by Lisa Dyson
“Kyle sort of told me and then Theresa confirmed it.” Ashleigh said to Kyle, “That’s where I was when you couldn’t reach me last night. We met at that piano bar right off the highway.”
He took a step as if he were coming around the bed to her, but stopped when she drew back. She would crumble if he touched her. There were way too many emotions coursing through her right now.... How she longed for the solitude of her life in Richmond.
“Did you let Scott know what’s going on with your pregnancy yet?” Ashleigh was anxious to change the subject.
Paula shook her head.
Ashleigh was surprised at Paula’s answer. “Wouldn’t he want to know?” She wasn’t at home on bed rest anymore. She was in the hospital after going into labor. Scott had a right to know.
“I don’t want to worry him,” Paula said. “There’s nothing he can do and he can’t make it home any earlier than scheduled anyway.”
Ashleigh and Kyle exchanged glances.
“And don’t either of you tell him,” Paula commanded sternly. “Promise?”
“Okay.” They spoke in unison, but Ashleigh didn’t agree with Paula’s decision and Kyle probably didn’t, either.
“What about Mom? Have you talked to her?” Ashleigh asked. “You know she wants to be kept up with what’s going on while she’s in Maryland with Grandma. Especially since she’ll be staying at least another week now that Grandma’s medications need to be adjusted.”
“Good point,” Kyle said.
Paula shrugged. “I guess I could call her and let her know. I figured her hands were full.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?” Kyle asked. “Does she even know about your raised blood pressure?”
“Not unless Aunt Vivian told her.”
“Speaking of Aunt Vivian,” Ashleigh said. “She invited us all to dinner today. She may be going through physical therapy, but she says she’s still able to cook one of her legendary Sunday meals.” Ashleigh looked pointedly at Kyle. “She included you in that invitation, but don’t feel obligated.” Hopefully he’d take the hint.
“I’d love to come,” he said, “but I’m working tonight. What time did she say?”
Ashleigh hoped her relief didn’t show. “She didn’t, not yet. I said I’d call her to let her know if we could all make it. I didn’t know what Paula’s situation would be.” Ashleigh pulled her cell from her purse. “I’ll do that as soon as we get outside.”
The boys came back into the room. Any further discussion Paula wanted to have about Ashleigh and Kyle’s status was now impossible.
“We should let your mom get some rest,” Kyle suggested to the boys a few minutes later.
“Aww!” the boys complained as they munched on their snacks.
“Listen to Uncle Kyle,” Paula warned. “He and Aunt Ashleigh are in charge.”
They playfully frowned and Ashleigh couldn’t keep from smiling because they reminded her of Kyle and Scott.
She sobered and swallowed the lump in her throat. That’s probably what her children with Kyle would have looked like.
Children. Babies. Pregnancy. She sucked in a breath and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. All eyes were suddenly on her, but she didn’t care. Her main concern at the moment was her stomach, which was about to rebel.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, and hurriedly left Paula’s room, hoping to make it to the more private bathroom down the hall before she lost the contents of her stomach.
Alone in the restroom, she splashed cold water on her face, grateful her stomach had settled without incident. She blotted her face with a paper towel and placed a hand on her abdomen, terrified beyond belief.
What a stupid, stupid idiot she was. How could she have acted so irresponsibly? Why hadn’t Kyle thought of it, either?
They hadn’t used birth control last night.
She could be pregnant.
She could lose another baby.
The possibilities made her stomach churn again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“WHAT A GORGEOUS DAY,” Kyle commented to the boys when they reached the hospital parking lot. He looked at Ashleigh, who’d just ended her call to Aunt Vivian. “Everything okay?” When she’d finally returned to Paula’s room after her sudden departure, her face had been flushed, but she’d offered no explanation.
She avoided his question. “Aunt Viv said to come around five. I told her you had to work.”
The boys ended any further discussion when they began to pick at each other after they were all in Kyle’s truck. He suspected that was their way of dealing with not having their mother at home.
“Hey, guys, how about we go to the park?” He looked at Ashleigh to see if she was interested, but she had her face turned away and was staring out the side window.
The boys’ loud chorus of “yay!” made Kyle’s ears ring. “You in?” he asked Ashleigh.
She didn’t answer at first, and as he opened his mouth to repeat his question, she said quietly, “Okay.”
Good. He hated seeing her upset. If she’d let him in, he was sure he could help her. They needed more time together, even if it meant exposing feelings. “Let’s stop by my place and get a basketball. The boys’ soccer equipment is still in my trunk.”
“Do you and the boys go to the park often?” She surprised him with her interest.
“When the weather’s nice,” he said. “Their soccer practices started two weeks ago and I’ve been helping coach their teams.”
The remainder of the short ride passed in silence. Even Mark and Ryan finally gave it a rest.
Kyle left Ashleigh and the boys in the idling truck while he dashed into his second-floor apartment. He quickly filled some water bottles for them all and jogged back down the stairs to get the basketball from the shed out back near the alley.
Alone with his troubled thoughts after last night he didn’t want to consider that Ashleigh would leave again, but the outcome was inevitable. He needed to remember that. She would be in town for a few weeks, and after that it was a crapshoot. Better to distance himself from her sooner rather than later.
He told himself they were spending the afternoon together strictly because of the boys, but he couldn’t help feeling good about their extra time together.
Could his thoughts be any more conflicted?
Kyle returned to the truck and much to his surprise, Aunt Ashleigh was laughing at the boys’ antics as they did a spot-on imitation of two of their favorite cartoon characters. Kyle put the truck into Drive and prayed Ashleigh’s uplifted mood would last.
For the next hour they alternated between soccer and basketball, though playing basketball one-handed turned out to be frustrating for Ryan. Before the boy lost it completely, Kyle suggested they get some ice cream from the small snack stand near the playground equipment.
“That was fun,” Ryan said as they walked along the dirt path. “Aunt Ashleigh, you’re pretty good at soccer! You even scored a goal.”
She smiled. “You act like you’re surprised.”
“Well, you are just a—”
With her hands on her hips, she looked Ryan squarely in the eye. “If you’re going to call me a girl, young man, then you better realize I used to be head cheerleader in high school and I threw girls bigger than you into the air.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Sometimes I caught them—” she paused “—and sometimes I didn’t.”
The boys’ eyes were as round as softballs when they cried out, “Whoa!”
Kyle couldn’t help but laugh. Chalk one up for Aunt Ashleigh.
In an obvious effort to change the subject, Mark asked, “Did you see how much better I can dribble now, Uncle Kyle?”
Kyle laughed. “Yeah, where was that skill during basketball season?”
Ashleigh looked at Kyle. “Did you coach basketball, too?”
“Assisted.” He tried to make light of it after how upset she was when Ryan had called him “Dad.” He wished she didn’t feel guilty about her infertility, but he wasn’t sure how to help her. “With my hours at the hospital, I can’t make it to every game and practice. So I never take on anything more than assistant coach.”
Ashleigh said nothing and he didn’t have to imagine how left out she felt—even if it had been her decision to distance herself from all of them.
“Hey.” He grabbed her hand and entwined their fingers without thinking it through. “They’re our nephews. I’m just doing my duty by being their favorite uncle.” He hoped to cheer her up with his teasing, but he wasn’t sure it was working.
After everyone got their ice cream, they chose a nearby picnic table under a shade tree. Ashleigh faced Kyle, and the boys sat next to each other on Kyle’s side.
“Shut up,” Mark suddenly hissed at Ryan. He gave his younger brother a shove. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s enough, boys,” Kyle said sternly. “What’s going on?”
Ryan said in a singsongy tone, “Mark’s girlfriend is over there.” He pointed to a group of girls over by the carousel on the far side of the ice-cream stand.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mark insisted, but his face reddened and he kept glancing over at the girls.
“Then why do you have a picture of her in your room?” Ryan behaved in true sibling fashion.
“Stop going through my stuff!” Mark’s embarrassment was turning to anger at his nosy younger brother.
Kyle coughed to cover up the laugh he couldn’t keep from escaping. He remembered what it was like to have younger siblings and so he mercifully took the heat off Mark. “Hey, guys, did I ever tell you about the first time I saw Aunt Ashleigh?”
“Summer before freshman year,” Ashleigh stated confidently. “You were running football drills in the gym on a rainy day. I was practicing with the cheerleaders on the other side of the divider. Somehow a football was thrown through the door of the divider and when I went to give it back, I almost ran into you coming from the other direction.”
“Nope,” Kyle said, noting the boys were paying close attention to the story while licking their cones.
Ashleigh’s head tilted and her eyes narrowed. “No?”
“That was the first time I ever spoke to you,” he stated. The first time he’d had the nerve. “The first time I ever saw you was near the beginning of eighth grade.”
Ashleigh’s eyes widened. “Is that true?”
He grinned. “Uh-huh.” He looked pointedly at Mark and confided, “I was scared to death to talk to her.”
“Tell us more.” Ashleigh’s lips twitched and Mark was noticeably interested, too. “Eighth grade?”
He winked at her. “Oh, yeah.” He swallowed and continued his story, that day so clear in his mind. “I was in the school cafeteria, sitting with a couple of my buddies, when one of them said, ‘Hey, look over there.’ He was talking about some kid who was throwing up in the trash can in the corner.” Mark and Ryan giggled. “But all I could see was you.”
“Bobby something, wasn’t it?” Ashleigh asked. “It’s not every day a kid throws up in the middle-school cafeteria.”
“Yeah, that was him. Bobby Jordan, I think.” Kyle scratched his head and continued. “Anyway, all I could see was this cute little blonde with blue-and-white flowered pants and little white sneakers—”
Ashleigh’s lips twitched at the nineties reference.
“—and a blue off-the-shoulder top I later discovered was a perfect match for her eyes.”
The boys groaned.
“Keep quiet and listen,” Kyle teased.
“My white Keds.” Ashleigh laughed. “That was back in my Saved by the Bell days. I was sure I was the blonde Kelly Kapowski.” She gestured with her hands. “My hair was huge, out to here back then.”
“Kelly who?” Mark asked.
“TV show before your time,” Ashleigh explained.
She and Kyle shared a smile before he continued. “Anyway, that was the day I first noticed Aunt Ashleigh, boys.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. It was also the first of many nights he’d dreamed about her.
“And here I always thought it was the next summer in the gym,” Ashleigh said. “I figured you were too cool to notice me. Why did it take you so long to talk to me?”
“Sheer nerves.” He chuckled, tapping Mark on top of his head. “If Tom hadn’t thrown the ball into your side of the gym so I’d have to get it, it would have taken me even longer.”
“Tom knew?” she asked.
“That I had a major crush on you?” He winked. “Heck, yeah. The entire freshman football team knew. And most of the other cheerleaders, too.”
She chuckled. “I can’t believe I never heard this before. Was I so out of touch I didn’t notice your interest in me?”
“Hey, you were busy, what with all the clubs and activities you were involved in. Drama, debate, orchestra.” He couldn’t remember the rest.
“Debate wasn’t until high school, but you’re right.” She sighed. “I had piano lessons and gymnastics lessons, and of course, cheerleading began in middle school.”
“You had no time for me,” he joked, “even if I’d been able to form a sentence in your presence.”
“Well, if you’d had the nerve to talk to me I would have made time for you,” she insisted.
“Can we go play on the swings?” Ryan asked suddenly. “I’m bored.”
Kyle chuckled. “Sure,” he said, and the boys took off. “Don’t go any farther than the playground equipment,” he yelled to their retreating backs.
Ashleigh’s quick intake of breath caught Kyle’s attention. “What’s wrong?”
The color drained from her face. “Nothing. I’m fine,” she said, but her voice trembled.
Kyle turned to look at what had upset her. A couple pushing a stroller was headed for the ice-cream stand. The woman turned and he noticed that she was quite far along in her next pregnancy. Kyle looked again at Ashleigh. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing deeply in an obvious effort to calm herself.
Just like in eighth grade, Kyle was clueless as to what to say to her.
* * *
TOM SLAMMED HIS damp towel into the container in the men’s locker room next to the hospital’s fitness area. His muscles burned from a workout he’d taken to the extreme after running into Theresa.
How could that woman still affect him so strongly?
He’d tried to get over her, but no one could come close to matching Theresa’s love of life and generosity of spirit.
On the drive home, he halfheartedly paid attention and ended up in front of the home he and Theresa had almost bought. She had fallen in love with the house at first sight, but Tom hadn’t thought they should rush into purchasing when property values were so volatile.
He edged the car to the curb, turned off the engine and got out. He stood on the sidewalk, taking in the surroundings. Someone else had bought the house. There was a child’s bike in the driveway of the two-bedroom yellow-and-white bungalow and a barking dog at the window.
“May I help you?” A young woman, maybe late twenties or early thirties, suddenly appeared on the sidewalk behind him.
“What? Oh, no, I’m fine,” he said. “Do you live here?”
She smiled tentatively. “Yes, we moved in a few months ago.”
“That’s good. It looks like a nice neighborhood.”
“We think so,” she confirmed. “Are you planning to move here?”
“No, no, I—” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Didn’t know how to make it clear he wasn’t a stalker or child predator or som
ething. I was a fool and now you’re living in the house meant for me would sound stupid. “I’m just looking around. You know, trying to find the right place in the right neighborhood.” He gestured to the other houses nearby. “Houses come on the market all the time. I want to pick the area first. You know what they say. Location, location, location.” He forced himself to stop babbling. “I better let you go.”
“Well, good luck,” the woman said with a little wave. “I highly recommend this neighborhood. We have a block party in two weeks and there are several other social functions during the year.”
Tom had no doubt Theresa would have learned about the neighborhood before she’d even looked at this house.
He took one last glance at the property before getting into his car. He shifted into Drive and slowly pulled away from the curb.
That could have been his and Theresa’s dog, their child’s bike, their happily ever after. What had he been thinking? Theresa had begged him to reconsider, but he hadn’t listened.
According to her, he hadn’t heard a lot of what she’d said. Treated her like a piece of furniture.
Is that what he’d done? He certainly hadn’t meant to.
Stan said he’d taken his wife for granted. The same words Theresa had used when she broke off their engagement.
“You never consider my feelings,” she’d said. “I’m not asking for romance every single day, but when was the last time we went out? Not for a business obligation or with family and friends. I’m talking about a date for dinner, a movie, a ball game, a walk in the park. Time for the two of us.”
She’d caught him off guard. He’d come back with some defensive retort about how she simply needed to tell him when and where and he’d be there. She’d stormed out and wouldn’t take his calls. The next time he saw her was when she hurled his engagement ring at him.
He drove the few blocks to his apartment on the third floor of an old Victorian house built in the twenties. He turned into the alley behind the house and parked in his assigned space.
He took the outside metal stairway to reach his apartment and unlocked the door.