Her Secret Valentine

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Harold regarded Ashley sternly. “We’re trying to help you, Ashley.”

  Ashley knew that, just as she knew her parents loved her, in their own way. Even if they didn’t quite know what to do with her. “If you really want to help me,” she told them gently, “then let me be me.”

  “ARE YOU OKAY?” Cal asked, after Margaret and Harold had left. She certainly looked as if she were doing fine, Cal noted. Although maybe that wasn’t a surprise, given the fact that for the first time Ashley had really stood up to Margaret and Harold. She had taken charge of her own life, worried less about what others wanted from her than what she wanted for herself and the two—no make that three now—of them.

  Ashley nodded, relief flowing from her in waves. She wrapped her arms around Cal’s waist and rested her head against his shoulder. “Promise me that we will never do that to our children,” she said quietly.

  Cal hugged her close and kissed the top of her head. “I promise.”

  A contented silence fell between them. Cal stroked his hands through her hair. “They love you.”

  “That’s the sad part.” Ashley drew back to look into his face. She splayed her hands across his chest. “I know that. Just as I know I will never live up to this perfect image they have of me. But it’s not my problem. It’s theirs.”

  Cal regarded her with a mixture of respect and relief. “So you can deal?”

  “With you by my side? I can tackle everything.” Ashley smiled.

  “NERVOUS?” Cal asked Ashley as he parked in front of the Wedding Inn, and the two of them got out of their new station wagon.

  “Not at all.” Ashley tucked her hand in Cal’s as they ascended the steps of the palatial, three-story white-brick Wedding Inn. In fact, she was looking forward to this evening with the Harts. Cal wanted to announce the impending birth of their baby to everyone in his family at once. They had decided the Valentine’s dinner Helen was giving for the family that evening was the perfect opportunity. “I know your family is going to be happy for us,” Ashley continued.

  “I think so, too,” Cal murmured. Looking every bit as contented and optimistic about their future as she felt, he drew Ashley toward him for a steamy kiss beneath the pillared portico.

  No sooner had their lips touched than twelve-year-old Christopher came barreling out the grand entrance, and nearly knocked them down. “Hey! You’re not supposed to be kissing yet!” he scolded them cheerfully, then stuck his head back in the front door. “Gramma—they’re out here! Kissing!”

  “Already?” Janey teased as Cal and Ashley came into the grand hall. Cal’s sister looked as though she knew something Ashley didn’t. As did Christopher and Helen….

  Ashley turned to Cal. “What are they talking about?” she asked.

  Cal merely grinned in masculine satisfaction and gave her hand a squeeze. “Let’s get everybody together and tell them our news first,” Cal said.

  “I’ll get ’em all down here in no time flat!” Christopher raced through the hall.

  Five minutes later all of Cal’s family were gathered around him and Ashley. Whatever the secret was, Ashley noted, they all appeared to be in on it, too.

  “You wanted to talk to us?” Fletcher drawled.

  “Ashley and I have an announcement to make,” Cal said in a voice husky with emotion. He brought Ashley in close to his side and held her there tenderly. “We’re expanding our family. Ashley is pregnant. The baby should be here in early August.”

  That quickly, every woman in the family gasped in surprise and teared up. The men, looking no less moved, offered hearty handshakes and congratulations. Christopher turned to his mother, perplexed. “Is this why—?”

  Janey clamped a hand over Christopher’s mouth before he could finish his sentence. “Not yet,” Janey warned.

  “Someone care to fill me in?” Ashley prompted dryly. It seemed she was the only one in the room who didn’t have a clue what was going on.

  Cal turned to Ashley. “You remember when I said I was going to have to get you another present for Valentine’s Day?”

  Ashley nodded, recalling very well the evening he had gifted her with the Mustang convertible. That evening—and the romantic intention behind it—had marked a turning point in their relationship. “But we already got a station wagon,” she protested.

  “This is a lot better than a station wagon,” a starry-eyed Lily declared.

  Again, everyone nodded.

  “We’re saying our wedding vows again tonight,” Cal told her in a voice filled with love. “In honor of our third wedding anniversary.”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE you all did all this,” Ashley said in stunned amazement as the women accompanied her up the sweeping staircase to the bridal dressing suite on the second floor.

  Cal and his brothers were headed toward the groom’s suite on the other side of the inn.

  “Cal’s had us busy for weeks!” Janey said, chuckling. “Why do you think I came over asking you to taste cake?”

  “And I had you trying on wedding gowns?” Helen added.

  “And I had you looking at flower arrangements,” Lily said.

  Emma nodded. “We thought—correctly, it turned out—your tastes might have changed in the three years since your last wedding, or you just might be in the mood for something different.” She took the off-the-shoulder white silk gown with the fitted bodice, basque waist and full gathered skirt off the padded hanger. “We even had this altered for you.”

  Oh, no… Ashley thought. But unwilling to state they shouldn’t have done that when everyone had clearly been trying so hard to please her, she simply smiled. “When is this all supposed to take place?”

  “Half an hour. So we have plenty of time to get you ready. Don’t worry.”

  Ashley delayed getting into her dress as long as she could, letting the stylist Emma had hired fuss with her hair and touch up her makeup, but finally, there was no getting around it; she had to get into the gown.

  As she feared, the gown was a lot tighter than it had been when she had tried it on a week before, particularly in the area of her rib cage and breasts. She had to suck her midriff in mightily so it would zip. But as long as she stayed that way—barely breathing—it was a perfect fit.

  “You look gorgeous,” Emma said.

  Janey nodded. “Now for the veil.”

  More fussing, and flowers were brought in. Then Mateo and Carlotta and a few other close friends of her and Cal arrived.

  Before long, the harpist was starting. The women were ducking out, to join the others in the upstairs reception hall that had been readied for the ceremony itself.

  “You okay?” Lily asked, as she knelt and arranged the chapel train on Ashley’s dress.

  Except I can’t breathe. Ashley nodded, too embarrassed to tell anyone she really shouldn’t be wearing that dress…

  Lily dashed on ahead, slipping into the room where the ceremony was to be held.

  Ashley followed, alone, her bouquet clasped in front of her, for her grand entrance. The pressure on her waist and rib cage and the light-headed feeling got more intense with every step she took.

  Don’t be silly. You can do this. It’s only a few more minutes…and then the ceremony will be done…

  Determined not to do anything so foolish as pass out halfway to Cal, Ashley drew a deep, quelling breath, and commanded her knees to stop shaking so. Unfortunately, as her lungs filled, Ashley felt her dress begin to rip along her left side seam. Horrified she was about to put on a show for the entire Hart family, the likes of which they had never seen, Ashley gasped at the soft sound of rending fabric and bent over from the waist, both her hands going to her waist.

  Once again, it was the exact wrong thing to do.

  The additional pressure of binding fabric against her breasts and ribs pushed the air she had just gulped in right back out again. Ashley heard voices coming at her, as if from a great distance away. A rising murmur of familial concern. The next thing Ashley knew, the whole room wa
s swimming, her limbs went limp, and her nose was buried in her bouquet.

  FOR CAL, it was like watching an accident in slow motion.

  He’d known something was wrong the moment Ashley stepped into the room. Her cheeks were too pink at first, then too pale, her steps uncertain, wavering. The way she was swaying back and forth, like a sailor on a pitching deck, he would’ve thought she’d been drinking. Except he knew she hadn’t. And wouldn’t so long as she was carrying their baby.

  But it wasn’t until she moaned and bent over from the waist suddenly, clutching her left side, and Mac muttered beside him, “Oh my God! Not again!” that Cal lurched into action.

  He dashed down the aisle, toward Ashley, catching her in his arms just as she dropped into a dead faint. Wondering all the while what the hell his brother had meant when he’d said, “Not again!”

  Carlotta pushed her way through the family gathered around as Cal gently laid Ashley down on the satin runner in the center of the room. Shades of Polly Pruett’s untimely birth flashed through Cal’s mind. Except it was way too early for their baby to be born…

  “Everyone clear the room,” Carlotta ordered, taking charge as Ashley’s Ob/Gyn.

  Mac was already herding them out, shutting the door.

  Ashley moaned and her eyes fluttered open.

  “Ashley,” Carlotta demanded. “Are you in pain?”

  “What?” Ashley struggled to come to all the way. “In pain? Oh God,” she prayed out loud. “Not again!”

  What did she mean? Cal wondered. Not again!

  What the hell did Mac know that he didn’t?

  “Are you hurting anywhere?” Carlotta persisted, as she looked into Ashley’s eyes and checked her pulse.

  “No,” Ashley shook her head, clearly sure about that much anyway. Ashley blinked again. “What happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Cal told his wife gently.

  Ashley put a trembling hand to her temple as she struggled to recall the moment immediately before her collapse. “I don’t know. I felt dizzy and then everything sort of went black.”

  Carlotta palpated Ashley’s middle, checking to make sure there was no tenderness. When she found none, Carlotta looked over at Cal. “I think she just fainted,” Carlotta told Cal.

  Helen knocked and popped her head in. “Cal? I’ve got some smelling salts if you need them.”

  Cal went over to get them.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Helen asked.

  Cal nodded.

  Their marriage was another matter.

  CAL LEFT ASHLEY with Carlotta and went to find Mac. “Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”

  They stepped into the groom’s dressing room and shut the door behind them. “What did you mean when you said, ‘Not again’?” Cal demanded. “Have you seen Ashley faint before?”

  For once in his life, Mac was at a complete loss for words.

  “She’s okay, isn’t she?” Mac asked eventually.

  “What would make you think she wouldn’t be?” Cal retorted. And why was his law-and-order older brother looking so guilty? “There’s something you aren’t telling me, isn’t there?”

  Mac’s jaw tightened. He looked away. Didn’t answer. “You should probably talk to Ashley about this,” Mac advised.

  Cal intended to do just that. He strode back down the hall to the suite where he and Ashley were to renew their vows. He knocked and walked in. Ashley was sitting in one of the chairs, Carlotta next to her, and sipping orange juice. They were talking in low, subdued tones. Tellingly, their conversation stopped abruptly when Cal walked in. They smiled—maybe too brightly and officiously. Both looked as if they were hiding something, just as Mac had. So now there were three people who knew what he didn’t. His temper rising, Cal looked at Carlotta. “If you don’t mind, I’d like a word alone with my wife,” he said mildly.

  Carlotta patted Ashley’s hand—as if in silent support—and stood.

  “The ceremony is going to have to be delayed. I’ve got a problem with the dress.” Flushing, Ashley held the glass of juice away from her and showed Cal the left side seam. It was shredded from her breast to waist.

  “It’s probably best we wait, anyway.” Cal looked at Carlotta. “Would you please tell everyone and also make sure that we’re not disturbed?”

  “No problem.” With another telling look at Ashley, Carlotta breezed out.

  “Do you still feel light-headed?” Cal pulled up the chair beside her and turned it so they could sit, knee to knee, facing each other.

  “No. The smelling salts took care of that.” She studied him as closely as he was regarding her.

  Cal looked at her mouth—it was damp and soft. He wanted to drag her into his arms and kiss her again, reason be damned. He wanted to take her home and make wild passionate love to her again, and then, when they’d exhausted themselves and run the gamut of their feelings for each other, deal with this mess.

  He also knew that it was that same head-in-the-sand, hear-no-evil, see-no-evil reaction that had gotten them to this point.

  They had been running from certain truths for years.

  They could not continue to do so.

  Like it or not they had to deal with each other and these secrets, whatever they might be.

  “You look upset,” Ashley said.

  The understatement of the century if there ever was one. “Shouldn’t I be?” Cal replied cordially.

  Looking as if she wanted to retreat, she took another long drink and turned her glance to the flower arbor where Cal and the minister had both been standing a few short minutes ago. Ashley swallowed hard. “Because I fainted?”

  Cal regarded her warily, his heart working like a trip hammer in his chest. “Because Mac and Carlotta both know something that I don’t.” He paused, fury rising, as he waited for her to return her glance to his. “Were you ever going to tell me about what happened before?”

  Abruptly, she looked exhausted and close to tears. “You know about the miscarriage,” she guessed sadly.

  Which meant, Cal thought, there had been another baby. One he knew nothing about—until this evening, anyway. His muscles were tight with suppressed anger and resentment. Hurt colored his low tone as he replied, even more softly, “I do now.”

  Ashley drained her glass, put it aside. Cal noted her hand was shaking.

  “Then—?”

  Briefly he explained what Mac had said and when. And how he’d refused to answer Cal’s questions about his comment.

  Ashley released a frustrated breath. The color in her cheeks turned from a pale pink to a dusky rose as she declared miserably, “I never should have put him in that position.”

  His mood grim, Cal stared at the woman he had been married to for three years. “No argument there,” he said sarcastically.

  Ashley’s lower lip thrust toward him contentiously.

  Giving her no chance to defend herself, he stood and moved a slight distance away from her. “And how is it that my brother knows you had a miscarriage and I don’t?” he demanded, bracing his legs a little further apart and folding his arms across his chest.

  Ashley stood and gripped the back of the chair tightly with one hand. “Because Mac was with me when it happened.”

  Jealousy ripped through his gut. “Which was?” Cal commanded.

  Ashley drew in a quavering breath. “The summer I left for Hawaii. I had planned to tell you I was pregnant when you finished taking your board exams that July, but I miscarried before that.”

  Pain glimmered in her eyes. She gulped and drew in a second, steadying breath. She was holding on to the chair so tightly her knuckles were white, but to her credit, she did not lower her gaze. “Mac and I were having lunch that day and after we left the restaurant, I got hit with what felt like the worst menstrual cramps I could ever imagine. I doubled over and nearly passed out.”

  Just as she had a short while before, Cal thought, as she’d come down the aisle toward him.

&n
bsp; Which explained his brother’s reaction.

  “Mac took me to the emergency room. I made him promise not to tell anyone. I said I would tell you.”

  “Except,” Cal pointed out bitterly, aware he had never been as angry with her as he was at that second, “you never did.”

  “Because,” Ashley explained, her voice rising emotionally, “the time was never right.”

  “Oh, I think you could have found the time, if you had wanted to.”

  She grimaced; she’d deserved that. “You’re probably right.”

  “So why didn’t you?” Cal’s exasperation mounted until he felt as if he were going to explode.

  Ashley threw up her hands and began to pace, ripped gown and all. “Because I didn’t want you to hurt the way I was hurting, Cal.”

  Except he had hurt, Cal recalled miserably. More than he ever would have had she only possessed the courage to tell him what he’d had every right to know. Then and now. He studied her silently, then summed it all up in a low, disparaging voice meant to inflict as much hurt in her as she already had in him. “So, instead you just let me think your unhappiness that summer was about losing your fellowship and deciding to take on a less prestigious residency, and about my desire to use your unexpected sabbatical to have a baby, when you—all of a sudden—weren’t quite ready?” What a mess. He scoffed at her in contempt as he concluded his recitation of the chain of events that had nearly destroyed their marriage. “And then, just to make sure we were both as absolutely miserable as we could be, you decided to pursue a fellowship after all and headed for Hawaii?”

  Now, she was angry. “You told me to go!” she reminded him.

  Cal couldn’t believe she was defending her actions. He glared at her, not sure if he wanted to kiss her or shake some sense into her. “I was trying to be supportive!” He had wanted her to be happy. And he’d thought—falsely, he now realized—that her being in the fellowship program had been key.

  “And I was trying to spare you!”