The Promise of Paradise (11 page)

She’d yelled at him
as if it were his fault he’d walked in on them. He wondered how
long it had been going on, and how stupid and blind he’d been not
to see it sooner. She’d tried calling him at work and later at his
parents’, but he wouldn’t talk to her. He returned to the
apartment only once, to get a few lousy things he thought probably
belonged to him, and that was it.

He hoped he never saw
the bitch again.

* * *

Ash raised her eyebrows
as Eddie finished the story. “Rough. Sorry.”

“Me too. Doesn’t
matter.”

“You sure about that?
Looks like she’s interested in a second chance.”

He shifted on the
couch. One bare ankle brushed Ash’s, and he drew it back before his
mind went in directions it shouldn’t. “Damn sure. Cass might want
to get back together, but I’m done with her.”

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.

Eddie hoped Ash wasn’t
thinking of what Cass had said the other day. He couldn’t explain.
He couldn’t tell her, that yeah, Cass had come to the hospital the
night of the accident. She’d waited for him to wake up, and then
she’d held his hand when the doctor came in and told them about his
brother. She’d wiped away his tears when he couldn’t find the
strength to do it himself. She’d let him sleep at her place for
days at a time, pulling the blankets over him when he kicked them off
in nightmares so violent he’d wake up shivering. But so what? She’d
cheated on him, too, less than six months later, so what did that say
about her devotion?

Ash was asking him
something. Eddie fought back the fog of anger and tried to focus.
“Sorry. What?”

“I just wondered if
you’ve ever had a serious girlfriend. In your life?”

“Depends on how you
define serious. “Not really. Cass was close for a while, but…”
He didn’t know how to finish. What good did it do to get attached
to someone, if you knew that someday they’d betray you, turn their
back and leave? Everyone left at some point. Girlfriends. Family.
Even the people you thought you could count on forever, like
brothers. Especially brothers.

“What about you?”
he asked, filling the silence.

She dropped her gaze,
same as always. Ash never wanted to talk about herself. She just
wanted to finesse other people into telling all their secrets. Just
like a lawyer.

“Serious boyfriend?
This one you just broke up with?”

She shrugged. “I
thought so.” She picked at a hole in the arm of the loveseat.
“Guess I was wrong.” Sadness filled the spaces in her face that
before had held light.

“His loss,” Eddie
said.

“That’s what I keep
trying to tell myself.”

“You decide how long
you’re staying in town?” He tried to convince himself it was a
casual question, that it didn’t matter to him one way or the other
who lived upstairs from him. Truth was, though, Eddie couldn’t
imagine anyone but Ash tripping down those stairs in the morning,
letting herself in after dark, tossing a toy for the kitten to play
with. He couldn’t picture anyone else on the other side of this
door, anyone else stretching out on the rooftop, anyone else arguing
about whose turn it was to drag the trashcan to the corner.

She’d gotten under
his skin.

“I don’t know,”
she said after a minute. “I only sublet through the summer, so when
September rolls around…”

She didn’t finish,
and Eddie wasn’t sure he wanted her to.

“Well, you’ll
figure it out,” he said and left it at that.

She laid her head
against the cushions and closed her eyes. “I hope so,” she said,
but the words were so quiet he wondered if she’d meant to speak
them aloud at all.

“Marty had to go
outta town,” J.T. informed Ash as soon as she walked into the
restaurant that evening.

“Oh. Okay.” She
wasn’t sure what that had to do with her.

“He said you’re
supposed to be in charge ‘til he gets back.” J.T. stuck a
toothpick into his mouth and wiped down the empty bar.

Ash stopped. “What
are you talking about?”

The bartender flipped a glass and
slid it into place on the shelf. “Here.” He fished in his front
pocket for a slip of paper. Ash recognized Marty’s scrawl on the
back of the wrinkled receipt as J.T. handed it over.

Ash, please take over tonight. You know where the keys are. Money
goes in the safe. Be back tomorrow. M.

She sagged onto a
stool. “Why me?”

The bartender shrugged.
“Why not?”

Ash dropped her head
onto one hand and stared at the note.
Take over?
Well, how
hard could it be, really, to empty out the two registers at the end
of the night and lock up the money? She knew the rest of the routine:
how to wipe down and secure everything in the kitchen, where to put
the trash out back, how to set the alarm when she left. Marty had
shown her all that weeks ago. Bobby V., the kitchen’s head cook,
had worked at the place longer than Marty had run it. And J.T. was in
charge of the bar.

“Okay.” She headed
for the kitchen. She’d give it a try. Tuesdays never drew a big
crowd anyway. And it didn’t look as though she had much choice. How
much could she screw up in a single night? “You all set out here?”

J.T. winked when she
glanced back at him. “All set, boss.”

She gave him a dirty
look and decided not to answer.

* * *

“You did good,” the
bartender said a few hours later. They sat across from each other and
stared at an infomercial scrolling across the television screen.

“Yeah? Thanks.”
Exhausted but secretly pleased with herself, Ash reviewed the night.
Only a handful of tables, but that wasn’t unusual for a weekday,
and J.T. had done a decent business at the bar. She’d even managed
to handle Betty June, the widow who complained about everything from
the temperature of her steak to the number of ice cubes in her drink.
By the end of her meal, thanks to a couple of questions about her
cats and a compliment of her wide-brimmed hat, the woman had
practically beamed at Ash as she left.

“You should be in
charge more often.” J.T. stacked glasses. “You’re damn better
lookin’ than Marty, anyway.”

“Maybe he’ll give
me a raise.”

The bartender laughed.
“Keep dreaming, honey.”

Ash laughed too. “I
guess you’re right.” Still, she wouldn’t mind the extra
responsibility. It had been nice, moving about the dining room,
checking on customers, answering the phone, and organizing the
kitchen in a way she didn’t dare when the manager hung over her
shoulder. It made her feel like she wasn’t completely wasting her
summer.

Part-time night manager
at Blues and Booze? Not a bad way to spend the next few weeks. Maybe
she’d talk to Marty about it after all.

* * *

The following night,
Ash lay in the bathtub and ran a washcloth across her stomach. Bare
toenails peeked at her from beneath the bubbles. She balanced her
head on the edge of the tub and let her hair float on the water
around her chin. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the waves of
raspberry from the candles that flickered on the windowsill. Etta
James sang to her from the living room. She hummed to the music and
let herself float until the water began to cool.

She hadn’t seen Eddie
at all today, but she guessed he’d probably agreed to a double
shift at the shop, since he was taking tomorrow off for their party.
She couldn’t wait to tell him about the manager position. She’d
asked Marty about it earlier, and he’d nearly fallen over in
agreement. The stingy guy had even agreed to pay her fifty cents more
an hour. Ash smiled and wondered what her sisters, with their
six-figure salaries, would say if they knew. She sank lower in the
tub and decided she didn’t care. For the first time in her life,
she’d chosen her own path, one that curved away from the Kirk
family one. So what if it only lasted for a month or so? She still
liked the way it felt.

The ring of her cell
phone woke her. One wet hand emerged from the water and lifted it
from the bathmat. Jen, probably. Ash didn’t bother to look at the
screen.
She’s probably checking to see what time she and Lucas
should get here tomorrow.
Or maybe it was Eddie, remembering one
more thing he wanted to bring for food. Ash smiled.

“Hello?”

For a moment she heard
nothing but silence on the other end of the line. Then a too-familiar
voice spoke her name. Her real name. “Ashton?”

Colin. Oh my God.
Her eyes flew open, and she sat up in the tub, shaking. Ash stared at
the phone as if it had suddenly grown a mouth all its own. For a
moment, she thought about hanging up. She didn’t owe Colin
anything. He hadn’t called her in almost two months. She didn’t
want to give him the satisfaction of hearing her voice.

But she couldn’t hang
up. Instead she sat there, dripping, hand frozen to the phone.

“Ash, it’s me.”

As if she didn’t
know. As if she could forget the voice that had broken her heart just
a few months earlier.

“I know who it is.”
She pulled the plug from the drain and reached for a towel, shivering
as cool air brushed her damp skin.

“How’ve you been?”
He sounded nervous, and she was glad.

What’s with the
small talk?
“I’m fine.”

“That’s good.” He
cleared his throat. “How are your sisters?”

You should know,
considering you talked to Jess a couple of weeks ago.
“They’re
fine too, I guess.” She paused. “What do you want?”

“I…” Colin
hesitated. “I miss you.”

Ash dropped the towel
and headed into her bedroom.
Like hell you do.
He wanted
something. Or he needed something. He couldn’t have gotten tired of
Callie already. She stuck her arms through the sleeves of her robe
and sank onto the bed. Rubbing her temple with one hand, she tried to
squelch the other thought that insisted on rearing its head.

I miss you too.

“What am I supposed
to say to that? You made it pretty clear two months ago that you
wanted time. Space. Callie Halliway.” She spoke the name without
breaking and was proud of herself. “Besides, you were so
embarrassed by everything that happened with my father that you
couldn’t wait to get away from it all. Remember?”

“I made a mistake.
Please. It’s over with me and Callie. It never was much of anything
to begin with.”

“That’s supposed to
make me feel better?”

“Jess told me you
took a summer place somewhere up north. Tell me where it is. I’ll
come up. Tomorrow. Tonight. Or you come home. Please.” His words
spilled out, anxious and awkward. “I want us to try again. I was
wrong…I’m sorry.”

Ash closed her eyes.
Don’t say that.
She couldn’t bear to hear the remorse in
Colin’s voice. She couldn’t afford to give in to his pleas, not
after working so hard to get over him. And yet she couldn’t resist
them either, despite her best efforts. Sighing, she let the weight of
memory roll across her heart. In a flash, it all came back: Colin’s
serious expression above her in bed, his hands in her hair, his cheek
twitching at the beginning of a smile. His arm around her waist as
they crossed campus. His wink as they took notes through class, side
by side. His name. His family. God, she’d fallen so hard, so fast,
without a thought of what might come after the breathlessness.

After the letter, she’d
begun the grim task of shuttering up her heart, piling brick upon
brick to seal out the hurt. Now here he was, calling and pretending
an apology and a little attention could make everything all right?
Brittle tears made their way up her throat.

“Ashton?”

“I can’t do this.”

“Please—”

“I’m not telling
you where I am. And I’m not coming home. I need to figure things
out.” She picked at a thread in her quilt.

“I miss you,” he
said again, and the words tore at her heart.

She pictured Colin’s
eyes, liquid and pleading. Her resolve weakened. Maybe it wasn’t
too late. Maybe she should give him a second chance.

“Will you at least
think about it?”

She took a deep breath.
No,
she wanted to say.
I won’t think about it. It’s
over, and I’m moving on without you.
But the pull of his voice
and the memories it held were too strong.

“Maybe.” The thread
yanked free from the quilt and left a tiny hole in the pink fabric.
She twisted it around her finger and wondered how much of a mistake
she was making. “Maybe I’ll think about it.”

“I really want to
work things out.”

She tightened her hand
around the phone. “I have to go.” She hung up before he could say
anything else.

Stunned, unable to form
any kind of coherent thought, Ash pulled down the window shade and
sat in silence.
Colin…after all this time.
She rolled onto
her stomach and pressed her face into the pillow. Tears welled up,
and this time, she let them come. Maybe on another day, she would
have known better, would have turned up the music on the stereo,
would have opened all the windows to let evening light flood in.
Maybe on another day, she would have turned her back on that piece of
her life that still bled when she poked at the scar.

But it wasn’t another
day. It wasn’t far enough from the past. Ash was a Kirk daughter, a
Harvard graduate, and she’d had every intention of marrying Colin
Parker. She’d planned on opening a joint law practice with him,
having his children, moving into his family’s estate with the wide
porch and thriving flowerbeds. Until two months ago.

He wants me back? He
wants to try again?

A few weeks ago, Ash
would have leapt into his arms. But now? Now, she didn’t know. To
her surprise, a few weeks in Paradise had started to change things.
She stared into the blackness behind her eyelids and pursed her lips
until Colin’s face disappeared, and she could no longer hear his
voice ringing against the hollow behind her cheekbones. She took a
deep breath and opened her eyes. For the moment, he was gone. Now she
just had to figure out how to make him stay there.