Her Secret Valentine

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 reason 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.

Cal’s expression hardened. He took his hand away from her hair, let it fall back to her waist. “We’ll never know until we try.”

She couldn’t deny the truth of his words.

“It’s time we stepped up and confronted the problems that have been dogging us since the moment we said our vows.”

“All right.” Ashley moved away from Cal. “But we do it on my terms.”

He lifted a brow. “Which are?”

“No sex.” Ashley bartered the condition she had been thinking about for quite a while.

He blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?”

Ashley held up a cautioning palm. “I mean it, Cal. Sex between the two of us is great, but it never fails to derail us when we are trying to work out a problem. We end up making love and not talking about whatever it is that needs to be dealt with in the first place. So, if I come back with you to North Carolina while I job hunt, then we can’t make love.”

As Ashley had expected, her husband had to think about that. Hard. Which confirmed all of Ashley’s worst fears—that without the sex they really had nothing to hold them together. Nothing that would keep their marriage going for the next fifty years.

A wealth of emotions flickered in Cal’s eyes. Finally, to Ashley’s relief, he assented. “But I have a few conditions of my own,” Cal said firmly as Ashley found her beach sandals and sat down on the sofa to slip them on.

“One, you live with me under the same roof the entire time you are in Holly Springs. And two, you stay until our third wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day and celebrate the occasion with me. You can have your own bedroom—either the master suite or the guest room,” he offered expansively. “Your choice.”

Ashley stared up at him, her hands braced on either side of her. “That’s a whole month, Cal.”

Nodding, he held out his palm and helped her to her feet. “Which ought to be long enough to figure out where we go from here.”

Chapter Three

“You’ve really done a lot to the place,” Ashley remarked late the following morning. Despite her wool coat, she shivered a little from the brisk winter air. They had taken the red-eye back to Carolina. And now, some twelve hours later, they were back at the farmhouse he had purchased during the first year she had been in Honolulu. “It was in pretty rough shape the last time I saw it.”

“That’s right,” Cal recalled. “You’ve only seen the place once.” He set their suitcases down in the front hall and went to adjust the downstairs thermostat that had been lowered in his absence.

Ashley felt the chill seep from her bones. “You’ve obviously worked hard on it. I’m impressed.”

The two-story farmhouse had been painted a sunny yellow on the outside. The pine-green shutters and door coordinated nicely with the new slate-gray roof. Inside, the hardwood floors had all been redone. The walls were painted a creamy sand that went well with the white crown moldings and trim. She couldn’t help noticing, however, that the parlor and formal dining room at the very front of the house were empty and the walls bare.

“I thought you might like to help me decorate these rooms,” Cal told her casually. “So I haven’t done anything with them.” Looking happy to have her there again at long last, he took her hand and led her back toward the rear of the house.

He continued to show her around proudly. The country kitchen had all new glass-front maple cabinets and marble counters and was painted a soothing shade of taupe that blended well with both. The color continued into the laundry room at the rear of the house, as well as into the tastefully decorated family room that overlooked the fruit orchards edging the backyard. A big stone fireplace was the focal point of the room. The mantel was lined with photos of Ashley and Cal. Formal engagement and wedding day portraits, as well as casual snapshots of them with family and friends from happier times. Before things got so complicated, Ashley thought wistfully.

Cal moved to the entertainment cabinet and showed her where the remotes for the wide-screen TV, stereo and DVD player were kept. “There’s no cable out here—so we’ve got satellite. I’ll show you how to use it whenever you want.”

“Later would be fine,” Ashley said, wondering at the formality that had risen up between them now that they were physically together again. When had things become so awkward between them they didn’t even know how to be in the same house together? she fretted miserably. A house they co-owned as husband and wife.

“Want to see the upstairs?” Cal asked, continuing to play the perfect host.

“Sure.” Ashley nodded agreeably. “And then I’m really going to have to crash.” She was so fatigued from the flight back, she was nearly light-headed. She turned and looked at the dark circles beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there sixteen hours previously. “You must be beat, too.” He had flown to Hawaii, and then hours later, turned right around and flown back to North Carolina.

“I am,” Cal admitted, stifling a yawn. Logging nearly twenty-four hours travel time in a thirty-two-hour period was finally catching up with him.

He led her past the hall bathroom, which looked as if it had been outfitted for guests and was rarely used, and two empty bedrooms. A guest room was next. It had the cozy brass bed they had used the first five months of their marriage and an antique bureau with a mirror that conjured up a lot of memories for Ashley that she wasn’t sure she was ready to remember yet.

Next was the master bedroom. A brand new king-size sleigh bed with matching cherry nightstands and antique brass lamps took up most of the space. Two separate walk-in closets had been built. And where the fifth bedroom and bath had been was a brand-new master bathroom.

Ashley gaped at the changes. There were dual pedestal sinks, a sit-down vanity, a separate water closet for the commode, and a whirlpool tub beneath a bay window of privacy glass. But it was the shower that commanded her attention. Pale-green marble covered the floor, walls and ceiling of the six-by-eight-foot space. A high window at one end let in plenty of sunlight, and a long green marble bench was situated beneath it. There were two showerheads—a handheld and an overhead—and the glass shower door stretched all the way to the ceiling.

“This doubles as a sauna,” Cal boasted, showing her where the controls for that were.

“Wow,” Ashley said. She had never seen anything quite so luxurious.

Cal’s gaze drifted over her appreciatively. “The sauna can feel pretty good after a long day or night at the hospital.”

As would their lovemaking, the implication seemed to be. Ashley swallowed, pushing away the flutter of desire deep inside her. She had promised herself she would not let passionate sex distract them from the work they needed to do on their relationship. She would keep that vow.

Cal frowned, apparently registering the sudden drop in temperature between them. “Anyway, I know I promised you separate accommodations,” he said gallantly ushering her back out into the hall.

And it was good they’d made that agreement, Ashley thought. Otherwise she would have been tempted just to say the heck with caution and fall into bed with her husband once again.

He gave her a hot, assessing look. “So unless you’ve changed your mind…”

“I haven’t,” Ashley said, pretending her thoughts weren’t traveling down the same ardent path as his.

To Cal’s credit, if he was disappointed by her careful outward demeanor, he did not show it. He paused to turn the upstairs thermostat higher. “I’ll take the guest room then,” he said mildly.

“You don’t have to do that,” Ashley said, knowing that she’d be more comfortable in the bed she had used before than in anything that had been exclusively his.

He looked at her a long moment, the faint hint of disappointment radiating in his pewter-gray eyes. “I’ll carry your suitcase up then,” he said quietly. And that was that.

THE PHONE RANG AT 6:00 P.M. Cal reached for it with a groan, and dutifully talked to his mother on the other end of the line. By the time he hung up two minutes later, he found Ashley standing in the doorway of the master bedroom. Tousled and adorable, she looked as disoriented as he felt after only a couple of hours sleep.

“Everything okay?” she murmured.

Damn, she looked sexy in a thigh-length cotton nightshirt and bare legs, Cal thought as he struggled to shake off his jet lag and sit all the way up against the headboard. Since she had obviously gone right from the shower into bed, her dark hair had dried in thick unruly waves.

“Who was that?” Ashley stifled a yawn with the back of her hand as she padded closer.

Knowing they would both adjust to the change in time zone if they stayed up the rest of the evening and went to bed at the normal time, Cal rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “My mother wants us to come for dinner. I told her I wasn’t sure you’d feel up to it. She said, if not, she’d send something over.”

“Is the whole family going to be there?” Ashley asked, with the hesitation she always evidenced when confronted with all five of his siblings. And now, thanks to a recent round of satisfying romances, four of them had spouses, too.

Cal shrugged. He didn’t want to make things any more awkward than they already were between him and Ashley. “We can always see everyone later,” he told her.

Looking as sleepy and out of it as he felt, Ashley perched on the end of the bed and tucked one hand around the sleigh-shaped footboard. “I know everyone wants to see me.”

An understatement if there ever was one, Cal thought. Particularly since his whole family had decided to help “fix” his marriage, unless he managed to do it first.

“So we might as well go this evening,” Ashley continued practically. “If you feel up to it.”

Cal figured it had to be better than staying here alone with Ashley, wanting to make love to her when he had promised to abstain. At least for the time being. He was still hoping she would change her mind about that and realize making love to each other always brought them closer. And now, more than ever, with so many important things ahead of them to decide, they needed to be closer. “We can make it a quick visit,” he said. He didn’t want to stay long lest his brothers decided to get into the advice-giving business again.

Ashley nodded her assent. “Just give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

Forty minutes later, Cal was still waiting for Ashley. When she finally came downstairs she was wearing a jewel-necked, long-sleeved black knit dress that she usually reserved for cocktail parties.

“I thought you were wearing slacks,” he said with a frown, wondering if he should go upstairs and change out of his jeans and corduroy shirt into something more formal, too.

“I was. Or I tried.”

He looked at her, not understanding.

“I guess I’ve gained a little weight over the holidays,” she said, her cheeks flushing bright pink. “I didn’t think I’d had that many Christmas cookies, but…suddenly none of the pants I brought with me want to zip. So it’s either this or another dress or the sweats I wore on the plane—and those need a run through the washer first.” Cheeks flushing all the more, she swept past him. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”

“I’m not. You look great.” The black knit fabric clung to her newly voluptuous curves, and the swirling skirt and high heels made the most of her sexy legs. She’d left her hair down, and it looked as wild and untamed as he knew her to be in her most unguarded moments.

Cal paused to remove her winter coat from the hall closet. “Would it make you feel less self-conscious if I went up and changed?” He knew everyone in his family would probably be wearing jeans, too, but he could put on a sport coat and tie.

“No. It’s fine, really.” Ashley waved off his concern. She slipped on the long black wool coat and looped a cashmere scarf around her neck. “I’m just going to have to get back to exercising on a regular basis again.”

Cal held the door for Ashley. “Well don’t lose any weight on my account,” he said. He let his eyes travel over her appreciatively. “I think you look amazing. I mean it, Ashley,” he continued when she scoffed. “Any extra ounces you have put on are definitely in all the right places.”