“Calm yourself, Ashley Esther.” Lucy Belle removed Ashley’s hand from her arm, but only to hold it between both of hers. “Mary Kate is just fine. She’s in the cellar cleaning out pumpkins for my pie fillings.”
“She’s in the cellar?” Ashley’s voice rose to a crescendo, then she stepped back, took a breath deep enough to be visible in the rise and fall of her chest, and set her hands on her hips. “Mary Kate is eight months pregnant. She is about two points away from preeclampsia, and she was hospitalized yesterday for dehydration and bronchitis because of both those conditions, and you have her in the cellar cleaning out pumpkins?”
Lucy Belle paled. “She just told me she had a bad cold and Boyd was in the hospital. I told her she had to wear a mask to do the pumpkins with a cold, but we keep those around here, so she took one and her gloves and went down.”
“To hide.” Ashley spoke this last through gritted teeth. She swung away from Lucy Belle and startled at the sight of Hunter lounging in the doorway rather enjoying the scene. Her face grew an adorable pink. “Well, now that everyone has seen that unprofessional display of mine, may I go down and persuade her to leave?”
“You can go down,” Lucy Belle said, her lips twitching at the corners. “But I doubt you can persuade her to go. She needs the money.”
“And you take advantage of her.”
“Ashley Esther Tolliver, is that any way to talk to someone who whooped your bottom when you were nine?”
The kitchen staff and teenage server all laughed. So did Ashley.
“No ma’am, don’t want a repeat of that.” Ashley skirted a Latino man with a carton of at least three dozen eggs in his arms and reached for a side door. “I’m still going down. Want to join me, Hunter?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Hunter followed her through the doorway and down a steep set of steps lit by a single dim bulb hanging from a wire. He wondered if it was up to code. He’d learned some things about structural engineering, but indoor buildings never held his interest.
The cellar was the opposite of outdoors fresh air. Dark and damp, it smelled of concrete and mildew and a hint of sour from the stacks of pumpkins in crates along one wall. Beside those crates, Mary Kate sat at a table beneath a fluorescent light scooping pulp from the center of a pumpkin the size of a basketball and ladling the mess into an enormous kettle. “This pot’s almost full,” she called without looking up.
“What are you doing here?” Ashley dropped her hands onto Mary Kate’s shoulders.
She still jumped. “Miss Ashley, I didn’t expect—that is—what are you doin’ here?”
“Looking for you after I went to check on you in the hospital.”
“I couldn’t stay there. I need the money with Boyd sick and this baby coming.” She patted her enormous belly.
“Mary Kate, you don’t have to work like this. I told you I’d help you.”
“I won’t take charity, and I feel fine.”
She looked better than she had the day before, but her breath still wheezed in her chest loudly enough to be heard through the mask over her nose and mouth.
“Sometimes we all need help of one kind or another.” Ashley’s voice had gone soft with compassion, her eyes tender. “There’s no shame in it.”
“There is if you can’t never pay it back.” Mary Kate resumed her scooping.
Ashley bit her lip, took a turn around the cellar, then returned to Mary Kate’s side. “Do you want to lose this baby, Mary Kate?”
Mary Kate didn’t answer. She tossed the empty pumpkin rind into a box on the floor and reached for another gourd. One whack of her cleaver, and the pumpkin lay in two halves, insides oozing.
Ashley paled. “Mary Kate, you don’t mean that.”
“I don’t mean nothing, Miss Ashley, ’cept I need to work as long as I can. I’ll be by for my appointment next week.” A subtle shift of her shoulders turned Mary Kate’s back to them, a silent dismissal as profound as the dismissal of how she valued the life of her child.
Face white, Ashley turned away and walked toward Hunter at the foot of the stairs, then past him and up the steps. He followed, not liking the glassiness of her eyes, sure she would trip and fall or walk into something like one of the hot stoves in the kitchen. But she negotiated steps and kitchen just fine. Hunter stopped long enough to leave money beside his half-eaten breakfast, then left the diner in Ashley’s wake.
He caught up with her fumbling with her key fob at the side of her Tahoe. “Let me help.” He took the keys from her but didn’t unlock the door until he had ushered her around to the passenger side.
“I need to go . . . somewhere.” Her voice sounded thick.
“Yes, you do—home, probably.” He got her settled into her seat, then rounded the SUV to the driver’s side.
She spent the drive staring out the window, turned as far from him as she could until they had nearly reached her house. Her shoulders began to shake then and a sucking sob escaped her lips. She pressed her hands to her mouth, and the sobs turned into a keening whimper. Hunter drove a little faster, rounding the curves and speeding up her driveway. He slammed on the parking brake and yanked the keys from the ignition practically in one move, then threw himself from the vehicle and slammed his door. Around the other side, he opened Ashley’s door and wrapped his arms around her. “Go ahead and cry.” He stroked his hand the length of her braid and slim back, then cradled the back of her head while she sobbed into his shoulder. She said some things too. He couldn’t understand them. He didn’t try and didn’t speak, wanting her to weep out the anguish breaking her heart. Gradually, the crying stopped. She took several long, shuddering breaths and drew away from him, keeping her head down.
“I’m so sorry about that. I’m a mess.”
“You are.” He smoothed damp tendrils of hair away from her face.
Her hair was soft, her skin softer. His thoughts strayed and he jerked them back to the moment.
“Do you want to go inside?” He stepped out of the way so she could climb down from the Tahoe.
She nodded. “I think I’d like to lock myself inside and never come out again I’m so mortified.”
“About crying on my shoulder?”
“I don’t cry on people’s shoulders. They cry on mine. At least I’ve never cried on a man’s shoulder since I was about ten and cried on my daddy’s shoulder over one of my cats.”
“Well, I’ve never had a woman cry on my shoulder, so that makes a first for both of us.”
She cast him a surprised and shy smile, beautiful despite her swollen eyelids and blotchy skin, and Hunter lost a rather large part of his heart to her.
He took her hand and led her to the house. The cats swarmed around them, meowing and purring in turns. She stooped to pet them all, then rose with a little orange one in her arms. “I rescued this little guy off the street in Roanoke. He’s kind of a favorite because he’s so scrappy.” She hid her face behind the tabby’s long, silky fur.
Hunter envied the cat.
“Should I check on their food and water?”
He figured she would want to wash her face and touch up her makeup, as would most women.
She set the orange cat on the floor with his colony. “I probably look terrible. Thanks for putting up with me.” She spun on her heel and left the room, braid swinging, before he could respond, “Any time. All the time.”
Which was a good thing. He didn’t need to be saying that kind of romantic nonsense to any woman right now.
And if not now, when? The voice in his head sounded like his grandfather’s—the man he thought was his grandfather. The right time never comes for most important matters in life.
“I should just get cats.” He led the feline horde downstairs to find their food bowls brimming and their water bowls just fine. “Fasting while your momma is away.”
Had he just said “momma”?
He, too, picked up the little orange cat. Its warmth and the trusting way it snuggled against his shou
lder was kind of nice. But nothing could be as nice as having his arms around Ashley Tolliver. Ashley Esther Tolliver.
He returned to the kitchen to wait for Ashley. The dishwasher needed to be emptied, and it suited his sense of order to empty it. With all the cabinet doors open, he could find what went where and had all but the silverware put away by the time Ashley, face washed, makeup restored, and wearing a different sweater, slipped into the kitchen.
“What are you doing that for?” She took the silverware holder from him.
“I don’t like to sit still.”
“That makes two of us.” She set the rack on the counter. “Would you like to head on our quest now?”
“Do you want to talk about what has you so upset?”
“Aww, you don’t want to hear about my fits.”
“Don’t I?” He touched her face with his fingertips, nudging her chin up with his thumbs so he could gaze into her eyes.
Her extraordinarily long lashes fluttered. Her lips parted. A stronger man than he might have been able to resist the lure, but he couldn’t. With her face cradled in his hands, he bent his head and kissed her.
CHAPTER 20
ASHLEY GASPED IN surprise, drawing the kiss into her. Then she wrapped her arms around Hunter and drew him closer to her. She hadn’t been held, let alone kissed, in so long she barely remembered how the closeness felt. That other time, that long-ago boyfriend, didn’t matter. This time seemed like a first kiss, not just from Hunter, but in her life. His citrus, woodsy smell, his taste of oranges, the warmth and tenderness of his hands buried in her hair set her heart racing and her head spinning. Her body warmed through to her core, and for the first time in her life, that empty place she knew belonged to someone special in her life no longer ached.
How long they might have stayed there, holding each other, drinking in each other’s mouths, Ashley didn’t know or care. But one of the cats jumped onto Hunter’s legs and he jumped. His glasses fell off, bumping Ashley on the nose, and they started to laugh.
“Naughty Tabitha.” Ashley scolded the cat between giggles. She scooped her up and smiled at Hunter over the feline’s orange, black, and white body. “I think she’s jealous.”
The cat reached out a paw and poked him in the chest.
He slipped his glasses onto his nose, then removed them to hold Ashley’s gaze. “Of you or me?”
Ashley couldn’t answer. Those eyes of his were so blue, so intense upon hers, she couldn’t think.
“I think I’m jealous of her.” He ran a finger down the cat’s neck, then touched Ashley’s nose. “Did my glasses hurt you?”
She considered saying something like, “If they did, will you kiss it and make it better?” Somehow that felt like cheap flirting, too coy, diminishing those precious moments between them.
“I barely felt a thing.” Realizing how that sounded, she hastened to add, “From your glasses, that is.”
“I’m glad you clarified.” He touched her hair. “I messed up your braid.”
“I can fix it.”
“Can you leave it down? It’s so gorgeous. Seems like a shame to bind it up.”
“It’s a necessity with my patients and all.”
“But not today.” He glanced toward the window. “Look, the sun is out.”
So it was, bright and clear, burning off the last of the mist from beneath the trees.
Disappointment stabbed Ashley. “I suppose we should get going then.” She set Tabitha on the floor and reached back to pull the band from her braid.
“Would you like to go for a walk first? I’m feeling the lack of actual exercise.”
“I would. I usually walk a couple of miles a day.” She glanced around. “Where’s my purse?”
“I think it’s still in the Tahoe.”
Mention of her SUV reminded her of her crying like a teenage girl who hadn’t been invited to the prom.
She ducked her head. “Did you lock it?”
“I did.” He handed her the key. “I am too much of a city dweller not to lock a vehicle.”
“Right. You’re a city dweller.”
The joy of the kiss fading fast, she darted out the door and retrieved her purse from the Tahoe. She just needed her phone. She checked for messages—none—and texts—three, one from each of her brothers and one from her sister-in-law. She closed the Tahoe door and locked it. Hunter was checking his phone as well, but he stopped moving his thumbs over the screen as soon as she stepped from the SUV and shoved it into his pocket.
“My family thinks I’ve been kidnapped by aliens or something.” He smiled at her. “I said more like captivated.”
The comment was so absurd she laughed and went toward him as though he pulled her on a string—a string right to her heart. “My brother in DC wants me to join them for Thanksgiving. My brother in Atlanta wants me to join him for Thanksgiving. I have three patients going into their final four weeks of pregnancy and am not about to leave the area.”
Seemingly of their own accord, their hands touched, laced fingers, clung. Her entire body hummed. She wanted exercise all right—to run, to jump, to whirl around like a child with a sparkler. Hunter McDermott had kissed her. The very memory left her breathless. And she had no idea what to do with this exhilaration. It was too new, too unexpected, too, too . . .
He was speaking to her, asking a question as mundane as her talk of Thanksgiving. “Will you be alone?”
“I expect I’ll spend it with Heather. Her husband is out of the country and she’ll be alone too.”
Thoughts of Heather brought up thoughts of Mary Kate, and all her joy in the moment with this man vanished like the mist beneath the warming rays of the sun.
Hunter squeezed her fingers. “What’s wrong?”
“Too much.” She stared at the toes of her Keds. They were purple, nothing she would ever wear to work, but something to change up her attire of jeans and a sweater that was too much the norm for her. She didn’t even wear a dress to church most of the time in the event she had to leave for one of her patients.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Hunter turned toward the uphill direction on the road. “Can you talk about it?”
“You mean, what made me break down into that nasty display in the Tahoe?”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“I don’t cry. I can’t afford to. My patients need me to be strong all the time, even if I think something is terribly wrong.”
“So how do you decompress?”
“I walk. I play video games. I listen to music. Sometimes I go shopping with Heather.”
“But mostly you’re alone?”
“I’m . . . Yes. I don’t mind it. Sometimes it gets a little tiresome.”
“I understand. I love my work, though sometimes hotel rooms get claustrophobic. But I have family to come home to.” His fingers flexed on hers. “Or did.”
“They’re still there. They still care, don’t they?”
“They do, but they lied to me. That will take some work to forgive.”
An engine roared behind them, and Hunter drew them to the side of the road. Ashley tensed, half expecting the jacked-up black pickup to bear down upon them, pinning them to the trees. But it was an ordinary pickup, blue where not rusty, loaded with bales of hay. The driver waved to her and called a greeting. “Mornin’, Miss Ashley.” Then the vehicle growled past on a trail of foul exhaust.
“The husband of one of your patients?”
Ashley kicked at a stone in her path.
Hunter laughed. “I know—you can’t tell me.”
“It’s usually a good guess when someone greets me out here. Between Gramma, Momma, and me, we’ve caught half the babies born in a fifty-mile radius for the past fifty years.”
“Caught? An interesting expression.”
“We’re baby catchers. Babies slide into the world and we catch them.”
“You make it sound easy.”
She laughed. “We try to make it as easy as we ca
n, but labor and birth are definitely not easy.”
“Nor is your job, I think.”
They resumed walking. The air was cold and crisp beneath the trees, warm and soft in patches of sunlight. A few birds still twittered overhead, flitting about in search of food, and Ashley’s and Hunter’s shoes swished over sodden fallen leaves and crunched on gravel. Otherwise, the morning was still, empty, as though they were the only two people left.
Adam and Eve, Ashley thought, then snorted.
“Do you walk on this road alone?” Hunter asked.
“I have all my life.”
“But it’s so isolated. Is it safe?”
“I always felt safe. Now—” She broke off and shuddered.
Hunter slipped his arm around her shoulders, and she tucked her arm around his waist. She didn’t remember ever walking with a man like this, touching at shoulders, ribs, hips, moving in unison. It was as thrilling as the kiss. It set up dangerous longings for things she knew she couldn’t have.
“I failed them.” The words burst from her out of frustration and fear for her future alone. “Mary Kate is going to kill herself and her baby if she’s not careful, and it’ll be my fault.”
“Ashley, how can it be?” Hunter stopped and faced her, his arm still holding her close. “She makes her own choices.”
“But I’m supposed to guide her through them. She’s supposed to trust me enough to listen to me. I’m supposed to know how to help her. Everything was fine with her first pregnancy, but this one . . .” She shoved her hand into the tangled mass of her hair before she smashed her fingers against the nearest tree. “It’s public knowledge, so I’m not giving away any confidential information to tell you her husband is in prison for about ten years. Her mother drinks up every penny she makes, and how she makes those pennies I don’t want to know, but I don’t think it’s legal. And Mary Kate lives on her wages from the restaurant. They don’t have running water inside that trailer. They don’t have air-conditioning or safe heat.”
“What do you mean by safe heat?”
The Mountain Midwife Page 20