“We know you want this to be a big surprise for Ashley, but we’re all really nervous about just presenting Ashley with a gown she has never tried on,” Janey told Cal during the impromptu family conference at the Wedding Inn.
Emma agreed. “I plan a lot of weddings, Cal. The most important thing to most brides—even those like Ashley who are simply going to be renewing their vows—is their dress. And since you want Ashley to have a new gown, I really think we need her input on which one she wears.”
“How are you going to do that without ruining the surprise?” Cal asked.
His mother patted him on the arm. “We’ve got an excellent plan,” Helen reassured him with a smile. “All you have to do is make sure that Ashley arrives at the Wedding Inn on Saturday morning, along with the rest of the Hart women.”
“They want me to model wedding dresses for a photographer?” Ashley asked Cal later that evening, as the two of them prepared dinner together.
She had been doing yoga when he came home and was still clad in a leotard, tights, socks, and an oversized T-shirt that kept slipping off one shoulder.
Cal nodded, glad the event he was pitching to Ashley was also completely on the level. He didn’t think he could lie to her. Even for a good cause. “A lot of the brides who come to the Wedding Inn—especially the older ones—don’t want to try on dozens and dozens of dresses. But it’s hard to tell on the hanger what a dress is going to look like on an actual model. So my mother and Emma had this idea that you and Lily and Janey and Hannah could all try on half a dozen dresses on Saturday. Mom has arranged to have a seamstress there to pin the gowns so they will look as though they are perfectly fitted, and a photographer will take pictures of all angles of the dresses. Mom and Emma will compile the photos in an album and then when prospective brides come in—especially busy career women like yourselves—and want to cut to the chase they can flip through the books and pick out the ones they want to try on.”
To Cal’s relief, Ashley looked amenable to the idea. “They ought to do the same for tuxes.” She brought out the makings for a salad while he grilled turkey cutlets on the stove.
Cal flushed, beginning to feel a little guilty at the depth of the deception, despite the necessity of the subterfuge. “They are. My brothers and I have all been roped into doing the same thing on the same day.” He went to the fridge to get out the Asian cooking sauce. “So, will you participate?” He poured a little sauce on each cutlet, straight from the bottle, then spread it to the edges with a basting brush. “It will mean a lot to my family if you do.”
Ashley had a tendency to feel overwhelmed when surrounded by too many Harts at once. But this sounded like fun. Except for one thing. She hesitated, aware she was going to have to be very careful not to let on to the other women what was going on with her. “Ah…they know I’m just getting back in shape after a period of not working out at all?” she said, thinking of her thickening waist and swelling centerfold breasts.
Cal flashed her an exasperated look. “That’s the whole point, Ashley. All of you are gorgeous and accomplished grown women, not anorexic teenagers made up to look like adults.”
Well, put that way… “Okay, then,” Ashley said, going over to kiss Cal on the cheek. When he took her in his arms, she made it a full kiss on the lips, tender and sweet. She was trembling when they drew apart. She rubbed her thumb across his cheek and looked into his eyes. “I’ll be happy to help out.” She was pleased to have been asked.
“SO WHAT do you think, Ashley?” Helen inquired Saturday morning as she presented Ashley with a huge rack of dresses that several bridal shops had brought over. “If you were getting married today—maybe for the second time—what kind of gown would you choose?”
“Hmm. As much as I liked the scoop-necked gown with the white tulle skirt I wore the first time around, I think if I were getting married now—especially for the second time—I would choose something a lot less Cinderella-ish. I like this one.” Ashley pointed to a satin A-line gown, with long sleeves and a fitted alençon lace bodice. “And this one.” Ashley fingered a high-necked white lace gown with a straight skirt. “And especially this one.” Ashley selected a white silk off-the-shoulder gown with a fitted bodice, basque waist and chapel train. “It’s really elegant.”
“And it’s the type of style that makes your waist look so tiny,” the seamstress said.
“Then that’s the one for me,” Ashley joked, blushing a little as she thought about her ever-expanding waistline. Another week from now, when everyone knew she was pregnant—especially Cal—it wouldn’t be so embarrassing, but right now Ashley knew it just looked as though she was not being very disciplined in her diet and exercise. Which, of course, was all the more reason for notice or comment since Ashley was one of the most disciplined people around.
“Let’s try the one you like the most on first,” Helen said.
The bodice originally had a lot of give, but when the seamstress had put the pins in, it looked absolutely perfect. As Ashley looked at herself in the three-way mirror, she remembered what it had felt like to be a bride. How full of hope—and happiness—she had been that day. How little she’d known about the heartache and the difficult decisions that lay ahead…
“What are you thinking?” Lily teased, standing still while the photographer snapped photos of her in an ivory tulle dress with a halter bodice.
Ashley forced herself to concentrate on the problems of the past and think about the promise of the future. Her pregnancy was proceeding well. Physically, she felt better every day. Emotionally, more relieved. And as for her relationship with Cal, it seemed at long last to be on the right path again. She could feel the two of them getting closer with every day that passed. And she knew now that it was much more than great sex holding the two of them together. They still had some things to work out, but she was beginning to feel confident that they could deal with anything that came their way now, instead of letting problems drive them apart, as they had in the past.
Janey moved to the mirror, too, studying Ashley’s reflection. “Yes. Do tell what you’re thinking about that is making you look so happy and content.”
Ashley smiled. “How happy I am, actually.” How hopeful about the future. “I know I’ve been married almost three years now but I still feel like a new bride in a lot of respects.”
“Ahhh,” everyone said in unison.
“Maybe it’s that extended honeymoon you and Cal have been on lately,” Hannah teased as she stood still, so the seamstress could pin the sleeves of the gown she had on.
“I’ve got to say I’ve never seen Cal looking happier,” Janey added.
“Or more in love,” Helen Hart said with a smile.
“SO HOW DID IT GO?” Cal asked when he and Ashley met up for lunch in town, close to the tuxedo shop where the Hart men had been trying on tuxes and getting photographed.
“Great, actually,” Ashley reported cheerfully as Cal held the door to the sandwich shop and followed her in. “We had a lot of fun.”
They threaded their way to a corner booth. “I’m glad,” Cal said, looking pleased. He plucked two plastic-coated menus from behind the salt shakers, gave her one, and kept the other for himself.
“For the first time…” Ashley started awkwardly, not sure how to say the rest without offending.
Cal reached across the table and took her hand in his. He searched her face. “What?”
Shrugging, Ashley cleared her throat. Aware she might sound foolish, she pushed on nevertheless. “I really felt a part of your family this morning, Cal. Like I belonged there with the other Hart women. I don’t know.” She tightened her fingers in his and looked into his eyes. “It was just so easy today to feel as if I fit in.”
“WHAT’S THIS?” Ashley asked when Cal walked into their bedroom carrying a box with a big red ribbon on it.
Unlike Ashley, who was still clad in a tightly belted robe that covered her from throat to ankle, Cal was already partly dressed for the evening ahead in pin-striped gray suit pants and a silver-gray dress shirt that brought out the color of his eyes. He hadn’t buttoned the top two buttons of his shirt yet, and the sophisticated red-and-gray-patterned silk tie he planned to wear was draped around his collar.
“Open it and see,” Cal advised in a sexy voice that sent thrills coursing over her.
Ashley looked up into his face. He had shaved before his shower, and the sea-and-sun scent of his cologne clung to his handsome jaw. Her fingers trembled slightly as she untied the ribbon on the box. “You have to stop giving me presents,” she chided. It made her feel guilty to be lauded this way, when she felt she had done nothing to deserve it.
Cal grinned. “You want me to stop? You’re going to have to stop giving me reasons to give you presents,” he told her lazily.
Ashley sauntered closer. She loved it when they flirted like this. She put the present on the dresser next to him. “What did I do to deserve this?” Ashley asked softly, for a moment feeling as if she could drown in the depths of his gaze.
Hooking an arm about her waist, Cal pulled her against him and looked down at her tenderly. “That’s easy,” he told her huskily in reply, curving an arm about her shoulders and bringing her closer still, so she was intimately situated in the hard cradle of his thighs. “You love me—the way I love you.”
His softly murmured confession was like a balm to her soul. Ashley’s heart fluttered in her chest as she felt his arousal pressing against her, and then his lips were on hers once again, fusing in passion and heat, want and need. He swept the insides of her mouth, languidly at first, then with growing passion until she was lost in the touch and taste and feel of him, lost in the ragged intake of his breath and her own low, shuddering moan. Her arms wreathed his neck, and her body surged into the strong, protective shelter of his. The kiss deepened even more and Ashley sighed. Contentment swept through her entire being. “If we keep this up, we are never going to make it to Polly Pruett’s wedding,” she scolded ruefully, wishing they could just skip the wedding and stay home—together—in bed. But they couldn’t. Not when she had a pregnant patient counting on her.
Cal dropped another kiss on the slope of Ashley’s neck, then drew away. “Then we better open that box…hadn’t we?”
Brimming with curiosity, Ashley picked the present up again and worked off the lid. Inside, in tissue paper, was a red jersey dress. It had long fitted sleeves, a ballet neck and tea-length circle skirt. “It’s the closest one I could find to the black dress that you’ve been wearing so much.”
And it looked comfortable as could be, Ashley thought, longing for the day when she would not have to hide her expanding waistline. “Ah, yes, the one you borrowed without explanation,” she said with a smile.
Straightening, Cal began tying his necktie. “I figured if I was going to get you any clothing, I better have some help. Taking something you already loved along with me to the dress shop, seemed like a good idea.”
So she had been right about why he had surreptitiously absconded with her clothing. Why then, Ashley wondered, did she still feel as if he weren’t quite confiding everything? Pushing her unease away—she was probably projecting her own guilt here—Ashley kept up her half of the teasing. She looked down her nose at him in mock indignation. “Cal. Tell me you didn’t show the saleswoman my undies.”
Cal grinned, mischief curling the corners of his lips. “Wasn’t necessary. But, had she needed more specific measurements, I would have been prepared.”
Ashley shook her head, relaxing at their easy banter. “You’re a little crazy sometimes.”
“Determined.” Cal reached behind the knot of his tie to fasten the top two buttons of his shirt. “And yes, I am, when it comes to seeing you have absolutely everything you need.”
Ashley watched him draw the knot up to his throat. “You keep this up and you are really going to spoil me,” she scolded him affectionately as she straightened the knot, and smoothed the collar on either side of it.
He winked at her. “That’s the plan, all right.”
Ashley knew if she succumbed to that look, they definitely wouldn’t make it to the nuptials. She stepped back a pace, holding the red dress like a stop sign in front of her. “Hang on, while I go put this on.”
“You could stay here and do it,” Cal suggested hopefully.
Ashley did her best to ignore his devil-may-care attitude and the spike in her pulse. “Yet another attempt to see me naked—or almost?” she taunted.
“Hope springs eternal.” He raised his eyebrows in a familiar and charming expression, then looked downward. “As do other things.”
Ashley’s gaze followed his, as he knew it would. Simultaneously amused and aroused, she flushed at the proof of his desire for her. Hold that thought for later, she mused wryly to herself. But in the interest of getting out of there at all that evening, managed only a “Very funny. I’ll be right back.”
Cal chuckled as she disappeared into the guest bedroom—where all her clothes were located—and locked the door behind her. “You have to get over this newfound shyness of yours sometime,” he called after her.
And she would, Ashley thought, as soon as she hit the three-month mark at the end of the following week.
Then, she could—and would—tell Cal everything, Ashley thought, pulling the dress over her head and studying the way she looked in the mirror. And she wouldn’t have these damn secrets still wedging distance between them.
She walked out, loving the way the stretchy knit dress fit. She looked voluptuous, in that fifties-movie star way. “It feels wonderful, Cal.”
He eyed her appreciatively. “It looks stunning, too,” he told her gruffly. He paused to help her with the clasp of her necklace. “As do you.” He shifted her hair aside and kissed the exposed slope of her throat, just behind her ear.
A shiver of desire swept through her.
Cal sighed, regretful. “I suppose we better head to Polly Pruett’s wedding.”
Because if the two of them stayed there much longer, Ashley knew they were definitely going to make love. She leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him. “Hold that thought for later,” she murmured against his lips.
Cal hugged her back. “Will do.”
“ARE YOU FEELING all right, Polly?” Ashley asked.
Her patient had been rubbing her lower back off and on the entire time she had been in the bridal suite getting ready.
Polly’s brows knit together. “I must’ve slept funny last night because my back has been aching ever since I got up.”
Ashley watched as the hairdresser and Polly’s mother worked to get the veil attached to the tiara already through Polly’s upswept hair. “Any other complaints?”
Polly’s eyes sparkled with a mixture of excitement and happiness. She shook her head in exasperation as she adjusted the pearls around her throat. “Relax, Dr. Hart. I’m not in labor.”
Are you sure about that? Ashley wondered. But not wanting to upset the bride, Ashley merely confirmed, for her own peace of mind, in yet another way, “Then you’ve had no contractions today at all?”
“Not a one,” Polly reported as she moved away from the mirror in a swirl of satin and lace. “Nor has my water broken. Trust me. I am getting through this ceremony and the reception and after that…any time the baby wants to come out and join the world is just fine and dandy with me.”
Ashley had to admit Polly’s color did look good. “If you’re feeling okay, then, I’m going to go out and have a seat with my husband.” Ashley leaned forward to give her a hug for luck.
“Sounds good.” Polly hugged her back warmly. Then she caught Ashley’s hand, squeezed. “And thanks, Dr. Hart, for being here tonight.”
Ashley smiled. “No problem.”
“How is she?” Cal asked as Ashley slid into the row and sat down beside him. The soothing music from the string quartet and the soft lighting combined to make a very romantic atmosphere.
Ashley turned her head to the candelabras being lit, on either side of the white latticework wedding arbor, where the couple’s vows would be said. Ashley took a deep breath, not sure why she was so nervous, except for the fact that her gut was telling her everything was not as tranquil as it seemed. “She says she’s fine.”
Cal’s brows knit together. “You don’t believe her.”
“I don’t know.” Ashley paused and bit her lip. She dropped her voice a confiding notch. She didn’t want anyone else to overhear. “Polly could be in the early stages of labor.” Ashley shook her head, shrugged. “Then again,” Ashley murmured quietly in Cal’s ear, “the backache Polly’s had all day could be nothing more than the result of all the extra baby weight she is carrying right now.” Polly was lugging around an extra thirty pounds—most of which was concentrated in her abdomen. That had to take a toll.
“Well, we’re here, no matter what,” Cal soothed as he took Ashley’s hand in his, “and the hospital is only a fifteen-minute ambulance ride away.”
“True.”
Cal gave her palm a comforting squeeze. “So just relax and enjoy the event,” he advised, leaning over to kiss Ashley’s brow lightly.
Ashley knew Cal was right, so she did as he advised—until the bride actually made her entrance on her father’s arm. “She’s perspiring,” Ashley noted to Cal, as Polly lumbered down the aisle as gracefully as an eight-and-a-half month pregnant woman could.
“I’ve got to admit,” Cal whispered back over the music of the string quartet, “it’s not looking good.”
And it looked worse shortly after Polly’s father kissed her cheek and gave her away.
Whatever the minister said was drowned out by Polly’s loud gasp and the horrified look on her face.
“What?” Peter Sheridan demanded as parents on either side of the aisle jumped up out of their seats.
“I think—oh my gosh, my water just broke!” Polly wailed.
Everyone looked back at Ashley, who was sitting several rows back on the aisle. Aware Polly’s labor was indeed happening, just as Ashley had suspected, Ashley stood and made her way to Polly’s side.
“And now I think I feel the baby coming!” Polly screamed.
Okay, that did it. Ashley took Polly’s arm. Peter Sheridan took the other. “We’ve got to get Polly where she can lie down as quickly as possible,” Ashley told Peter.
“I can’t walk!” Polly cried, gripping her fiancé’s hand, hard. “Oh, my…I— Oh, Dr. Hart, it hurts. It hurts so badly!”
Ashley and Cal, who was suddenly right there to assist, helped Polly down to the floor. “Clear the room. Now!” Ashley ordered.
“Oh, dear God—the baby’s coming!” Polly cried hysterically as guests stampeded for the exit.
“Call an ambulance, and keep everyone else—except my mother—out of here,” Cal told the minister, who quickly rushed to comply.
Ashley had never been more glad to have Cal at her side. She needed his strength and calm in an emergency, now more than ever. “What do you need?” Cal asked Ashley.
Ashley was fighting her way through Polly’s sodden organza petticoats. “I’ve got to see what’s going on.”
“Scissors?” Cal guessed.
“And sterile cloths,” Ashley ordered, distracted. “Whatever you can find to wrap the baby in.”
“Is the ambulance going to get here in time?” Polly whimpered, crying in earnest now, while Peter Sheridan crouched beside her, patting her hand helplessly.
Please God, don’t let him faint, Ashley thought, looking at the groom’s increasingly pale color. “Hang in there now, Dad,” Ashley told Peter firmly. She looked at him, willing him some of her calm and strength. “We need you to be strong here.” She spoke as if underscoring every word.
Peter swallowed hard and nodded in compliance as Ashley finally ripped through the last of the petticoats. Ashley got a look at what was going on. Polly was right, Ashley noted grimly. Ashley could definitely see the baby crowning.
“Do we have time to get to the hospital?” Peter asked as Polly continued whimpering and crying out in pain.
“I don’t think so,” Ashley said, quickly assessing the best way to proceed. “This little guy seems to be in a hurry.”
Polly screamed in terror as another contraction gripped her.
Ashley grabbed Polly’s hands and squeezed as Cal rushed back in with a pair of scissors. It wasn’t going to be easy, but they had to keep things under control. “Polly. Calm down. Breathe. Just like you learned in Lamaze class. That’s it…that’s wonderful…no…don’t push, honey…not yet…we’ve got to get you cut out of this dress.”
Cal was already cutting through the layers of expensive fabric as swiftly and efficiently as if he—rather than the nurses—did this every day.
“Okay, now. We’re ready.” The voluminous skirts and petticoats cleared away, Ashley placed a several-inch-thick bed of table linens beneath Polly’s hips. “You can push, Polly. Yes, that’s it, that’s good.”
Polly moaned and bore down. Once, twice, three times, until the baby’s head popped out. Quickly, Ashley cleared the baby’s nose and mouth of mucus.
“One more push, honey—a big one. Yes, yes, keep going…”
Polly complied as Peter cheered her on and their baby slid out the rest of the way. He was a perfect little boy who—going by the scowl on his little face—was none too pleased by the traumatic turn of events. Dark hair, handsome features, about eight pounds. Ashley cradled him, one hand beneath his head, the other under his hips, and picked the new little Pruett-Sheridan collaboration up for his two stunned and elated parents to see. He began fighting almost immediately—little arms and legs flailing—and let out a loud, lusty cry just as the ambulance crew came rushing in.
“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.”