Ash stared at her hand in wonder, but for a moment only, as other familiar faces joined them in the front yard. “Dad?” And her mother too, and both her sisters. “You – ” She turned back to Eddie. “You invited them all here?” There was Frank and his wife, and a couple of waitresses from the restaurant, and Shelia and Teagan, her fellow professors from the college. “All of them?”
“Yeah. Good thing you said yes. Woulda been a shitty party if you hadn't.” This time, finally, he pulled her in for a kiss, one hand in her hair and the other tight around her waist.
On her tiptoes she leaned into him. Their kiss deepened, and her hands moved to his face, to the stubble of his beard she loved so much. “I'm crazy about you,” she whispered against him.
He ran one hand over her hair, his expression tender as his thumb rested on her lower lip. “Any chance I can convince you to sneak away for a quickie before the party starts?”
She laughed. You read my mind. “I don't know if the host would be thrilled with that.” She glanced at the front door. “Though I wouldn't mind taking a tour of the house. What do you say we ask?”
Eddie let her go long enough to pull a key from his pocket. “He says yes.”
Ash looked at the key, attached to a fob that read “Frank's Imports.” She'd seen that fob before – or one like it, anyway. Her brows drew together. “I don't...” Realization spread over her. She looked from Eddie to Lucas and back again. “Please tell me you are not the ‘friend’ that Lucas came up here to help.”
Lucas grinned from under his baseball cap and held up both palms. “Guilty.”
“Eddie!” Her jaw dropped. “This is your house?”
“Actually, it's our house, now that you said yes.” He twisted the key in the door. “And I'm pretty sure the party can wait until we take ourselves a tour of it.”
***
Much later, after the last guests had driven away and the grill was cold and she'd hugged Jen goodbye and promised to call as soon as the dress search began, Ash followed Eddie into the back bedroom, the master, the only one with furniture and the only one that needed it tonight, as far as she was concerned.
“To the future,” he whispered. “And to my beautiful wife.”
Not yet, she almost corrected him, but it didn't matter because in soul she already was. Linked to him, loving him, she'd known too from that first day that he was her One, the single person she'd been seeking. Every day, every minute of the rest of her life, wouldn't be long enough to spend with him.
By degrees he pulled the neckline of her dress away from her skin, replacing each inch with his mouth. Teasing. Wet. She arched into his touch, bottom lip caught in her teeth. One hand caught her nipple, running the thumb over and over until it hardened and she cried out in want. With gentle hands he lowered her to the bed, and in the next moment Eddie slipped off her dress entirely and tossed it aside. He pulled his own shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor. His shorts followed. Then, in slow degrees, his hands returned to her skin. He grinned, his dimple popping under those sky-blue eyes, but he didn't say anything. His fingers moved to her belly, to her legs, to the smooth, warm, desperately wet apex that ached for his touch.
“Eddie...” She reached for him, legs and arms and tongues entwined, and then it was like always, coming without even feeling him inside her yet, rolling on that wave until another one came after it and finally she pulled him into her because if she didn't she would die, it was as simple as that.
Completion. Utter completion, she thought a while later as they lay together in silence. “I love you.”
“Oh, Ash. Times a thousand. Times a million.” He rolled up and rested on one elbow. “I'm the luckiest guy in the world. To get to spend every day with you, to come home every night to you...” Tears stood in his eyes. “You saved me.”
Wasn't it amazing, she thought as she wound her fingers through his, how two people could save each other? Could love each other, complete each other, catch each other when they fell and steady each other against the storms of the world around them?
Eddie lifted her fingers to his lips. Her ring glittered in the half-light. “I'll go to the moon and back to make you happy. Fill up every ocean. I promise, I'll tell the world a hundred times a day how lucky I am that I get to be loved by you.”
Ash closed her eyes, emotion turning into a tight little ball at the back of her throat. No words. Just love. How amazing.
“Me too,” she agreed. “Every day. I promise.”
After Paradise
by
Allie Boniface
A Follow-up Novella to
The Promise of Paradise
COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Allie Boniface
Chapter One
Jen pulled off her flip-flops and stretched her feet onto the dashboard of the pickup truck.
“You really have to do that?” Lucas looked over.
She rolled down the window and let her arm dangle. “Just drive, little bro.” The trip from the small town of Paradise, New Hampshire, to their even smaller hometown of Lindsey Point, Connecticut, took somewhere around three hours, depending on the weather and the traffic, if the Red Sox were in town.
“Finn texted earlier,” Lucas said after a few miles. “Big party down on the dunes tonight.”
“Yeah?” Jen rubbed sleepiness from her eyes. Cocktails at Eddie and Ash’s surprise engagement party, combined with mid-summer heat, had worn her out. She’d need a couple shots of espresso to stay up past nine. “You going?”
“Nah, not my scene. But I thought you might want to head down there, catch up with people.”
“Thanks, I will.” Lindsey Point residents rarely left town for long or for good, making Jen an anomaly. Lucas was the one who kept her filled in on what happened back home, including beach parties, breakups, and other important news.
The air cooled, and Jen rolled up the window. Since splitting her time between her Boston apartment and Paradise over the summer, she hadn’t been home since Memorial Day. She’d never really thought of herself as a small-town girl, mostly because you couldn’t turn around in Lindsey Point without ninety percent of the residents knowing your every move, whether it was the time the entire junior class got caught drinking down by the haunted lighthouse, or the time the local priest discovered the prom king and queen having sex in the church parking lot.
Still, something about growing up in a place where everyone knew your name, family, and dating history brought a certain degree of comfort. You could never get lost in a place like Lindsey Point, whether you wanted to or not. People knew you, had your back, and looked out for you when you got lost. She knew exactly why Ash had fallen in love with a place like Paradise.
When they finally saw the sign for Lindsey Point, Jen lifted her hair from her shoulders and sighed. “This is the real Paradise, you know.” Water glimmered ahead.
“I know,” Lucas agreed.
She rolled the window halfway down and inhaled deeply. “I love that smell.”
“Of dead fish? Such a romantic.”
“Of the ocean, stupid.”
He shook his head. “Whatever does it for you.”
She studied him for a minute. He’d cut their speed from sixty on the highway to a rolling-along-without-a-care-in-the-world thirty-five on the two-lane road into town. A few cars passed them heading in the opposite direction, but as always when Jen came back to Lindsey Point, a distinct sense of safety and familiarity filled her. She knew she probably glamorized Lindsey Point, but she didn’t care. Magic could happen in a place like this. Magic, romance, and things her clinical, scientific brain usually didn’t give the time of day.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I mean…” Her hand flipped in the air. “You know you’re gonna find someone else, right? Someone a hundred times better for you than Shannon.”
He ran a hand over his face and pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes. “We’re talking about this again?�
�
“I don’t want you to be sad.”
“I’m not sad. I’m pissed off.”
“That either.”
“I find my fiancée in bed with another man and I’m not supposed to be pissed off?”
“Of course you are. I just meant…” Jen’s head fell back against the seat. She wasn’t sure what she meant, only that she hated seeing her little brother looking deflated, as if the last breath of fresh air and happiness had fled him months ago. “There’s someone else out there for you.”
Lucas eased up to the stop sign at the edge of town. Main Street lay another mile ahead, and the Oakes’ family home another couple miles past that. “And I’m sure I’m going to find her right here in Lindsey Point. Let me guess. She’ll probably just walk into my life one day and knock me head over heels.”
Jen cocked a brow. “Maybe. I hope so. I’d love to see my six-foot-seven little brother fall that hard.”
Lucas mumbled something as he headed for town, and Jen wasn’t sure, but it sounded an awful lot like I’d love to see that too.
Chapter Two
After a long hot shower and dinner of roast turkey, stuffing, and cornbread (Mama Oakes never did anything halfway, especially not when her only two children were in town), Jen trudged out the front door a little after nine. Her childhood home sat about a mile from the beach. Sometimes she thought even if she closed her eyes, she could still find her way there on foot, after all the nights she’d sneaked out as a teenager. Coming home always put her back in that mindset. Two right turns, a detour through Millie Powers’ lawn, and she was standing beside a weathered sign that read “East Entrance - Closed After Dark”
“Yeah, right,” Jen muttered. She stepped over a worn log barrier and followed the path that cut through a copse of pines before opening onto a long, white stretch of sandy beach.
The water sat like glass, the lighthouse speared the cloudy sky, and bright orange patches of bonfire lit up the night. She could smell the smoke above the salty air, could almost taste both on her tongue. She slowed her steps to take it all in before someone recognized her and Oh-my-God-I-haven’t-seen-you-in-forever conversations took the place of everything else.
Drank my first beer right there, she thought as she passed a swell in the dunes. Kissed Jeremy Horner on that bench under the trees And she’d almost lost her virginity inside the lighthouse one frosty November night, except Chief O’Brien had seen her and Nate Eller’s flashlight poking around and followed them in for a lecture that included some winking and a grin he couldn’t hide.
Almost everything important in her life had happened in Lindsey Point. First love, first heartbreak, first funeral, first ghost story, first best friend, first driving lesson, first everything. Just because she no longer lived here didn’t mean the town held any less of her heart.
She threaded her way through the dunes, passing a couple of small bonfires with teenagers clustered around them, wine coolers or cheap beer bottles in hand. The prime spot for partying on the beach lay between the lighthouse and the abandoned keeper’s house, and whoever staked it out early in the day claimed it when the sun went down. Tonight it looked as though it belonged to a group in their mid-twenties, a mix of guys who lounged on the steps of the lighthouse cradling drinks and smoking weed and girls who were either trying to flirt with them or giggling in tight circles by the water.
Two of them stood near the fire, hands outstretched. Jen recognized Mikayla Johnston and Lucie Rodriguez, part of the popular crowd back in high school. They were decked out in tiny halter-tops tied around their necks. Lucie had on cut-off jeans, but Mikayla wore a mini skirt so short her red bikini bottoms flashed in the firelight, and every few seconds she swayed toward the flames. Lucie finally grabbed her friend and pulled her back a few steps.
“Oops,” Mikayla giggled. She drank from a plastic cup and then dropped it, empty, to the ground. “Hi there,” she said. She fluttered her fingers in greeting, and Jen was about to respond when a male voice over her right shoulder spoke instead.
“Hi.”
Mikayla looked at Lucie. Something glittered in her expression. “We were waiting for you.” She rested one hand on a slender hip. “What took you so long?”
Jen reversed direction, not interested in witnessing whatever odd, drunken conversation was about to take place. This wasn’t usually where her friends hung out. If anything, they’d be on the other side of the beach, lying under the stars and listening to the throb of water on the rocky shore.
“I wasn’t sure you meant it,” the man said.
Jen stuck her hands in the back pockets of her shorts. That voice. She knew that voice.
Mikayla pushed her hip farther out and pretended to pout. “Why wouldn’t we mean it?”
Jen finally turned and took a good look at the man standing beside her, who stared at Mikayla with such obvious, hopeful desire that Jen was surprised a little drool didn’t form on his bottom lip. Wait a minute…
He walked over to the fire. “I just meant...I thought maybe I missed you.”
Lucie backed away, so the only faces Jen could see in the firelight were Mikayla’s and the guy’s. His name. What the hell is his name?
“Aw, Max, you’re so innocent.” Mikayla trailed a finger down his chest.
Max. That was it. They’d all gone to school together. Max Wainfield had worked in the library shelving books and helping kids with homework and sometimes, if a pretty girl asked, writing her research paper for her. Jen had held a few conversations with him back then, though she understood only about half of what he said. A major brainiac, Max had graduated first in their class and then gone on to some high-powered university.
Poor guy. Looked like he was still falling for the wrong girl. Jen cocked her head. Max had certainly filled out in the last eight years. High school’s skinny frame, wayward brown hair, and thick plastic glasses had transformed to six feet of muscles, a crew cut, and dark-rimmed specs that looked incredibly sexy in the half-light.
You could do better than Mikayla, she thought, admiring the way Max’s shorts rode on his hips. And had he taken up cycling? Or running? She didn’t remember his legs looking that tight and strong eight years ago.
Criminy, I need to get laid. Fantasizing about the geeky guy from high school was so un-Jen-like. She was about to turn and head down the beach when Mikayla erupted into laughter.
“Did you really think this was going to happen?” Mikayla wrapped both arms around her waist and bent over, shoulders shaking.
Jen watched Max’s expression change from hope to humiliation. His eyes swam behind the lenses of his glasses, and little images of flames licked at the sides. Even in the heat of the fire, his face paled. He took one step back, stumbling in the sand.
Mikayla pointed at Max and then turned to Lucie. “He actually thought he’d get lucky tonight,” she said between giggles.
Something clicked inside Jen. She’d always hated Queen Bees, fake, full-of-themselves girls who thought they ruled the school and the beach and could control their minions with a simple wave of the hand or smirk of the mouth. Plus, she’d always had a soft spot for Max. Without thinking, she walked over and took him by the arm.
“Max?” she said, willing him to play along. “Oh, my God. It’s been years. Have you been avoiding me?”
From the corner of her eye, she watched Mikayla’s giggles subside. Her hair fell over her eyes, and she shoved it back with an unsteady hand.
“I don’t…” Max began. He stared at her with a puzzled expression.
Jen slipped both hands around his waist, which was a hell of a lot more muscular than she ever would have guessed, and gave him a teasing smile. “Do you remember that bet we had in high school?” she asked, ad-libbing and hoping he would follow her lead. She tossed her head for emphasis and took one more glance in Mikayla’s direction.
Yep, she’s still watching. And from her strange, drunken expression, trying to figure out what was going on.
“
Ah…” Max stuttered.
“From what I recall, I won that bet fair and square. And now I’m about to collect.” With Mikayla and Lucie still gawking, Jen leaned forward and kissed Max squarely on the mouth.
Chapter Three
For a second, Max wasn’t sure whether to retreat in confusion or wrap his arms around the blonde and kiss her back like his life depended on it. When her tongue slipped inside his mouth, he decided on the second option. Senses reeling, his hands settled on her hips. Her fingers threaded the hair at the back of his neck for another few heady, breathless moments. Then she stepped back with a satisfied smile.
Max blinked. Holy crow. In the dark, and because it had been years since he’d last seen her, he hadn’t recognized Jen Oakes when she first grabbed him and kissed him. Now he did. “Wait a…”
Before he could finish, Jen took his arm and led him up the beach, away from the fire and a dumbfounded Mikayla and Lucie.
“Why’d you do that?” he finally asked when they were out of hearing distance.
Jen gave him a flirtatious grin. Her hair was shorter than it had been back in high school, and she’d gotten a lot curvier. But her sunny, carefree attitude was the same as he remembered. “She deserved it.” She paused, then added, “I don’t like mean girls.”
“Mikayla isn’t mean.”
Jen cocked a brow.
“She was drunk. And showing off for her friend.”
The brow turned skeptical. “In case you missed it, she wasn’t really rolling out the red carpet for you.”
Max fingers curled and uncurled. “Maybe she’s playing hard to get?”
Her skeptical expression deepened. “Maybe.”
They slowed as they reached the edge of the sand, where the dunes flattened and tall, reedy grasses took over before the pines closed in. Max had always liked this end of the beach. Not as crowded, and easier to hear the waves.
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