The decision made—as far as he was concerned anyway—Cal methodically emptied his pockets. No sooner had he unclipped the cell phone from his belt than it began to ring. He glanced at the caller ID and tossed the phone to Ashley. “See what Mac wants, would you?”
Cal grabbed his swim trunks from his overnight bag and disappeared into the bathroom. Ashley was left holding the still-buzzing phone. By the time she figured out how to use the unfamiliar keypad, the call went over to message. She waited for it to finish and then retrieved it, using Cal’s password.
“Well?” Cal said. Emerging from the bathroom, he tossed his shirt and slacks onto the back of the sofa. “What did Mac want?”
Despite her quickly mounting irritation from the message she’d listened to, Ashley couldn’t resist admiring his tanned, muscular physique. “Actually, the message was from all four of your brothers and your brother-in-law.” Defiantly, she kept her gaze from wandering below the waist of his loose-fitting tropic-print swim trunks.
Cal tensed, but his expression did not change. Hence, Ashley couldn’t tell if he had been expecting this “fun-filled call” from his brothers or not.
“Go on,” Cal demanded.
With pleasure, Ashley thought, as she caught her husband’s gaze and held on for all she was worth. “Mac reminded you that ‘a woman appreciates strength in a man.’
“Fletcher said, ‘There’s nothing more seductive than making someone laugh.’” Hah! As if Cal had ever needed help getting her into his arms and his bed!
“Dylan said, ‘When it comes to women, patience is a virtue that is highly overrated.’” Since when had Cal waited for anything he wanted from her? It was more his style to conquer first and ask questions later.
“Joe suggested you think ‘offense’ this time around.” Offense for what? Ashley wondered. Their marriage? That made it sound like a game!
“And Thad suggested that ‘you not forget to listen.’” Which was, Ashley considered, actually something Cal needed to do more of.
Her diatribe over, Ashley tossed the phone back to Cal. “So,” she fumed. “Do you want to tell me what that is all about? Or should I just guess?”
Chapter Two
“They’re just clowning around,” Cal said lamely, as he opened the sliding-glass doors to her balcony and stepped through them.
“And that’s it?” Ashley prodded warily, joining him on the lanai.
Here was his chance to tell her his whole family was worried about them. Ready to step in and help, if need be. But sensing she would not take this news well—Ashley had never really gotten how close the Harts were, or how much they depended on each other for moral and emotional support—Cal simply said, “The consensus is we’ve spent so much time apart in the three years since we said our ‘I do’s,’ that we’re still newlyweds.”
“And in other ways,” Ashley sighed, turning her glance to the blue ocean and shimmering white sand dotted with palm trees, “sometimes it seems like we’re hardly married at all.”
Precisely the problem, in Cal’s estimation. “That will all change once we’re living in the same house in the same city again,” Cal told Ashley confidently. He studied her carefully as the warm tropical breeze fanned across them. “That is still the plan, isn’t it?”
Ashley hesitated, much to Cal’s dismay.
Resentment roiled in his gut. “You can’t seriously be thinking about taking the position!”
To his increasing disappointment, Ashley made a palms-up gesture that reflected her uncertainty. “It’s a dream job, Cal. Something I would feel lucky to be offered even ten years down the road. To get the opportunity now is a real coup. One that would make my parents proud. And you, too, I would think.” Her voice trembled, despite her strong resolve. “After all, didn’t I support you when you landed a position that would allow you to treat members of the Carolina Storm professional hockey team and a lot of the premiere college athletes in the area?”
Cal turned his glare to the beautiful blue horizon. “I never said you didn’t support my dreams to be the best sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon around.”
“Good.” Ashley waited until he turned back to her, then tossed her head. His breath caught at the image of her dark hair falling like silk around her shoulders. “Because I have, Cal.”
“But what about us?” Cal demanded, hating the need radiating in his low voice. He tried so hard not to be selfish.
Hope shone in her china-blue eyes. “You could move here in eighteen months, when your contract with the medical center in Holly Springs is up. There are plenty of athletes in Hawaii, and on the West Coast, who would be lucky to have a physician of your expertise.”
Cal knew she was avoiding the point. “Your coming to Hawaii was supposed to be a temporary measure,” he reminded her coolly. A move made more out of necessity than choice.
Abruptly, Ashley stilled. She looked wary—as if she were afraid to commit herself too fully to him and their marriage again. As if she wanted them to continue the long-distance charade of a marriage. “Things change, Cal,” she told him softly.
And not always for the better, Cal thought.
He had never understood why Ashley had withdrawn emotionally from him in the first six months of their marriage. True, it had been a hellishly bad spring and summer. The fellowship program Ashley had been enrolled in had abruptly lost its director and its funding. She’d had to scramble to find a place that could take her as a second-year fellowship student, while he was studying for the medical boards that he had to pass in order to practice orthopedic and sports medicine. A physician in training herself, Ashley should have understood the kind of pressure he was under. She’d certainly said she did. But that whole summer, she’d been on an emotional roller coaster—crying one minute, too quiet the next. First overeating to the point she had gained weight, then barely eating at all.
He’d known she was in a crisis brought on by the potential interruption of her education. But overwhelmed by his own mountain of studying, he realized in retrospect that he hadn’t been there for her or helped her as much as he should have. By the time he had completed his testing, she had already secured another fellowship and left for Hawaii.
Cal had tried to make up for his earlier lack of understanding and support by being as enthusiastic as possible about the stellar opportunity Ashley had secured for herself. But, by then, the damage had already been done. At least emotionally. They had continued to make love, as if nothing were wrong. In fact, a lot of their interludes were even more physically passionate than ever before. But when it came time for them to bare their souls… Well, that just didn’t happen. It had been as if a wall were between them—and it had gotten wider with every month that passed. A wall that was impenetrable even now.
“There was no way I could have anticipated being offered the position of Director of the Maui Birthing Center.” Ashley sat down in one of the striped vinyl chairs on the lanai and propped her feet up on the rail.
Cal dropped down into the chair next to hers. “How long do you have to decide?” he asked, wishing he could be more charitable. But he couldn’t. His patience with this long-distance marriage of theirs was at an end.
“A month.”
Ashley fanned her hand in front of her face, as if that would dispel the heat of the late-afternoon sun that pinkened her cheeks and added perspiration to her forehead. “Of course they’d like my answer sooner.”
Cal watched her pull the fabric of her cotton top away from her breasts. “Of course.” Why couldn’t you just say no? Cal wondered. Why are you even considering this? Unless his gut fear was right, and she really did not want to be married to him after all.
“Look, I know how little time off you have,” Ashley said sympathetically.
Figuring he wasn’t going to like this either, Cal tensed. “So?”
Ashley swallowed and brought her feet down off the pastel green metal railing and stood. “We need to be practical here. There’s no rea
son for you to stay while I’m job-hunting and getting ready to move out of this apartment.”
Cal bet she wanted him out of the way. But his time for being the understanding husband, with no demands of his own, was over. He grimaced, knowing he hadn’t needed his brother’s advice to react in a take-no-excuses manner now. He’d had it up to here with the separations and it was time his wife knew it! “I’m not leaving, Ashley.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
He stood and faced her, legs planted apart, hands braced on his waist. “I’m not going back home without you. Not this time. Nor do I plan to let you make a decision about your professional future without considering the impact that decision will have on our marriage.”
“What has gotten into you?” Ashley demanded.
Two and a half years ago, Cal had pushed her to be all she could be. Insisting—just as her parents had—that Ashley take the fellowship slot in Honolulu, rather than face a one-year interruption in her medical education. It hadn’t seemed to matter to any of them that she hadn’t really wanted to go all the way to Hawaii or be apart from her husband of just five months. The opportunity in Hawaii was worth the sacrifice, or so everyone had told her.
She’d let herself be convinced of that, because she had truly needed time apart from Cal to deal with her own mistakes. Mistakes that Cal and her parents still knew nothing about. And she hoped guiltily, they never would.
Oblivious to her own inner angst, Cal impatiently answered her question. “Let’s just say I’ve finally come to my senses. Living apart for two-and-a-half years is much too long. I’m your husband. You’re my wife. Enough of the long-distance marriage, Ash. We need to be together.”
If only he had said this to her back then, Ashley thought sadly. She wasn’t sure she could trust his sudden devotion to her now. She didn’t want to start counting on something that would, in the end, only be snatched away from her by circumstances yet again. Right now they had a commuter marriage that was working, despite the occasional glitch. At least to the point that he still wanted her when they were together. That wouldn’t necessarily be the case if they were together day in and day out and she ended up letting him down.
Ashley was afraid that if she returned to Holly Springs, it could be the end of her marriage. After all, what if the members of the Hart clan passed judgment on their less-than-perfect union and it pushed Cal even further away? Right now, she would rather have “half a marriage” than none at all.
“And if I go to Maui tomorrow?” She posed the question to him casually, as if her entire well-being weren’t riding on his reply.
Cal gestured, as if the answer to that were a no-brainer. “Then I guess I’ll go to Maui with you.”
Now he definitely was not making sense. Nor was she sure she quite believed him. “What about your family and your patients back in North Carolina?” Ashley asked bluntly.
For the first time, there was a hint of conflict on Cal’s face, reminding Ashley how tied he was to his hometown.
Cal shrugged, still refusing to back down. He walked through the sliding-glass doors and into the apartment. “I guess they’ll all have to get along without me,” he drawled.
Right on cue, her deeply ingrained sense of responsibility reared its ugly head. She couldn’t be responsible for Cal shirking his duty, and he knew that. Ashley followed him, then folded her arms in front of her and glared at him. For once she wished she weren’t so inherently responsible. “This isn’t funny, Cal.” She pushed the words through her teeth.
Still clad in nothing but swim trunks, he sank down on the mattress and made himself comfortable on the pillows of her bed, folding his arms behind his head, as if he slept there with her every night. He narrowed his eyes at her and replied, “It isn’t supposed to be.”
Ashley glided closer, being careful to stay out of easy reach. “You can’t just stop working in Holly Springs on a whim!” She planted both her hands on her hips.
Cal’s inherently sexy smile widened. “Want to bet?” he tossed right back.
Heat flooded Ashley’s face as her glance moved over his sinewy chest, broad shoulders and long, muscled limbs. With difficulty, she forced her attention back to the matter at hand. “You’ll get fired from the medical center or sued for breach of contract by the state if you pull a stunt like that,” she warned. He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be. And yet…he looked as if he was fully ready to do just that!
“Change into your swimsuit and we’ll go for a swim, Ash.”
She stared at him. Their discussion had apparently come to an end as far as he was concerned.
He patted the mattress. “Okay, if you don’t want to take a swim, then come to bed with me.”
Ignoring the sexy command, she looked right back at him. “In your dreams,” she retorted.
NOW IT WAS Cal’s turn to be stunned. No matter how rocky their relationship got at times, Ashley had never refused to make love. “All right.” He got up lazily, closing the distance between them. He was determined to feel close to her in whatever way he could. “I’ll come to you, then.”
“This isn’t going to work, Cal,” Ashley murmured as he took her into his arms and kissed her neck. Ashley splayed her hands across his chest and pushed him away. “Every time we find ourselves alone we end up doing this!”
Cal drank in the intoxicating fragrance of her hair and skin, then drew back to savor the sight of her. With her heart-shaped face, long-lashed china-blue eyes, high sculpted cheekbones and slender nose, she was just as beautiful now as she had been the day they had met, nearly ten years ago. Her thick, glossy dark-brown hair was still shoulder-length, although she now wore it in a sexy, layered style, and her skin had retained its radiant golden glow. The only change, it seemed, was her weight. There was a new voluptuousness to her breasts, a slight thickening of her waist and hips, that hadn’t been there the last time he had been with her. He was glad to see she had put a little weight on her tall, willowy body. Last fall and summer she had been almost too thin.
“We are married,” Cal reminded her, stepping back enough to take in her long curvaceous legs.
Ashley reached for a brush on her bureau and ran it through her hair. “We make love so much when we do see each other it feels like we’re having an affair!” She rummaged through her bureau and brought out a turquoise tankini.
Cal leaned against the wall and folded his arms against his chest. “I can think of worse things than trysting with my wife.”
Ashley disappeared into the bathroom with her swimsuit. “Making love right now won’t solve anything,” she called through the door.
“Neither will you not coming home where you belong.” Cal waited until she emerged in the demure swimsuit. The sight of her breasts pushing against the confines of the top confirmed his observation that she had gained weight.
With effort, he turned his glance away from the swelling curves. He paused as their glances met in a firestorm of emotion once again. “You want to work things out with me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she said hotly. She didn’t know why her husband even had to ask that! The problem was she was scared that if they tried Cal would discover what she already knew in her heart—that this marriage of theirs was a sham.
“Then,” Cal continued, moving away from the wall. He sauntered toward her, all insouciant charm. “I expect you to do the practical thing and take the next month to figure out what you want and where you want to live. And do it while spending time with me.”
As he neared her, Ashley felt as if she was being backed into a corner and she hated that as much as she hated being instructed what to do or feel or think. “How do you know I haven’t already made up my mind?” she challenged.
The corners of his lips turned up smugly. “Have you?”
“Well, no, I haven’t had time.”
A mixture of affection and promise gleamed in his gray eyes as he took her in his arms once again. “Come home with me and you’ll have all the time
in the world.”
Ashley didn’t like feeling trapped. When Cal behaved this way, he reminded her of her youth, of growing up with parents who had everything all plotted out for her, there had been no time for discussion or dissension. All the decisions regarding Ashley’s life had already been made for her. Telling her parents that what they wanted was not necessarily what she wanted had been futile. They had argued and pushed and prodded until it had been easier just to give in and go along. Her cooperation had made them happy. But it had made her miserable.
Cal didn’t seem to realize it, but his relentless expectations had often left her feeling just as hemmed in. The only difference was Cal had not pushed to rule every situation they encountered in their marriage. He had allowed her to do what she wanted, when she wanted. But that freedom had not come without a price. She had seen the disappointment in his eyes when she failed to live up to his dreams of what his wife and lover—and the potential mother of his children—should be. She had felt his hurt, and known she was responsible. And that had been worse to her in many ways than the distress she had caused her parents when she had thwarted their expectations of her.
So Ashley had done the only thing she could to preserve her marriage—she’d put enough distance between them to prevent such clashes on a daily basis. Her hope had been that “absence” would make their hearts grow fonder…and strengthen their relationship.
Only it hadn’t worked out that way; they’d become even more emotionally distant than before.
Cal pulled her closer. “We can’t keep running from each other,” Cal said quietly as the warmth of his tall strong body penetrated hers. He threaded his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and tilted her face up to his. “We have to figure out a way to make this marriage of ours work on an everyday basis.”
Fear mixed with desire. “And what if it doesn’t?” The whispered words were out before Ashley could stop them.
Her Secret Valentine Page 2