“Of course you do,” Tanner agreed, sounding both relieved and resigned. “Brad is going to wonder where you’ve gone, though. He keeps pretty close tabs on his three little sisters, you know. But don’t worry about that—I’ll handle him.”
She heard Olivia’s voice in the background, asking what was going on.
“Let me talk to her,” Ashley said, and told the whole story all over again.
“I don’t like it that you’re going alone,” Olivia told her, a minute or so later. “I’ve got the babies to look after, and I think Sophie is coming down with a cold, but maybe Melissa could go along—”
“Melissa is going to house-sit,” Ashley said. “And she’ll have her hands full holding down the fort, especially if I’m not back before Valentine’s Day. I’ll be fine, Livie.”
“You’re sure? What if Jack—?”
“What if he doesn’t want to see me? I’ll handle it, Liv. I’m a big girl now, remember?”
Olivia’s laugh was warm, and a little teary. “Godspeed, little sister,” she said. “And call us when you get there.”
“I will,” Ashley said, thinking how lucky she was.
The next few hours passed in a haze of activity—there were project lists to make for Melissa, and dozens of other details, too.
As promised, Tanner showed up late that afternoon to collect a mewing Mrs. Wiggins in the small pet carrier Olivia had sent along.
“Tell Jack I said hello,” Tanner said, as he was leaving.
Ashley nodded, and her brother-in-law planted a light kiss on the top of her head.
“Take care,” he told her. And then he was gone.
Melissa showed up when she got off work, and she and Ashley went over the lists—which guests to put where, how to reheat the food she’d prepared ahead of time, frozen and carefully labeled, how to take reservations and run credit cards, and a myriad of other things.
Melissa looked overwhelmed, but in true O’Ballivan spirit, she vowed to do her best.
Knowing she wouldn’t sleep if she stayed in Stone Creek that night, Ashley loaded her suitcase into the car and set out for Flagstaff, intending to check into a hotel near the airport and have a room-service supper.
Her flight was leaving at six-thirty the next morning.
Along the way, though, she pulled off onto the snowy road leading to the cemetery where her mother was buried, parked near Delia’s grave, and waded toward the headstone.
There were no heartfelt words, no tears.
Ashley simply felt a need to be there, in that quiet place. Somehow, a sense of closure had stolen into her heart when she wasn’t looking. She could let go now, move on.
The weather was bitterly cold, though, and she soon got back in her car and made her steady, careful way toward Flagstaff.
She would always love the mother she’d longed to have, she reflected, but it was time to go forward, appreciate the living people she loved, those who loved her in return: Brad and Meg, Olivia and Tanner, Melissa and little Mac and Carly and sweet Sophie and the babies.
And Jack.
She didn’t obsess over what might happen when she arrived in Chicago. For once in her life, she was taking a risk, going for what she wanted.
And she wanted Jack McCall—McKenzie—whoever he was.
Once she’d arrived in Flagstaff, she chose a hotel and checked in, ordered a bowl of cream of broccoli soup, ate it, and soaked in a warm bath until the chill seeped out of her bones. Most of it, anyway.
A part of her would remain frozen until she’d seen Jack for herself.
* * *
“You did what?” Jack demanded, after supper that night, when he and Bryce wound up the evening sitting in chairs in front of the fireplace. It had been a hectic thing, supper, with brothers and their wives, nieces and nephews, and even a few neighbors there to share in the meal celebrating Jack’s return from the dead.
“I called Ashley O’Ballivan,” Bryce repeated, with no more regret than he’d shown the first time. “She’ll be here late tomorrow afternoon. I’m picking her up at O’Hare.”
Jack sat back, absorbing the news. A part of him soared, anticipating Ashley’s arrival. Another part wanted to find a place to hide out until she was gone again.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, little brother,” he finally said, with no inflection in his voice at all. “Especially considering that I told you I’m not ready to see her.”
“Until you’re sure you won’t die,” Bryce confirmed confidently. “Jack, all of us are terminal. Maybe you won’t be around long. Maybe you’ll live to be a hundred. But in the meantime, you need to see this woman, even if it’s only to say goodbye.”
Saying goodbye to Ashley the last time had been one of the hardest things Jack had ever had to do. Saying goodbye to her again, especially for eternity, might be more than he could bear.
His conscience niggled at him. What about what Ashley had to bear?
Jack closed his eyes. “I’ll get you for this,” he told his brother.
Bryce chuckled. “You’ll have to get well first,” he replied.
“You think you can take me?” Jack challenged, grinning now, both infuriated and relieved.
“I’m not a little kid anymore,” Bryce pointed out. “I might be able to take you—even with all your paramilitary skills.”
Jack opened his eyes, looked at his younger brother with new respect. “Maybe you could,” he said.
Bryce stood, stretched and yawned mightily. “Better get back to my apartment,” he said. “Busy day tomorrow.”
Ashley, Jack thought, full of conflicting emotions he couldn’t begin to identify. What was he so afraid of? Not commitment, certainly—at least as far as Ashley was concerned.
“After this,” he told his departing brother, “mind your own business.”
“Not a chance,” Bryce said lightly.
And then he was gone.
* * *
The first signs of an approaching blizzard hit Chicago five minutes after Ashley’s plane landed at O’Hare, and the landing had been so bumpy that her knuckles were white from gripping the armrests—letting go of them was a slow and deliberate process.
She was such a homebody, completely unsuited to an adventurer like Jack. If she’d had a brain in her head, she decided, gnawing at her lower lip, she would have turned right around and flown back to Arizona where she belonged, blizzard or no blizzard.
She waited impatiently while all the passengers in the rows ahead of hers gathered their coats and carry-ons and meandered up the aisle at the pace of spilled peanut butter.
They had all the time in the world, probably.
Ashley knew she might not.
She hurried up the Jetway when her turn finally came, having returned the flight attendant’s farewell smile with a fleeting one of her own.
Finding her way along a maze of moving walkways took more time, and she was almost breathless when she finally stepped out of the secure area, scanning the waiting sea of strange faces. Bryce had promised to hold up a sign with her name on it, so they could recognize each other, but even standing on tiptoe, she didn’t see one.
“Ashley?”
She froze, turned to see Jack standing at her elbow. A strangled cry, part sob and part something else entirely, escaped her.
He looked so thin, so pale. His eyes were, as Big John used to say, like two burned holes in a blanket.
“Hey,” he said huskily.
Ashley swallowed, still unable to move. “Hey,” she responded.
He grinned, resembling his old self a little more, and crooked his arm, and she took it.
“You’re glad to see me?” she asked, afraid of the answer. His grin, after all, could have been a reflex.
“If I’d been given a
choice,” he replied, “I would have asked you not to come. But, yeah, I’m glad to see you.”
“Good,” Ashley said uncertainly, aware of the strangeness between them. And the ever-present electrical charge.
“My interfering brother is waiting over in baggage claim,” he said. “Let’s go find him, before this storm gets any worse and we get stuck in rush-hour traffic. It’s a long drive out to Oak Park.”
Ashley nodded, overjoyed to be there and, at the same time, wishing she’d stayed home.
Once she’d met Bryce McKenzie—he was taller than his brother, though not so broad in the shoulders—and collected her solitary, out-of-style suitcase, the three of them headed for the parking garage, Bryce carrying the bag.
Fortunately, Bryce drove a big SUV with four-wheel drive, and he didn’t seem a bit worried about the weather. Ashley sat in the front passenger seat, while Jack climbed painfully into the back.
The snow was coming down so hard and so fast by then, and the traffic was so intense, that Ashley wondered if they would reach Oak Park alive.
They did, eventually, and all the McKenzies were waiting in the entryway of the large brick house when they pulled into the circular driveway out front.
Introductions were made—Jack’s father and stepmother, his brothers and their wives, Bryce’s fiancée, Kathy—and most of their names went out of Ashley’s head as soon as she’d heard them.
She could think of nothing—and no one—but Jack.
Jack, who’d sat silent in the backseat of his brother’s SUV all the way from the airport. Bryce, bless his heart, had tried hard to keep the conversation going, asking Ashley if her flight had been okay, inquiring about Stone Creek and what it was like there.
Ashley, as uncomfortable in her own way as Jack was in his, had given sparse answers.
She shouldn’t have come.
Just as she’d feared, Jack didn’t want her there.
The McKenzies welcomed her heartily, though, and Mrs. McKenzie—Abigail—served a meat-loaf supper so delicious that Ashley made a mental note to ask for the recipe.
Jack, seated next to her, though probably not by his own choosing, ate sparingly, as she did, and said almost nothing.
“You must be tired,” Jack’s father said to her, when the meal was over and Ashley automatically got up to help clear the table. The older man’s gaze shifted to his eldest son. “Jack, why don’t you show Ashley to her room so she can rest?”
Jack nodded, gestured for Ashley to precede him, and followed her out of the dining room.
The base of the broad, curving staircase was just ahead.
Ashley couldn’t help noticing how slowly Jack moved. He was probably exhausted. “You don’t have to—”
“Ashley,” he interrupted blandly, “I can still climb stairs.”
She lowered her gaze, then forced herself to look at him again. “I’m sorry, Jack—I—I shouldn’t have come, but—”
He drew the knuckles of his right hand lightly down the side of her cheek. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I guess—well—it’s hard on my pride, your seeing me like this.”
Ashley was honestly puzzled. Sure, he’d lost weight, and his color wasn’t great, but he was still Jack. “Like what?”
Jack spread his arms, looked down at himself, met her eyes again. She saw misery and sorrow in his expression. “I might be dying, Ashley,” he said. “I wanted you to remember me the way I was before.”
Ashley stiffened. “You are not going to die, Jack McCall. I won’t tolerate it.”
He gave a slanted grin. “Is that so?” he replied. “What do you intend to do to prevent it, O’Ballivan?”
“Take a pregnancy test,” Ashley said, without planning to at all.
Jack’s eyes widened. “You think you’re—?”
“Pregnant?” Ashley finished for him, lowering her voice lest the conversation carry into the nearby dining room.
“Yeah,” Jack said, somewhat pointedly.
“I might be,” Ashley said. This was yet another thing she hadn’t allowed herself to think about—until now. “I’m late. Very late.”
He took her elbow, squired her up the stairs with more energy than he’d shown since she’d come face-to-face with him at O’Hare. “Is that unusual?”
“Yes,” Ashley whispered, “it’s unusual.”
He smiled, and a light spread into his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “You’re not just saying this, are you? Trying to give me a reason to live or something like that?”
“If you can’t come up with a reason to live, Jack McCall,” Ashley said, waving one arm toward the distant dining room, where his family had gathered, “you’re in even sorrier shape than I thought.”
He frowned. “Jack McKenzie,” he said, clearly thinking of something else. “I’m going by my real name now.”
“Well, bully for you,” Ashley said.
“‘Bully for me’?” He laughed. “God, Ashley, you should have been born during the Roosevelt administration—the Teddy Roosevelt administration. Nobody says ‘Bully for you’ anymore.”
Ashley folded her arms. “I do,” she said.
His eyes danced—it was nice to know she was so entertaining—then went serious again. “Why are you here?”
She bristled. “You know why.”
“No,” Jack said, sounding honestly mystified. “I thought we agreed that I’d come back to Stone Creek after this was all over, and we’d stay apart until then.”
Ashley’s throat constricted as she considered the magnitude of what Jack was facing. “And I thought we agreed that we love each other. Whether you live or die, I want to be here.”
Pain contorted his face. “Ashley—”
“I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s going to happen to you,” Ashley broke in. “When will you know whether the transplant worked or not?”
The change in him was downright mercurial; Jack’s eyes twinkled again, and his features relaxed. He made a show of checking his watch. “I’m expecting an email from God at any minute,” he teased.
“That isn’t funny!”
“Not much is, these days.” He took her upper arms in his hands. “Ashley, as soon as this blizzard lets up, I want you to get on an airplane and go back to Stone Creek.”
“Well, here’s a news flash for you: just because you want something doesn’t mean you’re going to get it.”
He grinned, shook his head. “Strange that I never noticed how stubborn you can be.”
“Get used to it.”
He crossed the hall, opened a door.
She peeked inside, saw a comfortable-looking room with an antique four-poster bed, a matching dresser and chest of drawers, and several overstuffed chairs.
“I won’t sleep,” she warned.
“Neither will I,” Jack responded.
Ashley turned, faced him squarely. Spoke from her heart. “Don’t die, Jack,” she said. “Please—whatever happens between us—don’t just give up and die.”
He leaned in, kissed her lightly on the mouth. “I’ll do my best not to,” he said. Then he turned and started back toward the stairs.
“Aren’t you going to bed?” Ashley asked, feeling lonely and very far from home.
“Later,” he said, winking at her. “Right now, I’m going to call drugstores until I find one that delivers during snowstorms.”
Ashley’s heart caught; alarm reverberated through her like the echo of a giant brass gong. “Are you running low on one of your medications?”
“No,” Jack answered. “I’m going to ask them to send over one of those sticks.”
“Sticks?” Ashley frowned, confused.
“The kind a woman pees on,” he explained. “Plus sign if she’s pregnant, minus if she’s n
ot.”
“That can wait,” Ashley protested. “Have you looked out a window lately?”
“I’ve got to know,” Jack said.
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe. Good night, Ashley.”
She swallowed. “Good night,” she said. Stepping inside the guestroom, she closed the door, leaned her forehead against it, and breathed deeply and slowly until she was sure she wouldn’t cry.
Her handbag and suitcase had already been brought upstairs. Sinking down onto the side of the bed, Ashley rummaged through her purse until she found the cell phone she’d bought on a wave of technological confidence, after she’d finally mastered her computer.
She dialed her own number at the bed-and-breakfast, and Melissa answered on the first ring.
“Ashley?” The twin-vibe strikes again.
“Hi, Melissa. I’m here—in Chicago, I mean—and I’m—I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine,” Melissa argued. “How’s Jack?”
“He looks terrible, and I don’t think he’s very happy that I’m here.”
“Oh, Ash—I’m sorry. Was the bastard rude to you?”
Ashley smiled, in spite of everything. “He’s not a bastard, Melissa,” she said, “and no, he hasn’t been rude.”
“Then—?”
“I think he’s given up,” Ashley admitted miserably. “It’s as if he’s decided to die and get it over with. And he doesn’t want me around to see it happen.”
“Look, maybe you should just come home—”
“I can’t. We’re socked in by the perfect storm. I’ve never seen so much snow—even in Stone Creek.” She paused. “And I wouldn’t leave anyway. How’s everything there?”
“It’s fine. I’ve had to turn away at least five people who wanted to book rooms for Valentine’s Day weekend.” Melissa still sounded worried. “You do realize that you might be there a while? Do you have enough money, Ash?”
“No,” Ashley said, embarrassed. “Not for a long haul.”
“I can help you out if you need some,” Melissa offered. “Brad, too.”
A Stone Creek Collection, Volume 2 Page 65