Ashlyn's Radio (14 page)

With that, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, this time with unmistakable heat and hunger. When he released her long moments later, her body felt tight and restless with yearning. And her brain? Totally, gloriously giddy!

“Okay, get out of here,” he growled. “It’s getting late, and I need to see you safely inside before I can hop on my bike and go home.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll be over to help with the dogs.”

“Perfect.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes to press another quick kiss to his mouth, then turned and walked toward the house.

There was a stirring in the kennels, but then she heard Caden’s voice soothing the dogs.

Shifting her focus to the job ahead — how to get into the house undetected — Ashlyn scanned the first floor windows. The two on the porch seemed the most likely, since she could step right in through them, rather than trying to hoist herself up from ground level. One fronted onto the living room, but that was too close to Maudette’s bedroom for Ashlyn’s comfort. The other would deposit her in the seldom-used dining room. So seldom used, she couldn’t remember what furniture might be sitting in front of or near the window.

Then a thought occurred to her — was the door unlocked? Ashlyn couldn’t recall whether Maudette’s nightly routine included locking up. It would have been automatic in Toronto, but here? Who knew? The doors seemed to be the same vintage as the windows, so maybe they didn’t even
have
locks to worry about. It was worth a try. She’d hate to scramble in through a window, possibly knocking something over in the process, when she could just walk through the door.

She climbed the steps and glided over to the door. The screen door opened with only the smallest of squeaks. She grasped the knob of the main door and it turned under her hand. Bless you, Maudette!

A second later, she was inside. She’d expected to find the place in darkness, but there was a muted light emanating from the kitchen. Closing the door softly, she started toward the stairs but her steps faltered when she realized where the light was likely coming from.

The basement.

Crap! The house was silent now, but had it been earlier? Was Maudette down there?

Ashlyn stood there, torn. The two things she did
not
want to see — or hear — right now were her grandmother and that stupid radio. Plus Caden was no doubt waiting to see her bedroom light come on. But she couldn’t just go to bed without investigating. What if Maudette were down there, distraught? Or, oh God, what if she’d had a heart attack or something? She’d been so upset last time….

Crap, crap, crap.

She turned and tiptoed through the kitchen to the basement door, which was ajar. Ashlyn stood there a moment listening, but could detect nothing but the ticking of the clock in the kitchen. Drawing a deep breath, she descended the first few steps silently. When she reached the fifth step, she crouched down to scan the area. Thank God! No one down there. The radio was silent. Moving carefully she retraced her steps and headed up to her room. In her haste to signal Caden, she forgot about the squeaky step and it groaned a protest under her weight. Ashlyn swore under her breath and kept going. Another few seconds and she was safely in her room again.

Quickly she moved to her desk and snapped on the small lamp, then moved to the window. She lifted a hand and waved. From the kennel came three flashes from Caden’s flashlight. Ashlyn grinned and turned away.

First order of business was to clear fake Ashlyn out of her bed so she could climb in. It took a minute to put things back to rights and another minute to strip off her clothes and pull on the long t-shirt she slept in. Another minute to dig through her bookbag for the Tylenol she kept there. Anxious to crawl under the blankets and relive those moments with Caden – not to mention get her weight off her sore knee – she dry swallowed the painkillers and reached to shut off the lamp. And froze.

There on the desk sat a large ring. A man’s ring. A man’s school ring, to be specific, vintage silver with a blue stone surrounded by the words, “Prescott Junction High School”. She picked it up and examined it, but even before she read the year on the ring and the “Patrick & Leslie Forever” engraved on the inside, she knew who it had belonged to. It was her father’s.

And Maudette had brought it up last night, probably as a peace offering after wrecking Ashlyn’s plans.

Ashlyn let out a groan.

I am so busted.

I
T WAS THE RING
that gave Ashlyn the idea. She’d turned her father’s class ring in her hand over and over again. She’d squeezed it tightly in her palm until the silver was warm. And, of course, she’d read the inscription at least a hundred times:
Patrick and Leslie forever.

Ashlyn had come down the stairs on Saturday morning nervously. Sheepishly. And wondering what Maudette would say about last night’s … er … covert exit from the house. She assumed she’d been caught sneaking out. Unless of course Maudette walked into her room in the dark, said nothing that required a response, and didn’t notice the Ashlyn-shaped lump on the bed wasn’t Ashlyn herself.

It
was
a possibility.

Yeah, Ash, and you go to bed every night with that Blue Jays tuque on your head — blue and white pom-pom sticking out for good luck.

Maudette was still sitting at the table when Ashlyn rounded the corner into the kitchen. Just crumbs on the plate in front of her, teacup held tightly in her hand. She didn’t look up at Ashlyn, or utter so much as a good morning.

Bad sign.

Ashlyn filled the kettle at the sink and set it on the stove, turning the burner to high. She plunked some bread in the toaster. By the time the toast popped and the water was ready for her instant coffee, Ashlyn couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Thanks for the ring,” she said. She set her breakfast on the table.

“Oh, you found it did you?” Maudette’s words were clipped.

“Yeah. First thing this morning.” She took a sip of her coffee.

“Just this morning, eh? Well, isn’t that something for a night owl like you.”

Ashlyn sputtered into her mug.

Well, was she caught or wasn’t she?

The chair scraped the floor as Maudette suddenly stood. Loudly, she tumbled her dishes into the sink and headed for the door, slamming it behind her as she went out to tend the dogs.

And thus began the quiet weekend at the Caverhill house.

Ashlyn had seen Caden on Saturday, of course. Unfortunately, Maudette had been out there in her kennel office the whole time. Ashlyn had pretty much wanted to corner Caden and kiss him again, but she’d had to content herself with heated looks and the occasional accidental/on purpose brush. The looks he sent back were equally hot, but he was much more circumspect about contact. By the time he left, they were both a little bothered. But in the nicest possible way.

But by late Sunday night, as she turned the ring to warmth again in her palm, the idea struck her like a
shoulda-had-a-V8
whap upside the head. She could actually access a picture of her father! And she didn’t have to beg anyone to get her hands on it.
Both
her parents would have attended Prescott Junction High, not just her cheerleader mother. Patrick and Leslie had been classmates! High school sweethearts. It was a pretty safe bet that she’d find their old yearbook tucked away in the school library. And just as soon as she could, she was going after it.

Monday took an eternity to arrive. Once she’d hatched the plan to find the yearbook, Ashlyn couldn’t sleep for excitement. She was finally going to get a look at her father she’d wished for all her life. So instead of sitting down to the blueberry muffins that Maudette had made the night before (pissed off or not, her grandmother was still making sure she ate well), Ashlyn grabbed an apple juice from the fridge, shoved a couple muffins in her pockets, and hustled down the tracks before most of the Junction was even stirring.

As she crossed the train bridge, a shudder came over her. One she honestly hadn’t expected to feel when she’d set out. The ghost train didn’t run during the day. Ever. That was the legend. So she wasn’t worried it would come steaming down the tracks. But there was no denying the memory of the terror she’d felt on Friday night, no dismissing how close she’d come to that soul-stealing conductor.

And yet, as she thought about it in the full light of day, she had to admit there’d been a strange, awe-inspiring beauty to the ghost train, just as Rachel had promised. A beauty that she didn’t claim to understand. Hell, that she didn’t
want
to come anywhere close to comprehending! But Rachel…. Man, she’d been so enraptured with it. Ashlyn could almost understand.

There were only a few cars in the lot when Ashlyn arrived at the school. Technically, it wasn’t open to students before eight o’clock, but no alarms sounded and no one stopped her as she slipped through the main door and scooted down the dim, locker-lined hallway to the library. She thought she heard the clicking of heels in at least one classroom, and she definitely smelled the faint trace of cigarette smoke — a total get-you-suspended no-no — from somewhere inside the building, so she knew she wasn’t alone.

As she approached the library’s long row of glass windows, she mentally chanted
, Be open, be open, be open.
The library didn’t open for service until lunch hour, but Ashlyn didn’t want to wait that long. She’d gone her entire life with no idea what her father looked like, and now the urgency was consuming her. Seventeen years she’d waited for this. Her Caverhill-green eyes she got from her mother’s side of the family, but did she get her blonde hair from her dad? What about her chin? Was it anything like his? Had Patrick Murphy been tall? Handsome? Ashlyn caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the library windows. How much of him was there in her face?

The library was in darkness, as was Ms. Degagne’s inner glassed-in office. It looked empty, which was exactly what it should be at this early hour, and the blue and white sign on the door was clearly flipped to ‘CLOSED.’

Well, you see, Ms. Degagne, I’m new here in Prescott Junction and….

Yeah, right. That should work about as well as all the other times she’d tried it. But when Ashlyn tried the door, it opened too easily and too quietly for her not to slip inside. Her footfalls were quiet down the carpet-covered library steps, and of course she had nothing on her to set off the alarms as she passed through the gates at the bottom. She stopped, and looked around, a happy little smile playing on her face. Truth was, she loved books. Always had. Just being surrounded by them was somehow oddly soothing to her.

Now, all she had to do was find the right stack for Prescott Junction yearbooks. Ashlyn stood there, thinking. The computers had been logged off for the weekend so she couldn’t access the catalogue that way. But it wasn’t like this was a huge library. In fact—

“Oh, that … that … sonofabitch!”

Ashlyn froze when she heard the muffled, blubbering curse. Her eyes darted to the small, glassed-in office, and more specifically, to Ms. Degagne behind her desk. The librarian sat there, the picture of misery, bent low over her desk, her head pillowed on her arms. Her small shoulders shook as she sobbed.

Oh, crap!

The phone rang, and Ashlyn dove for cover. Literally. Marco Scutero would have been proud of the way she dove and slid behind the nearest stack of books like she was going after a line drive in a pennant race. But oh, hell, it was a short stack! It came up only waist high with two useless globes and the school mascot — a large stuffed, green frog — resting on top. Ashlyn sat with her back up against the books, her heart hammering in her chest as Ms. Degagne came out of her office to answer the phone at the circulation desk on the second ring.

“H-h-hello?” Her voice was timid, yet hopeful.

Ashlyn listened. “Oh, Sis, it’s you. I … I thought it might be Anthony.”

There was a pause. Anthony, a.k.a. Mr. Berg. That’s who Ms. Degagne had been hoping to hear from. Desperately, judging by the sound of her voice. Suddenly, sneaking into the library in the early morning didn’t seem such a great idea after all. If Degagne caught her listening in to her private conversation, she’d be in serious trouble.

Ms. Degagne drew an audible breath. “Yes … yes, I told him. He was mad as hell. He even asked if it was
his
!” She wailed the indignation. “Like, who the hell else’s would it be? He’s the only man I’ve been with in like … forever!”

Oh. My. God.

Degagne was
pregnant
? Now Ashlyn
really
didn’t want to get caught.

Ashlyn, you idiot! In sheer frustration, she began thumping her head — softly and quietly — against the row of books behind her. Oddly, one particular book seemed to thump back.

Ashlyn twisted around to read the spine, and her eyes popped wide. This was it! This was the exact yearbook she’d come here looking for.