He smiled, her dainty face only inches away. “Hardly. I’d like just to work in Concord and help out the people I know.”
She wiggled closer, her smell intoxicating. Lately, he even savored it when she wasn’t around. She kissed him again. Longer and harder than the first time.
“You know I love you.” Her voice was matter-of-fact.
“No… I didn’t know that.”
“You should.”
He wasn’t even sure what love meant. He certainly loved his mother and father, his aunts and uncles, his grandparents, and his cocker spaniel. A few girls he’d cared for, but he’d never really considered the depth of his feelings beyond that. Toward Ashley he certainly felt different. Something about her he couldn’t explain. Something he didn’t want to explain. But if love meant being able to speak his mind unabated, opening his heart, and not feeling ashamed about expressing genuine emotion, then maybe he might love Ashley Reed.
He kissed her again.
“I ought to kick your ass,” Ashley said, when they parted. “You’ve been home a whole day and not even one phone call.”
He smiled. She was as light as ever, her smell still familiar, a faint floral scent, like roses and jasmine combined. “I didn’t know postal regulations allowed wearing perfume.”
“I wore it for you. Figured I’d see you before the day was through.”
“You know you’re nothing but trouble.”
“Trouble you can’t live without.”
“You’re cocksure of yourself.”
She hopped down and stood on the street before him. “I’m staring forty-two dead down the barrel, but I’ve held up.”
She raised her arms and twirled around. Yes, she had. Same happy eyes. Cheerleader freckles. And honey-colored hair cut boyishly short. She didn’t look a whole lot different from when she used to flit down the halls of Woods County High, turning every head along the way. That, and later visions of her, had stayed with him for years. Now the apparition was live flesh and bones standing before him.
She stepped back close to the open car door. The smell returned, as certain as a new car and equally appealing. “I want you, Brent.”
And, God help him, he wanted her too.
But the guilt from Paula still haunted him. He heard again what she said the last day of her life. “You love her? Don’t you?” But before he could feel any worse, Ashley kissed him again, then asked, “So when do you plan to ask me out all proper and all?”
He smiled. Not a thing bashful about her. He vividly recalled the time, not long after college graduation, when they’d first made love. In Eagle Lake. Thrashing around like fish in heat. He’d worried the whole time someone would come along and catch them.
“You going to give me a chance to get situated?” he asked.
“Not much of one.”
Hell, what choice did he have? And did he really want one? “How about lunch tomorrow?”
“You got it.”
She backed away. “Right now, I gotta tend to my route. If I stay much longer we may end up in the back of that van.” A twinkle in her eye accompanied the observation. “No lunch break today. I’m getting off early. Papa Evans is going to be buried at two.”
“I heard Mr. Evans died.”
“He was old and frail. No surprise, really. But still awful. Gary asked me to go. He’s ripped up.”
Gary Evans had been her third husband, his father, Fred, her father-in-law for the short time that the marriage lasted. Papa was the nickname, though, everyone called him.
They talked a few minutes more, then she kissed him goodbye and drove off in the van. He hated to see her go.
She made him feel so good.
And so guilty.
