The Promise of Paradise (18 page)

He’s going to
Frank’s.
Somehow, she knew that’s where he was headed. To
work on cars. To forget his frustration. To put in a couple of hours
away from the house and away from her.

Something inside Ash
squeezed tight, and her chest began to ache. She'd give him his
space. “I’m not going to chase him,” she whispered. If he left
the house, then he didn’t want to see her. Not now. Maybe not even
today. Jen was right. She would wait.

Even if it just about
killed her.

* * *

Three hours passed. Ash
did two loads of laundry, cleaned out her refrigerator, and e-mailed
both her sisters. Finally, around four-thirty, she fell into a
restless sleep on the loveseat.

A dream. Red and blue
balloons. Ash on a Ferris wheel, all alone. She looked around,
startled, and grabbed at the safety bar. As she spun around and
around, the ground grew farther away each time she passed. Someone
below her laughed, but when she glanced down, all she could see were
faceless people. Flashes of light. Cracks of thunder. She spun in a
slow circle, until the next time she looked, the ground had
disappeared altogether, and all she could see was the sky falling
beneath her.

In a cold sweat, Ash
sat straight up and looked around her darkened living room. Rain
sliced against her windows; the sky had turned stone gray. The clock
read nearly six. Her legs, crunched underneath her, tingled when she
tried to move them. She rubbed her eyes and made her way to the front
window.
Please let him be home. Please let his truck be there.

It wasn’t.

She straightened her
clothes and walked downstairs barefoot. Biting her bottom lip, she
knocked on Eddie’s door.

Once. No answer.

Twice. Tiny mewed on
the other side of the door.

Three times, though she
knew by now he wasn’t home yet.

I’m going to
Frank’s. If Eddie’s mad at me, fine.
But she needed to tell
her side of the story. And she needed to do that today, tonight,
before they woke up tomorrow with another twelve hours of anger
between them.

The drive to the shop
took less than five minutes, but still her insides had worked
themselves into a giant pretzel by the time she pulled into the lot.
The office light burned, and she jumped from her VW.
Please be
here.
She peeked around the side of the building, where the
employees parked. Five empty spots. And one with a truck inside it,
parked at a crooked angle, as if its driver had slammed on the brakes
just in time. A red truck. Eddie’s truck.

Ash’s heart hurled itself into her
throat. She had to stop and take a breath before returning to the
front door to try the knob. Locked. She frowned and tried again. It
didn’t budge. Then she read the sign near the bottom of the glass:

Monday-Friday: 9 to 5.

Thursday Nights and Saturday Afternoons: By Appt. Only.

Ash knocked on the
glass. She hadn’t seen anyone else’s vehicle parked outside, but
if Eddie was here, wouldn’t his boss be as well? She cupped her
hands around her eyes and stared inside. It looked as though a dim
light illuminated the work area, back behind the office.
Maybe
they’re hanging out in the shop.
She knocked one more time.

“Ash?” The voice
came from behind her.

She spun around,
startled. Frank stuck his head out the window of his over-sized
diesel truck, which rumbled in place beside her car.

“What are you doing
here?”

“I’m…” For a
moment, she thought the tears might come again. “I’m looking for
Eddie. He’s not here?”

The big man cleared his
throat. “I—um—no.”

“But I saw his truck
out back.”

Frank nodded, eyes
averted. “He was here earlier today, left it parked there.” His
gaze flicked over her shoulder and back. “He wanted to borrow my
bike.”

Ash tried to picture
Eddie on a ten-speed and couldn’t. “Sorry?”

“My Harley. I bought
it off a guy last year. Eddie’s been messing around with it, wanted
to take it for a ride.”

“Oh.” She shivered
and crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you know when he’ll be
back?”

Frank raised his eyes,
but the look of pity inside them almost knocked Ash to the pavement.
“Honey, I’m sorry. He met Cass here around three-thirty. The two
of ‘em have been gone ever since.”

Cass clutched Eddie
around the waist, leaning in close when he took the curve too fast.
She shrieked something into his ear, but he couldn’t make out the
words. Nor did he really want to. When he’d seen her at the
convenience store a few hours earlier, she had taken one look at him
and known. Black moods and stormy temperaments, Cass could read like
an open book. It was the subtleties within a relationship she’d
never really gotten. Without saying a word, though, she’d pulled a
six-pack of his favorite beer from the cooler and followed him to
Frank’s. Fifteen minutes later, they were on the bike.

As long as he didn’t
think too much about it, Eddie was content to ride, as fast as he
could. As far as he could. Anything to get away from Paradise.
Anything to forget about the woman who had lied her way into his life
and then cleaved his heart straight down the middle.

“Cromer’s Corners 2
miles” read the sign at the intersection. He slowed for the
blinking red light. A right turn took them winding back toward
Paradise, a left, nothing but farmland for twenty more miles.
Straight ahead lay one of the state’s most historic towns, dotted
with landmarks, restaurants, and gift shops. With its connection to
the Civil War, it remained one of New Hampshire’s biggest tourist
draws. Eddie gunned the engine and took off again. A few raindrops
splattered down his chest and onto his legs.

They could get
something to eat and wait out the rain. If he remembered right, there
was a local place downtown with fat burgers and endless drafts of
beer. That might soothe his anger. Or at least chase it away for a
while.

* * *

“Finally.” Cass
climbed off the bike and strolled into the pub. “God, just in time.
I was getting wet.” She ran both hands down her chest, smoothing
her flimsy tank top over a bra that didn’t hide a damn thing. “Nice
ride.” She looked at him through full lashes.

“Yeah.” Eddie found
a couple of stools at the end of the bar and pulled them up. “Two
tall ones,” he told the bartender, opening his wallet.

Cass took her time
easing onto the stool beside Eddie, turning the heads of the three
other guys at the bar. She wore slim jeans that hugged her hips and
slid down just enough in the back to reveal the top of a bright pink
thong.

The bartender glanced
from her to Eddie and back again. Grunting what Eddie supposed was an
approval, he filled two mugs and slid them over. “On the house.”

“Bullshit.” Eddie
tucked a five into the guy’s tip jar.

The bartender shrugged.
“Suit yourself. But it’s ladies’ night, two for one.”

Eddie didn’t respond.
He ran a quick hand over his hair. What the hell had happened to him
today? How had he managed to wake up next to a woman he thought he
was falling for and end up hours later sitting next to his
ex-girlfriend?

He didn’t want to
think about it. He couldn’t. The fury of finding out that he’d
just opened his soul to someone who was a shadow, a pretend version,
a liar, a fake, ate away at his guts. He wanted to puke.

Cass’s warm hand
crept onto Eddie’s knee and stayed there. “How about a shot?”
she whispered into his ear. “For old time's sake?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”
What else did he have to do tonight but get rip-roaring drunk?
“Tequila. And two cheeseburgers,” he told the bartender. “One
with the works. One with ketchup only.”

Cass smiled sideways at
him. “You remembered.” Her hand slid up Eddie’s leg. Of course
he remembered. He remembered every damn thing. That was the problem.

* * *

Ash lay face down on
her bed, listening to Paradise’s only jazz station. She should have
told Marty she’d take an extra shift. Or she should have stopped
down there anyway, had a beer, and listened to J.T.’s stupid jokes.
Anything to get out of the house. Anything to keep her mind off what
had happened that morning.

Instead she’d eaten
cold pizza around seven and crawled into bed. She’d pulled the
blinds down tight, not wanting a sliver of light to sneak in and
brighten her mood. Now the room pressed down with heavy, unpleasant
humidity. She tried to take a breath and tasted stale cotton. Tucking
rumpled blankets around her shoulders, she turned to face the wall.
The blues rolled over her, thick as murky midnight, and she gave in
to tears.

Cass. He went to
Cass.
She couldn’t stop replaying Frank’s words and the
awful, pitying expression on the man’s face. Worse, she couldn’t
stop thinking about Eddie’s ex-girlfriend, with the red hair and
the tight clothes and the come-hither look she didn’t bother to
hide.

He dated her once. It
only made sense that he’d go back to her. What guy wouldn’t want
a woman who looked like that? She drew a forearm across her face and
told herself to stop crying.

“…and that was
Miles Davis, with his classic rendition of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird,’”
the DJ said. “To all you lonely lovers out there, this next one’s
for you…”

Ash looked at the
clock. Ten minutes to twelve. She shut off the radio and listened.
Nothing but silence from the apartment below. No music patterning the
floor with vibrations. No kitten paws racing around the hardwood. No
laughter. No voices. Nothing at all.

She fell back against
the pillows. “Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe Colin’s right. Maybe
there really is nothing here for me.”

What was the point in
staying? She supposed part of her had always known that she’d have
to go back to Boston. She just didn’t think it would be this soon.
Well, tomorrow she'd give Marty two weeks’ notice. That should give
him enough time to find another night manager. By then, the summer
would be almost over, and they could sublet her apartment to someone
else. If she told Helen she’d be out by mid-August, maybe the
landlord could rent to a college student. Ash rolled over and tried
to slow her breath, to still her heartbeat, to find a rhythm that
would carry her toward sleep. And she tried not to think of all the
things she’d miss when she said goodbye.

* * *

“Shit.” Eddie
stumbled off his barstool and spilled a bowl of peanuts onto the
floor.

Cass leaned against
him. Her perfume wafted up and reminded him of other days, earlier
days, when he’d breathed in that scent and wanted more, always
more, of it. “You can’t drive home.”

“No kidding.”
Double-shit. He hadn’t meant to get so slobbering drunk. He’d
just wanted a few shots, some beers to chase them down, something to
mellow him out so he could forget Ashley Kirtland. Or Ashton Kirk. Or
whatever the hell her name really was.

“There’s a motel
next block over,” offered the bartender. “I can call you a cab.”

Cass wound her arm
through Eddie’s and tugged him toward the door. “The motel’ll
be fine,” she said over her shoulder. “We can walk.”

Outside, the air felt
good as Eddie drew it into his lungs. Fresh. Clean. Forgiving.
Everything he wasn’t. The rain had stopped, though puddles still
dotted the pavement. He lifted the two helmets off the back of
Frank’s bike.

“I gotta text Frank,
tell him I’ll get the Harley back tomorrow.”

Cass pressed her hand
against his. “You already did. About an hour ago.”

“Really?” Eddie
rubbed his forehead and tried to remember. He pulled out his cell
phone and checked. “Oh. Yeah.”

“There’s the
motel.” Cass pointed across the street.

A few hundred yards
away, Eddie could make out the blur of a neon sign. “Vacancy,” he
read. “We’ll get two rooms.”

The redhead put one
hand on a hip. “Like hell we will.” She snuggled herself under
his arm. “You need some comforting, Eddie West. I don’t know who
broke your heart, or how she did it, but tonight you need some
grade-A ex-girlfriend lovin’, and that’s exactly what I’m gonna
give you.” She slipped a hand inside his back pocket.

Eddie didn’t answer,
just started to walk. What he really needed was a soft bed and about
a thousand hours of sleep. Then, in the morning, he’d let some
greasy home fries ease his hangover while he went about shoveling the
pieces of his heart under the carpet. He glanced over. But hey, if a
woman like Cassandra Perkins wanted to keep herself warm beside him
in the meantime, he wasn’t sure he had any objections.

Not tonight, anyway.

Consciousness came
slowly, working its way into Ash’s bedroom on leaden feet.

I’m still in
Paradise,
she thought after a minute of staring at the ceiling.
For now, anyway.
A blink at the clock and a long swig of water
reminded her of last night’s decision. She’d give Blues and Booze
two more weeks. But no more.

She swung her feet over
the edge of the bed. Though nearly nine, no light came through her
blinds. She padded across the room and peered outside. Rain spit
against her windows, not heavy, just steady.

“Great. Another
stupid, gray day.” Just what she needed to match her mood. Ash
headed for the bathroom, glad she’d taken a lunch shift to fill up
the empty afternoon.
I’ll tell Marty when I get there.
She
eased her way under the shower’s hot spray. No reason to call him
earlier. He’d throw enough of a fit as it was.

She felt more than a
little guilty about leaving Blues and Booze, especially since she’d
been running the place a couple nights a week, but what was she
supposed to do?

This place has
nothing to offer you…