimes.”
Maybe someday he’d tell her about the horror that had haunted him
the past three years. Maybe. Right now it was still too painful to
revisit.

“Sorry I dozed off.”
He glanced at the television. Bottom of the eighth inning. How long
had he been sleeping? Twenty minutes? Longer? Since the Sox were up
in the sixth.

“Don’t be,” Ash
answered. “You’ve been working twelve-hour days all week.”

Eddie rolled his head,
neck stiff. “No kidding.” He checked his watch. Almost four. “You
working tonight?”

“Yeah. Told Marty I’d
come in around five-thirty. He hired another new girl, asked me to
train her.” She paused. “Can I ask you something?”

Eddie winced. He hoped
whatever question Ash had worked up during his nap wasn’t too
probing or painful. Just thinking about opening the memory of Cal
again, a rusty tin can with sharp, bloody edges, stole his breath.
That’s what he got for falling asleep. She’d figure out what had
happened sooner or later. If he didn’t tell her himself, she’d
guess from the nightmares.

But to his relief,
Ash’s question didn’t have anything to do with that. “What’s
the story with that woman from the shop?”

Eddie’s cheeks heated
up. “Cassandra?”

“The redhead who
stopped in the other day, yeah.”

He cocked his head, not
wanting to answer right away. “Why? You jealous?”

“Please.” She
narrowed her eyes. “So what’s the deal?”

“We dated a while
back.”

“So I gathered.”

“And then we broke
up.”

“Does she know that?”

“She should. She’s
the reason it happened.”

* * *

Eddie had let himself
in the back door of her apartment, the same way he always had when he
stopped by after work. This time, though, Cass wasn’t waiting for
him. She wasn’t standing in the kitchen, frying pork chops in her
black bra and his red plaid boxer shorts. She wasn’t sitting in the
living room, a glass of wine in one hand for her and a cold beer in
the other for him. A strange stillness filled the apartment for a
fraction of a second. Then he noticed the sounds.

They came from the
bedroom, low laughter and the swish of fabric on fabric. Eddie looked
at the clock above the sink, the dishtowels below it, the cutting
board, unwashed, lying on the counter. The laughter changed to soft
moans, and a humming grew in his ears. He flipped on the hall switch,
and too-bright light chased shadows from the pictures Cass had hung
on the walls from last summer’s vacation. He’d walked down the
hall and stopped in the open bedroom doorway. A man he didn’t know
lay in bed on top of his girlfriend. Cass took one look at Eddie and
yanked up the sheet.