Sweet Forgiveness

by Jean Oram

  “I can stay in a different one,” Ashton said quickly, unsure of what was going on.

  “We’re completely booked up,” Dallas said calmly. “It’s the only one I could give him long-term,” he said to Zoe. “I’m sorry, but you know our deal. I was going to tell you—”

  “It’s fine!” Her spine straightened with an alarming ferocity as she stood, her cheeks a bright red.

  She glared at Ashton. “Your cottage will be ready in an hour.”

  As she stormed off, she sent Dallas a parting glare, as well.

  Ashton wasn’t sure if the fact that she was talking to him again was progress, or simply the first of many nails waiting to be banged into his coffin.

  Zoe shoved her belongings into the boxes she’d brought to the old, purple cottage two weeks ago.

  How had she managed to transport and unpack so much in such little time? Everything was most definitely not going to fit into her adorable VW bug. There was no way. It had been shortsighted of her to have settled in despite knowing she could be turfed out at a moment’s notice.

  She sat heavily on the bed and fought tears.

  She’d been turfed out by Ashton. Ashton and his wife.

  And he’d come bearing a cinnamon bun from Sweet Caroline’s.

  A cinnamon bun, of all things! It was like he was trying to drive that wedge he’d placed in her heart all the way through. To remind her of what they’d once had before he’d gotten married.

  She flopped backward on the mattress, bouncing lightly and upsetting her cat Binx, who stalked to her pillow, curling into a black ball.

  Why had Ashton come back? Why here? Why now? He hadn’t acted as though he believed the treat would make everything okay. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself, because she wasn’t forgiving him. He was like every other man she’d ever dated. He’d gone running for the hills—or in this case, the city—when she’d revealed the depths of her feelings, and the length of her intended commitment.

  Why had he looked so sad, though? So stressed, almost beaten? And it wasn’t just because of her rejection.

  If he’d been any other man she would have brought him home and whipped up some comfort food—her grandmother’s fried chicken, maybe, and an apple pie.

  But he was Ashton and he didn’t deserve a thing from her. Other than to fulfill her job of tending to his and his wife’s needs as resort guests. And as a thank-you, she’d be treated to seeing them walking around hand in hand, kissing and laughing. All those things she used to do with Ashton, and had once believed she’d be doing for a lifetime.

  She was going to throw up. Zoe moaned and rolled to a sitting position, letting the emotion fall away as she started packing again.

  What did Ashton’s wife look like, act like? And why did her husband seem so darn sad? What had happened to him? And why had he chosen to come here, of all places—the resort where she worked?

  Zoe thought about Dallas’s claim that there was more to Ashton’s story, as well as the reason he’d gone from one commitment to the next so quickly and unexpectedly. Maybe she hadn’t been moving fast enough for him.

  She let out a snort of disbelief. Not likely!

  Anyway, it didn’t matter. She had her own life, and he had his. She also had a cottage to clean for him and his perfect little wife, and less than an hour to do it, which so wasn’t happening.

  How much vacation time did she have saved up? Maybe she could run away like he had. Make up an excuse and go visit someone. Someone who didn’t mind her bringing along five felines.

  Zoe began shoving things into boxes again, half tempted to inconvenience Ashton and his bride by taking her time.

  There was a knock at the door and she scrambled to wipe her damp eyes while hopscotching her way through the strewn boxes scattered over the wood floor. As she passed, Houdini, a gray tabby, hopped out of her open suitcase and dived into a cardboard box, then back out again when he discovered it was already occupied by a calico named Pandora.

  The door swung open and for a moment Zoe thought it might be Vicky, the bartender from the resort’s Tiki Hut bar, coming to help before her shift started. The cottages were like their own community, and info traveled faster than a pelican gave in to gravity when a fish was within its sights in the waters below. Maybe Vicky’s landlord had let up on his no-cats rule and had an apartment Zoe could rent for a few weeks.

  She caught sight of the person who’d entered. It wasn’t Vicky. It was Ashton. His moves were fluid as he slipped inside, closing the door behind him and blocking Houdini just in time. He’d remembered the cat’s escape abilities, something many of her friends often forgot or underestimated.

  Zoe both loved and hated that he remembered.

  He was the kind of man any woman would marry if given the chance.

  She hadn’t been given that chance, but someone else had.

  She turned away, swallowing her bitterness. He still looked amazing. Forty-three, fit and…well, sad. His shoulders were sloped as though he was carrying a great load.

  “I’ll be out of here soon,” Zoe said, grabbing a stack of books from the Christmas library sale off her dining room table. They hadn’t been damaged in the flood, but she’d ended up hauling them here as though she’d expected them to become ruined if left behind. She didn’t have anywhere to dump the books and set them down again.

  “Margie at the desk told me your place flooded, and that you’ve been living here. I came to tell you not to pack. I’ll stay at a hotel.”

  Mishka, normally an aloof puss, was rubbing against his legs, purring so loudly Zoe could hear it from across the room. Ashton reached down to scratch the cat behind the ears while Zoe kept packing.

  Realizing she’d scooped up a pile of lingerie she’d laid out over the back of the couch to dry, she tossed the load into a suitcase at her feet, disturbing her overweight cat, Tiny, who tore through the room, the strap of a red lace bra caught around his neck. He tripped on the bra’s cup, somersaulting before taking off again.

  “Are you sure?” she asked Ashton. Finding somewhere that would take her and the cats wouldn’t be easy.

  “Yeah. It’s just for a few months.”

  “A few months?” she asked weakly.

  “I’ll be filling in for a maternity leave at the elementary school starting in late August. I’m here until early November and I couldn’t find any short-term leases.”

  I. Not we.

  Was he divorced?

  And if he was, did it matter?

  She sighed and looked around the cottage. Nobody decent would let him stay in a hotel for four to five months, not when her boss could rent out the place she was squatting in. And anyway, summer was upon them and the rates were about to go through the roof. He needed to lock in a good deal now.

  “You can’t afford a hotel for that long,” she said. He should stay here.

  “Says who?”

  “Is your wife rich? Or have they suddenly decided to pay teachers a whole lot more than they used to?” She ignored the way he’d flinched when she’d said “wife,” and began stuffing possessions into boxes again. In the spare room she could hear scuffling, and she made a clicking noise to call whatever cat was no doubt destroying something she couldn’t afford to replace.

  The sound turned to choking.

  Ashton was at the bedroom door before she could get there.

  Tiny’s back legs were scrambling for purchase on the wood floor, while the rest of him was hidden from view, caught behind the five-foot-wide wardrobe. The sound was coming from him.

  Ashton reached the wardrobe first, and then Zoe fell to her knees beside it, trying to free the strangling cat, which was twisting and turning, obviously stuck. Ashton gripped the wardrobe, heaving it away from the wall one inch at a time. Its wooden feet screeched against the floor, panicking Tiny and causing the bra strap around his neck to cinch tighter as he tried to pull away.

  “The strap’s caught.” Zoe reached beyond the writhing animal, a claw digging
into her gut as she stretched to unhook the brassiere from the wardrobe’s loose backing. But it was caught near the middle and her arm wasn’t long enough to unhook it.

  Then Ashton was leaning over her, his solid form pressing down on her as he reached through the gap between wardrobe and wall, freeing the garment. He smelled so familiar, and evoked such fond, warm memories, that her heart stung with loss.

  Tiny, now released, turned and tore between Zoe’s knees, the bra still wrapped around his neck.

  “Catch him!” she called, scrambling backward.

  Ashton took off after the cat, and by the time Zoe untangled herself and caught up with them he was on his belly, arms under the couch, gently talking to Tiny as he dragged him out of his hiding spot. The cat resisted, sinking his claws into Ashton’s skin. Zoe winced, but Ashton remained calm as he continued to talk soothingly to the fat ball of fur wrapped around his hand.

  Zoe moved forward and the cat hissed and writhed, making Ashton’s job of unwinding the bra strap harder. She halted in her tracks as he gently untwisted the fabric. Tiny, free once again, set off across the room, sending an empty box flying that Pandora promptly jumped into.

  Ashton sat back on his heels, the sadness in his eyes seeming so much larger in the shadows of her small living room.

  “Your hands are a mess,” she announced. And you’re holding my favorite bra. A bra he’d purchased for her, in fact.

  He looked down at his bleeding wrists, seeming almost resigned to the pain. Noticing he was still holding the lacy piece of lingerie, he carefully set it aside, the sorrow in his eyes deepening.

  Zoe hurried to the bathroom to wet a facecloth and gather what would do as a first aid kit. She returned to find Tiny sitting in a midafternoon sunbeam in her bedroom doorway, furiously licking his ruffled fur as though nothing life threatening had happened only moments ago, and he was merely miffed at his disheveled state.

  Ashton had gone to the small kitchen and was running water over his wounds. He was different than the man she’d so quickly fallen in love with a year ago, and despite not wanting to, she found herself wondering what he’d been through, what his life was like now. Her best guess was that marriage wasn’t suiting him. Did that mean she’d dodged a bullet?

  “Thank you for saving Tiny,” she said, as she drew one of Ashton’s hands out from under the water and inspected it. His arm was warm and strong. Some of the cuts were still bleeding and she focused on them rather than the way it felt to be touching him, standing so close to him. If she could forgive the past she’d consider doing so for the sake of their former friendship.

  She shook herself. What was she thinking? He’d broken her heart. She couldn’t be friends with him after that.

  Plus he was married. Wives didn’t like their husband’s ex-girlfriends hanging around. And ex-girlfriends didn’t like wives who’d stolen away their man.

  “It must sting,” she said briskly, refocusing on the task before her. He didn’t need stitches, but the scratches were definitely going to hurt for some time. He stood patiently, allowing her to dry his hands, then doctor him up, applying a healing cream that would also help disinfect the claw marks. She smoothed bandages over the worst of them as they talked.

  “Is Tiny okay?” he asked.

  “I think so.”

  “It doesn’t make sense for you to move out.”

  “It doesn’t make sense for you to stay in a hotel.” She saw him glance toward the second, currently vacant bedroom. “No.”

  “Why not?” he asked quietly.

  “Because you’re married!”

  He shook his head. “I’m not.” There was that sadness again, as well as something else. Anger?

  “You said—”

  “I’m no longer married,” he stated rather sharply.

  Why did that small fact take the fight out of her? And why did she feel relieved, of all things?

  “And so now you’re back.” She looked up at him, trying to find her old anger, allow it to take root again and protect her, battle the curiosity and hope that had come—unwelcomed—out of left field.

  Just because he was divorced didn’t mean she was ready to forgive him, as well as overlook the way he’d hurt her.

  “I’m back for now,” he said.

  “And expecting what?”

  “I have no expectations, but I hope to mend fences. I owe you so much more than a simple apology.”

  She studied him for a long moment, his bandaged hand still in hers. She knew he meant every word. It was written in the resolve of his gaze, the tight, determined lines of his jaw. His peace offering of a cinnamon bun had been just that. As was his offer to stay in a hotel.

  Genuine.

  And the worst part was that she not only believed him, but she wanted to soften and forgive him. Just a little bit.

  “I’m not ready to accept an apology.” He’d made his choice when he’d married someone else. Zoe dropped her gaze to the bandages crisscrossing his skin. She released her grip on him and stuck her hands in the tiny back pockets of her dress pants, then took a step back.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “So now what?”

  “Now I try to make it up to you.”

  “I don’t think I want that.” She took another step back, but sent a cautious glance his way. His eyes were remorseful, full of sadness and longing.

  Was it possible she’d somehow caused that sadness?

  She shook the thought from her mind. He’d brought it upon himself, and letting him edge his way back into her life would only lead to more pain. And she’d had more than her fair share of that when it came to love.

  Chapter 2

  Ashton crawled out of the tent he’d pitched behind Zoe’s cottage. They’d gone round and round about how to sort out their accommodation problem until finally they’d come to a temporary agreement. He’d camp out in her tent while trying not to suffocate in the humidity and pressing heat, and she and the cats would keep the cottage until they found a more permanent solution. Neither would tell Dallas, since technically Ashton was paying to stay inside the abode, and Zoe would likely get chewed out by her boss for ousting a paying guest.

  Yes, Ashton was paying cottage rental rates to sleep in a stuffy old tent. He shook his head in amusement. He was really reaching, and that desperate for any softening from Zoe.

  He peeled the bandages off his cat scratches and sat in the cold sand, squinting at the sliver of ocean visible from his spot, waiting for the sun to crawl higher in the sky before he went into the cottage to have a shower.

  The beach and dunes surrounding him had a surreal glow, and in the distance a sailboat floated by. An early riser out enjoying the calm waters.

  He sure could go for a coffee.

  Ashton glanced over his shoulder. The cottage’s lights were still off, so he rolled up the tent and sleeping bag, tucked them on the porch, then pulled a ball cap over his bed head and made his way to Sweet Caroline’s for breakfast and coffee.

  As he approached the blue awning above the café’s picture window, he inhaled deeply, catching a hint of the bracing aroma of roasted coffee beans. When he entered, Caroline, a woman in her late fifties, glanced up, breaking into a smile of recognition.

  “Look who the cat dragged in. Ashton Wallace! Didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “You’re as pretty as ever,” he told her.

  She waved off the compliment. “How long are you here for?”

  “November. I’m filling in for Sandra at the elementary school.”

  “I heard a rumor you were in yesterday buying a cinnamon bun. Who’d you share it with?” She gave him a sly look. She knew last summer’s routine, where he’d stop in at two forty-five to purchase a pastry to share with Zoe during her coffee break.

  “My peace offering was rejected.”

  Caroline placed a palm over her heart and frowned sympathetically. “Well, these things take time.” Then she dropped her hands on her hips, her sympathy gon
e. “Besides, I heard you went and got married.”

  She wasn’t impressed with him and there was no doubt as to why—he and Zoe had seemed like a sure thing. So sure that he hadn’t quite believed the quick change in his life last August when he’d found himself wed to someone else. The year and a half he’d lived in Indigo Bay had been the best he’d ever spent, and the town had felt like home. However, he wasn’t sure the community would welcome him back. When you walked out on a hometown gal, people didn’t take too kindly to you. No matter what your reasons were or how valid they felt at the time.

  “I did,” he said, in answer to her statement.

  “And?”

  “I’m widowed.”

  Caroline tilted her head to the side in sympathy. “Well, bless your heart, sweet pea. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  The loss of his wife wasn’t the worst of what Ashton had been through since he’d been away, and his anger surfaced once again, like an old unwanted friend. Although maybe that didn’t make it a friend.

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t tell Miss Lucille about your new status,” Caroline teased gently. “She’d love nothing more than to match you up with her great-niece Maggie, who must be close to faking a husband by now just to dodge her aunt’s persistent matchmaking.”

  Caroline didn’t ask for details about Ashton’s late wife, but he could see the questions in her eyes. What had happened? Why had he married her? Why had he broken Zoe’s heart? Had Zoe been the woman on the side? But the biggest question was why he’d returned.

  “You and I will talk later,” Caroline promised, as another customer came in, a local officer who’d once pulled Ashton over for speeding to the cottages with a cinnamon bun the day he’d got caught up in a good mystery and had forgotten the time.

  “Good morning, Caroline,” Officer Ben Andrews said, nodding a hello to Ashton. Caroline began fixing the man’s coffee to go without being asked. “Do you know who owns a late model Ford Escape? Black. Tinted windows.”

  “Tinted windows? Not Tandy from the cottages then.” She twisted her lips in thought. “Out of towner?”