The Promise of Paradise (20 page)

Eddie slid from the bed
and lurched into the bathroom. He dropped the toilet lid and slipped
to an awkward seat. Leaning forward, he rested his head in both hands
and stared at his lap. At least he still wore his boxers. That was a
good sign. He couldn’t remember actually doing anything with Cass
by the time they’d collapsed inside this wreck of a room, but then
again, he couldn’t remember walking the two blocks from the bar to
the motel, either, or checking in at the front desk.

“Idiot,” he said to
his feet. He turned on the cold water. The fact that Ashton Kirk had
just twisted him inside out didn’t give him any excuse to ride
around New Hampshire, screwing the first willing woman who came
along.
Pull yourself together, West. Other women have treated you
worse than Ash did.
Didn’t mean he had to crawl into a hole and
wait for next year.
Jesus, she’s just a woman. Thousands more in
the damn sea, remember?

He stood, grabbed a
towel, and wet it until it dripped. Then he slapped it across his
cheeks and draped it around the back of his neck. He spat into the
toilet and flushed. The way he figured it, he had two choices. One,
he could head back to Paradise, ignore her for the rest of the
summer, and by the time autumn rolled around, be back to his usual
self. Or two, he could go back to Lycian Street, march upstairs, and
tell her exactly what he thought of the lies she’d told.

Eddie ground his teeth
together. He didn’t really like either option, because both
required him to turn his back on the first woman who’d made him
feel alive in years. Still, what choice did he have? He jammed the
heel of one hand against his forehead and tried to ignore the heave
working its way up his throat.
Gonna be sick,
he thought, a
second before last night’s burgers and tequila caught up with him.
Bending over the toilet just in time, he hugged the cold porcelain
with both arms as he sank to his knees and lost everything inside
him.

* * *

“Eddie?” It was
Cass’s voice. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Only a few
minutes, probably. Struggling to a stand, he flushed the toilet and
rubbed a hand over his face.

“Yeah.” He pushed
his way back into the dingy bedroom. Cass waited by the bed, sipping
a steaming cup of coffee. Another sat on the dresser.

She cocked her head,
hair streaming over one shoulder. “Gonna be all right?”

He shrugged, reached
for his clothes and pulled them on. “Thanks for the joe.” He took
a long gulp, letting it burn his lips. Black. Good.

“You're welcome.”
She ran a finger down the side of his face. “You look like hell.”

“Tell me something I
don’t know.”

She smiled and sank to
a seat in one of the chairs near the window. “Okay.” She paused.
“We didn’t sleep together last night.”

Eddie jerked a little
at her words. “You’re…well, I…”

She laughed outright
then. “Oh, please. I know you’ve been wondering since the minute
you woke up. I know you, Eddie. I know that guilty look that makes
your eyes all squinty.”

He felt himself redden
and stared down at the coffee, as if it might hold the answers within
its darkness. “Listen, I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “I
didn’t mean to drag you all the way over here just to listen to my
problems.”

She flipped a hand into
the air. “I didn’t do much listening. After you fell asleep
halfway in the door, it was all I could do to get you undressed…”
Her eyelashes fluttered toward her lap, coquettish. “Thought I
might get a little action after all.”

A smile tugged at his
face.

Cass shrugged. “But
you kept talking about Ashton this, and Ashton that.” She looked
back up at him. “I thought her name was Ashley.”

So did I.

Eddie found his wallet,
tossed in the open drawer of the nightstand, and stuffed it into his
back pocket. “I gotta get back home. Things to take care of. You
ready?”

She shook her head. “I
have a couple friends in town. Called ‘em this morning.” She spun
the watch on her thin wrist. “We’re meeting over at the diner in
twenty minutes. I figured you could use some time to yourself.”

He nodded, relieved.
The ride back to Paradise, the sorting out he needed to do, was
better suited for solitude. He bent down and planted a kiss on his
ex-girlfriend’s cheek. “You’re okay,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”

Cass leaned back in the
chair, letting her glance slide down his torso. “No problem. Make
sure she knows what she’s missing.”

Eddie smiled for real
this time and dropped a hand onto her shoulder. Then he picked up the
motorcycle helmets and headed out into the sun.

* * *

He took the long way
back to Paradise. Avoiding the main road, he chose the back ones
instead, the narrow ones that wound their way through woods and past
lakes and by the occasional house or gas station. He drove slowly at
first, savoring the feel of the handlebars and the hum of the engine
beneath him. He waved to a little girl playing in her front yard and
a pair of joggers. He watched fields and trees change places every
mile or so.

But try as he might,
Eddie couldn’t get her out of his head. Ash. Ashton Kirk. Okay, the
damn senator’s daughter. That’s who she was, then. His grip
tightened. And wrong or right, somewhere in between all the stories
they’d told each other that summer, he’d fallen in love with her.
He ground to a halt as a stop sign caught him by surprise.

In love with her?
Are you out of your mind?
He shook his head at the inner voice
that argued back. Bottom line, that’s what it came down to. Sure,
Ash had lied to him, and that broke something inside him. It made him
ache, the idea that he’d bared his soul while she’d kept hers
banded tightly up. It made him wonder how she really felt about him,
and what else she might be hiding.

What it didn’t do,
though, was change the way Eddie felt when he was with her. It didn’t
change the fact that in meeting Ash, in living with her, in spending
all those minutes together that added up to something more, he’d
come alive for the first time in three years.

She'd taken away his
guard. She'd made him laugh. She'd pissed him off. She'd made him
remember what it was like to be a regular guy, someone who wasn’t
trying to get into bed with a woman because it was easier than
talking to her.
God, she reminded me I still had a heart beating
under the mess I became after the accident.

Eddie sped up as he
reached Paradise’s town limits. The thoughts tumbled faster and
faster inside his head. He needed to get back to Lycian Street. He
needed to see her. He needed to talk to her.

Whoever she really
is.

“Don’t touch me.”
Before Colin could take her by both arms and pull her in for a kiss,
Ash twisted away from him.

He stopped, and his
smile froze. “I just—okay. I’m sorry.”

She stuck her hands
into her pockets, house keys digging into one palm. First her father.
Now her ex-boyfriend. Ash let out a long breath. Her legs grew
unsteady, and she refused to look at him again. She couldn’t take
any more surprise visitors. She was about torn in half as it was.

“What are you doing
here?”

“That’s a nice way
to say hello.”

“I told you I wasn’t
coming home. And I didn't tell you where I lived. Which means you
took it upon yourself to find me when I didn't want to be found.”
She looked at the peeling paint beside him, the rusted door hinges,
the weeds growing alongside the geraniums in the yard.

He exhaled. “Thought
maybe you’d reconsidered.”

“Why would you think
that?”

Colin’s chin jerked
in the direction of the house. “This is where you decided to spend
your summer?”

“What’s wrong with
it?”

He swiped a hand over
his close cut, dark blonde hair. “Nothing, babe. I just…”

“My father told you
where I was. Didn’t he?”

Colin raised both palms
to the sky. “Guilty. But only because I called him and told him I
needed to see you. Needed to make up for the stupidest thing I’d
ever done.”

Suddenly, the fire left
Ash’s heart, and she sank into the chair farthest away from him.
She didn’t have the energy for this. “Whatever. Stay, leave, I
don’t care. I’m not going back to Boston. I already told him
that. I don’t care if he sent you to try and convince me.”

“He didn’t.”

She doubted that, but
she kept her mouth shut.

Colin sat in the chair
across from her and folded his fingers together. “Okay, I get that
you were mad. That you needed space.”

“That’s an
understatement.” She tried not to look directly at him, because she
had a feeling that if she did, he’d burn her to the core. Colin
Parker was—always had been—a too-bright sun shining down on Ash.
He pulled her close. He drew her into his orbit.

“I wanted to
apologize. In person.” Eyes on the ground, he cleared his throat.
“I was a total ass. Really. That thing with Callie—”

“I don’t want to
talk about it.”

“It was a complete
mistake. I was juvenile. Idiotic.” Another throat-clearing. “And
yeah, the thing that happened with your dad, it shook me up some.”

Ash rubbed the back of
her neck, trying to loosen the muscles there. “Well, me too.”
I
wasn’t exactly a saint when it came to defending him. I guess we
both ran away from it in our own ways.

Colin reached for her
hand, brushed his fingers across the back of it for an instant. “We
were good together, right? I want to try again.”

Oh, God.
The
words she’d wanted to hear three months ago. Even two months ago.
Ash’s skin burned from where he’d touched it. “I don’t
think—”

“Hear me out.
Please.” He inched his chair closer, so that their knees touched.
Skin to skin, breath meeting breath. Ash’s heart sped up. “We’re
a good match,” he went on. He caught her gaze and held it with
those dark eyes. “We’re headed the same way. We want the same
things.”

Oh, really?

“We’d be good for
each other.” He wound his fingers through hers. “Or you’d be
good for me, anyway.” He grinned. “But I’d try, babe. I’d try
to be the best goddamned husband you could ever wish for.”

Ash drew her hand away.
“What are you talking about?”

Colin rose, towering
over her for a moment before he folded himself into a crouch at her
feet. The boards creaked beneath him, and for an instant, she thought
of the night she and Eddie had stood there, after a dinner shift.
After the first time they fought. Before the first time they kissed.

“
Thanks for
walking me home.”

“
No problem.”

“
See you tomorrow,
I guess.”

“
See ya.”

Colin spoke again,
interrupting the memory.

“Ashton.” He
reached into his front pocket and pulled out a small black box.

She drew in her breath
and held it. That box didn’t contain what she thought it did. It
couldn’t. The wind picked up and crickets scratched their legs
together. The flowers near the sidewalk swayed. Beyond the hills,
thunder rumbled.

“It’s going to
rain,” she said. “We should go inside.”

Thunder announced
itself again, closer this time. As if it hovered in the hills behind
the college, or came up from the ground beneath her. Or turned the
corner on two wheels.

In slow motion Ash
looked past him, just as the motorcycle veered onto Lycian Street.
Just as its rider slowed to a stop in front of the house. Just as he
pulled off his helmet and looked at her and Colin.
Oh, Eddie.
His eyes, wide at first with something like hope, dimmed as his gaze
moved across them. Even from a distance Ash saw his face redden.
Something clutched inside her chest.

It’s my heart
tearing in two. Stretching in opposite directions. Breaking apart.

Colin took her hand,
forcing her attention back to where he still kneeled in front of her.
“Ash, I love you.” The last word cracked. “I want to spend my
life with you.” He flipped open the box, and an enormous diamond
ring flashed up at her. Emerald cut, the way she’d once told him
she’d wanted. Close to two carats, if she had to guess. And more
diamonds set along the delicate band of platinum. Sunlight caught a
rainbow of color as his hand shook a little.

“Marry me, babe.
Please. Make me the happiest guy in the world.”

* * *

Eddie pulled up behind
a sleek silver BMW. Who the hell did that belong to? For a minute he
wondered if Ash’s father had stayed in town. Then his gaze traveled
up to the front porch. Eddie straddled the bike and stared. The whole
way back to Paradise, he’d thought it over, and here was the thing:
he wanted to work things out with Ash. He wanted to see if they could
push aside the mess and make a go of it. Just the two of them. He
thought maybe they could. He thought maybe they had a chance.

But now…

She wasn't alone. The
realization stopped him before he got off the bike. She was with
another guy. After twenty-four hours?

Ash glanced over and
saw Eddie at that moment, and her eyes widened. A messy ponytail fell
down her back, and her top looked damp. He wondered if she’d been
up half the night, or out walking since dawn. Her face flushed, and
her hands worked themselves in and out of her pockets. She bit her
bottom lip and turned away again.

What the hell was going
on? With his head still throbbing enough to remind him of last
night’s mistake, Eddie rubbed a hand across his eyes. He didn’t
recognize the guy kneeling on the porch, in his light blue shirt and
ironed shorts and woven leather sandals. But he held something in his
hand that Ash kept staring at. Eddie took a few steps up the
sidewalk.