The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,29

smile and thinking about the way it burned him clear through to the core.

* * *

The buxom redhead wiggled her way across the office, leaving a cloud of cloying perfume in her wake. Ash inched back in her chair, to give the scent and the woman attached to it some room.

“Hi, darlin’.” She bent over and planted a kiss in the center of Eddie’s forehead. Pendulous breasts swayed from a tube top that had inched its way down from almost-modest to porn star wannabe.

Eddie turned almost purple with discomfort. “Hi yourself, Cassandra. What the hell are you doing here?”

The redhead tossed her hair. One hand tugged at her top. The other dropped to her hip and hung there. “Stopping by to say hi, that’s all.” She pushed out her lips in a faux pout. “It’s been a while. You haven’t stopped by the salon.”

Eddie shrugged. “Don’t need a haircut.”

Cassandra plopped herself onto his lap. She twined one arm around his neck and began running her fingers through the waves that fell around his ears. “Oh, I might argue with that,” she purred. One leg crossed over the other, and she gave a throaty laugh. “Been longer than six weeks, hasn’t it?”

Eddie placed two large hands on her hips and steered her back to a stand. “Lunch break's over. I gotta work.”

Undeterred, the twenty-something siren twisted a lock of hair around an artificial fingernail, painted bright pink. “I’m still waiting on that rain check you promised me.”

Ash’s chest tightened. She tried to look away and couldn’t. For a few moments during lunch, she’d almost felt as though she belonged here, in Eddie’s world. Talking to him, laughing with Frank, watching the same mothers roll the same strollers back and forth down the sidewalk, she’d almost felt a niche begin to carve itself out. In the last few weeks, she’d begun to know her way around Paradise. She’d begun to understand the flavor of the people who lived here. And part of her—a big part of her—had begun to like it.

But one look at this woman reminded her how far she was from home.

“Aw, get off him, Cass,” Frank said. “Can’t you see he’s got a friend here?”

For the first time, the woman turned toward Ash. A long look up and down, through heavy-lidded eyes drenched with mascara, and her smile disappeared. Without saying a word, she tossed her hair again. This time, though, the motion held less flirtation and more simmering jealousy.

“So? I can’t stop by and say hello to my boyfriend during his lunch break?”

Eddie stuffed his baseball cap back onto his head as he stood. “I’m not your boyfriend, Cass.”

Sidling up to him, she wound one arm through his and leveled an unmistakable look at Ash. “Maybe not at the moment, sweetheart. But even the best lovers need some time apart, hmm?” Her chin lifted, and she stood on tiptoes until her lips brushed his cheek. Her next words were a stage whisper, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“Don’t forget who was there for you that night. Don’t forget who held your hand when the doctors told you there was nothing else they could do. And don’t forget what you told me the morning after. Take as much time as you need. When you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

Chapter Twelve

Eddie felt her gaze on him before he awoke, beyond the twitching and the feeling of falling that always plagued him in these dreams. Nightmares, he corrected himself in the fog of sleepiness. Not dreams. No dreams could haunt him, day after day, night after night, the way these did. Behind his eyelids they played: one red light, like the eye of an indifferent god, changing to green—he was sure it was green—and then glass shattering and the wail of a siren. Finally, his brother’s moans.

Eddie lunged up from the loveseat, eyes wide open, fingers damp with perspiration punching into empty air. Ash sat next to him and stared.

“Eddie?” Her voice was quiet, fearful.

He sank into the cushions, took a deep breath, and tried to push the nightmare away.

“What was that?” Her eyes grew larger as he fought to breathe normally.

“Ah, just a bad dream.” He tried to laugh it off.

“In the middle of the day?”

He loosened his fingers from the fists they’d tightened themselves into. “Sometimes.” Maybe someday he’d tell her about the horror that had haunted him the past three years. Maybe. Right now it was still too painful to revisit.

“Sorry I dozed off.” He glanced