Lost In Paradise

by Allie Boniface

  * * *

  The Wild Rose Press

  www.thewildrosepress.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Allie Boniface

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  Ash opened the door, and Eddie stood on the other side, smiling.

  A breeze kicked through the living room, one of those warm summer gusts that sweeps in from nowhere. It lifted the hair off her neck and blew a puff of dust across the doorstep. For an instant, the room seemed to widen, to swell with warmth, and sun flooded the space.

  Wow. Maybe Jen is right. Maybe he is perfect. Eddie wasn't tall, but the faded green t-shirt he'd put on outlined every muscle she could see. Sweat lined the creases in his forehead, and brilliant blue eyes met hers. Their color startled her, so bright they made the summer sky seem shady and dull. The more she examined them and tried in vain to match them to a Crayola color that had never existed, the more she felt a strange tumbling in her stomach that she didn't like at all.

  God, what's wrong with me? He's just a guy. Pull it together, Ash.

  Taking a deep breath, she shifted her gaze to the doorjamb above him. “Hi, Eddie. Come on in."

  Lost In Paradise

  by

  Allie Boniface

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Lost In Paradise

  COPYRIGHT ©

  2007 by Allie Boniface

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Angela Anderson

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2007

  Print ISBN 1-60154-183-X

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  For my husband Todd,

  who always believed I could.

  Prologue

  Set back from the street, its original coffee color faded to dusky beige, the house on Lycian Street waited. For sixty years it had occupied this strip of lawn on the east side of Paradise, New Hampshire. Always a rental, owned by a forgotten lawyer in Boston, the house had watched tenants come and go for decades of winters. It had closed its ears against hurtful words and wrapped its arms around newborns, watched children roller-skate down the wide street and teenagers sneak out to smoke under the moon. Sometimes the tenants stayed for a year, sometimes only a month or two. Still the house stood, its roof a little dingier, its paint a little more faded with each New England winter.

  That bright May morning, the day before everything changed, Helen Buxley leaned on her rake and studied the house from across the street. Somehow, it looked different today—brighter, more alive. She shook her head and wondered what the summer would bring. New tenants, of course, though she hadn't yet found out who they would be. Weeding around her geraniums, she ticked off her mental list. They'd have to be told about the garbage, and about not playing loud music after ten. She hoped they didn't have small children; tiny voices gave her a headache with their crying and complaining.

  A few minutes later, the elderly woman disappeared inside, not knowing that twenty-four hours from now, Ashton would arrive, and later that afternoon, Eddie. The house's front door would swing open, and its apartments would sing again with life. Footsteps would thunder on the stairs, and stars would be counted from the roof. And love would begin to blossom in the cracks.

  Helen spent the rest of the day inside, next to her air conditioner, eyeing the house and frowning in anticipation. One hundred miles away, Ashton packed her last bag. Across town, Eddie joined his parents for lunch and pretended not to see the tears on his mother's cheeks. The sun climbed and burned down on Lycian Street; by the afternoon the temperature would push one hundred.

  And the house waited.

  Chapter One

  "Is this it?” Jen craned her neck and stared at the street sign.

  Ashton Kirk wiped one damp palm on her thigh and tried to will away the iron knots in her stomach. “I don't know.” She pulled her VW bug to the curb and dug in the ashtray for the slip of paper with directions.

  "Next right after the town green.” She looked across the street. Del's Convenience Store waved a limp awning in the afternoon heat. “Across from Del's. Yeah, this is it. It's gotta be."

  Already out of the car, Jen walked to the corner. Pulling her blonde hair into a ponytail, she checked the crooked street sign and nodded at her best friend.

  Ash made the turn and parked. “First house on the right,” the scrawl on her paper read. “Number two."

  Oh, God. What have I done? She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. Deciding not to take the job at Deacon and Mathers was one thing. Moving to an unknown town a hundred miles away from her parents, fleeing the scandal that now appeared in every Boston newspaper, was something else altogether. The knots in her stomach multiplied and stretched fingers of steel that began to strangle her heart. She wondered for an instant if she had a paper bag somewhere close by, for when the hyperventilating began.

  "Ash?” Jen poked her through the open window. “You okay?"

  She raised her head and forced herself to take a deep breath. “I don't know."

  Jen pulled open the door. “Come on. Let's look at the place."

  Shoving temperamental auburn curls from her forehead, Ash got out of the car and stopped. “Oh, God. What if I've made a mistake?” She stared up at the house, a nondescript two-story with dusty windows. It didn't look like anything she'd ever seen before. Well, that's the point, right? I wanted something completely different. I wanted to start fresh, someplace where no one knew me.

  Willing her feet to step one in front of the other, she followed Jen to the front porch. “What am I doing? What if this was a stupid decision? What if I'm really supposed to open my own law practice, go into politics, like Jess and Anne? Like Dad?” Like everyone else in my family? Her knees felt funny, and she sank onto the bottom porch step.

  Jen tried the door. “You're not,” she said over her shoulder.

  "How do you know?"

  "Because you spent the last two months of law school miserable and because you needed a change."

  "My parents are going to kill me."

  Jen joined her on the step. “To tell you the truth, I think your parents have other things on their minds these days."

  Like explaining to the press why my father was caught with drugs and a nineteen-year-old prostitute in his car? Two months before he was about to receive the Democratic presidential nomination? Ash dug her toe into the pavement, tracing cracks and watching ants scurry.

  "Yeah, I guess you're right.” Suddenly, her decision to leave Boston and the center of the Kirk family scandal didn't seem like the worst decision in the world. In fact, when she thought about it, it seemed downright practical.

  She eyed the car and wondered how long it would take her to
unpack. Not that long, she decided. The apartment was supposed to be furnished, and she'd brought only a few clothes and books. Most of the memories she'd put into storage or burned.

  Jen worked her fingernail beneath some peeling paint on the porch railing. “Just because your father and both your sisters went into politics doesn't mean you have to. Even if you did graduate from Harvard."

  Ash hugged her elbows. “Yeah, but it would make things easier. How the heck am I supposed to explain that I turned down a job at one of the best firms in the city?"

  Jen shrugged. “You'll figure something out.” Her voice softened. “Besides, you need this. You need a summer to yourself. You need to be...” she paused, searching for the right word. “...away."

  "Away from the media circus? Or away from Colin?"

  Jen didn't answer, and for just a moment, Ash let herself ache with the memory of Colin Parker, her love all through law school. She'd planned to accompany him to Europe and then move in with him at the end of the summer. Hell, she'd planned on marrying him. But Colin had dumped Ash thirty-seven days earlier with a note tucked into her planner. "I need some time and space to think ... “ it began and ended with his scrawled signature minus “Love” or any other word that suggested he'd shared her bed and her heart for the last three years.

  One month before graduation, and three weeks after the debacle with her father, he'd dumped her. A tear snuck its way down her cheek, and Ash dropped her head to hide it. But the breakup hadn't been the worst of it. Colin hadn't needed time at all. He'd lied about that. He'd needed space, though, space in which to date Callie Halliway, president of the Student Activities Council and Colin's co-author on a half-dozen journal articles. Beautiful, blonde, and pedigreed, Callie partnered him perfectly, both on his arm and his resume. That was what mattered when you came from money and power in Boston, Ash thought. The minute you lost one or the other, you could say goodbye to your reputation forever.

  Jen elbowed her. “Take a look at this."

  With effort, Ashton raised her head. Emerging from the cornflower blue house across the street was a short, stocky woman. White hair sprang out from her head in every direction, and she wore bright yellow gardening gloves. Without slowing, she marched down her walk and across the street. Up their crooked pavement she came, until she stopped in front of them. Though barely five feet tall, she towered over Ash and Jen sitting on the step, and Ash felt suddenly as if she were back in second grade, with an angry Miss Howard staring at her from across a cluttered room. A frown carved the woman's wrinkled face into disapproving lines, and beady brown eyes examined them. Ash wasn't sure whether to laugh or run and hide.

  "Hello?” She ventured a greeting.

  The woman propped both hands on her hips and said nothing. Jen stood, and Ash followed. “I'm Asht-Ashley Kirtland.” She corrected herself, changing her name at the last minute.

  Her silent neighbor nodded. “Helen Parker,” she announced. She pointed across the street. “Lived there for thirty-two years, this spring. I take care of this place and the one next door. You have any problems, come and see me.” She paused and massaged one temple with a gnarled hand. “Up the block there, in the white house near the end, live the MacGregors. Hiram drinks too much, but his wife Sadie's a doll, so no one says too much about it. He's harmless, anyway."

  Ash slid a glance toward Jen. No secrets here. That didn't bode well.

  "Two houses down from that is Lanie Johnson's. Used to be a Rockette, or some such thing, ‘til she busted her hip and ended up back here in Paradise. Had a man at one point, a while back, but he ran off two or three years ago."

  Helen paused to draw a breath. White flecks of spittle marked the edge of her mouth. “The rest of these homes are rentals, mostly to college kids during the year.” She narrowed her eyes, and Ash read the woman's message loud and clear.

  "I just graduated,” Ash explained, leaving off the bit about Harvard and law school. “I'm only subletting for the next three months."

  Helen's mouth relaxed a fraction. “Well, the other places are empty now.” Her gaze moved from the girls to the door behind them. “You're the only ones living here this summer, far as I know."

  "Really?” Loneliness dropped a curtain over Ash's hopes of finding new friends. Well, solitude was probably better, anyway, if she hoped to figure out what direction her life was supposed to take now.

  Helen reached into her front pocket and pulled out a key ring. Dangling it from two fingers, as if it were a dirty tissue, she held it out. “Square one's for the front door,” she said. “Smaller one's for your door upstairs. And the silver one opens your mailbox.” She glanced at the solitary car by the curb. “Where's the other one?"

  Ash looked up from the keys, confused at the question. “I'm sorry?"

  Helen puffed out a long breath of air. “The other tenant.” She rubbed her forehead with one hand, as if trying to pull the name from memory. “Edward something. Your downstairs housemate."

  "I have a housemate?” Ash looked at Jen, who grinned.

  Helen had already headed down the front walk, but at the question, she turned back. “Of course. I thought you'd be arriving together.” She eyed the porch for a moment, and Ash read the look in her watery blue eyes: You better behave.

  She stifled a laugh. “Thank you, Helen. Nice meeting you."

  The woman turned without replying and shuffled across the street, where she vanished beyond the sunflowers cloaking her front door.

  "Cool. A housemate,” Jen said. “A male housemate."

  "Just what I need,” Ash said as she tried the key in the door. “Come on. We've got stuff to unpack."

  Chapter Two

  "I wonder what he looks like,” Jen said as they pulled sheets and pillowcases from a cardboard box.

  "He's probably seventy-five years old, newly widowed, and blind in one eye.” Ash stood on the bed and stretched to hang a curtain over the back window.

  Jen collapsed onto paisley-patterned pillows. “Why do you do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "Find the worst in everything. He could be young and single, you know. Why not?"

  Ash sat down beside her friend. “Because if he's really young and single, why would he be living here?"

  Jen turned to Ash, lips still but eyes sending the message.

  "Yeah, I know.” Ash shrugged. “But I'm a special case. A nut case. I'm sure most people in this town aren't from screwed up families like I am."

  "You never know.” Jen bounced off the bed and changed the subject. “Come on. Let's check out the porch roof. That's the best part about this place."

  Ash followed Jen into the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator. “It's probably unsafe."

  Her friend tugged at the oversized window beside the sink. “It's not unsafe. If it was, they couldn't rent the house.” The window pulled free, and in another minute she had climbed through, onto the second-floor rooftop that stretched across the front of the house.

  "Be careful.” Ash edged closer and peeked outside.

  "Oh, please. Stop being such a worrier. It's safe.” Jen walked the perimeter of the roof and peered over to the street below. “This railing is brand new. Look.” She turned at Ash's silence. “Get your butt out here right now and look at this view."

  Ash propped her elbows on the sill and shook her head. “I'm afraid of heights."

  "Not anymore you're not. Not with this roof.” Jen slid to a seat and crossed her legs. “You could have one heck of a party out here, Ash."

  Ashton stayed where she was. She wasn't really afraid of heights. She was more afraid of not knowing what lay out there, of the too-wide sky that stung her eyes with its brightness and threatened to swallow her up. Right this moment, she didn't feel like taking new steps anywhere, not even ten feet outside her kitchen window.

  Jen began to drum her heels against the roof.

  Sighing, Ash pulled herself up and over. One deep breath. Then another. Okay. Not so bad after all. With car
eful steps, she walked from one end of the roof to the other. Beyond the back lawn of her rental house, the center of Paradise, New Hampshire, rose to greet her, a picturesque town with an old-fashioned Main Street and two stone churches squatting on the town green. To her left, Lycian Street meandered below. In the distance, she could just see the tops of the red brick buildings that made up the town's junior college. She took a deep breath and peeked over to the sidewalk.

  "Wow.” From here she could see all the way to the street's end, in both directions. Maybe this hadn't been the wrong decision, after all. Standing close enough to reach the leaves that swayed above her, Ash felt peaceful for the first time in months. She closed her eyes and drew it all in, the quiet street, the sleepy town. Somehow, it felt right. It felt like a good place to spend a summer. It felt like a good place to escape the mudslinging, a good place to figure out how to tell her parents she wanted a different life than the one they'd sketched out for her from birth.

  Most of all, it seemed like a good place to forget her heartache, to try and flee the ghosts of Colin and Callie that reappeared every time she turned a corner.

  Ash slid to a seat beside her friend. “Okay, maybe you're right. Might not be a bad place for a party.” If I'm ever in the partying mood again.

  "Told you.” Jen glanced at her watch. “What else do you need me to do? I told Tim I'd be back in the city by five. I think the last train leaves in an hour or so."

  "Nothing, really. I'll find a grocery store tomorrow, I guess."

  "You sure? I can hang out for a while, if you want."

  The thought tempted her. Despite her need to be alone and sort through the snarl of feelings around her heart, despite the funny, run-down house that was already starting to seem like home, part of her wanted Jen to stay. Ash opened her mouth to answer, but a roar from below drowned out her words.

  "What the—?” Jen turned to peer through the slats in the railing. A second later, she pulled herself to her feet and leaned over as far as she could. Ash watched a grin spread itself across her friend's face.