She missed Aidan with a fierceness that had stunned her. She knew that she loved him. She’d known it for a long time. What she hadn’t realized was how vital his presence had become to her wellbeing. That part she’d only realized once he was gone.
She put her hands in her pockets and walked to the library on the other side of the building. Inside were lounge chairs overlooking the brown park. The trees were bare, now that they were well into November. She took comfort in sitting here, lost in contemplation in the private corner, away from other people.
Her time with Aidan had given her a new perspective. She now saw that while Brandon would always be her son, he would also, as he grew, begin new, healthy relationships with people that didn’t necessarily include her. And these people might even judge her, whether she wished it or not.
But did it have any bearing on whether she was a good mother or not?
Tears stung her eyelids. She’d wanted to be a good mom to Brandon. Until recently, she’d defined that as being selfless. And perfect. Maybe too perfect. Too giving. And unable to forgive herself when she made a mistake.
She hadn’t been able to see it before. She saw it more clearly now as she’d had to learn to work with Maria and James and their big, unfamiliar brood.
Maria had said something that had triggered her realizations. “You’ve raised a wonderfully giving, self-sufficient and personable young man. You should be proud of what a good mother you’ve been.”
Ashley had been shaken. It was true. It was also true that Maria’s definition of success was much better than her own had been.
Ashley had been at her best—in how she felt, in how Brandon had grown—when she’d been with Aidan. She just hadn’t realized it until she’d lost him.
She wanted to be with Aidan again. And she wanted to be a good mom. Until recently, she thought they were mutually exclusive states. But having calmed down, and realizing that the new self-sufficiency that Brandon was demonstrating was in part due to Aidan’s influence, she no longer thought this was true.
She picked up her phone and dialed his cell number. Her hands were a bit unsteady, but from excitement rather than fear.
She wanted to hear his voice. She wanted to see him, desperately.
A computer-generated voice answered, the standard service recording. She debated whether to leave a message or to try again later, but she didn’t want to wait any longer.
“This is Ashley.” She hesitated. “Please call me.” She hesitated again. “I miss you,” she whispered.
Then she bit her lip, wondering whether to admit anything more on the recording.
She did. She wanted to give herself the best possible chance. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I’ve found that I can be a good mom and still let go of my fears enough to have my own life, too.”
She ended the call, then sat still for a long time, watching the wind in the trees. She could only hope that he would call back.
But she had to face facts: what if he didn’t want her anymore?
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Ashley still hadn’t heard from Aidan. She took a walk to his condominium on the waterfront and headed over to chat with Bill.
Bill smiled as she approached. “I haven’t seen you since Dr. Lowe sold his unit and moved out of Boston.”
Her smile threatened to waver. Her knees felt as if they might give out. But she swallowed back her disappointment. She had known this could happen.
“Did Dr. Lowe leave a forwarding address?” Ashley asked.
“Certainly,” Bill replied. “Mrs. Sharpe is receiving his mail, as before.”
Ashley clasped her hands over her stomach. He’s hiking the Appalachian Trail, just as he’d planned. She knew it in her bones.
“Thank you,” she said to Bill. Now what?
Aidan could be in the wilderness anywhere from Georgia to Maine. She had no idea of knowing.
There was one woman who did. Ashley groaned to herself.
She didn’t have Vivian Sharpe’s private phone number. The best chance she had of finding the elderly lady on short notice was to go to her home and throw herself on her mercy.
Gritting her teeth, she headed for the street. She would do it. She would do whatever it took to have one more chance with Aidan.
She went outside and caught a taxi to Beacon Hill. Mrs. Sharpe’s townhome was located on an exclusive cul-de-sac. She had as much security as the governor.
This was scary, but she would do it for herself. She was worth it.
Ashley presented herself to the guard who answered the door.
“Please tell Mrs. Sharpe that Ashley LaValley is here to see her about her grandson Aidan.”
The guard placed a call and in a murmur, relayed her message.
“You may wait here,” he informed her.
Ashley sat on a chair in a grand hallway. She fixed her gaze on a curving staircase, wondering if Vivian herself would descend.
“I wondered when you would come see me,” Vivian said.
Ashley jumped in her seat. The lady had appeared from a side room.
“Oh!” she said. “Mrs. Sharpe!”
“Are you looking for my grandson or for me?”
“For Aidan,” Ashley admitted. She swallowed. “I’d like to go see him.”
Vivian looked at her with clear blue eyes. Then she felt in her sweater pocket and took out a little gold pen. “He has a resupply stop scheduled for next Tuesday in Virginia.”
Virginia? Ashley’s strength faltered. She would have to leave Brandon with someone else as she flew to meet Aidan.
Swallowing, she thought of everything she stood to gain.
“Very well. Thank you, Mrs. Sharpe.” She pocketed the slip of paper.
Vivian nodded. “Will you go to him, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Good for you.” The woman turned and walked away, her cane thumping softly.
Back home, Ashley borrowed Brandon’s laptop to go online and purchase a single airline ticket. Then she picked up her phone and called Maria to see if Brandon could stay with them while Ashley was gone.
* * *
AIDAN SAT IN a remote shelter with a group of hikers he’d met on the trail and watched the sun set over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Truly one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen.
But try as he might, he hadn’t been able to get Ashley out of his mind.
For the hundredth time that day, he wondered what she was doing now. He wondered how Brandon was doing. The baseball season was over, and he’d surely be out of the cast by now. Maybe he’d be preparing for ski season. St. Bartholomew’s School had a great beginner’s ski program.
The phone rang from another hiker’s backpack. Privately, Aidan appreciated the irony. He’d gone on this trip looking for solitude, hoping to be completely alone and cut off from civilization. The thought made him laugh now.
What Aidan had found instead was that he naturally gravitated to people. And people hiked with their cell phones. Even on the trail, they were never long out of cell phone range.
“Yeah,” the hiker he’d been sharing the trail with said. Aidan only knew him by his handle, Wanderer. “Sure, Mrs. Sharpe, your grandson is right here.”
Aidan chuckled to himself. His wily, meddling “spider” grandmother never gave up, and he’d come to find that he especially loved that about her. She must have even saved this phone number from the one time he’d borrowed Wanderer’s phone to call her about his condo closing.
“Yeah, Gram,” he said to her when he took the phone. “What’s up?”
“Ashley LaValley came here looking for you today.”
Aidan jumped from the rock he’d been sitting on and stood at attention. “What did she want?”
“I told you. Yo
u.”
“Me?” He shook his head in wonderment. “What made her change her mind?”
“Does that matter? I gave her the town and date for your next scheduled stop, and she said she was buying a plane ticket.”
“A...” He was so flabbergasted he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. “I have to go.” He handed the phone back to Wanderer.
Then he picked up his knapsack. “Goodbye!” he called. “I have to run!”
* * *
ASHLEY SHOWED UP for work to find Kylie pinning Christmas decorations on the lobby wall. “Christmas?” she exclaimed. “It’s not even Thanksgiving yet!”
“I know.” Kylie smiled. “But I asked Ilana, and she agreed. Don’t you think it just makes Christmas last longer?” She sighed happily. “It’s my favorite holiday.”
Ashley wasn’t sure. What she most wanted for Christmas was Aidan Lowe, but she wouldn’t have a chance to go find him until next week. Even then, she had no idea how he would react to seeing her.
She went back to her workstation and began to arrange her things for tomorrow. The light outside was fading, and it was getting darker earlier. Almost time to go home and meet Brandon for dinner.
“Um...” Kylie came around the corner, sheepishly shuffling her feet.
“What is it, Kylie?”
“You have a walk-in client. A man is here to see you.”
“But we don’t take walk-ins.”
“I know, Ashley, but he insisted. And his grandmother is a very important client of ours.”
Ashley gasped. Kylie broke her acting face and began to giggle.
As if in a dream, Ashley walked to the waiting area.
Aidan was there. He looked thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and his hair was long and wild again. He definitely needed a haircut. But he looked wonderful to her, just as he always had. She ran into his arms, sobbing with happiness. “Aidan, you came!”
“All you had to do was call me when you were ready, Cinderella.” He scooped her into his arms and kissed her as if he never wanted to let her go.
“I’m home, Ashley,” he murmured, brushing back her hair. “Do you have a place for me in your family?”
“I do. I always will.” Tears were running down her face. “I realized so many things after you left. I was my best self when I was with you. Brandon was at his best, too. We both...” She nearly faltered, but gathered her courage.
“I love you, Aidan Lowe. I don’t care what anyone else thinks of us, I just care that we’re together. Please, I’d like us to be a team. You and me. No matter what.”
“You got it,” he said, and then he grinned at her. “Whatever crazy thing comes along—and with us, it’ll always be something—then you know you can count on me.”
EPILOGUE
“MOM, YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL!”
The day that Ashley had never thought would arrive, had. Blinking, she stood in front of the cheval mirror and gazed at her reflection.
Rosy cheeks, a happy smile, if slightly dazed. And wearing the most gorgeous white silk wedding gown she’d ever seen.
This truly was a happy ending.
Lisbeth came up behind her and gave her a gentle squeeze. The sisters smiled into the mirror together. “Who would ever have believed that the LaValley sisters would both be married and happy?” Lisbeth whispered.
“Sometimes I still have to pinch myself,” Ashley confided.
Lisbeth laughed. Her six-month-old daughter, Sarah, made happy, gurgling baby noises from the bed were she sat in her cousin Brandon’s arms.
Ashley sat down on the bed and took out a tissue.
“Oh, don’t cry. You’ll mess up your makeup,” Lisbeth said.
“Do you ever look back and wonder at how far we’ve come?” Ashley asked in wonder.
Lisbeth sat beside her. “I’m still getting used to living down the street from you.”
Ashley laughed. Aidan had started up his new orthopedics practice at Wellness Hospital, the same hospital that Lisbeth had transferred back to once Jon had been traded from San Francisco to Boston.
Ashley’s handsome brother-in-law was off with her husband-to-be in another room at the Cape Cod Inn, where they were soon to be married.
“Brandon, what time are you meeting Aidan and Uncle Jon?”
Brandon grinned at her as he bounced baby Sarah in his lap. Her pink tulle dress stuck out in all directions, and her matching headband looked adorable on her sweet baby face.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” he said. “We’ve got it all under control.”
“That’s good to hear.” And she smiled at him, because it really was good. And miraculously, she really didn’t need to worry.
Wow. Have I come a long way, she thought. She’d once been a constant worrywart, living her life in fear of the unknown. But now she knew that no matter what happened, she could handle it. As long as she loved and kept her loved ones close in her heart, then she was equipped for whatever surprise twists life might throw her way.
“Soon you’ll be Mrs. Lowe,” Lisbeth remarked. Ashley nodded. Her sister had chosen to keep her own name after her marriage, but Ashley was looking forward to being Ashley Lowe. She already had her plans drawn up for her own hair salon: Ashley Lowe Creations.
She hoped to open in the fall at home in Boston after they spent summer weekends here on the Cape, where Aidan and she were renovating a weekend cottage a short way down the sandy beach from a vacation home that Jon and Lisbeth had recently purchased.
That left Brandon. Headed back to St. Bart’s at the end of the summer for his second year of private school, he still had a big decision to make.
Aidan had offered to adopt him. To give him his last name, as well. Ashley had felt her heart grow big with love—and she’d thought she couldn’t feel any bigger—but this was Brandon’s decision to make. If he chose not to, then she would respect his wishes. If he decided he wanted to, then that was wonderful.
As she watched him with his baby cousin, she felt deep pride for her boy. He was gentle and kind with children, just as his stepfather-to-be was.
“You know, Mom?” Brandon said. “I think I’d like Aidan to adopt me. But I think I’m going to keep my own name.”
“Oh?” she asked. “And why is that?”
“Because that was your name all those years, and you’ve been a really good mom to me.”
That was the best thing Brandon could have said to her. The very best thing.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Elizabeth and Jon’s story, OUT OF HIS LEAGUE by Cathryn Parry, published by Harlequin Superromance.
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Out of His League
by Cathryn Parry
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN DR. ELIZABETH LAVALLEY approached the elevator bank on the third floor of her Boston hospital, a crowd milled in front of the nurse’s station. Her department was uncharacteristically buzzing.
“Somebody famous,” she heard an aide say. Instead of joining the mix, Elizabeth skirted the chaos and quickly stepped inside the elevator, heading in the other direction.
Privacy and peace, that’s what Elizabeth craved. Outside, the city was waking.
She cut across the hospital complex until she came to a red-painted stripe that ran along the sidewalk. Boston’s famous Freedom Trail. Appropriate, because this was what Elizabeth’s job meant to her: freedom. An escape from the turmoil she’d grown up in.
But that was behind her. She’d worked hard for the life she led now, and she would do anything to keep it.
Her surgical scrubs fluttered in the slight breeze. A half hour before the first surgery in her morning shift, it was a sunny, blue-sky, early October day. She strode, focused, down the red-painted line, more crowded with people than usual. A cruise ship was docked in the harbor—likely one of the fall “foliage” itineraries that went from New York up to Canada, though it was early for the peak of the autumn leaves’ spectacular color. Still, it seemed passengers and crew members from around the world were crowded into town today.
Maybe someday she would take one of those cruises, albeit to Rome, Greece or Turkey, where she could focus on her love of archaeology and antiquity. Surely there would be a way to find a single berth and keep herself sequestered.
The Good Mom Page 24