“Where do I come in?” Ashley asked, aware that beside her Cal seemed to be relaxing. Maybe because the attention was no longer on him or whatever it was he and his mother had been discussing when she interrupted?
Helen continued, “I was wondering if you would agree to be here on call for any emergency, during the ceremony and the reception. Emma and I would rest easier knowing there was an Ob/Gyn on the premises. You know how stressful weddings are. And how emotional brides can be, under ordinary circumstances.”
“That I do,” Ashley said, recalling the hoopla surrounding their own ceremony.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ashley could see Cal had a funny look on his face. Why, she couldn’t imagine. Struggling to keep her mind on the conversation at hand, Ashley asked, “Who is her regular obstetrician, do you know?”
“Carlotta Ramirez. I would ask her to be here on standby but I know she is stretched pretty thin as it is with a husband and three kids and a solo medical practice.”
Unlike me, who has way too much time on my hands at the moment, Ashley thought. “I’d be happy to do this for you.”
“Thank you.” Helen released her breath. Looking relieved, she hastened to add, “The Inn would pay you your hourly rate, of course.”
Ashley lifted a hand. This was family. “You don’t have to do that, Helen.”
“I insist. If we take your time, we compensate you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel right about it.” Helen rose. “Polly and her fiancé are with Emma right now. Would you like to meet them?”
Ashley stood, too. “Absolutely.”
Helen looked at Cal, wordlessly inquiring if he wanted to tag along. “I’ve got to get back to the hospital,” he said, rolling slowly to his feet. As Helen and Cal’s glances collided, something unspoken passed between them that left Ashley feeling out of the loop.
Her heart aching that the distance between them would rear its head again now, Ashley forced herself once again to pretend she had noticed nothing amiss.
Relaxing slightly, Cal turned to Ashley and bussed her cheek. “I’ll meet you at home tonight, okay?” he said as he squeezed her shoulder.
Ashley nodded. She wondered, even as he was walking off down the hall, what he and his mother weren’t telling her.
“SOMETHING SURE smells good,” Cal said when he walked into the house shortly after seven o’clock.
Ashley looked up from the vegetables she was sautéing on the stove. Amazing how her heart could still leap when he entered a room. “Better than the chili and French fries, hmm?” she said, taking in his work appearance. She had gotten so used to seeing him in vacation attire or nothing at all, she had nearly forgotten how good he looked in a coordinating shirt and tie and dress slacks.
“Like you said.” Cal wrapped his hands around her waist and brought her close for a long, thorough kiss the moment he had his brown leather jacket off. His face and lips bore the cold of the winter air outside, and the combination of cool lips and hot wet tongue sent a ribbon of desire spiraling through her. His gray eyes glimmered with affection as he gazed raptly down at her, and murmured seductively, “An interesting choice for an interesting woman with a hankering.” He bent his head to kiss her again just as the phone rang.
Heart pounding, Ashley slipped from the warm cradle of his arms. Much more of this and she’d forget why she had felt it so important they spend their time talking and working out their problems instead of making love. “Saved by the bell,” she said breathlessly as Cal went to answer it.
He grinned in a way that let her know she wasn’t off the hook—yet. “Cal Hart,” he spoke into the receiver. His smile fading, he said with careful politeness, “Yes, she is. Just a moment, please.”
He handed the phone to her. “It’s Dr. Connelly from Hawaii.”
Ashley’s mentor in the fellowship program.
If ever they needed a reality check, this was it.
Aware her husband no longer looked as happy as he had when he’d walked in the door and found her in the kitchen—barefoot and, unbeknownst to him, pregnant!—Ashley took the receiver from Cal. Already tensing, her spine ramrod straight, she walked into the dining room to finish the conversation. When she returned, Cal was standing at the stove, stirring the vegetables Ashley had forgotten about. He had a stoic expression on his face that pretty much matched the abrupt change in Ashley’s mood. “So, what’s up?” he said, looking at the stove, rather than Ashley.
Ashley moved to take over the cooking duties once again. “Dr. Connelly wanted to know if I was going to take the Maui clinic job.”
“And…?” Cal’s fingers brushed hers as he handed over the spatula.
Ashley tried not to make too much of the implacable look in his eyes or his newly subdued mood. “I told her I hadn’t made up my mind yet, but I was leaning against it.”
Cal’s expression didn’t change. He regarded Ashley cautiously. “And her response was?”
“Unhappy,” Ashley admitted, wishing she and Cal had just let the phone ring and kept right on kissing.
Cal’s eyes narrowed. “Does that surprise you?”
Ashley shook her head, guilt flowing through her anew. “She pulled a lot of strings to get me nominated for the position.” In her mentor’s mind, in a lot of people’s minds, Ashley was indebted to her for the opportunity, and she should take it and make everyone who had helped train her proud.
Cal loosened his tie and the first two buttons of his starched gray-and-white striped shirt. “What changed your mind?”
Ashley watched him pull out a beer and twist off the cap. “You. This.” The prospect of—if everything went all right this time—having your baby. She swallowed hard around the growing ache in her throat. “I don’t think I want to be so far away from you again.”
Cal met her gaze, held it until the familiar mixture of sadness and resentment appeared. “I don’t want that, either,” he said, very softly.
The phone rang again. Cal sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to answer that.” But he did because it might be one of his patients or the hospital calling. He picked up the phone, listened and smiled broadly. “Hey, Carlotta. Sure you can talk to Ashley. She’s right here.” He handed the phone over.
While Cal sipped his beer and sorted through the mail, Ashley listened to Carlotta’s dilemma. “Of course. I’d be glad to help. No, it’s not a problem. I’ve got the morning free. The afternoon, too. Okay. I’ll see you at seven.” She hung up and turned to Cal. He was watching her, an expectant look on his ruggedly handsome face. “Carlotta and Mateo’s nanny, Beatrice, had a family emergency. She’s boarding a plane to Denver as we speak. They can’t find anyone to stay with the kids tomorrow. So I said I’d help out.”
“That was nice of you.” Cal wrapped an arm around her shoulder and brought her back, so she was cuddled against his body.
“After all she did for me in med school, I owe her. Besides,” Ashley shrugged, “how hard can it be?”
Chapter Seven
“I don’t like broccoli. And neither do Lizbet or Lorenzo,” ten-year-old Juan told Ashley at five o’clock the next evening.
It had never occurred to Ashley that the three Ramirez kids wouldn’t like broccoli. She had always loved the nutrient-filled veggie.
Aware she was in way over her head, Ashley did her best to hide her frustration as she regarded them all gently. “Well, how about corn then? Or green beans? No? Brussel sprouts? Um….” Suppressing a beleaguered sigh, Ashley scanned the contents of the freezer section, then turned to the refrigerator. “Carrots? Celery sticks?”
She struck out on all counts.
Juan regarded her glumly. “When is Beatrice coming back?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Ashley said honestly. Like her three charges, she wished the Ramirez’s nanny was there.
“I miss her!” Five-year-old Elizabetta burst into tears. Two-year-old Lorenzo joined in.
Ashley picked up Lorenzo and placed him on her hip, but her soothing had no eff
ect.
Juan pinched his nostrils shut. “That—” he pointed to the sweet-and-sour chicken simmering on the stove “—smells yucky, too!”
Elizabetta cried harder.
Ashley turned the controls on the burners to the off position and sat down at the kitchen table. She put the toddler on one leg, and helped his wailing sister climb onto the other. “There, there, now,” she comforted both Lorenzo and Elizabetta as best she could, aware she had never failed so badly at anything in her entire life.
“I’ll get it!” Juan shouted.
“Get what?” Ashley asked, unable to hear anything above the din of crying children.
“The door!” Juan shouted, already racing off.
“No, Juan, let me answer it!” Ashley said, struggling to get up.
As she moved, the kids cried even harder, and Elizabetta clung to Ashley, refusing to be put on the floor. By the time Ashley reached the foyer, Juan already had the front door wide open, and Cal was walking in, his strong male presence like a port in the storm, two big sacks from a popular fast-food restaurant in his arms. Juan looked as though he’d just been saved from a fate worst than death by the handsome surgeon. Ashley couldn’t blame Juan; she felt the same way. She couldn’t recall ever having a more miserable day. Not because she didn’t like kids—she did. But because they seemed to sense they were in the hands of a rank amateur and were reacting accordingly. In their place, she would have wanted her parents and/or nanny, too.
Cal set the bags on the table. Pausing only long enough to brush a kiss across Ashley’s brow, he reached for Elizabetta and cradled her in his big strong arms. He looked down at her tenderly and smiled. As their eyes met, Elizabetta’s misery began to fade. “Do you know anybody who likes French fries?” Cal asked her gently.
Elizabetta stopped crying as abruptly as she had started. She remained still as Cal used a tissue to wipe away her tears. “Me,” she sniffed. “And Lorenzo, too.”
“And me, of course!” Juan hustled to get the ketchup from the refrigerator.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” Ashley told Cal as Elizabetta and Juan scrambled to take their seats at the kitchen table. But she was very glad he had come.
“Carlotta and Mateo are both going to be late tonight—Mateo’s in surgery as we speak, and Carlotta’s delivering a baby. So I told ’em I’d come over and give you a hand until one of them got home.”
Cal settled Lorenzo in the high chair and gave him a potato wedge cut into toddler-size pieces to keep him busy. In short order, they had plates for all three kids with chicken nuggets, applesauce from the fridge and fries.
“It didn’t occur to me you would already have started dinner,” Cal said, eyeing what was on the stove with interest while Ashley poured the milk.
“The kids eat early.” Or at least that was what Juan had told her. Ashley peered into the sack to see what else Cal had brought. “And for the record, it wasn’t a very popular menu,” she told him dryly. “So what would you like to eat? Grilled chicken salad or what’s on the stove?”
“What’s on the stove looks awfully good to me.” Cal helped Elizabetta put more ketchup on her plate.
Ashley served them both and sat down across from Cal at the table.
It was amazing how calm the kids were in Cal’s presence, and that tranquility continued throughout the evening. “You were wonderful with them,” a relieved Ashley said, once all three children were in bed, asleep. She and Cal settled in front of the TV.
“So were you.” He brought her into the curve of his arm and looked over at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Not before you got here,” Ashley lamented, exhausted. Then, it had been nothing but chaos and disaster, despite her very best efforts. “Lorenzo never did take a nap.” Every time she had tried to put him down, he had just sobbed until she wanted to cry, too.
Cal shrugged, experienced enough to be unconcerned. “Lorenzo was probably just upset because Beatrice wasn’t here. Kids get used to their routines. And that’s especially true for the little ones.”
Ashley rested her palm on his thigh. His muscles felt warm and strong beneath the fine fabric of his dress pants. “How did you know what they would want to eat?”
Cal shrugged and covered her fingers with his own. “Everybody knows that…”
“Except me,” Ashley sighed. Was she going to be this bad at mothering their baby? Was what had happened before somehow a harbinger of that?
Cal noted her distress. He paused and started over, this time a lot more carefully. “I baby-sat my siblings a lot when I was a kid. And I’ve taken care of my nephew Christopher, too, since Janey moved back here. From what I’ve been able to see, French fries, chicken nuggets and applesauce are always a hit with kids of any age. And if it’s from a chain restaurant with a trademark clown, even better.”
“So how come I didn’t know that?” Was she always going to screw up when it came to family matters, whether it be marriage or children or in-laws or her parents? Was her only real success going to be in medicine?
He gave her a look that warned her not to indulge in self-pity. “You’ve been around kids.”
“Sure, on my pediatrics rotation in med school. And—to a certain extent—in the delivery room. But I realized today I still don’t know anything about caring for them in their normal environment.”
“You didn’t baby-sit as a kid?”
“My parents wouldn’t let me. They said it wasn’t a good use of my time. They wanted me home, studying. And of course I didn’t have any sibs, or even any cousins, since I was the child of two only children, so…today was just…”
“What?”
Difficult, Ashley wanted to say. Very difficult. But couldn’t. Not given the fact she was about to become a mother herself. Feeling jittery, Ashley got up and headed for the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Cal said from the sofa.
“To clean up,” Ashley called from the kitchen.
He followed. “There’s nothing to clean up in here.”
Ashley wiped down the table and counters again, anyway. Cal put his hands on her shoulders, forced her to look at him. “Are you okay?” he repeated, looking into her eyes.
No, I’m not okay. I’m pregnant and I’m scared to death I am somehow going to screw up again, Ashley was about to say. And that was when Carlotta and Mateo Ramirez both walked in.
CARLOTTA SMILED and cocked her head, listening. “It’s blissfully quiet in here.”
Mateo nodded. The accomplished surgeon looked as beat as his obstetrician wife. “Kids asleep?”
“Fed, bathed and down for the night,” Cal said. As glad as he was to have the kids’ parents home, he wished they hadn’t chosen that particular moment to walk in the house. Cal had the feeling Ashley had been on the verge of telling him something important that might explain her jitteriness whenever the subject of kids came up.
Before they had married, she had been all for having a big family. That had changed the first summer of their marriage. Why exactly, he still didn’t know.
“We owe you both tons,” Carlotta continued as she hung up her coat.
Mateo nodded. “Carlotta and I didn’t realize how much we relied on Beatrice until last night.”
“How long is Beatrice going to be gone?” Cal asked, curious.
“Three weeks. So I was wondering…” Carlotta paused, drew a breath and looked Ashley straight in the eye. “I know you’re supposed to be taking a much-needed rest before you begin job-hunting in earnest, but would it be possible for you to continue helping me out?”
Beside him, Cal felt Ashley tense. He did the same. He didn’t want Ashley spending all her time over here. Not when they still had so much to work out, and relatively little time in which to do it.
“You mean baby-sit?” Ashley asked.
Cal applauded the lack of emotion in his wife’s voice.
“No. I think we’ve got that part worked out,” Carlotta smiled. “I’
ve found a friend to take Lorenzo during the day for me, another to take Elizabetta after kindergarten. But I’m really going to have to be here in the late afternoon and evening to cook dinner, help with homework, and ride herd on baths and bedtime. But with a full patient load now, I can’t just close the office at two-thirty or three every afternoon.”
Cal began to see where this was going.
“You want me to help out at the office?” The tension left her body. Ashley grinned at the suggestion.
Carlotta nodded. “I’d love it if you could do the afternoon office hours and take calls for me one night a week. I’ll do the other two nights, and my call partners will do the rest. It would help me out enormously.”
“Not to mention show me what it’s like to work in a small private practice here in Holly Springs,” Ashley said.
“Then you’ll do it?” Carlotta asked hopefully.
Ashley nodded, smiled. “With pleasure.”
CAL’S HOPES to pick up their conversation where they left off were dashed by a series of phone calls from the hospital and Ashley’s fatigue. Tuesday evening all Ashley wanted to talk about was what she had done at work that day. Cal had been only too eager to listen. He loved Ashley in doctor mode and he wanted her to settle down in Holly Springs with him more than anything. On Wednesday they were supposed to have lunch before she began afternoon office hours for Carlotta, but he ended up in surgery instead. That night he was home, but she was on call, and spent most of the night at the hospital, delivering twins. Thursday afternoon was his scheduled time off, so he went home early, changed clothes and went for a run. He had just gotten back to the farmhouse when he heard a car pulling into the drive. Bottle of water in hand, Cal went to the front window and then stepped out onto the porch to greet their visitor.
Her Secret Valentine Page 8
