Her Secret Valentine

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “WELL, THAT WAS ONE WEDDING we won’t soon forget,” Cal lamented, several hours after he and Ashley had left the Holly Springs medical center where mother and baby were resting comfortably.

  “Nor will anyone else in attendance. But all’s well that ends well,” Ashley said as she sipped her hot cider. They were home again, relaxing before the fire.

  “At least they were able to get married once they were at the hospital and all the post-delivery stuff was done,” Cal said.

  Ashley grinned at her husband wryly, happy their own wedding hadn’t been that eventful. “Again, not exactly how Peter and Polly planned it.”

  “But, look at it this way.” He toasted her wordlessly. “They’ll have a birthday to celebrate along with their anniversary every year.”

  “True.” Ashley stirred her cinnamon stick around in her drink.

  Silence fell between them.

  Ashley snuggled into the cushions and stared into the licking flames, feeling remarkably content.

  “You were incredible tonight, you know,” Cal said.

  She felt the weight of his head come to rest against hers. Ashley looked down at his hard-muscled thigh, pressed next to hers. She curled her foot and dug her toes into the rug. “You’ve seen me deliver a baby before.”

  “But not in those circumstances.” Cal lifted his head and she looked over at him. Respect glimmered in his gray eyes. His gaze drifted over her lazily, before returning to her eyes. Then he said what she least expected. “It’s going to kill you not to be able to deliver babies while you wait for a slot to open up at the medical center, isn’t it?”

  Ashley cleared her throat and turned her gaze back to the fire. How did he know what she had been silently lamenting, ever since delivering Polly and Peter’s baby? “I’ll probably be able to take a call now and then for some of the other Obs in town.” She put the best spin on it she could.

  And he still wasn’t buying it. “That’s not the same as seeing your own patients through conception and delivery and post-partum, or delivering a couple of babies a week,” Cal disagreed.

  No, it wasn’t. But maybe the loss of that particular thrill was just the price she was going to have to pay to get everything else she wanted in this life. “I’ll get by, Cal,” she told him stoically.

  Cal frowned. “You just went through four years of college, four years of med school, and three-and-a-half years of fellowship training in maternal-fetal medicine. You shouldn’t have to just get by, Ashley. You should be able to be doing exactly what you want at this point in your life.”

  Or so she had thought. But Ashley had learned the hard way that work satisfaction alone was not enough to make her happy. Not nearly. “I am doing exactly what I want to be doing, Cal.” She put her cider aside and slid over onto his lap, so she was seated sideways, her arms wrapped around his neck. She looked deep into his eyes. “And that is be here with you.”

  Cal threaded his fingers through her hair. “And I’m glad you are,” he murmured, wrapping his other arm around her waist, before moving it up and down her spine, “but I also want you to be happy.”

  Ashley swallowed as she felt the familiar pressure to be everything she could be professionally once again. Not from her parents this time, as was usually the case, but from Cal. She gritted her teeth as she struggled to contain her emotions and attempted to slide off his lap. “We went down this road once before, remember?” she told him tensely. “I ended up in Hawaii, three thousand miles from you.”

  Cal caught her before she could completely escape and held her in place. His body was as tense as hers. “There has to be a way for you to practice obstetrics now without short-changing our marriage,” Cal repeated stubbornly.

  “If there is,” Ashley said, suddenly weary to her soul once again, “I have no clue at all what it is.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Let’s just drop it,” Ashley said as she pried his hands from around her waist and slid off his lap. She bristled as she got to her feet and moved to the fireplace.

  Cal remained slouched on the sofa, arms stretched straight out on the cushions on either side of him. “Ignoring our problems won’t make them go away.”

  Ashley flushed beneath his close scrutiny and ran her hand along the roughhewn wood of the mahogany mantel. “Taking my career goals down a notch does not qualify as a problem, Cal.” She forced herself to turn and face him once again. There was understanding in his eyes and a strength of purpose that had developed during the two-and-a-half years they had been apart. He wasn’t going to let her run this time. Or evade.

  Cal countered calmly, “I might agree with you if we hadn’t already been down this road.”

  He was talking about that first summer they were married, the summer she had lost their baby, Ashley recalled miserably.

  He stood and came toward her. “But we have been, Ashley. You tried to forget what you wanted to do professionally when your fellowship program abruptly lost its funding and got cancelled that spring.” His calm steady voice penetrated her defenses, like a battering ram against a barricaded door.

  “You said, ‘No problem, Cal. I’ll just forget the lofty goals and go into a regular residency program where I don’t have to write a thesis and get the equivalent of a master’s degree in medicine.’”

  Ashley released a shaky breath—she had said just that.

  They stood near enough that she could see the lines of strain on his face and the old hurt in his eyes. And along with that, the determination that their future—and the future of their marriage—would be better.

  “So you applied to the other programs in the area and got accepted and were all set to stay here with me.” Cal paused, swallowed hard. “And then the fellowship offer came through from Hawaii, out of the blue. Remember?”

  Ashley nodded. She hadn’t expected it. “The fellowship program director here had called around until he found a place that would take me,” she recollected. It hadn’t been easy. Most fellowship programs had only two or three slots per specialty and carried long waiting lists of students, wanting admission. Trying to find a place for a student suddenly displaced mid-stream had been a nightmare.

  “And you decided to take that instead,” Cal reminded her, his expression hard, unflagging.

  Yes, she had. But not for the reasons Cal thought, Ashley knew. Stricken with secret grief and guilt over the loss of their baby, Ashley had wanted only to get away from everything familiar—including Cal—to forget the loss that haunted her.

  Cal shook his head, looking equally remorseful as he continued with self-effacing honesty, “Of course, the fact you were so eager to leave was all my fault.” He ran both his hands through his hair and left them laced together at the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have been pressuring you to take the unexpected time-out of your education to get pregnant and have a baby. I should have accepted at that point that your medical training had to come first.”

  Ashley struggled to contain her soaring emotions. She shook her head grimly, not about to let him put this on himself. “You weren’t to blame, Cal. We had talked about me having kids during my fellowship before we got married.” And agreed they both wanted them, sooner rather than later, just like their friends Carlotta and Mateo Ramirez. Ashley felt her whole body tense. “I just didn’t realize how taxing it was going to be on my body working those thirty-six-hour shifts that first year.”

  “Then you found out how physically and emotionally grueling first-year fellowship is, and you no longer thought it best we try and get pregnant then after all,” Cal said.

  Because she had miscarried and was afraid to try to carry a baby again, at least during her training years, for fear the same thing would happen. Or worse, she’d find out there was something wrong with her that would keep her from ever carrying his child.

  Had their argument only ended there, with her unilateral decision, perhaps it would have been easier to recover. But it hadn’t. Cal had told her what was on his mind and in his he
art, and the memory of that still stung her unbearably. “And you,” Ashley recalled, with no small degree of pain as she looked Cal straight in the eye, “said if we weren’t going to have kids then what had been the point of us getting married in the first place.”

  Cal grimaced at the memory of that awful time. He came toward her, arms outstretched. “I didn’t mean it. You know that.”

  Ashley knew there was a grain of truth to everything that was ever said. She held up a palm to keep him from encompassing her in a hug. She didn’t want him to touch her now. “You were right to be angry with me for my reversal in positions, Cal.”

  Cal dropped his hands, stepped back. “I was selfish.”

  “The point is,” Ashley continued carefully, making certain to broadcast her own culpability in their marital problems, “you never misrepresented your desire to have a large family similar to the one you grew up in.” He at least had remained steadfast from the day they had said their vows. Ashley angled a thumb at her sternum. “I was the one who briefly changed my mind.”

  “You don’t feel that way anymore?” Cal questioned, his expression strained as he leaned a shoulder against the mantel, too.

  Ashley nodded as feelings of loss and longing, hope and joy, filled her heart. “I want to have a baby with you,” she said cautiously.

  “I want that, too.”

  He started toward her. Again, Ashley backed away.

  She saw the confusion in his eyes as she continued to keep her distance. “But what would happen if I were infertile or had some problem that wouldn’t allow me to carry a baby to term?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders and retorted matter-of-factly, “Then we’d adopt.”

  “And you’d be okay with that?” Ashley pressed on. She bit her lip nervously. “You wouldn’t feel cheated?”

  A pulse throbbing in his throat, he continued to probe her face. “Where is this coming from?”

  Anxiety swept through her in near-debilitating waves. Tell him, Ashley thought. Tell him now. But when she opened her mouth, the words wouldn’t come. She was too afraid Cal would get that disappointed look in his eyes, the same one her parents had whenever she didn’t quite measure up. And she didn’t think she could bear it. “I—I don’t know,” Ashley said finally. And to his considerable frustration, she left it at that.

  CAL WASN’T SURE when he had been so discouraged. All he knew was that Ashley was shutting him out again. And she shouldn’t be. The two of them should be closer than ever after delivering Polly Pruett and Peter Sheridan’s baby together tonight. And for a short time they had been. Until talk of children had come up and Ashley had closed down once again.

  “I’m really tired.” Ashley stepped past him and moved around the sofa, toward the adjacent kitchen.

  Abruptly, she looked as battle-weary as he felt, Cal thought. And not just in her pretty face. Fatigue was in the set of her shoulders and the weary strides of her long legs. But it was no wonder after the day his wife’d had—spending the morning at the Wedding Inn trying on wedding dresses and being photographed, plus that evening’s wedding and the unexpected emergency delivery. Ashley should be exhausted.

  She sent him an apologetic sideways glance. “I know we had talked about making love earlier, but…would you mind if I just got a glass of milk and went on up to bed?”

  Cal was already turning off the lights. “I’ll go with you. I’m beat, too.”

  When they got to their bedroom, Ashley disappeared into the hall bath to put her pajamas on and get ready for bed. By the time she emerged, face scrubbed and teeth brushed, he was waiting for her in the master bedroom.

  But instead of cuddling up to him, as she had been doing the previous nights, she turned onto her side, away from him, and went to sleep. Just the way she had done the first summer of their marriage, when she had first started putting up walls between them and put him—and their marriage—low on the list of priorities of her life.

  But Cal knew that time had been different from now. He had been behaving selfishly, devoting himself to his own career, to the point that he neglected her and their marriage terribly. He had not been doing that since Ashley had come back to North Carolina. He had, in fact, been doing everything he could to make her understand just how much he wanted to get their marriage on the right path again and make her happy.

  Her moodiness tonight—brought on by the resumption of their discussion about career and family—had merely resurrected old wounds. It was not a predictor of the future, Cal tried to reassure himself.

  ASHLEY ROSE EARLY. Not wanting to pick up where they had left off the night before, she showered and dressed while Cal was still sleeping. Then she went over to the hospital to check on Polly, Peter and their baby. To her satisfaction, all three were glowing with health and happiness. “So I guess I should call you Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan now?” Ashley teased, admiring the matching wedding rings on the happy couple’s left hands.

  “Or Mom and Dad.” Peter winked as he cradled his sleeping newborn son in his arms.

  Ashley paused to admire their newborn, then speaking quietly so as not to disturb the slumbering infant, told them both, “Dr. Ramirez is going to be taking over your care now. I just stopped by to offer congratulations.”

  “You mean you’re not going to be part of her practice anymore?” Polly’s face fell.

  Ashley shook her head. “My helping out was just a temporary thing.” They had explained that to all of Carlotta’s patients, when she started.

  “But I liked having both of you there!” Polly protested. “It was nice, knowing one of you was always available in case there was a problem or something.”

  “Where are you going to practice medicine?” Peter asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Ashley said. Cal had been right. She would miss delivering babies. But she would miss him more if she had to go elsewhere to do it.

  “We’re all hoping she stays at the Holly Springs medical center, but that has yet to be worked out,” Carlotta said, walking into the room, chart in hand. She looked at Ashley and the Sheridans. “I guess I missed a very exciting delivery last night,” Carlotta said.

  “And then some,” Peter agreed.

  “Have you examined Polly?” Carlotta asked Ashley.

  “No. I’m just here on a social call,” Ashley said. She started to step out of the room.

  “Meet you in the staff lounge?” Carlotta said.

  Ashley nodded. She was still down there when Carlotta joined her a few minutes later. “Polly looks great,” Carlotta said. “I think we’ll be able to send her and the baby both home from the hospital tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  “About your job options…” Carlotta said.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Ashley said. She had been thinking about it off-and-on since their last conversation on the subject and come up with a few ideas that might—if Carlotta were amenable—offer Ashley the best of both worlds, personal and professional.

  “Let’s go over to my office then,” Carlotta suggested pleasantly, “where we can talk privately.”

  The two women walked out of the hospital and into the three-story building next door, where many of the doctors’ offices were housed.

  “I meant what I said about hoping you stay,” Carlotta told her soberly as soon as the two women were settled.

  Ashley knew Carlotta did. “And I think,” Ashley said slowly, hoping her idea might seem as good to Carlotta as it did to Ashley, “I may have figured out a way for that to happen.”

  CAL SMELLED SOMETHING delicious cooking the minute he walked in the door Sunday evening. He had spent the day doing two back-to-back emergency surgeries. The one time he had been able to get away to call Ashley for a minute, she hadn’t been home.

  She breezed toward him, the angst and fatigue of the evening before forgotten. “You look happy.”

  Cal took in the loose cloud of dark hair. She was wearing her black slacks and one of his dress shirts—a medium-b
lue button-down that fell to her thighs and disguised the new voluptuousness of her figure. Excitement sparkled in her blue eyes. “That’s because we’re celebrating.”

  He lifted a brow as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. “I think I’ve worked out my job situation,” Ashley told him, drawing back. “But I wanted to talk to you first before I agreed to anything.”

  Cal inhaled the orange blossom fragrance of her perfume, felt the softness of her lower body pressed against his. “But you want to agree?” Cal guessed, stroking a hand through her hair. He had a sinking feeling she was going to be commuting to a job again.

  Oblivious to his worries, Ashley nodded. She stepped back so they could talk more seriously. “Carlotta and I talked about the fact that we both want to practice obstetrics and gynecology here in Holly Springs, but we also want more satisfying personal lives. So I’m going to join her practice and we’re both going to continue to work part-time, just the way we have been. For now, she will work weekday mornings and I’ll work weekday afternoons, and we’ll alternate our call nights. The money won’t be as good—I’ll only be making half of what I would be making if I were to work full-time—but I can stay here with you. And then one day, if another full-time staff Ob/Gyn position opens up at the medical center, well, I’ll have the option to increase my patient load—within our joint practice—and my income.”

  “The hospital administration?”

  Ashley gave the spaghetti Bolognese sauce simmering gently on the stove another stir. “Carlotta and I talked to Frank Hodges this afternoon and pitched him our idea. I’m happy to report he’s one-hundred-percent behind our proposal. They’ve been losing too many female physicians who can’t handle sixty- to eighty-hour work weeks and a family.” Ashley paused. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”