“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 effect.
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.
“Hello, Margaret.” At fifty, Ashley’s mother was every bit as beautiful as her only daughter. They shared the same elegant bone structure and tall, willowy frame. Margaret’s dark-brown hair was threaded lightly with gray and cut in a short, sophisticated, easy-care style now favored by many working women her age. Unlike Cal’s own mother, who had a clear delineation between family time and work, Margaret had a crisp, businesslike demeanor that carried over into her personal life. Warm and fuzzy were not words he would have used to describe her, even under the most sentimental of occasions. And judging by the cool look in her eyes, this was not one of those.
“Cal.” Margaret nodded at him, brow raising at the sweat dripping down his face.
Cal mopped the perspiration with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “I just got back from a run.”
“So I see.”
Telling himself not to be offended by the lack of affection in his mother-in-law’s eyes, Cal ushered her in and helped her off with her coat. “Ashley didn’t tell me you were coming.”
Margaret straightened the hem of her tailored jacket. “I wanted to surprise her.”
Margaret was going to do that all right, Cal thought. She followed him back to the furnished areas of the downstairs. “Where is my daughter?”
Cal glanced at his watch, saw it was only four-thirty. “She’s still in Holly Springs seeing a few patients for a colleague she’s helping out.” He expressed his regret. “She won’t be home until six.” Or later. That left them with a lot of time to kill.
“Is she doing this temporarily—I hope?” Margaret said.
Cal nodded stiffly, wishing that his mother-in-law would keep her opinions to herself. “So it would seem.”
“May I be frank with you?”
Actually, I’d prefer you wouldn’t. But since he couldn’t very well tell his mother-in-law to back off, Cal simply waited.
“What in the world is going on here, Cal?” Margaret sat down on the family-room sofa and crossed her trouser-clad legs at the knee. “Is Ashley even looking for suitable employment?”
“Suitable” meaning anywhere else but here, Cal thought. “I think you should ask her that,” Cal said carefully.
“I have.” Margaret looked annoyed. “She’s not responding to my e-mails on the subject and she hasn’t returned my phone calls, either.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Cal continued in the same polite tone.
“Then let me tell you something.” Margaret clasped her hands around one knee and leaned forward urgently. “I am not happy with this situation. You should be encouraging Ashley either to take the job in Maui, at least for a year or two, for the experience. Or you should be pushing her to look for employment worthy of her training and education elsewhere, instead of spending a lot of time and energy on getting married all over again,” she finished with a disapproving frown.
Cal went into the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on. “I take it you don’t agree with that idea, either?” he asked from across the counter.
Margaret shrugged. “I admit I don’t see the point. You and Ashley said your vows to each other once. What has changed in the three years since?”
Everything. Nothing. Cal only knew things still weren’t right between them. He wanted the chance to start over fresh with Ashley, and this was the surest way to do it. He didn’t care if her parents approved of his romantic gesture or not.
Finished, Cal strode back to the family room and sat down opposite Margaret. “First of all, Ashley doesn’t know anything about my Valentine’s Day present to her. And I am relying on you and Harold to keep the information to yourself. Second, I think it would mean a lot to Ashley if both you and Harold could attend.”
“Her father and I are very busy right now. I don’t know if it’s going to be possible.”
Well, then, so be it.
“We did expect better of you, since you gave us your word at the time we gave you our blessing that you would never hold Ashley back career-wise.”
That again. Cal pushed the words through his teeth. “I’ve supported her to the best of my ability, Margaret.”
“Oh, really.” Margaret leaned forward angrily. “Then why is she here now, doing nearly nothing professionally? Why isn’t she still pursuing the dream she’s had since she was a small child?”
IT FELT GREAT to be practicing medicine again, Ashley thought, as she greeted her last patient of the day. Great to be busy for at least part of every day all week long…although she had missed seeing Cal; she’d been seeing so much of him recently.
“Hey, Dr. Hart.” Polly Pruett smiled. The twenty-three-year-old pregnant bride-to-be was all round, blond softness. Her pixie face glowed with happiness as she patted her burgeoning belly. “The receptionist said you were taking all of Dr. Ramirez’s patients this afternoon.”
“Yes.” The nurse helped Polly lie back on the table while Ashley finished reviewing Polly’s chart. Then she began the exam. “Is that okay?”
“Sure.” Polly relaxed on the table while Ashley palpated her abdomen.
“How have you been feeling?” Ashley asked, reaching for the gloves.
Polly grinned. “Well, my back hurts. I have to pee all the time so I can’t sleep more than a few hours at a time. I’m hungry enough to eat a horse and then some. And I have the gracefulness of an elephant on a parade. But other than that, I’m doing just fine.”
Ashley chuckled at the humorous description of life in the ninth month of pregnancy.
“It feels like the baby is dropping, too. Does that mean I’m about to go into labor?” Polly asked worriedly, obviously thinking about the wedding, just two weeks away now.
Ashley switched on the lamp and sat down on the stool, so she could begin the pelvic exam. “A first-time mother can drop four weeks before the due date, and even go two weeks or so after that before she delivers.”
Polly frowned. “So it could be six weeks?”
“More like four, max, for you. But nothing looks imminent,” Ashley decreed as she finished and ripped off her gloves.
Polly breathed a sigh of relief and pantomimed wiping the perspiration from her brow. “Whew. I’m glad you’re going to be at the Wedding Inn when I get married, anyway. That will make me feel better.”
Ashley and the nurse both lent a hand and helped Polly sit up. “Well, we aim to please, both at the Inn and here in the office.”
Polly made a face. “Now if we can just hold off that snowstorm…”
Ashley looked up from the notations she was making on Polly’s chart. “What snowstorm?”
Polly went back to rubbing her belly. “The one in the mountains of Tennessee that is headed our way.”
Ashley loved snow—when she didn’t have to go anywhere. It was a pain when the roads were bad and you still had to show up for work. “When is it supposed to hit?” she asked, aware she hadn’t driven on the wet stuff in almost three years.
“Tomorrow night, or possibly the following morning, depending on how fast the front moves,” the nurse said.
Polly nodded. “Didn’t you see all the people running in and out of the grocery and hardware stores today?”
Ashley tilted her head to the side. “I noticed a lot of cars. But I didn’t think much about it.”
“Well, you should,” Polly said seriously. “’Cause you could get snowed in for days if we get as much precipitation as they are predicting. So you better make sure you have all the necessities on hand…”
The only necessity for Ashley was Cal, whom she had seen precious little of the last four days. It seemed as if when he wasn’t on call, she was. But tonight, they were both due to have dinner together. And she couldn’t wait.
Several phone calls and a stop at the med-center maternity ward later—where Ashley diagnosed the patient in question with Braxton-Hicks contractions and sent her home—Ashley was finally en route back to the farm. Unfortunately, Cal’s car wasn’t the only one in the driveway. Parked next to his was a rental car.
DINNER WITH ASHLEY’S MOTHER was a cordial if somewhat tense affair. All three of them cooked and then cleaned up together. Then Cal went upstairs to make phone calls to check on his post-op patients while the two women settled down for some private time in front of the fire.
“Obviously, I came all the way out here for a reason,” Margaret said in a crisp, businesslike tone.
“To see me?” Ashley quipped.
“I made some phone calls.” Margaret reached into the leather carryall that went everywhere with her and pulled out a business card. “Shelley Denova is a headhunter who specializes in getting academic postings for physicians. There is a position coming open at Yale Medical School that hasn’t even been advertised yet.”
Ashley tensed as her mother applied a pressure to succeed that was all too familiar. The one thing Ashley hadn’t missed in Hawaii were the face-to-face confrontations with her folks, and the inquisitions about why Ashley wasn’t doing better. It had never seemed to matter what Ashley did. When she had been named salutatorian of her high-school class, they had been disappointed she was not the valedictorian. When she had selected Wake Forest—rather than Harvard—to attend at the undergrad level, they had been upset; they had always envisioned her as “Ivy League” and could not understand why Ashley refused even to apply to the prestigious university. And she didn’t even want to think about their reaction when she had decided to go to medical school in Winston-Salem so she could be near Cal, who was doing his five-year surgical residency there. But they had finally gotten their way when they had pushed her to go to Hawaii to finish her fellowship. Obviously, both her parents expected her to continue to put her career ahead of her family. And Ashley wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. Especially since doing that for the past two years had brought her nothing but heartache and a loneliness so deep she didn’t think she was over it yet. “Yale is in Connecticut, Mother.”
Margaret pooh-poohed Ashley’s concerns with a wave of her hand. “It’s a two-hour plane ride from here to there. You could work there during the week and see Cal every weekend.”
Assuming she got the position; Ashley wasn’t sure she would. Not that this was the point, in any case. Ashley regarded her mother in frustration. “That’s not the same as living together, Mother.”
Her mother couldn’t have cared less about the impact such a separation would have on Ashley and Cal’s marriage. She looked at Ashley sternly. “You will not be happy practicing medicine here.”
Ashley got up to poke at the fire. “You don’t know that. I’m not even sure I want to practice medicine full-time!”
Margaret laid a hand across her chest, as if she were about to have heart failure. Her face turned pale. “Don’t even joke about that, Ashley!”
Who was joking? Ashley wondered, the hurt and resentment inside her building. If she was going to have a baby she wasn’t sure she wanted to work full-time. At least not right away! Not that she could discuss this with anyone just yet, either.
“Now, I want you to pull together your résumé and list of references and call Shelley first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve written her cell and home numbers down on the back of her card. She’s expecting to hear from you. And do not delay. These entry-level positions at prestigious institutions go quickly. You have no time to waste.”
Ashley didn’t care what her mother thought—this was not a done deal. “And suppose I don’t want to apply?” Ashley said angrily, surprised to find her emotions overriding her common sense. Because she, better than anyone, knew you did not talk to Margaret Porter this way. Not unless you wanted a serious dose of blunt talk dished right back.
Margaret covered her eyes with her hand for a long moment. Finally, she drew a deep breath and looked up. “Are you trying to ruin your marriage?”
Ashley slammed the poker back in the fireplace stand so carelessly the whole thing fell over. Embarrassed, she knelt to pick up the wrought-iron fireplace tools. As she stuffed them back in, two more fell out and clattered to the stone surround. “I fail to see how—”
Margaret pointed a lecturing finger at her. “Cal Hart did not fall in love with a slacker, Ashley Porter Hart. You persist along these lines and he is not going to love you.”
Bitterness rose in Ashley’s throat, choking her. “Are we talking about Cal now?” Ashley countered miserably. “Or you and Daddy, Mother?”
Margaret continued as if Ashley hadn’t even spoken. “In successful marriages, the partners grow together.” She paused to give Ashley a long reproach-filled look. “In unions where one spouse flourishes and the other does not, boredom and resentment inevitably set in, and the marriage falls apart.” Another pause, this one longer and weightier than the last. “Cal is succeeding admirably, Ashley. He’s treating pro sports players and college athletes. And you need to stay on track with your career, too.”
CAL WAS JUST getting off the phone with the medical center when he heard the front door open and close. Then a car started in the drive.
He headed downstairs, reaching the foyer just as a shivering Ashley came back inside. He had only to look at her face to know she was upset. “What happened?” he asked warily.
Ashley shook her head, her eyes moist. She pushed both her hands through her hair. “The usual. She pushed. And then pushed some more. Only this time I didn’t just bend to her wishes.”
Cal was glad to hear that. He had always felt Margaret and Harold put way too many demands on their only daughter. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, comforting her as best he could. “I’m sorry. Is she coming back tomorrow?”
“No.” Ashley stalked back to the family room. Her hands trembled as she picked up the coffee cups and dessert plates. “She has a nine o’clock meeting at the university tomorrow, so she is taking the six o’clock flight out of Raleigh in the morning.”
Noting a fireplace tool had fallen over on its side, Cal righted it and placed it back in the stand. “She could have stayed here overnight.”
Ashley did her best to avoid Cal’s gaze as she rinsed the dishes and slid them into the dishwasher. “She preferred to be at the hotel at the airport. She felt that would be easier.”
Cal saw the business card on the coffee table in the family room. He picked it up. His heart sank as he read the writing on the back of it. “Are you going to call this person?” he said, afraid to know, and more afraid not to.
Ashley shut her eyes and rubbed at her temples as if she had the beginning of a migraine. “I don’t know.”
Cal thought about the promise he had made, never to stand in the way of Ashley and her dreams. Though it choked him, he forced himself to do the right thing and live up to his word. He drew a deep breath, ensuring his voice was calm, before he replied, “Maybe you should.”
Slowly, Ashley opened her eyes. She looked even angrier. More resentful. “Is that what you want?” Ashley asked sharply. “For me to hook up with some high-powered headhunter with connections all over the East Coast so I can get some extremely sought-after job?”
The way she was looking at him then, Cal knew he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. So he told the truth. “I want you to be happy, Ashley. Right now you don’t look happy. So—” he struggled against the selfish need welling up inside him as he closed the distance between them “—if that is what it takes…”
Ashley held up her hands, holding him off. She wheeled away from him and began to pace the length of the two rooms. “I’m just so confused! I’m thirty years old and I feel like half my life is gone and I don’t know how to have fun or relax or do anything but work, work, work! And that used to be okay—probably because I was always too busy even to let myself think. But suddenly, it seems like it’s not enough anymore, not enough to make me happy, anyway.”
“And you should be happy,” Cal agreed. He caught her wrist as she passed and anchored her implacably at his side.
Looking more distressed than ever, she flattened her hands against his chest. “But if I don’t strive and push forward, harder than ever, I’m going to let everyone else down.” Ashley scowled, her frustration with the situation apparent. “My mentor. My mother. My father. Even you.” She stomped away from him, her temper igniting into hot flames of emotion that were glorious to behold.
“Hey—” Cal arrowed his thumb at his chest “—don’t lump me in with the rest of those clowns. I’m delighted to see you so confused. It makes you as human as the rest of us.”
Ashley narrowed her china-blue eyes at him and restlessly tapped one foot. “You’d love me no matter what?” she challenged with a withering look.
Cal nodded emphatically, ignoring the way she had her fists balled and planted on her hips. “I’d love you no matter what.”
She tossed her mane of glossy dark hair and snorted in a most unladylike fashion. “Liar.”
Cal blinked, sure he couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
She stomped closer, her breasts rising and falling with every infuriated breath she took. “Liar,” she repeated, not stopping until they were squared off toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose. She angled her chin up at him, her soft lips taking on a defiant curve. “You cannot possibly feel that way!” she told him stormily. She leveled an accusing finger at his chest. “You have to have some opinion of what you want me to do with my life right now, but you won’t tell me what it is!”
Cal caught her hand and held it against his chest. “Maybe because which job you take isn’t my decision to make!” he shot back, just as irritably.
She regarded him with a hauteur as cold as ice. “So you’re just going to let me guess what’s going to make you happy?”
Cal frowned, his exasperation beginning to get the better of him once again. Reluctantly, he let her go and watched her step back a pace. “I can’t tell you what to do here, Ashley,” he told her wearily. He ran a hand across his jaw and realized that although he had shaved that morning, he needed to shave again.
“Why not?” she demanded.
Cal struggled to remain calm as their glances held. “Because if I did, it would make everything bad and selfish that anyone’s ever thought about me absolutely true.”