The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,24
a different woman each week. She was trying to get over a three-year relationship. He fixed cars, and she—what, Ash? What exactly are you going to do with yourself now that you’ve decided that a hundred-thousand dollar degree isn’t going to work out the way you’d planned?
As if on cue, her cell began to ring.
Ash pulled the phone out of her pocket and checked the screen. Her oldest sister. Terrific.
“Hello?”
“Ashton? Where are you?” Jessica Kirk-Malloy’s voice, no-nonsense and demanding an answer, spat through the receiver.
“What do you mean, where am I?”
“Don’t play stupid. I know you moved out of your apartment. I saw Colin last week.” She paused, and the edges of her words softened a little. “I didn’t know you two broke up. Sorry.”
Like you really care. “Yeah, well, things weren’t working out.”
“Mm hmm.” Jess paused. “So what happened? Dad knows you turned down the job at Deacon and Mathers, by the way. He’s furious. You know he went to school with Bill Mathers, right?”
Of course she knew. It was all he’d talked about after they offered her the position. It was the other, unspoken, reason Ash hadn’t felt right about taking it. She wanted to prove herself after law school, make it on her own. Finding out her father had pulled strings had soured her on the whole deal.
“Mom says you’ve been avoiding her calls.”
“I haven’t been avoiding them. She just calls when I’m sleeping. Or working.”
“So you can’t call her back?”
“And say what?” Ash exploded. “How’s life on the home front? Is Dad ready for the hearing? Tell me, Jess, did he call in another favor to avoid jail time, or is that the next headline I’m going to read when I pick up the paper?”
“Don’t be cruel.”
What am I supposed to be, then? The good little daughter, who stands by her family no matter what?
“When are you coming home?” Jess tried another line of questioning.
“I’m not.”
Pause. “What does that mean?”
Ash rubbed at the stain on her shorts. Her fingers came away red. “It means I’m taking some time off this summer, okay? Yeah, I left Boston for a while. To get my head straight. Sorry if you and Anne have to handle the media circus by yourselves. But I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.” To her surprise, Ash began to cry. Little choking noises broke from her lips.
Jess didn’t say anything.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad, please?”
“What am I supposed to say when they ask?”
“That I’m subletting an apartment for the summer.”
“Where?”
“New Hampshire.” It was as much as she could say.
“New—” Jess sputtered for a minute and then ran out of steam. “Fine. I’ll do my best to lie for you.” The guilt stabbed Ash right where she knew her sister meant it to.
Jess sighed. “You’re sure you’re okay? Do you need anything?” The softness in her voice threw Ash for a minute.
Jessica Kirk had always been the strong one, in charge of the three sisters from the time they were little. She was the director of all their backyard plays, the ruler of the tree fort and the sandbox. She was the one who tattled to Mom and Dad, the one who doled out cookies after dinner, the one who turned off the porch light if her younger sisters stayed out after dark. She’d been six going on sixteen going on forty, even back then.
“I’m okay, thanks. But I have to go. Tell Anne I said hi.”
“Tell her yourself,” Jess said. “You don’t have to ignore her too.”
Ash hung up before she could work up to words she knew she’d regret. She grabbed the groceries and hauled them to her apartment. She dropped everything on the kitchen counter and headed for the shower, pulling off her clothes as she went. She could picture Jess dialing their other sister, gossiping about where poor little Ash had ended up. They’d laugh, the two of them, with their wonderful law degrees and gung-ho political campaigns. They’d laugh and wonder how Ash had turned out so different from the rest of the Kirk family.
She turned on the shower, left it cold, and stepped under the stream of water. The chill took her breath away, and for an instant she was glad. At least goose bumps might make her forget where she was. Eddie. The blonde. Her father. Jess. Ash let the water run down her back and shivered. At that particular moment, everything in her life seemed twisted up and wrong.
Every single thing.
Chapter Ten
Ash turned the key in