He left the hospital for Heather’s house and his first sight of Ashley in days. Maybe when he was with her this time he would realize his notion of loving her was stupid.
She opened the door, and he knew his heart hadn’t been having some kind of emotional attack. The sight of her brought all his feelings for her to the fore.
She wore a blue dress that emphasized all the browns and golds of her hair, and her smile could have melted a polar ice cap.
“Hi.” It was all he could get out.
“Hey there.”
They stood motionless on the threshold while the aromas of cinnamon and sage swirled around them.
“Are you, um, hungry?” Ashley asked.
“I am.” He just kept looking at her.
She smoothed one hand over her hip where the skirt flared. “Good. We have tomatoes and mozzarella and bruschetta.”
“No turkey and dressing?”
Ashley laughed. “That’s dinner. I’m talking about the appetizers.”
“Ah.” And could he kiss her as an aperitif?
“Would you two either go out or come in?” Heather came swinging through a door at the back of the hallway. “We’re not heating the outside.”
“Sorry.” Ashley stepped back so Hunter could enter, then closed the door and led the way into the kitchen.
Mary Kate sat at a table slicing tomatoes, and Heather stood at the stove stirring something in a pot. The room was warm and steamy and smelled deliciously of roasting turkey and dressing, apples and cinnamon, and garlic.
“We’ll be formal for dinner, but appetizers are here in the kitchen.” Ashley set a tray of bruschetta on the table.
“But if you want to eat,” Heather said, “you have to work.”
She set him to cutting up vegetables for a salad, then told him he could mash the sweet potatoes for the casserole. Other than that night setting out deli leftovers with Ashley, he had never worked at a meal with others, especially not women he barely knew, but found himself falling into a rhythm of work with them, a pattern of conversation about the food, about the places he’d been, about these mountains all three women loved. Ashley left twice to talk to her brothers for a few minutes. Heather turned a funny color when Ashley took out the Brussels sprouts to roast, and Mary Kate was sad over how her son had been taken from her. Still, the gathering was comfortable and companionable and downright enjoyable. He ventured to think he might enjoy helping to prepare the meal more than sitting around in the den watching a football game with other men while a catering service set things up. Of course, most of his enjoyment stemmed from Ashley being near, smiling at him, brushing his arm with her hand, leaning close enough to reach for knives or food that he could smell her tangy sweet scent. Sitting at the dining room table with Ashley across from him, he could imagine a future of her across from him at their table, their own Thanksgiving dinner, their own family.
But what table and where? His life was in DC. Hers was down here. She might go away for med school, but she never intended to abandon the region forever.
Could he abandon DC?
Setting that notion aside to think about later, he focused on Mary Kate’s shy rendition of a story about some out-of-town customers at the diner.
“They couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand them. They talked so funny I thought they were from a foreign country, but they were just from Maine. They was kinda mad I couldn’t understand them, but I couldn’t, so I just had them write down their orders themselves. They complained to Lucy Belle, but they couldn’t understand her either.” She balanced a Brussels sprout on her fork. “Do I need to eat this, Miss Ashley?”
“It’s good for you.”
“Don’t eat it,” Heather said. “Nothing that looks like that is good for you.”
“So did those customers leave?” Hunter asked Mary Kate.
Beside him, she blushed and slipped the Brussels sprout under a slice of turkey. “They stayed and ate a whole lot of food. I guess they liked it ’cause they left a nice tip.”
“I don’t think you’re difficult to understand,” Hunter said.
But he had five weeks ago.
With as much food consumed as any of them could tolerate, they cleaned up the dishes, packed food away in containers for everyone to take with them, and took coffee and dessert into the living room. Heather put on CDs of Christmas music and plugged in the solitary string of colored lights she had pinned up around the front window.
“That’s all the decorating I had the energy for last night.” She sank onto the sofa. “I think I’m too tired for this pumpkin pie now.”
“Why don’t you go lie down?” Ashley was on her feet in an instant. “I can—”
“Sit down. I want to talk to you.” Heather patted the sofa next to her. “Mary Kate, keep Hunter entertained for a few minutes.”
“We can go into another room,” Ashley suggested.
“It’s not that personal.” Heather grinned. “Okay, it’s not personal at all. Except—” She cast a glance at Mary Kate. “I suppose this won’t matter to you in a year, but don’t tell anyone.”
“I wouldn’t.” Mary Kate sipped at her decaf coffee, holding the cup as though her hands were cold. “Y’all are so nice to me, I wouldn’t betray a trust.”
“Nice, ha! We worked you like a dog.” Heather was boisterous and loud and sincere.
Hunter liked her. She was a good foil for Ashley.
Ashley sat beside her friend, dessert on the table before her, hands clasped on her lap. “What is it?”
“Well, with Ian coming back who knows when—if ever—I have fewer constraints on my comings and goings. Soooo . . .” She grinned. “I’ve decided that I can take over your practice after all.”
“Heather.” Ashley breathed the name, her face shining.
Hunter’s heart sank. She was going away. From the glow of her face, her life’s dream was about to be fulfilled, a promise more important to her than he must be.
The creamy pumpkin pie suddenly tasted like he’d stuffed his mouth with cotton balls.
Across from him, Ashley squeezed her hands together as if she needed to hold herself still. “What about the baby?”
“I’ll find someone to help out. This house is big enough for me and ten people. I figure I can get a live-in nanny.” Heather looked as happy as Ashley. “Even if Ian comes back . . .” Heather’s mouth drooped. “Well, we’ll see what happens there. In the meantime, I’ll have the kind of practice I want and . . . and my baby.” She glanced across the room and smiled. “Sorry to leave you all out. I just couldn’t wait any longer to tell Ashley what I worked out. Back to our regularly scheduled events. Anyone want to play Clue?”
Hunter rose. “I need to get back to the hospital. Mary Kate, do you need a ride home?”
“Oh, y’all don’t need to go that far. I can call Momma.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll take you.” Ashley also stood.
“Stay here.” Hunter waved her back. “I’ll take Mary Kate home. I know the way. Thank you for including me today. The food was great, and I enjoyed the company even more.”
While Mary Kate got her coat, Ashley followed him into the foyer. “Do you know the way out there?”
“She can give me directions if I forget, but I’m pretty sure I do.”
“I’m happy you came today.” Her eyes looked troubled. “I’m making home visits tomorrow morning, but if you’re bored tomorrow night, feel free to call. The nearest movie theater is twenty miles away, but we have a wide-screen TV and can stream anything.”
His heart warned him to say no thanks, to break anything they had off now before he fell even further.
“Thank you. I’d like that.”
If Mary Kate hadn’t come into the foyer at that moment, he would have kissed Ashley. He needed her nearness, the warmth and strength of her, before their lives sprang in separate directions.
He opened the door for Mary Kate to precede him out. “Good night.”
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br /> “Good night. I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Jase in the next day.”
Hunter closed the door, noticing for the first time that Mary Kate held a bag of containers in one hand and gripped the railing to the steps with the other. Hunter took the bag from her and steadied her with a hand beneath her elbow. She cast him a shy smile, then ducked her head. She kept her head bowed in his car and most of the way to her house. Lost in his own sadness, Hunter didn’t try to draw her out, though he wanted to. She was certainly burdened with more than her pregnancy. Her mother was unreliable as a babysitter for her son to the point the boy had been taken from her by the state. She worked too many hours just to live in a trailer with no running water. And now she had just learned that Ashley was leaving. She might not need her as a midwife, but Hunter suspected Ashley was more than just Mary Kate’s midwife. She was a friend, someone Mary Kate could rely on.
“How can she leave us like that?” Mary Kate spoke so suddenly and so close to Hunter’s own thoughts his hands slipped on the wheel and they nearly went into a ditch.
He corrected the SUV, then nodded at Mary Kate. “She wants to be a doctor. But she says she’ll come back.”
“She won’t. I know folks said her brothers said they’d come back, but they got into the city and we hardly ever see them.”
“I think Ashley has more ties to everyone here.”
“So did her momma, but she’s gone off to foreign places like we don’t matter.”
“I can’t believe you don’t matter to Ashley.”
But if she really did care about her neighbors on Brooks Ridge and around, wouldn’t she be more inclined to stay now instead of going away for six years or forever? If she cared about him more than her career, wouldn’t she talk about working something out?
And what are you willing to change in your life?
Until the past five weeks, he had worked twelve-hour days, sometimes six days a week. He didn’t mind. He didn’t have much else in his life. A wife and family would change that, except he hadn’t taken time to meet anyone who could give him a family. His siblings, his nieces and nephews, weren’t enough. He neglected them as much as he had been neglected—given everything he needed and then some—lots more—and yet only his grandfather had taken the time to find out what really interested him and nourished that. Who was he nourishing?
“I’m gonna pray she changes her mind,” Mary Kate said.
“You do that.” He smiled at her. “We both will.”
He reached her driveway and drove up to the door. The place was dark. No smoke issued from the stovepipe jutting out of the wall. “Let me help you.” He hurried around the SUV to help her down, got her bag from the backseat, and walked to the house. “Are you alone here?”
“Looks like it.” She raised a hand to her face, and he realized she was crying. “It’s like someone cut out a hole in my life with Boyd gone.”
Not knowing how to help her, he offered to build her a fire, to bring wood closer to her door. He hated leaving her alone.
“Will you be all right?”
She smiled. “I’m used to it even if I don’t like it. I got my cell phone if anything happens.” She crossed her hands over her belly. “But I gotta find a better place to live so I can get my Boyd back. If I was smart, I could get a better job.”
He didn’t think she wasn’t smart; he figured she was way undereducated. That she needed a better job and a better place to live was true. Yet what was available for her? Someplace closer to town. Someplace where she could have her son get better care.
An idea began to niggle at his brain, but he didn’t say anything to Mary Kate. He needed to talk to Ashley about it first.
He said good night to Mary Kate and got on the road. Before he lost cell service on the Ridge, he called Ashley.
“Mary Kate can live with Heather,” he said without introduction. “She needs a better place to live and would probably be able to get custody of her son again and not lose this baby too.”
Ashley said nothing.
“Ash?”
She made a little sound similar to a hiccup, maybe a sob or a laugh. He couldn’t tell over the spotty cell service. “I should have thought of that. If I wasn’t so stuck on myself, I would have. It’s a wonderful idea. I’ll suggest it to Heather, but I can’t see her saying no.” More silence, then, “Thanks, Hunter.”
“You’re welcome.”
He had just done the three women a favor, and sealed an end to any hope of a relationship with Ashley.
Caught up in how he would move his life forward and do things differently, include family more—both families more—and open the way for one of his own, Hunter didn’t notice the truck until he got to the road that wound past Ashley’s house. It was sitting on the side of the road across from her driveway and gunned its engine to follow him all the way to the hospital.
CHAPTER 28
ASHLEY WANTED TO go home after hanging up with Hunter and his idea of having Mary Kate live with Heather. She wanted to crawl into a hole. Never had she considered herself self-centered. She had sacrificed her medical degree for the women of Brooks Ridge and her family, after all. Now, with the prize right in front of her, it seemed to have become more of a mirror reflecting how much she was determined to do what she wanted and not, perhaps, what she was supposed to do.
Yet now Heather was willing to take over her practice. Thanks to Hunter’s thoughtfulness, that was possible.
“I should have thought of Mary Kate myself.” Ashley couldn’t stop herself from speaking the words that were a form of self-accusation. “For both your sakes.”
“You’d’ve thought of it sooner or later.” Heather tried to soothe Ashley. “And I could have thought of it sooner. In fact, maybe she needs to move in with me now. I would like the company.”
Ashley started to say she would call Mary Kate in the morning, then suggested Heather do the calling to make the offer. She went home after that to clean house, to be alone, to wonder what she was supposed to do in her future after all.
The next day she got her answer in the form of an acceptance letter from Georgetown. Her wish. Her dream. Everything was falling into place for her. She should be ecstatic, especially with Hunter coming over that night.
But Hunter didn’t come. He called her, though.
“My parents—the McDermotts, that is—are coming down.”
“Is that good?” Ashley scooped up the container of pizza dough she’d made and tucked it into the freezer. The mozzarella would keep for another day or two, as would the homemade sauce she had simmered all day.
Hunter hadn’t answered her question yet. She waited.
Finally he let out a humorless laugh. “It will be, I think. Of course they need to know I forgive them, though that may be something ongoing in my life for a while. Mom, Virginia that is, wants to thank Sheila for me or something.”
“Awkward for you.” Ashley grinned, then sobered. “I’m here if you need . . . a friend.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry to let you down.”
“That’s all right. I got some great news today.”
“Oh?”
“Georgetown.”
“Ashley, that’s great. You’ll be in DC.”
“I know.” She waited for him to mention something about how they could see one another there. He simply said, “I have to go, but I need to tell you something I should have told you last night, but I got Mom and Dad’s message and forgot. When I passed your house coming back from Mary Kate’s yesterday, there was a truck waiting across the road from your driveway.”
“My driveway?” Ashley pressed her palm onto the counter. “The truck?”
“I think so. He followed me to the hospital.”
“He’s expecting Racey Jean and Jeremiah.”
“So we have to get to them first.” Hunter hesitated. “Why does he want them so badly?”
“If he’s dealing meth, they probably know too much and he’s afraid they’ll turn on him.�
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“They may have no choice.” Hunter’s voice hardened. “But I’ll keep them safe if they’ll let me.”
Ashley’s heart thrilled to that edge of protectiveness shining through for siblings he hadn’t even met.
“And you be careful, Ash.” His tone had turned tender.
“I will.” She was thankful she had cats who didn’t need letting out as opposed to dogs who did. Doors and windows were locked up tight when she was at home. If she had to be home alone at night, she would keep her cell near a window upstairs, where she could get good reception in the event someone cut her phone lines again. For now, she would stay at Heather’s.
“I’ll catch you later then.” And he was gone, the connection cut without a word about them getting together.
He was wrapped up in his family issues. He needed to make peace with them and himself. He might not want her in DC, a reminder of this rough time for him.
“It doesn’t matter. I have a whole new career to look forward to, the one I’ve always wanted,” Ashley declared out loud.
Without anyone to celebrate with, Ashley returned to Heather’s house, which was empty with Heather working at the hospital that night. She carried her cell from the backdoor, where she had gotten a signal for Hunter’s call, to her bedroom, where she set the cell on the window sill in the event of an emergency. She tucked a cordless phone into her pocket and went downstairs to the TV room to watch movies by herself. She fell asleep on the sofa and woke near dawn to her phone ringing. It was Stephanie announcing her water had broken. “You’re early.” Not the brightest response.
Two weeks wasn’t much early for a first baby especially.
“Are you having contractions?”
“Fifteen minutes apart. They—” She began to whimper. Over the phone, Ashley heard her husband coaching her to breathe, to hold on to him.
Ashley closed her eyes. Stephanie was always so together, she couldn’t imagine her falling apart during the early stages of labor.
“I don’t think I can go through with this, Ash.” Stephanie was sobbing. “Maybe I should go to the hospital and have medication after all.”
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