The Promise of Paradise (7 page)

“Can't say I'd blame
her.” Eddie turned to Ash. “You don’t know who she’s talking
about, do you? You ever meet the senator’s daughter?”

The stone got larger
and threatened to lodge itself in Ash’s throat. She managed to
shake her head.

“Guess he’s out of
luck,” Eddie said.

Helen reached into the
pocket of her dress and pulled out a business card. “Here. He
passed them around to everyone who was in the salon, said to call if
we had any information. I figure you have more chance of meeting
someone like that than I do.” She handed the card to Eddie, who
stuck it in the back pocket of his shorts. Ash caught herself looking
at the smooth, tanned strip of skin along his lower back as his shirt
pulled up and ordered herself to stop it, once and for all.

“Thanks, Helen,”
Eddie said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

“Well, I hope so,”
the woman went on. “Sadie said she wouldn’t believe it, if a
daughter of…”

Ash barely heard the
words.
It’s only a matter of time before someone finds out.
She backed away and let Eddie’s arm drop, missing its heaviness
when she did.
What am I doing? How the hell did I think I could
get away with this?

Sunday morning, Ash
awoke to the sound of rain drumming the rooftop.
Great
. She’d
planned on checking out the antique shops over in Silver Creek that
afternoon. She rolled over and pushed her face into her pillow.
Somehow, the idea of tromping through puddles on her way to and from
the car didn’t appeal. She eyed the clock. Six a.m. Gray light
filtered through the curtains. It curled into the corners of the
bedroom and draped itself around her shoulders.
No reason to get
up,
she thought, slipping back into sleep.
No reason at all.

As she moved back
toward dreams, she wondered if the rain would clear later on. Eddie
had promised to come up and watch the baseball game with her, explain
once and for all why the Red Sox southpaw was the league’s best
pitcher in twenty years. If the lousy weather postponed the opening
pitch, she’d likely be stuck watching Lifetime movies or Seinfeld
reruns by herself.

“The Sox are playing
the Yankees this weekend,” he’d told her Friday, over chicken lo
mein (his) and tofu with seaweed (hers). “I’ll stop up on Sunday
and show you how a real baseball fan watches the game.”

“You do that,” she
answered, smiling at him as they counted fireflies from the rooftop.
“You do that…”

* * *

The next sound Ash
heard was a slam. Then a shout. She sat straight up in bed and stared
at the clock. Quarter to eleven. Rain still poured down, pattering
against the windows. She reached for her robe and listened for the
sound that had pulled her from sleep. Nothing for a minute. Then it
came again: a series of thumps, followed by a male voice swearing.
Eddie’s voice. Ash swung her feet over the edge of the bed and
rubbed her eyes.

What the hell is
going on down there?

Now it sounded like he
was running in circles around his apartment.
Is he working out?
Doing laps instead of going to the gym?
Ash made her way to the
kitchen and turned on the coffee pot. She knew the guy kept himself
in shape, but in his own apartment? On a Sunday morning?

His date. He’s
with his date from last night, that woman from Silver Creek. Cheri
something.
Ash’s cheeks warmed. Of course. They were probably
playing some kind of silly morning-after game, running half naked
around his apartment while she winked and squealed and played hard to
get. Before Ash could stop herself, the vision slipped inside her
mind’s eye: Eddie, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts,
catching the girl with those strong hands. Pulling her close and
rubbing gentle thumbs along bare shoulders before leaning in for a
kiss. A long kiss. A kiss that began in the hallway and ended
somewhere in a tangle of sheets.

Ash pinched the skin on
one arm to make herself stop.
Don’t think about Eddie that way.
She pulled her hair into a ponytail and poured herself a steaming mug
of coffee. She doused it with cream and took a long sip, not caring
that it burned her tongue.
You’re just friends, remember? Just
neighbors, two people who share a house. It doesn’t matter who he
spend his nights with. Or his mornings.

So why did the thought
make her so damned uncomfortable?

Another crash. Ash
jumped in her chair. Damn. So the guy had company last night. He
didn't have to rub it in. She finished her coffee and shoved the mug
away. Well, she might as well shower and find something to do with
her day. No use sitting here, listening to Mr. Hotshot Lover chase
his latest conquest around the bed.

She wrapped her robe
around her and was heading into the bathroom when a knock landed on
her door.

“Ash?”

She froze.
You’ve
got to be kidding me.
What, did her want her to play referee?

He knocked again,
louder and longer. “Ash? You in there?”

Oh, for Christ’s
sake. She was in no mood. She marched to the door and yanked it open.
“What do you want?”

Eddie stood in the
hallway, a hangdog look on his face. By himself. Ash peered over his
shoulder. No model-thin woman hovered behind him. No scent of
leftover perfume hung in the air, either. Ash narrowed her eyes.
“What’s going on?”

Eddie raked his fingers
through his hair, making it stand on end. Barefoot, he wore a pair of
frayed sweats, cut off at the knees, and an old Patriots jersey with
the sleeves torn off. A fuzz of pillowcase was stuck to his chin, and
Ash had to pin her arms to her sides to keep from reaching up to
brush it away.

“Can you help me?”

“With what? Sounds
like you’re starting up a circus down there.”

“No, it’s…” He
glanced over his shoulder, and worry wrinkled his face. When he
looked back at her again, she thought she might fall right inside
those eyes, those pools of blue, and not come up for a week.

“I found a kitten.”
He ducked his chin. “Outside.”

“A what?”

“A kitten. A really
small one. It was hanging around last night, and then when I went out
to get the paper this morning it was still there, sitting in the
middle of the sidewalk. Soaking wet.”

“So you brought it
inside?” Ash began to smile. Not a woman after all down there. Just
a scared fluff of fur that her strapping, six-foot neighbor had
decided to bring in out of the storm. Oh, hell. She was already
halfway to falling for this guy. Now he had to turn into a total
softy on her?

Eddie shrugged. “Well,
it was sort of…limping around. And crying. And I thought if I left
it out there I’d be about the worst person in the entire world,
so…”

Ash took one step into
the hallway. “And now you can’t catch it.”

“Yeah. Thought I’d
keep it in the bathroom, but it got out.”

“Come on.” She
pushed past Eddie and made her way down the stairs barefoot. She was
standing in front of his door before she considered if she should
have changed into something more substantial than a cotton robe that
barely came to her knees.

“I think he’s under
the chair,” Eddie said. As they walked inside, he pointed to a
leather recliner in the corner.

Ash tiptoed over and
kneeled down, wondering if the breeze on the backs of her thighs
meant her robe wasn’t covering much. She readjusted. “I don't see
anything.”

“Well…” Eddie
turned in a slow circle. “I closed the door. He couldn’t have
gotten far.”

Ash pushed herself back
up and leaned over a blue corduroy sofa with its tags still attached.
A dust ball danced across the hardwood, but no cat. She looked under
the end table, and behind Eddie’s entertainment center, which took
up half the living room with its enormous television.

Nothing.

“Maybe in the
bedroom?” She felt funny looking in there.

“Maybe.” Eddie
strode past her down the hall. He whistled under his breath, a meek
little coaxing tune that made her smile.

Ash hung back and
watched as he looked in the corners of his sparsely furnished
bedroom.
This place could definitely use a woman’s touch.
Someone had hung navy blue curtains on the windows, but otherwise the
walls remained bare. A desk and matching chair were the only other
pieces of furniture she could see, besides the box spring and
mattress lying on the floor. A queen size, she noticed, not too big
and not too narrow. Really, just the perfect size for two people to
curl up in.

“Ash?” Eddie waved
a hand in front of her face. “You still there? Thought you were
gonna help me look.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She
glanced around at a faint meow. Eddie cocked his head. The meow came
again. “Bathroom.” In an instant, he had darted past Ash, and a
moment later he emerged holding a soggy ball of black and white. “Got
him.”

“Wow. It is small.”

A rumble started up in
the kitten's throat.

“I told you.” Eddie
peered down at it.

Ash took hold of one of
the kitten’s legs and pushed aside damp fur. “There's a cut here.
A bad one. No wonder it’s limping.” She lifted a towel off the
rack inside the bathroom door and wrapped it around the animal.
“Here.” In a moment she had clutched it to her chest, nuzzling it
and blotting off the worst of the water. “Might want to get it to a
vet. Know anyone who’s open on Sundays?”

“Maybe.” Eddie
loped off into the kitchen and re-emerged a moment later, cell phone
in hand.

Ash returned to the
living room and sat on the couch, kitten in her lap. Bright green
eyes looked up at her, and a weak mew escaped its pink mouth. A tiny
paw batted at the finger she reached out to it. She grinned. The only
pet she and Colin ever had was Buster, the oversized goldfish. She
used to watch him swim circles in his stupid glass bowl and wish for
just a day that her boyfriend wasn’t deathly allergic to all things
furry.

“Now I don’t have
to worry about that, do I?” she murmured into the cat’s head.

“Ash?” Eddie
appeared in the doorway. “Friend of mine in Tompkins Heights’ll
take a look at it this afternoon.”

“Really?” Ash
looked up, suddenly aware of the way her robe fell apart at the neck
and her bare legs stretched down to the hardwood floor. As she
watched, he dropped a glance to her toenails—newly painted red, as
of last night in front of the TV—before turning a shade of crimson
himself.

“Anyway, thanks for
the help.”

“No problem.” She
paused. “You know, I wasn’t sure what was going on down here.
Thought maybe you were still entertaining your date from last night.”

“Cheri?” He
chuckled. “Nah.”

“Things didn’t work
out?”

“We had a good time.
But she wanted to come in, stay a while, and…” He shrugged.

“You didn’t?”

“Woman stays the
night, things get complicated.”

Ash nodded, fingers
stroking the kitten’s fur as its purr regulated into a steady
rhythm. “And you don’t like things to be complicated.”

“Do you?”

Ash shook her head.
No,
she answered silently.
They’re complicated enough already.

“Ash!” Marty stuck
his head into the kitchen of Blues and Booze.

She pulled her tips
from her pocket and started to count. “What's up?” It had been a
long week, and she couldn’t wait for the night to be over. Thank
God the clock read ten minutes to twelve.

“Some guy out here
says he knows you.” The manager wheezed. One arm snaked up to
scratch an itch between his shoulder blades. He peered into the
coffee pot, pulled some brown strands of lettuce from the salad bin,
and straightened the cocktail napkins.

Ash’s shoulders
hunched up, and she didn’t answer for a minute.
The media? No.
Not at almost midnight.
But she knew better than anyone that the
paparazzi didn't watch the clock.

“You hear me?”

“I heard you. Who is
he?”

“Dunno. He’s got a
couple of tattoos. Says his name’s Eddie something.”

Coins slipped through
her fingers like water. “Oh. Yeah, he knows me. Tell him I’ll be
right out.” She bent to retrieve quarters from the sticky floor and
waited for Marty to leave.She’d only seen Eddie twice in passing,
the last couple of days. Both times he’d paused, placed a hand on
her shoulder, and smiled down at her like there was nowhere else he
wanted to be. The gesture made her uncomfortable as hell. It made her
look forward to walking down the stairs each morning. It made her
wonder who had taken over her body and replaced her with a woman who
grew warm and slippery every time she saw this guy. A guy she barely
knew.

Watch it, Ash,
she warned herself for the tenth time since moving to Paradise.
Falling for this guy is trouble.
Wrapping her apron into a
ball, she admitted that as much as she wanted to avoid complications,
she was still glad Eddie had come to see her tonight. She wanted to
ask him how the kitten was making out. She wanted to tell him about
the idiot who’d grabbed at her earlier and laugh with him about the
woman who’d sent her meal back three times before ordering
something else altogether. Mostly, Ash wanted Eddie to drop an arm
across her shoulders or rub a hand across the top of her head and
tell her she was doing okay.

He sat alone in the
bar, on the stool closest to the door. An empty beer mug stood in
front of him, with a few crumpled dollar bills beside it. Ash paused
for a minute in the dining room and peered through the chair legs,
now perched upside down on their tables.

J.T., one of the night
bartenders, leaned on his elbows and told a joke out of one side of
his mouth. Ash watched Eddie listen, watched the scars in his cheek
dip and crease when he laughed, and she wondered again where the
scars had come from, and why he hadn’t erased them. The one along
his jawline, especially, cut so deep that surely plastic surgery
could have softened it. Had he tried it? Had the surgery failed? She
wiped her palms on her shorts. She knew nothing about Eddie and his
scars, not really. Maybe he’d been born with them. Maybe they
reminded him of something he didn’t want to forget. Maybe he didn’t
want softening.