The Promise of Paradise (19 page)

“Dad’s right,”
she said aloud. The sooner she went back to Boston and faced down her
demons, the better. She had a degree from one of the top law schools
in the country. She knew of a half-dozen firms in the city who’d
give their eyeteeth to hire a Harvard grad, especially one with the
last name Kirk. She’d have no problem working herself back into
that way of life. And if her father and her family needed her, then
it was about time she stopped acting like a spoiled child with her
heart broken. She was twenty-six, not sixteen. She needed to get it
together and go to Martha’s Vineyard.
What’s the worst that
can happen?

Ash turned off the
shower in time to hear her phone ring.

Eddie. The thought that
it might be him shot adrenaline straight into her soul.
He’s
calling to talk. He wants to make up.
It wasn't too late after
all. She wrapped a towel around her head and grabbed her robe. All
thoughts of Boston and her father and the Vineyard fled. Still wet,
she skated into the living room.

But her voicemail
picked up before she could answer, and as soon as hope had lifted
inside her heart, it was gone again. She pressed the button to listen
to the message, but one look at the screen told her who had called.

“Ash? Marty here.”

She sank onto the
loveseat and rested her head on one palm. Of course it wasn’t
Eddie. Look what she’d done by lying to him. Look at everything
she’d ruined.

“Got something to ask
you.” Marty hacked up phlegm for a few seconds before continuing.
“And, ah, I know you’re coming in to work lunch today, but I’ve
got a meeting down in the city.”

The
city? As in
Boston? Marty rarely left Paradise, as far as Ash knew, though he’d
been gone a lot of nights this summer. What was the guy up to? Got a
woman? She couldn’t imagine it. Gambling addiction?

“…so could you give
me a call when you can?”

Ash erased the message.
She might as well get it over with. He probably wanted her to cover
as manager tonight, or maybe pull a double tomorrow. She'd call and
find out for sure and tell him about her leaving at the same time. He
wouldn’t like it, but—

Marty picked up on the
first ring. “Ash?”

“Hi. Got your
message.”

“Ah, hey there.” He
coughed.

“Oughta get those
lungs looked at,” she said almost without thinking. She knew he
wouldn’t listen; she told him the same thing two or three times a
week. It wasn’t like you could change the habits of a chronic
smoker. The things people carried around for a lifetime worked their
claws inside the skin and stayed there.

“So what's up?”

“Ash, listen. I’m
gonna need someone up here full-time to run the restaurant. I'm
thinking about opening another place down near Salem. Cater to the
college crowd.”

“What are you talking
about?”

“I've been talking to
a buddy of mine these last few weeks. He’s got the dough, likes my
ideas. Wants to go in partners with me.”

“Really?” Ash’s
brows rose. She couldn’t picture Marty leaving Paradise, let alone
opening another version of Blues and Booze. But then again, she’d
never really looked past his yellow teeth and bloodshot eyes. Maybe
the restaurant business had grown on him. Maybe, after all this time,
he did want more. Maybe he wanted expansion, a place that drew a
younger, bigger crowd. More money. More possibilities. “So wait,
you’re leaving town?”

“For a while, if I
can find someone to take care of the place here. I'll be spending
most of my time down there, next few months, anyway. So, ah, if
you’re interested, like to offer you the manager job. Full-time.”
He chuckled, wheezing only a little. “Well, probably be more than
full-time, ‘cause you know what the hours are like. You can hire
someone to work under you, if you want. Part-time, cover the nights.”

“Marty, I can’t—”

“Don’t say no right
away,” he interrupted. “I know it probably ain’t the dream job
you got lined up inside your head. But you’re damn good at it. The
customers like you. Lot of ‘em come in to see you. But you don’t
take any crap from anyone either, and that’s good.” He paused to
draw a rattly breath. “I ain’t never considered opening another
place ‘til this opportunity came along. And you…you’re okay.
You got the hang of it. And you’re about the only person with
enough brains to keep it going. So if you want to stay in town for a
while, give it a shot, I’d appreciate it. Really.”

Ash didn’t say
anything.
Stay in Paradise? Run Blues and Booze?
It was
ridiculous. She couldn’t. She’d do a terrible job. Besides, she’d
make what? A few thousand dollars? Barely enough to cover the rent in
this second-floor apartment. No way. It made no sense.

Then why didn’t she
just tell Marty thanks, but no thanks? Why didn’t she tell him
she’d be gone in two weeks, back in Boston where she belonged? Why,
instead, did she tell him she’d think about it?

Because, she decided as
she threw on an old pair of shorts and a halter top and stepped into
the rain, she had finally, and completely, lost her mind.

* * *

The rain let up shortly
after Ash rounded the corner of Lycian Street, and by the time she
headed downtown, past the church green, all that remained was a fuzzy
sky with some sun poking through. She bent her head against the wind,
shoulders hunched, and walked past the restaurant. Past the tiny
yellow-sided library, where Celia Darling waved a hand as she
gathered books from the return bin. Past Annie’s Fabrics and the
Used Book Depot, sharing space in a corner building. At the
convenience store she turned, giving a nod to the guy who stood in
the doorway. Harry Broker. Came in sometimes with his teenage
daughter, weekends when she visited from her mom’s.

Ash shook her head. She
couldn’t keep thinking about the people she knew, the connections
she’d made here in Paradise. It had been just a summer detour, a
distraction, as her father had put it. A few weeks of getting to know
the locals didn’t mean she belonged here, even if Marty had just
offered her the perfect opportunity for staying. She dodged a
baseball that rolled into the street and kept her eyes down. She
didn’t want to see who it belonged to or play the matching game
with another local face.

Another turn, this time
onto a quiet street, thick with oak trees. St. James Avenue curved up
toward the community college, and she followed it, slowing as the
hill grew steeper. Here the houses pushed together, one atop the next
like postage stamps in a line. All one-level, all neatly tended,
almost all brick with white or black trim and flowers on the stoop.
Here and there, a flag in the window or a bronze nameplate broke the
pattern.
Don’t they mind? Don’t they want to look distinct? Or
is there comfort in fitting in?

Ahead of her, a wrought
iron gate stood open beside a sign welcoming her to New Hampshire
Central Junior College. Ash wrapped her fingers around the bars and
stared at the squat buildings, made of the same red brick as the
houses behind her. Near the entrance stood a white building with
cupolas on top and a sign that read “Admissions” in front. In the
background she could see the three story library accented with
flowerbeds and a stone lion statue sitting regally in front. It
looked like every other local school, plopped in a tiny town,
anywhere in the country.

Except it wasn’t.
This one belonged to Paradise, New Hampshire. And suddenly, she heard
Eddie’s voice again inside her head.

“…
people have
the same problems no matter where you go. Big city or small town,
people get hurt. Friends steal from each other. Men cheat on their
wives. Kids sneak out at night and get drunk while their parents
think they’re sleeping. People get divorced, same as every other
place…At least here, in Paradise, you know someone’s got your
back. You know there’s always someone you can count on, someone you
grew up with who’s gonna forgive you no matter how bad you screw
things up…”

She turned away from
the college. Two benches flanked the fence, and she dropped onto one,
not caring that rainwater had puddled inside it.

Is that why she liked
it? Because there was something here that made her feel like she
belonged? Something that told her people would look out for her?
Stand up for her? Forgive her when she screwed things up?

She ran one finger
along the bench’s scrollwork.

“…
I know it
probably ain’t the dream job you got lined up inside your head. But
you’re damn good at it. The customers like you. Lot of ‘em come
in to see you…”

True, the town didn’t
seem to care who she was. The people living here hadn’t asked
questions when she’d moved in. They’d taken her word and welcomed
her just the same. And she liked that she hadn’t relied on her last
name to find a job. To make connections. To make love.

Eddie chose me. Not
my pedigree. Not my degree.
He chose his screwed-up, neurotic,
upstairs neighbor who slept late and occasionally spilled coffee on
people and chewed her thumbnail when she got nervous.
He chose me.
The realization washed over her in hot waves.

She had to tell him how
he'd changed her, how this place had changed her. If Marty was
offering her a chance to stay, to explore the possibilities that
Paradise held for her, then Ash wasn’t about to say no. Not just
yet. Not when everything between her and Eddie felt so unfinished.

She stood and made her
way back down St. James. At the bottom, she broke into a jog. The
church clock boomed out eleven o’clock, and she hurried on. Why was
it that time only dragged when you wanted to rush it along, and when
you really wanted to slow it, it insisted on running away from you?

She headed back to
Lycian Street. If Eddie wasn’t home yet, she’d leave him a note.
She'd wedge it inside his door and ask him to come to Blues and Booze
later on. She didn’t care that maybe he’d spent the night with
Cass. She had explaining to do. And apologies to make.

“Hi, Ash!” Toby
Darling, Celia’s son, sat on the front step of the library, tossing
a baseball from one hand to the other.

A few weeks back, she’d
given the ten-year-old a dish of leftover ice cream, the night the
power went out and every restaurant on Main Street had to empty their
freezers. He’d adored her ever since.

“Hi yourself,” she
answered, waving back. The sun winked in and out of clouds, and she
felt it press down on the back of her neck. Warm. Comforting. Like a
hand urging her home.

She practically skipped
the last block, rehearsing her speech to Marty in between thinking of
the first thing she wanted to tell Eddie. Not to mention the first
thing she wanted to do to him. With him. Her face burned a little,
but she didn’t care. When you figured out what it was you wanted,
you’d do whatever it took to get it back. Even if that meant
staring down the vixen from your lover’s past.

Ash cracked her
knuckles as anxiety welled up inside her. Due at work in less than an
hour, she didn’t have a lot of time. Her fingers dug inside her
pocket as she rounded the corner, and because her house keys got
stuck in a loose thread, she was looking down as she made her way to
the porch steps.

So he saw her first. He
spoke first. And when she raised her head to see who waited for her
with a smile in his voice, all breath left her body. Tall and
impossibly good-looking, the kind of good-looking that belonged on a
magazine cover, Colin Parker stood on the porch of number two Lycian
Street. He winked. Cocked his head to one side, the way she
remembered too well. Grinned that camera-ready smile that flipped her
stomach over and loped down the steps to meet her. All Ash could do
was stand there and stare as his rolling bass voice carried her back
through time.

“Hi, babe. God, it’s
good to see you again.”

Garbled country music
jarred Eddie awake. “Shit.” He reached a hand in the direction of
the motel nightstand and jabbed his thumb at the alarm clock. There.
Silence. Falling back against the flat pillow, he flung an arm over
his face. Jesus, but he had a headache to beat all headaches. And he
guessed he’d forgotten to close the curtains last night, because
now a strip of sunlight streamed across the bed, eye-level.

“Eddie?”

He squirmed. For a few
minutes, he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone in the bed.

Cass poked a finger at
his bare shoulder. “You feeling okay?”

He didn’t answer.
What the hell did she think? The last twenty-four hours had tossed
him into the center of a tornado. If he looked in the mirror, he
wasn’t even sure whose face he’d see, or if he’d recognize it.
Couple that with the fact that last night’s binge had left him with
someone playing drums inside his skull and someone else painting the
roof of his mouth with acid, and no, he wasn’t feeling okay. Or
anything close to it.

She trailed her
fingertips along his spine. “Want some water?”

He shook his head,
still staring at the backs of his eyelids.

Did I sleep with
her?
He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know. The bed
dipped, squeaking a little as she got up.

“I’m going for some
coffee,” she said. “I’ll bring you back some.”

Eddie heard the soft
slipping of fabric over skin as she dressed. Grunting, he waited
until the door closed before he turned over and opened his eyes. He
took his time surveying the room, looking for signs of a knockdown,
drag-out, all-clothes-off-in-sixty-seconds adventure the minute
they’d stepped inside the room last night.

It’s happened
before. I’d be a fool to think it couldn’t have happened again.

But he didn’t see
much out of place. No chairs tipped onto the carpet. No ice spilled
the length of the dresser. Even the bedspread covering his lower
half, in some God-awful plum pattern, appeared smooth and tucked in.
Only his shorts and shirt lay tossed on the floor, alongside the two
motorcycle helmets.