Her Secret Valentine

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Sentiment is one thing.”

  “Safety another.”

  He stirred the milk in the saucepan on the stove. “You want me to put some cocoa in this?”

  “Thanks, but the caffeine might keep me awake. If you want some, though—” Ashley knew Cal was no fan of plain warm milk.

  “How about a dash of vanilla then and a little bit of sugar?”

  “Okay.”

  He added both to the pan, then poured the steaming milk into two mugs and joined her at the kitchen table. Outside, it was still snowing.

  “There’s something that’s been bothering me. You remember that argument we had right before you accepted the fellowship in Hawaii?”

  How could she have forgotten? That had ranked as one of the lowest days of their entire marriage. “The one about me not wanting to have a baby until after I finished my fellowship and settled into a job?”

  Cal nodded. “I accused you of reneging on a pretty fundamental part of our marriage.”

  “It just wasn’t the right time.”

  “I know that now. It was unfair of me even to bring it up. I just want you to know I’m sorry for having said the things I did that day. For the record, I think you’d be a phenomenal mother. But if you decide that isn’t what you want, if you can’t do it all, I understand—because you are an incredible doctor. And someone with your gift should be practicing medicine.”

  Ashley’s heart began to pound. She regarded him warily. “You’re saying it’d be okay if I didn’t have a child?”

  Cal gestured offhandedly, then stood and went to the cupboards. He rummaged around until he found a box of vanilla shortbread cookies and brought them back to the table. “I’m saying that my rose-colored glasses are off. I’ve seen other two-physician families trying to juggle everything simultaneously. It’s not an easy road.” He paused. “So if medicine is all you feel you can realistically handle, then—” he swallowed, making light of the enormous sacrifice Ashley knew he was making “—I’m okay with that, too.”

  TWO AND A HALF YEARS before, fresh from a devastating loss she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to bear, never mind go through again, Ashley would have welcomed such a free pass from her husband.

  Now, full of hope and joy and fear once again, Ashley’s outlook was much different.

  But if the same thing happened that had happened before, if she found out she was flawed in some fundamental way, she was going to need Cal to keep thinking this way.

  Her feelings in turmoil, her knees shaking beneath the hem of her flannel night shirt, Ashley stood and went to the kitchen window. She looked outside, at the big white flakes still coming down from the sky. “I can’t believe it’s still snowing,” she murmured.

  She heard Cal push back his chair and close the distance between them. Standing behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her hair. “I love you,” he murmured softly.

  Tears filled Ashley’s eyes. “I love you, too.” She turned so she was facing him. Going up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his, the yearning to have nothing standing between them stronger than ever. “So very much…” Then his mouth was on hers in a kiss that was shattering in its possessiveness. He kissed her until desire streamed over her, until she was warm and safe, until she knew as well as he that their making love to each other again was inevitable.

  Ashley took Cal’s hand in hers. “Upstairs,” she murmured.

  He looked both disappointed they weren’t going to make love then and there—and intrigued to find out what was on her mind.

  Bypassing the guest room and the comfort of the master-bedroom, she led the way into the master bath. “The stipulation of only-in-the-dark has been lifted?” Cal asked hopefully.

  Her actions a lazy counterpoint to his, Ashley shook her head. “Not…exactly.” She led him into the shower/steam room big enough for two, and over to the long marble bench against one wall. Curling a hand around the swell of his bicep, she urged him to sit down in the center of it.

  He shifted so he could look up at her, his rock-hard thigh bumping up against her knee. “This is getting interesting,” Cal said.

  Ashley grinned. She needed something to get her mind off the nightmare she’d had. A little playtime was just the thing. “Stay right there,” she teased, aware just how easy it would be to get used to being with Cal like this and making love with him every night, instead of just every few weeks.

  “Believe me. I wouldn’t think of moving,” Cal drawled.

  Ashley sent Cal a coy look—glad to surprise him with something he desired for once—went back into the bedroom and returned with two candles. She set them on the long marble counter beside the sinks. Aware Cal was watching every move she made, his glance moving lazily over her newly voluptuous figure, she paused to light the candles and then turned off the overhead lights. The entire bath was ensconced in a mellow romantic glow. “Nice,” Cal murmured, his voice moving over her like a soft warm blanket.

  Ignoring the jump in her pulse—it wouldn’t do to get too excited too soon—Ashley grabbed a couple of bath sheets and stepped into the enclosed glass shower with him. She turned on the handheld showerhead, adjusted the water streaming out of it to a nice, warm temperature, then temporarily shut off the flow and moved toward him. She set the sprayer down on the bench next to him. “This has to come off.” She helped him out of his robe. “And this.” She knelt to ease his boxers down his legs.

  Cal shook his head in amusement. “How about you?” Looking ready to strip her down, too, he plucked at the hem of her nightshirt.

  Trying not to thrill at the possessiveness in his low voice, she disengaged his fingers from the soft cotton flannel. “’Fraid not.”

  “Ah.”

  “Trust me. In a few minutes you’ll forget all about wanting me naked.”

  “I don’t know that I’d bet on that,” Cal told her as she ran the sprayer over his body, wetting down his satiny, hard-muscled flesh.

  A sexy smile on her face, Ashley lathered up the sponge with his favorite soap. “Just relax.”

  “I hate to tell you, Ashley,” Cal said, looking all the more mesmerized by what she had planned for them, “but when you’re soaping me up where you’re currently soaping me up, I’m up not going to be relaxing anytime soon.”

  “You’re right.” She held the length of the most male part of him in her hand. Her confidence building, Ashley grinned. “You only seem to be getting more excited.”

  Cal groaned, this time making no effort to contain his pleasure.

  Ashley caressed him daringly. “Maybe I can do something to soothe you.”

  He made a sound that was part chuckle, part groan. Let his head fall back. “Much more of this and I’m going to be way ahead of us both.”

  Trying not to think about how his lips felt moving over hers, or how much she wished she could race on ahead of what she had planned and kiss him again, Ashley continued her pattern of lazily soaping and rinsing and flirted back instead, “So I’ll catch up.”

  Cal sighed, his expression one of pure ecstasy as she worked her way across his chest. He leaned closer, bringing with him the tantalizing fragrance of soap and damp masculine flesh. “You’re right about that.”

  Being careful not to get too close lest she lose her focus, Ashley had him lean forward, so she could do his back. “Meantime, I’m in the driver’s seat right now,” she said as she gently washed his broad shoulders and beautiful back. “So to speak.”

  Cal smiled at her in a way that could have inspired a thousand love songs. “Yes,” he said softly, “you certainly are.”

  Although she could tell that if he had his way it wouldn’t be for long.

  Her pulse racing, Ashley made her way back to the most intimate part of him again. As she lathered up his inner thighs, she could see him begin to throb in much the same way she had earlier. Pleased to have the same effect on him as he’d had on her, Ashley smiled in a way that raised the stakes another notch
“Close your eyes,” she instructed softly. I want to drive you wild.

  He shook his head and replied in a voice that sent shivers of awareness ghosting over her, “I think I’d rather watch.”

  Ashley felt her nipples tighten. And he hadn’t even touched her yet. Except with his eyes. She swallowed around the sudden tightening of her throat. Lower still, there was a sudden equally telling dampness between her thighs. “Okay, then.” Ashley backed up subtly, putting a tad more space between them. “Watch. Just let me do…what it is I want to do…”

  “All right,” he said as the air around them grew hot and steamy, and the air between them reverberated with excitement and escalating desire. “You win,” he said gruffly, teasing.

  When he could bear her torturous seduction no more, he pulled her against him. Mindful of her determination not to let him figure out what she had yet to tell him, Ashley reached beneath her nightshirt. She drew her panties down and off and then knelt astride him, one knee on the long bench on either side of them.

  Achingly aware of every hard, muscular inch of him, Ashley dropped her head, lowered her mouth to his and let him lead her where he wanted her to go. She whimpered as he delayed entering her and kissed her with a passion so hot it sizzled.

  One hand on her waist, holding her precisely where he yearned to have her, he used the other to stroke, touch, explore. She trembled and he kissed her again, taking her mouth in a caress that was so intimate it had not an ounce of restraint. Her skin grew hot and damp, and her thighs splayed to better accommodate his searching fingertips. Until her breath caught in her throat. “Cal, I can’t…”

  “I know,” he rasped back, leaving a trail of burning kisses across her neck. He cupped her breasts through the fabric of her nightshirt. “I feel the same…”

  And then she was whimpering again—this time in frustration, moving down onto him, taking the hot velvety length of him all the way inside her. His hands caught her hips, dictating the slow, sensual rhythm. Commanding everything she had to give, while at the same time giving back everything she had ever wanted, everything she had dreamed…

  Again and again, Ashley tempted and teased him, driving them both mad with desire. Withdrawing nearly all the way, then lowering again, closing tight. Until she was able to hear the soft, whimpering sounds in her throat, and the fiercer sounds in the back of his. Until sensations inside her ran riot, thrilling, enticing.

  Her spirits soared as he pressed into her as deeply as he could go, making her his, letting her know he was as wild for her as she was for him.

  Needing him the way she had never needed him before, wanting to feel connected to him, not just in body, but heart and soul, Ashley continued to kiss Cal back as thoroughly and passionately as he kissed her. Her heart was beating in urgent rhythm to his, and her love for her husband was pouring through her. They took each other to heights and depths they had yet to discover, until they were both lost in the pleasure and in one another. And this time, when they lost control, and surged heedlessly into ecstasy, something changed.

  This time, Ashley knew, there was no turning back or away.

  No hiding behind the demands of her chosen career.

  Or the expectations of her parents, teachers and colleagues.

  She had one future. With Cal. And the baby he still knew nothing about.

  “NOT THAT YOU don’t already know this, but you and the baby are both fine,” Carlotta said the next morning when she and Ashley met at Carlotta’s office to compare notes and review patient charts.

  Ashley had known that, even before she’d had her friend take a look at her, before they got started on their conferencing. Still a kaleidoscope of emotions twisted through her. She didn’t know why she was so nervous about this pregnancy. Was it because of what had happened before? Her guilt over not telling Cal yet? Or just the pregnancy hormones that were making her fiercely protective, and on edge? “That’s good to hear,” Ashley said finally, as she got off the exam table and adjusted her clothing.

  “But,” Carlotta continued gently but sternly, as the two women continued on down the hall to Carlotta’s private office, “if you were worried you should have gone to the ER yesterday or called me, and I would have come back to the office and examined you.”

  Ashley knew all that, but it hadn’t been necessary. Her mishap with the car had been just that. She’d been more upset about what could have happened, than what actually had.

  “So why didn’t you at least call me and let me know what had occurred?” Carlotta continued, as she shut the door behind them.

  Ashley frowned, knowing she had to be completely honest with someone. She dropped into a seat while Carlotta took the chair behind her desk. “I was with Mac and I didn’t want him figuring out I was pregnant,” Ashley said.

  Carlotta picked up a stack of charts. “Did you think he would tell Cal?”

  “No.” Ashley turned a ballpoint pen end over end. “Not if I asked him not to do so. Mac can keep a secret.” He had certainly done so for her in the past. There had been another reason why she hadn’t wanted Mac to find out. Ashley clamped her lips together determinedly. She looked her friend in the eye. “The first man who’s going to know about this baby I’m carrying is Cal.”

  Carlotta’s gaze softened compassionately. This, she understood full well. “So tell him,” Carlotta advised, one woman to another.

  Ashley tensed up again. She got up to pace the small confines of the room and pull two soda cans from the small fridge in the corner. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Because of what happened the last time?” Carlotta took a diet cola while Ashley kept the caffeine-free regular soda. Carlotta popped the lid. “Ashley, you know that wasn’t your fault!”

  Ashley wished she could believe that. She sighed wearily, took a sip of her lemon-and-lime flavored beverage. “I should have taken better care of myself. Realized that twice weekly thirty-six-hour shifts and a pregnancy don’t mix.”

  Carlotta scowled, flat-out disagreeing. “If that baby had been meant to be born, it would have been—no matter what hours you kept or how you rationed your sleep,” she lectured. “Your miscarriage was due to the fact that the placenta was abnormal and could not have supported a baby. There’s absolutely no indication the same thing will happen this time around. Everything looks normal. And you’re only two weeks away from the three-month mark.”

  “After which time my chances of miscarrying again go down drastically,” Ashley recited the information she had been over countless times herself. Information she had no trouble believing when it came to someone else.

  “Right.”

  Struggling with a mixture of fear and relief, she looked Carlotta in the eye. “I’m an obstetrician. I know all this.”

  “And yet?”

  Ashley shook her head, knowing she had to talk to someone. “I’m scared, Carlotta,” she said quietly.

  Carlotta looked at her with the wisdom of a woman who had been happily married for years. “Cal could be a great help to you right now, Ashley,” Carlotta said quietly.

  Ashley knew that. And yet…. “I don’t want him to have to worry the way I’m worrying. It’s bad enough I’m going through it.” She felt the tears rise to burn the backs of her eyes. “Besides…” She blinked them back in frustration, hating this sign of weakness in herself. She ought to be gutsier when it came to Cal. Heaven knew she didn’t have trouble communicating her needs or answering his in bed. It was out of bed, when they were talking about everything else—their relationship, careers, whether or when to have kids—that she struggled. As did he.

  “He still doesn’t know about the previous pregnancy?”

  Ashley shook her head miserably.

  “Oh, honey, and I thought my life was a mess.”

  Ashley wiped away her tears. “Let’s talk about your life. How are you and Mateo and the kids doing without Beatrice?”

  It was Carlotta’s turn to look conflicted. “Well, the good news is the kids are beginning
to accept me as Mommy.”

  Ashley paused, confused. “You’ve always been Mommy.”

  “I thought I was Mommy,” Carlotta corrected, ruefully. “I think Beatrice was Mommy.” Carlotta paused, looking more torn than ever as she ran a finger around the outside of her soda can. “The truth is, I’ve been missing in action more than I’ve been around. I was never there to bathe them and feed them and read them stories at night, at least not in an everyday way. Beatrice did all that. So it makes sense they would look to her for the comfort they need, not me. Since she has been gone and Mateo and I were forced to step in, that’s begun to change. We realize what we’ve been missing, and so do they.”

  “You’re saying what? That being a doctor and a mother don’t mix?”

  “No.” Carlotta relaxed slightly. “I’m just saying I think I’ve been doing a less stellar job on the mommy front than I thought. I’m glad Beatrice has been with us, and I’m very glad that she is coming back in another eight days to be an invaluable presence in all our lives again.”

  “But?” Ashley discovered her heart was pounding.

  Carlotta shook her head. “I’m beginning to realize that with three kids and a husband and a thriving practice, something’s gotta give. I just haven’t figured out what yet.”

  “IF I WERE the jealous type, you’d be in trouble about now,” Cal told Mac the next day as the two of them climbed out of Mac’s SUV, picked up their shovels and headed for the Mustang. It was just where Mac had left it, surrounded by a foot and a half of drifting snow on all sides.

  Mac furrowed his brow as if wondering where this conversation was headed.

  “Ashley had a nightmare last night and she called out your name,” Cal explained as the two of them trudged through the mostly empty church parking lot near the edge of town.

  Mac stuck the blade of his shovel in the snow and purposefully began to clear a path. “If I was in her dream, it probably was a nightmare,” Mac quipped.

  Cal chuckled at the joke, before turning serious once again. “I think her nightmare was provoked by the mishap she had with the Mustang yesterday.”