The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,6
take off.”
Ash waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Go on home and let Lucas pour his heart out.”
Jen laughed. “I am a good big sis, aren't I?”
“The best. You’re sure you don’t want a lift to the train station?”
“Nah. It’s right down the block. I’ll walk.” Jen piled the empty boxes in one corner. “And Ash?”
“What?”
“I meant what I said. I know the last few weeks have been hard. You've got a gorgeous guy living downstairs from you. So have some fun this summer.” She paused. “You can’t hide away forever.”
“It’s only been five weeks. That’s not forever.”
“You know what I mean.” She backed through the door before Ash could respond. “Bye. Call me later.”
“Bye. And Jen?”
“Yeah?”
“If you run into my parents or one of my sisters in the city...”
“I know, tell them I don’t know anything.”
“At least for right now.”
“No problem.” Jen grinned and slipped away.
Ash closed her eyes and listened to her friend's footsteps disappear. Sleep with her downstairs neighbor? No way. Her head fell back onto the cushions, and she let them cradle her tired muscles. Despite her fatigue, thoughts of all kinds wound their way into her head. Colin. Callie. Her father. Eddie. Yummy, she thought before she could help herself. And I don’t usually fall for guys so fast.
She rested one arm against her forehead. Who was she kidding? She never fell, period. She took careful steps. She analyzed all the possibilities. She played her cards one at a time, over long, slow days of contemplation. She never jumped into anything.
But maybe Jen was right this time. Ash had changed her name and slipped on a new skin. She’d moved to a new town where not a soul knew her. Why shouldn’t she change a few other things? She pulled at her bottom lip with one finger. Maybe she should forget about the summer of chastity she’d promised herself. Maybe she should she lose herself in a different world for the next few months. She stared at the door, imagining Eddie a few steps away, unpacking boxes with muscles that flexed and strained and…
Oh God. What on earth would she tell him, if she did invite him up? She couldn’t confess who she really was. Ashton Kirk? As in Senator Kirk’s daughter? He’d look at her like she had two heads.
Rock music started up again, shaking the floor of her apartment a little before the volume lowered to a gentle throb. Smiling, she wondered about her new housemate. Something told Ash she wasn’t the only one with a story. Why had Eddie moved into the house? Like her, was he only killing time for the summer? Or had he moved to tiny, protected Lycian Street to escape something or someone?
And what, for God’s sake, had happened to him to leave such deep scars on an otherwise handsome face?
Chapter Three
Eddie finished pulling the sheets over his bed and flopped onto his back. He stared at the ceiling, where a few cracks spread above him and down the wall into the doorframe. Near the floor they widened and fractured the wood, causing the door to no longer shut tight. He studied the spaces just above the floor and imagined spiders shuttling in and out, making odd little homes inside the crevices of his apartment. Might be nice to disappear one day inside a wall, hang his head for a while until the blood-rush chased away faces from the past.
He turned to look through the wide window next to him. Far enough from his parents’ house, but a ten-minute drive from work, he’d snapped up this place the minute he saw it advertised in the Paradise Chronicle. Didn’t know he’d be sharing the house with another tenant, but hell, he didn’t mind. Not when the other tenant looked like Ashley Kirtland did. Ebony eyes, honey-colored waves of hair falling around her face, a cute little waist that curved down to the longest pair of legs he’d ever seen…damn. He wouldn’t mind looking at that body every morning over coffee, that was for sure. Ash seemed a little quieter than the women he usually dated, but she had a great smile and eyes you could drown in.
Eddie continued to stare out the window and wondered who else lived on the street. Only two blocks from the junior college on the hill, the homes rented mostly to college kids, he supposed. He guessed he’d have to cover his windows once fall rolled around, but right now he didn’t have