She saw TV interviews and reporters. Elections and sound bites. She saw Congressional balls and fund-raising banquets. She saw her own law practice grow and then fade as she gave it up to support her husband’s presidential hopes. She saw all the things she wasn’t sure she wanted.
“You made a decision.” He whispered the words into her hair, a statement rather than a question.
Ash nodded into the soft fabric of his shirt. Even without looking at her, he knew.
“You’re in love with him.” Another statement.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Colin pulled away from her and squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I screwed up. Waited too long.” He glanced over his shoulder, at the parking lot, the sky, the tops of the buildings that marked downtown Paradise. When he looked back at her again, a careful mask had dropped into place.
She reached into her pocket. “Here.”
Colin nodded as he slipped the ring into the folds of his palm.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “But for someone else. You belong with someone else.” Her chest lifted and felt lighter even as she said the words.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” Colin said. He scratched his jaw. “Back in the city, maybe. If you go home.”
“I’ll be there,” Ash said and meant it. She watched as he got into his car and pulled away without looking back.
Yes, she needed to go back to Boston. But not now. Not right away. There was something she had to do here in Paradise first.
***
“Don’t cry, Ma.” Eddie patted her hand. “I’m gonna be fine. Doc said.”
Irene West drew a deep breath. Tears traced a familiar path down both cheeks. Behind her, Eddie’s father stood with his back to the room, looking out onto an evening that had finally cleared.
“Goddamn fool.” The man spoke to the window, but Eddie heard his anger, loud and clear. “Didn’t learn a damn thing from your brother’s death, huh? Thought maybe you’d be better off in the ground beside him?”
“Dad, I—” What was he supposed to say? He hadn’t gone out looking for the accident to happen. He hadn’t planned it, for Christ’s sake. Eddie looked at his mother, who continued to weep, and wondered if the tears were for him or for Cal.
Ash had never known him. Eddie was startled to feel relief rather than regret. She'd never cried for him. Never compared Eddie to Cal. And she was the one person in Paradise who didn’t see the kid brother he'd killed every time she looked at him.
It was, he realized suddenly, one more reason he’d fallen for her.
“I’m not him. I’m not Cal.” He paused. “And I’m not dead.”
His father turned. For a long moment, he stared at his son. “Your friend’s here.”
Eddie frowned. “Frank?”
“The woman. The one you kept asking for. Ashton.”
The name struck Eddie square in the heart. “I asked for her?” Impossible. He would have remembered. He would have felt her name on his tongue.
His mother managed a weak smile. “A couple of times. The nurse on duty knew who she was. Told us to call the restaurant.”
“And she came?” Even after I acted like a jerk, ran away like I was twelve years old?
His father nodded. “She’s been here a while.”
Irene turned. “But she’s…” She pressed her lips together and shook her head at her husband.
“What?” Eddie caught the look that passed between them.
Suddenly he knew. The machine monitoring his blood pressure beeped a couple of times. Colin. She’s here with Colin. Of course. Again he saw the guy down on one knee. Eddie coughed. Well, it made sense that he’d come to the hospital with Ash. He probably gave her a ride, held her hand in consolation while she did her duty and checked on her neighbor.
“Do you want me to see if she’s still downstairs?” Eddie’s father moved toward the door. “I’m sure she’d like to see you.”
Eddie yanked up the thin blanket that had bunched around his knees. All he really wanted to do now was sleep. He felt like an idiot, calling out some woman’s name while he was delirious with pain. Especially when the woman in question had shown up at the hospital with another guy.
“Nah. Don’t bother. You can tell her thanks, but she can go on home.” It was better that way. Better for both of them, if they never saw each other again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“He’s upstairs. Room 214.”
Ash stood in the waiting room, where Malcolm West had found her pacing and biting her bottom lip. “He’s okay?”
“He will be.” The man smiled for the first time since she’d arrived at the hospital. “He’s pretty banged up. Suffered a concussion, a broken ankle, and a dislocated collarbone. Lost a lotta skin, too, but the doc says he’ll be fine. He's very lucky.”
Ash wiped her hands on her shorts. Looking down, she realized she still wore her work clothes and still had her hair up in an unwashed ponytail.
“…said he didn’t want to see you,” Eddie’s father finished saying.
“He…what?” Eddie didn’t want to see her? But he’d asked for her. He’d wanted her to come to the hospital. Hadn’t he?
“But I think that’s the drugs talking.” Malcolm led Ash toward the elevators. “I know my son.” His voice turned gruff. “Maybe not as well as I oughta. But I know you mean something to him.” The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped inside. “I knew from the look on his face when his mother told him you were down here with someone else.”
“You…” You weren’t supposed to see that, she finished silently.
He cocked his head and looked at her for a moment. “You’re the senator’s daughter, aren’t you?”
She nodded. No reason to hide anymore.
“He’s a good man, got caught in a bad spot,” Malcolm said. “You can tell ‘im I said that. Hope he doesn’t let it keep him down.”
Ash smiled at the kindness in the man’s words. “I don’t think he will. We Kirks are pretty tough when we need to be.” The elevator doors creaked open, and she could see room 214 to her right.
The older man’s hand rested on her shoulder for a moment as they stepped into the hall. “He looks a little rough right now. Just so you know.”
“He’s awake?”
Eddie’s mother slipped out of the room and came toward them. “He’s drowsy,” she said in response to Ash’s question. “But yes. He’s awake.”
Ash left them standing in the hallway and forced herself to walk toward Eddie’s room. With one hand, she knocked, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.
Oh, Eddie.
For a moment she couldn’t speak. She could barely draw a full breath. Someone had cut off the T-shirt he’d been wearing, and he sat up against the pillows with a bare chest and scrapes along his chin. One foot looked lumpy under the sheets. The edges of a purple bruise puffed out around one eye, and his right arm lay strapped in a sling across his chest.
But it was him. It was Eddie, whole and alive and looking at her with something in his gaze she couldn’t quite read. Anger? Relief? Happiness? Affection?
Neither one spoke. He’s still angry. And he had every right to be. Between her father waking them up and her ex-boyfriend reappearing with a marriage proposal, she imagined that, quite possibly, Eddie wouldn’t want anything to do with her again.
“Why the hell did you take off like that? In the middle of a storm?” They weren’t the words she’d meant to say, rough with anger and fear. But they were the first ones that came out.
He frowned. “Got about a hundred questions I could ask you, too.”
Ash hunched her shoulders. She'd screwed up. In her mind’s eye, she saw dark red hair, an hourglass figure, a local girl who’d soothed Eddie after the loss of his brother. Maybe he wanted someone like Cass, someone who didn’t lie about her background. Maybe he wanted someone who’d grown up with him, who knew all the secrets of the town. Maybe he wanted so
meone to climb on the back of a bike at a moment’s notice and toss her hair across his lap.
Ash didn’t have hair that tossed.
“My mom said you were here with someone.”
She nodded. “I was.” Truth. Only the truth from here on in.
“So where is he?”
She shrugged. “He left. Went back to Boston.”
“Yeah?” Eddie ran a hand through his hair.
“Yeah.”
I love you. The notion prickled her skin, startled her, terrified her, and yet the longer she stood there, the longer she knew it to be true. All the nights they’d spent on the porch, all the drinks they’d shared at the bar, all the afternoons eating grilled cheese and watching the Red Sox: they’d become all the little puzzle pieces that made up a love, and a life.
Eddie was her best friend, the one who caught her when she fell, who made her laugh until the corners of her mouth ached, who danced her to sleep under a midnight moon. He was the one who knew Ash the woman, not Ash the Kirk daughter, and not Ash the Harvard grad. He was the one who lived with her and put up with her. The one who loved her for the complicated person she was. The one who made her happy.
“If I could take it back…if I could change the things I said, the things I told you at the beginning, I would…” She trailed off. “I would have started the summer over,” she went on after a moment. “I would have told you the truth from the start.” I wouldn’t have tried to build a whole life on a lie.
Eddie didn’t say anything. Ash walked to the bed, and her legs brushed the sheet that fell over the side. From up close she could see the fatigue around his eyes, the glassiness in his expression, the scratches and scrapes along his arms. She stood beside him and held her breath. One second. Two. His free hand crawled across the blanket to hers.
“You asked them to call me?”
“Apparently.” He grinned. “Though I was pretty drugged up, so I might have asked for the Queen of England too.”
“Not Cass?”
“Come on. What do you think?” Eddie shook his head. “It’s always been you, Ash. From the day we moved in, I think.” He chuckled. “You didn’t even give me a chance, just reeled me in and made me fall.”
“But I lied about so much.” She wanted everything out in the open, every last bit of the ragged edges that needed mending.
“You had your reasons, I guess.” He lifted her hand to his lips.
“I’m so sorry. You need to know how sorry I am.”
“I already do.” He glanced at her other hand, the one without the diamond on it. “You’re here, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And I’m not going anywhere.”
He relaxed his hold, and his eyes fluttered. “Good.” His breathing deepened, and he tugged her close. “Ashton Kirk.”
“What?”
“Stay with me.”
She laced her fingers through his. “I will.”
“Tonight?”
She laughed. “I’m not sure they’ll let me. I’d have to sweet-talk one of the nurses.”
But he was shaking his head. “Tomorrow. And the next day. And after the leaves fall. And next spring. Stay in Paradise with me.”
Ash didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she could. But one thing she knew for certain: whether she stayed here in New Hampshire, or convinced Eddie to move to Boston, whether she moved to Europe to follow a job or opened a restaurant with him in another corner of the country, she wasn’t ever leaving.
I found myself here just when I thought I’d lost everything
She’d didn’t need to run anymore, didn’t need to hide. She didn’t need to pretend away her name. She didn’t need to be anything except a woman who was completely in love with the boy next door. Ash smiled and bent to kiss Eddie’s forehead as he drifted into sleep.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll stay.”
Paradise, she’d tuck into her heart no matter where they ended up. She’d have it with her. Always.
One Year Later...
“Where's this party, anyway?” Ash asked as Jen turned down unfamiliar streets. She'd only been to Newburg Heights a couple of times. Located halfway between Boston and Paradise, it was bigger than Paradise, a little farther from the junior college and a little wealthier, if Ash could judge by the homes they'd passed since leaving the highway.
“Lucas gave me directions. Here.” Jen passed her a crumpled slip of paper.
“Whatever happened to GPS?”
“Stop grumbling,” Jen laughed as they turned down a narrow street lined with bungalows.
“What was Lucas doing up here, anyway?” Seemed like kind of a far commute from central Connecticut.
“Helping a friend do some renovations.” Jen jabbed a finger at the paper. “Now read, would ya?”
“Fine.” Ash recited directions until they dead-ended in front of a small, white ranch-style house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house had a wider, greener lawn than some of the others on the block, and low flowering bushes lined the walk leading up to the front door.
Ash frowned. “What's Eddie doing here? He told me he was working late.”
Jen shrugged and pulled up to the curb. “You ready?”
Her stomach rumbled. “I guess." Teaching a morning Constitutional Law class at the junior college, followed by a busy lunch crowd at the restaurant, had left her starving. A barbeque to celebrate whatever construction project Lucas had just finished sounded like the perfect way to end a long week. “How's your brother doing, anyway?” she asked as she climbed from the car. “Got a girlfriend yet?”
Jen checked her makeup in the rear view mirror. “Nah. Goes on a date here and there, but you know him. Mr. Strong and Silent isn't exactly gonna jump into another serious relationship. He's waitin' for the right one to come along, that's all.” She glanced at Ash. “Not everyone gets as lucky as you and Eddie.”
“I know.” She twisted her fingers in her lap. Still takes my breath away, every time I see him. She glanced at the front porch, where he leaned against a porch column beside Lucas, talking and laughing. Broad shoulders and slim hips that knew her hands and fit against her own bare skin just right...
“Come on.” Jen climbed from the car, and Ash followed, heat spiraling from her cheeks to her toes. Didn't look like there were a lot of people here for the party, but maybe most of the guests were arriving later. Maybe she could sneak Eddie away for a few minutes, find a dark corner and wind herself around him until her fatigue went away and she tingled from his touch. Jen stopped her before they got to the walk. “Hang on.” She swept Ash's hair from her forehead and inspected her for a long moment.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Okay, you'll pass.”
"Pass what?”
“Good call on that dress. It actually makes you look like you have some curves.”
Ash glanced down at the red mini-dress she'd bought in the spring. A little skimpy for her taste, but – “Eddie likes this one.”
“I'll bet he does.” Jen steered her up the walk. “Now go.”
“Wait, what are you – ” But when Ash turned around, Jen's torso was bent over the trunk among a half-dozen bags and boxes.
“Be right there,” she called.
Ash shrugged. Whatever. “Hi handsome,” she said to Eddie as she neared the porch. Lucas had disappeared somewhere, probably around back if she had to guess, from the aroma of grilled meat wafting out to them. Fresh red paint on the front door and impatiens lining the windows gave the house an inviting air. A Cape-style with dormers, it sat low to the ground, cozy and warm, like something she'd choose for herself one day. “Cute place. Did you help too?” She didn't recalled Eddie mentioning it, but they'd both been so busy this last month that it might have slipped by her.
“I helped a little, yeah.” He ran a hand over the porch railing. “You like it?
“It's nice. Very cute. Did Frank close the shop early today?”
Eddie rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, ye
ah.” Hair damp from the shower, shirt a little wrinkled, he smelled as delicious as always, and for a second Ash thought about suggesting they find a bedroom to christen rather than pull up picnic chairs. Damn, he turned her hot in a hurry. She reached for him, but rather than fold her into his arms, he stepped back.
“What's wrong?”
His face reddened. “Nothin'. Just – ah. Close your eyes for a minute, will ya?”
“Close my – ” She stopped. Jen's knowing look. Eddie being here in the middle of the afternoon. Her pulse sped up as she closed her eyes, lids trembling against the sunlight.
“Okay.”
When she opened her eyes again, Eddie rested before her, one knee to the ground and a box in his hand. Ash started to cry.
“Told you a long time ago that you changed my life.” His voice broke on the opening words. He opened the box, and a gorgeous diamond surrounded by two sapphires sparkled in the afternoon light. “It's always been you, Ash. Always.”
She cried harder. Somewhere behind her she thought she heard voices, but she didn't trust her legs to turn around.
“You are my best friend. My soul mate. You are my world, my light, everything good that's ever happened to me. Please say you'll marry me.”
She couldn't speak. I came to Paradise to escape. Who knew I'd end up finding everything I'd ever wanted? She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she managed to say as he slid the ring onto her finger. “Oh, Eddie, yes. Forever, a thousand times, yes.”
“It's about time,” Jen said from behind her. She skipped over and grabbed Ash's hand. “Damn. Must have cost a fortune, Lover Boy.” She planted a kiss on Eddie's cheek. “Congrats.”
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