The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,16
her ear.
A tingle ran down her arm. Uh-oh. Tingles weren’t good. Well, they were, but not in this case. She wasn’t supposed to let her neighbor knock her off her feet with desire. Ash took a step back to catch her balance and nodded. Eddie glared at the guys, who’d turned back to their nachos with sheepish faces. He lowered his voice another degree, so that his next words came out as a clear threat.
“You touch her again, you even breathe wrong when you’re asking for a glass of water, I’ll make sure you don’t walk straight for the next week.”
“Whatever,” one of them muttered.
Eddie strode over to the table. Biceps flexed as he put both hands on the back of an empty chair and squeezed. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing, man,” one of the other guys said. “We’re leaving anyway.”
“Good idea.”
And as Ash watched, Eddie stood there with arms crossed as she brought them the bill and collected their tab, plus an extra twenty for her tip.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged, the angry look melting away as the three finally stumbled out of the restaurant. “They were being assholes.”
She walked over to him, thankful down to the tips of her toes. Without letting herself think too much about it, she planted a kiss on Eddie’s scarred cheek. “Thank you.”
“Ah, it wasn’t anything.” But he didn’t move and neither did she, until a crowd of people came into the restaurant and she had to help Lacey with the order. The next time Ash checked the bar, Eddie was gone.
Chapter Six
The following week, Ash dragged herself back to Lycian Street after a hectic lunch shift. A toddler had managed to spill iced tea down her legs, and her right sock had turned a strange yellow color. Her arms ached. Her legs ached. And it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. Thank God she had tomorrow off.
The sun beat down on a mid-June day that felt more like the heaviness of August. She checked her cell phone. Her mother had called once in the last week, leaving a teary message that pleaded with Ash to return to Boston.
“We need the whole family together,” Mamie Kirk wept on the voicemail. “Please, Ashton. Your father needs to know we all support him.”
But did they? Ash didn’t know what to believe. She didn’t know who was telling the truth and who was making up tales. She slowed as she passed Lou’s and breathed in the aroma of fresh bread and garlic. Two cars drove by. A mother with her baby in a stroller jogged down the sidewalk. The church clock chimed the hour.
The muscles in her neck unclenched, and her fatigue eased. It’s so different from Boston, she thought for the umpteenth time. True, Paradise had only one grocery store, no movie theater, and no Wal-Mart. It had a single stoplight that turned to blinking yellow after midnight. It did have a train station, but it seemed as though more people left the town than returned to it. It sat shrouded by low mountains, a stone’s throw from one of the largest cities in the country, and yet sometimes Ash felt as though she couldn’t have been more protected, more isolated, than if she’d moved to the moon.
“It’s nice,” she said aloud. And I don’t want to go back to Boston. Not now. Not yet. She just had to figure out how to explain that to her mother.
Reaching her street, Ash turned the corner and dug into her pocket for her keys. After a hot shower, maybe she’d see if Eddie was in the mood for some Chinese food. Though they hadn’t seen too much of each other in the last few days, she’d heard him down there, blasting his rock music and rearranging furniture. Since moving in three weeks ago, they’d shared a couple of early dinners and a beer or two on the porch. Other than that, their paths didn’t cross too often. Still, she liked knowing he was there. It made the house a little more full, the nights a little less lonely, when she curled into bed and tried not to dream of Colin.
A breath of air moved around the corner, blowing strands of hair that had fallen from her ponytail. The weekend stretched out ahead of her without so much as a single lunch shift to keep her busy. Anxiety bubbled inside her chest. She needed something to keep her mind off her mother’s calls. Off her father’s predicament.