The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,63
blame you if you tell me to go to hell,” he added. “I guess I probably deserve it.”
“You do.” But her voice faltered.
He bent and brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I still love you,” he said again. “And I’ll wait, however long it takes, for you to see that I’m serious. That I want us to work.” He stopped halfway down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched against the rain. “I’ve got a room at the Holiday Inn over by the interstate. I’ll be there until tomorrow.” He paused. “Then I’m heading home. Be at the Vineyard with your folks next weekend, if you want. Or if not, then…just call me, okay? Let me know.”
She blinked, surprised, at the kindness in his words. The sincerity. Maybe he really was sorry. She glanced down at her left hand. Maybe it wasn’t too late for a life like that.
“I’ll call you,” she said.
He nodded and jogged to his car, slipping inside and turning the wipers on high. The next moment the BMW turned the corner, a silver streak in the distance. He’s gone, just like Eddie. Only Colin was willing to wait for her. Eddie wouldn’t even stop to let her explain. She shivered in the damp air.
After a minute—or ten, she wasn’t quite sure—Ash let herself into the house. Halfway upstairs she had to stop and catch her breath. Palms wet with perspiration, she tugged on the ring until it slipped from her finger. She held it up to the light.
Gorgeous. And perfect, of course. She wouldn’t expect less from Colin Parker. But what did it mean? That he still loved her? That he was sorry? That he wanted her back, along with her name, her future, and the benefits they offered him? If she sliced away his top layer, could she see through to the bottom? Was there anything in the middle? Anything past the good looks and the intelligence that made him a shoe-in for political office?
Ash shoved the ring into her front pocket and made her way up the final few steps.
But if she did the same thing to Eddie, what would she see there? A man too angry to trust anyone again? Someone who was happy spending his whole life bouncing in and out of beds in Paradise? Or someone who could see through the layers she wrapped around herself?
She reached for her cell phone and punched in the number for the restaurant. Sometime while Colin was on his knee and Eddie was staring across the lawn, she’d heard the church bell ring twelve times, which meant she was now officially late for work.
“…I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she promised J.T. She walked to the front window and studied the sky, blue-black and scorched with lightning. She'd have to take her car. She couldn’t walk in this.
She’d bring an extra shirt, just in case she got soaked running across the parking lot. Maybe an extra pair of socks. Cataloging the things she needed to take care of in the next five minutes helped Ash keep her mind off the bigger things she had to figure out in the next twenty-four hours. Get from here to the bedroom. Then from the bedroom to the car. Then from the car to the restaurant. She could deal with the rest later.
Ash glanced outside. Near the curb, Eddie’s motorcycle helmet lay in the rain. She started, as if the lightning outside had reached into the apartment and sizzled her. Eddie’s helmet. Here. On the ground. Not on his head. Not protecting him. Without stopping to put on her shoes, she ran out into the rain and retrieved it, laying it in front of his door.
She hated motorcycles, had lost a classmate back in high school to a violent accident. Something stole the heat from her face as she stumbled upstairs. She couldn’t think about Evan Traler’s funeral, or the fact that his parents had a closed casket because his face peeled off when he hit the pavement going eighty miles per hour without a helmet.
Without a helmet…
Ash shook her head as she made her way to the car and negotiated the water filling Main Street. Eddie had seen enough damage from careless driving to know better. He’d be careful. Right? But that look on his face when he spun away from the sidewalk. That anger.
Stop it. He’ll be fine. His brother had died in a car accident, for God’s sake. He wouldn't risk putting his parents through that again. She pulled