The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,60
the hum of the engine beneath him. He waved to a little girl playing in her front yard and a pair of joggers. He watched fields and trees change places every mile or so.
But try as he might, Eddie couldn’t get her out of his head. Ash. Ashton Kirk. Okay, the damn senator’s daughter. That’s who she was, then. His grip tightened. And wrong or right, somewhere in between all the stories they’d told each other that summer, he’d fallen in love with her. He ground to a halt as a stop sign caught him by surprise.
In love with her? Are you out of your mind? He shook his head at the inner voice that argued back. Bottom line, that’s what it came down to. Sure, Ash had lied to him, and that broke something inside him. It made him ache, the idea that he’d bared his soul while she’d kept hers banded tightly up. It made him wonder how she really felt about him, and what else she might be hiding.
What it didn’t do, though, was change the way Eddie felt when he was with her. It didn’t change the fact that in meeting Ash, in living with her, in spending all those minutes together that added up to something more, he’d come alive for the first time in three years.
She'd taken away his guard. She'd made him laugh. She'd pissed him off. She'd made him remember what it was like to be a regular guy, someone who wasn’t trying to get into bed with a woman because it was easier than talking to her. God, she reminded me I still had a heart beating under the mess I became after the accident.
Eddie sped up as he reached Paradise’s town limits. The thoughts tumbled faster and faster inside his head. He needed to get back to Lycian Street. He needed to see her. He needed to talk to her.
Whoever she really is.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Don’t touch me.” Before Colin could take her by both arms and pull her in for a kiss, Ash twisted away from him.
He stopped, and his smile froze. “I just—okay. I’m sorry.”
She stuck her hands into her pockets, house keys digging into one palm. First her father. Now her ex-boyfriend. Ash let out a long breath. Her legs grew unsteady, and she refused to look at him again. She couldn’t take any more surprise visitors. She was about torn in half as it was.
“What are you doing here?”
“That’s a nice way to say hello.”
“I told you I wasn’t coming home. And I didn't tell you where I lived. Which means you took it upon yourself to find me when I didn't want to be found.” She looked at the peeling paint beside him, the rusted door hinges, the weeds growing alongside the geraniums in the yard.
He exhaled. “Thought maybe you’d reconsidered.”
“Why would you think that?”
Colin’s chin jerked in the direction of the house. “This is where you decided to spend your summer?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
He swiped a hand over his close cut, dark blonde hair. “Nothing, babe. I just…”
“My father told you where I was. Didn’t he?”
Colin raised both palms to the sky. “Guilty. But only because I called him and told him I needed to see you. Needed to make up for the stupidest thing I’d ever done.”
Suddenly, the fire left Ash’s heart, and she sank into the chair farthest away from him. She didn’t have the energy for this. “Whatever. Stay, leave, I don’t care. I’m not going back to Boston. I already told him that. I don’t care if he sent you to try and convince me.”
“He didn’t.”
She doubted that, but she kept her mouth shut.
Colin sat in the chair across from her and folded his fingers together. “Okay, I get that you were mad. That you needed space.”
“That’s an understatement.” She tried not to look directly at him, because she had a feeling that if she did, he’d burn her to the core. Colin Parker was—always had been—a too-bright sun shining down on Ash. He pulled her close. He drew her into his orbit.
“I wanted to apologize. In person.” Eyes on the ground, he cleared his throat. “I was a total ass. Really. That thing with Callie—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It was a complete mistake. I was juvenile. Idiotic.” Another throat-clearing. “And yeah, the thing that happened with your dad, it shook me up some.”
Ash rubbed the back of her neck, trying to loosen the muscles there. “Well, me too.” I