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“And those would be…?” Ashley prodded dryly as he unlocked the passenger door on his SUV and helped her inside.
In answer, Cal grinned and let his gaze touch her breasts, waist and hips.
She blushed again.
“You’re perfect,” Cal repeated. Wishing—just once—she would believe it. “And I like the glow on your face, too,” he added softly. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand.
Ashley wrinkled her nose, and shook her head. “I’m going to pretend I agree with you…just so we don’t have to talk about my embarrassing predicament anymore. It’s probably what I get for living in scrubs and lab coats, anyway. All those loose-fitting tops and elastic waistbands…I’ll be more careful in the future. Just do me a favor and don’t mention my wardrobe crisis to your sibs? I’m embarrassed enough already.”
“DON’T YOU LOOK WONDERFUL!” Helen Hart told Ashley when she and Cal walked in to her home behind the Wedding Inn, the palatial three-story white brick inn Cal’s mother had turned into the premiere wedding facility in North Carolina. As always, Ashley noted admiringly, Helen’s short red hair was perfectly coiffed, her amber eyes as warm as they were astute. Ashley’s mother-in-law favored clothes that were classic, not trendy. Tonight she was clad in a cream wool turtleneck sweater and gray slacks perfect for an evening with family.
“You think we look good now, wait until we get some more sleep!” Cal winked at his mom as he helped Ashley off with her coat and went to hang it up.
Ashley returned Helen’s hug warmly. Although her husband’s siblings could sometimes leave her feeling overwhelmed, she adored Cal’s mom. Maybe because the openly loving, family-oriented woman was everything her own mother wasn’t. Helen Hart loved and accepted her kids, no matter what. She did not demand they succeed at all cost. She simply wanted them to be good, kind, loving people. Which wasn’t to say Helen was a pushover. If the fifty-six-year-old Helen saw one of her brood making a mistake that could hurt someone else, she was always quick to intervene and make sure that the situation was corrected. But she also gave them plenty of room to live their own lives. And as a result of that, her six adult children were a very tight-knit group. The death of Cal’s father twenty years ago had made them even more so. They understood the value of family. And they loved each other dearly. So dearly that even after ten years of being Cal’s one and only, Ashley sometimes still felt like an outsider looking in.
Oblivious to Ashley’s anxiety over the evening ahead, Helen linked arms with Ashley and led her toward the Great Room at the rear of the house, where everyone gathered. “If we’d had more notice, I would’ve invited your parents to be with us this evening, too,” Helen noted cheerfully. “They must be very anxious to see you, too!”
Were they? Ashley wondered.
“When are you and Cal going to visit them?” Helen paused in the kitchen to check the big pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.
“I’m not sure,” Ashley hedged, watching Helen put water on to boil.
“But they do know you’re back in Carolina?” Helen ascertained, concern lighting her eyes.
Ashley nodded. “I e-mailed them my plans before I left Honolulu.” And hadn’t yet checked to see if there had been a response, largely because she hadn’t felt ready to face the constant pressure to achieve that her parents were likely to exert on her when they did see her.
Aware this was a touchy subject with Ashley, Cal motioned them all to the family room, where the rest of Hart clan was gathered around the television, watching two NHL teams do battle on the ice in Montreal. Had the Carolina Storm professional hockey team been playing that evening, three of the men in the family would have been absent. Janey’s husband, Thad, because he was the coach. Dylan, because he was a game announcer, and Joe, because he was one of the hockey players. But since the team had the day off, and the next game was at home, they were all there. As was Janey’s twelve-year-old son Christopher—who was petting Lily and Fletcher’s recently adopted yellow Labrador retriever, Spartacus. Mac and the newest members of the Hart clan—Joe’s wife, Emma, Dylan’s wife, Hannah, and Fletcher’s wife, Lily—were gathered around, too.
A happier bunch couldn’t have been found, Ashley noted, accepting hugs and warm hellos from one and all. And it was then the trouble she’d been anticipating began.
“SOMETHING WRONG?” Janey asked two hours later as the two of them carried the containers holding leftovers out to the spare refrigerator in Helen’s garage.
Besides the fact that everyone there seemed to be keeping a careful eye on everything she and Cal did and said? Ashley wondered.
Ashley figured if anyone understood the five Hart brothers it was their only sister, Janey. “What do you know about the advice the guys have been giving Cal about me?” Ashley asked, opening the fridge. She was willing to bet whatever had prompted the phone message Cal had received in Hawaii was still going on among the men. Sly looks, approving nods, the occasional slap on the shoulder, one brother to another, had been going on all night.
Abruptly, Janey looked like a kid who’d been caught with knowledge she had no business having.
Ashley held up a palm. “I heard it all, Janey. I just want to know what prompted the onslaught of friendly guidance in the first place.” Cal was the most private of the Hart brothers. Definitely the least likely to seek advice regarding his marriage.
Janey slid her containers into the spare fridge, then knelt to make room for Ashley’s. “They were just worried about you two.” Janey kept her head down. “We all were.” Even more quietly she said, “Cal’s been so lonely while you were away.”
This was news. Ashley’s heartbeat picked up and anxiety ran through her anew. “Was he complaining to the rest of you?” If so, she wasn’t sure how that made her feel! Not good, certainly.
“No, of course not.” Finished, Janey straightened. “Cal never complains. You know that.” Janey paused to look at Ashley seriously. “But even though he shrugged it off, we all knew he was pretty miserable whenever he wasn’t busy working.”
Then why hadn’t Cal said something? Ashley wondered, hurt and dismayed, instead of acting as if the weeks and months apart were just something to be endured.
“HEY, YOU’RE NOT still upset about the clothes-not-fitting thing, are you?” Cal asked as they turned into the driveway of the farmhouse. He stopped in front of the two-car garage and hit the automatic door button.
“That’s the least of my worries,” Ashley muttered as she watched the door lift.
Cal steered his SUV into the garage. He frowned as he cut the motor and depressed the remote control. “Did someone say something to you tonight?”
Ashley got out of the Jeep, aware the jet lag she had felt earlier had vanished in the face of her anger and disappointment. She watched his face as she waited for him to join her at the door to the softly lit interior of the house, wishing he weren’t so darned handsome and appealing. It would make it so much easier to stay angry with him. “Did you expect them to?”
Cal unlocked the door and held it open for her, turning sideways to let her pass. Their bodies brushed lightly, igniting her senses even more. “I know my family can be a bit overwhelming, all at once.”
Ashley put her purse on the kitchen counter and pivoted to face him. She had to tilt her head back to see into his penetrating gray eyes. “Tell me something, Cal. Whose idea was it for you to come to Hawaii early and surprise me?”
The guilt she had hoped desperately not to see flashed across his face. His fingers tightened on the keys in his hand. “You heard about the Hart posse coming to see me,” he surmised grimly.
She had now. Wondering just how deep his family’s interference in their marriage went, Ashley folded her arms in front of her. “I’d like to hear it from you,” she retorted, just as quietly.
Cal shrugged as if the incident were so insignificant it had barely registered on his radar screen. “It was suggested to me that I might want to do a better job of taking charge of our…situation…and bring you home.”
Her spirits deflated even more. “So that’s the only reason,” Ashley presumed, the knowledge blindsiding her.
Cal clamped his hands on her shoulders, preventing her from running away. “No,” he corrected with exaggerated patience. “I flew to Hawaii because you’re my wife, and I’m your husband. And I thought you could use some help packing up your belongings, shutting off utilities and turning over your apartment.”
How…romantic. Ashley struggled to contain her zigzagging emotions, even as she wondered when the last time Cal had said he loved her had been. Six months ago? A year? Longer? With effort, she kept the too-casual smile on her face. “Be honest with me, Cal. Would you have come and gotten me if your family hadn’t intervened?” she demanded.
Cal released her as suddenly as if she had burned him. He leaned against the opposite counter and watched her in that strong, silent, aloof way of his. “Originally, I was planning to let you come home on your own timetable,” he said eventually.
“And then you changed your mind,” Ashley ascertained, aware neither of them had yet taken off their winter coats, and yet she still felt chilled to the bone in the cozy warmth of the farmhouse.
Cal gestured off-handedly, not about to apologize for what he had or had not said or done. “Look, I didn’t ask for their interference, but what they were intimating made sense.”
Feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes, Ashley turned away from him. She didn’t know what it was about her lately—maybe it was the wealth of life-determining decisions ahead of her, or her continuing emotional distance from Cal—but she was so much moodier than usual!
“Where are you going?” Cal demanded in a low, gruff voice when she headed for the hall that ran the length of the house.
Ashley shrugged as she removed her black wool coat. “Does it matter?”
“Hell yes, it matters.” In three long steps, Cal had overtaken her. He shackled her wrist, stopping her flight. She whirled toward him and they stared at each other in silence. “You don’t believe I had our best interests at heart, do you?” he said quietly.
Achingly aware of the warmth of his fingers lightly encircling her wrist, Ashley drew a deep breath. “I think your family wants us to be together—here in Holly Springs—and you want to please your family.” Just like I want to please mine. She swallowed around the rising lump in her throat. “So it’s only natural—”
Cal’s lips thinned. He shook his head at her disparagingly and tightened his grasp on her wrist. Swearing passionately beneath his breath, he steered her through the house to the door leading to the backyard. “Enough of this baloney!”
Ashley trembled as he struggled with the deadbolt on the door and yanked it open. “What are you doing?”
“Exactly what it looks like!” Cal said as he switched on the backyard lights. He took her out onto the deck, down the steps and onto the lawn. “I’m taking you to the barn!”
Chapter Four
“I don’t know what has gotten into you,” Ashley fumed as Cal charged through the floodlit darkness of the backyard to the barn a hundred yards away.
He gave her a wickedly teasing look. “A little John Wayne perhaps? And for the record,” he wrapped an arm about her waist, tucking her into his side, “it’s long overdue.”
“It is not!” she told him with a determined toss of her head. She dug in her heels, flung off his arm and turned to face him. “And you can not do this!”
He lowered his face until they were nose to nose. “Want to bet?”
Ashley’s heart pounded in her chest. She stabbed a finger at his chest, trying not to notice what a beautifully sculpted body he had. From his broad shoulders and well-muscled chest to his narrow waist and long legs, there wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t fit and toned to the max. “I mean it, Cal.”
He inclined his head at her, just as stubbornly. “So do I,” he told her in a voice that brooked no dissent. “I don’t care if you like it or not, Mrs. Hart.” He drew in a slow breath and stayed just exactly where he was. “You’re coming with me and you’re coming right now.”
The next thing she knew, he was swinging her up into his arms and striding across the lawn.
“The last time you did this was on our wedding night!” Ashley said breathlessly.
He grinned with customary self-assurance. “You planning to give me one of those?”
Ashley tried not to notice how the skirt of her dress was riding up her thighs, or how his powerful arm felt clamped beneath her hips. “Not tonight I’m not!” She wiggled in an attempt to get free. “Not after this!”
Oblivious to her machinations, he regarded her with a mysterious glint in his eye. “We’ll just see how romantic you’re feeling in a minute,” he murmured huskily. He set her down in front of the double barn doors and opened the latch.
Once used to store farm equipment and fruit from the orchards, the big, red-sided building had been empty the only other time Ashley had been to the farm. She discovered it wasn’t empty now as Cal hit the switch that brought on the overhead lights hanging from the rafters. A lawn tractor, hand mower and edger occupied one corner. But it was what was in the center of the cement-floored space that left her speechless.
“Oh, my…” Ashley stared at the big red heart on the windshield of a red ’64 Mustang convertible in letter-perfect shape, from the pristine retractable white top and fancy silver wheel covers, to the candy-apple-red vinyl interior. It looked like the borrowed vehicle they’d had their very first date in.
Still watching her carefully, he took her gently by the hand, and led her toward the car. “Happy early Valentine’s Day,” he said when they neared. Wrapping both hands around her waist, he brought her close enough to kiss her temple affectionately. “This is for you.”
She stared at him in amazement.
“You bought this for me?”
“For us. Yes.”
“But we’ve never done anything this extravagant for each other for Valentine’s Day!” Ashley protested. Usually, they exchanged cards, and went out to dinner, and that was about it.
“I know.”
“Then why now?” She gazed at him. Was this part of his family’s influence, too? Or all Cal’s idea?
“Because we used to be closer,” Cal told her in a low, sincere voice. Abruptly, all the love he had ever felt for her was in his eyes. “And I know we could be that connected to each other again if we just let ourselves go back to the beginning and start over. And where better to do that than in the car where our courtship began, eleven-and-a-half years ago?”
Ashley had to admit, the Mustang had already generated a lot of good memories in just a few scant minutes.
He regarded her with distinctly male satisfaction. “Want to test drive your new Mustang?”
Her hopes rising about them being able to fix the problems in their marriage after all, she took the keys he handed her. “Absolutely—if you’ll come with me.”
He winked at her cheerfully, suddenly looking like the carefree, charming med student she had fallen in love with years ago. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Cal opened the door for her, and Ashley slid behind the steering wheel. Circling around to the other side, Cal dropped into the passenger seat. Electricity sizzled between them as Ashley recalled how they used to do a little “parking” in this car, too.
“As much as I’d like you to try it with the top down…” Cal said.
Ashley shivered, just thinking about the wintry air blowing over them. “Yeah. I think it’s too cold for that tonight, too.”
“But when warmer weather comes,” Cal predicted, fastening his old-fashioned lap belt, “we’ll have a lot of fun with it.”
It certainly sounded as though he was in this for the long haul, Ashley thought, as she fastened her belt, too. She shook her head, marveling at how accurately Cal had targeted her feelings.
To her delight, the motor started easily and ran with a gentle purr. “I can’t get over how much this looks like the Mustang we started dating in,” Ashley commented as she took it out on the country road and drove it through the moonlit countryside.
Cal draped an arm across the back of the seat. “It doesn’t just look like it, Ashley.” He leaned over and kissed her shoulder. “This is the Car.”
A quick glance his way showed her he wasn’t kidding. Ashley turned onto a road that would take them back in the direction of the farm. Enjoying the quick responsiveness of the motor, and the tight command of the wheel, Ashley asked, “How did you manage that?”
“I talked to Marty—the friend we used to borrow it from—and got the serial number and worked backwards from there,” Cal told her as she slowed the car and turned into the long, narrow driveway.
“Unfortunately, the guy who owned it last summer didn’t want to sell it to anyone because it’s such a collector’s item now,” Cal continued affably. “So Hannah had to help me convince him to part with it. And then she spent the fall putting on a new coat of paint and making sure it ran like a dream.”
Ashley guided the car back into the barn and cut the motor. “You were working on this all the way back then?” she asked in amazement. He’d never said a thing!
Shrugging, he released the catch on his safety belt. “I wanted you to have a spectacular coming-home present.”
Spectacular was the word for it, all right. Ashley couldn’t think of a better, more meaningful gift he could have given her. Except the gift he had unknowingly given her and she’d lost, before. The gift he still knew nothing about.
Ashley paused, aware yet again how much she loved Cal. More than anything, she wanted to be close to him again.
Maybe it was time she stopped guarding her heart. Instead, she could concentrate on tearing down the walls between them and building a better foundation for their marriage. Heaven knew this was a remarkable start. Just knowing he, too, wanted things to be better between them made all the difference. For the first time in months, she was optimistic about their future together. Optimistic that it wouldn’t be just great sex and their love of medicine holding them together…
She wreathed her arms about his neck and leaned over to kiss him. “This is without a doubt the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for me.”
His lips moved warmly on hers. To her relief…and disappointment, he didn’t try to take the caress further. “I’m glad you like it,” he whispered, holding her close as she snuggled against him.
“I more than like it, Cal. I love it.” Ashley splayed her hands across the solidness of his chest. As she looked at him, her heart felt lighter than it had in ages. “But you know what this means, don’t you?”
Cal shook his head, still holding her eyes with all the tenderness she had ever wanted to see.
“I still owe you a Valentine’s Day present. And it’s going to have to be a whopper to live up to the gift you’ve given me.”
“Ah, Ashley, don’t you understand?” Cal chided her gently, pulling her close yet again for another long, soulful kiss that ended much too soon. He threaded a hand through her hair. “Just coming home with me and spending the month with me in Carolina is present enough.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Cal woke at his usual time of 6:00 a.m. Congratulating himself for going against his baser instincts to seduce Ashley back into his bed the night before, he rose and headed downstairs to put on the coffee. And then waited. And waited. And waited.
When Ashley still hadn’t stirred five and a half hours later, he went up to check on her. She was curled up on her side, sleeping soundly, one hand tucked beneath her pillow. Knowing she’d never get on Eastern Standard Time unless she made an effort to adapt to the five-hour time difference, he opened the drapes and let the January sunshine pour across the guest bed. “Rise and shine!”
Ashley moaned and burrowed deeper in the covers. “What time is it?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“Almost noon,” Cal leaned against the brass railing at the end of the double bed. She appeared to be going back to sleep. He nudged her foot. “Want to go for a run with me?”
Ashley opened one eye. “Mmm.” She made a soft, sexy sound low in her throat. “Maybe later?”
Cal was about to coax her further when he heard a car in the drive. He crossed to the window and saw Ashley’s father’s Mercedes coming up the lane. This was…unexpected. “Ashley, I think your dad’s here,” Cal said.
Ashley scoffed and put one of the pillows over her head. “Get real,” she mumbled.
Cal plucked the pillow away from her ear. “I mean it, Ash. I’m not kidding. Your dad just drove up to the house.”
Ashley started, and ran a hand through her “bed-head” hair. As usual, she looked more apprehensive than pleased when confronted with a meeting with her parents. “I’ll keep him company while you get dressed,” Cal promised, aware he wasn’t much more comfortable with his father-in-law than Ashley seemed to be.
By the time Cal made it downstairs, Harold Porter was standing on the front porch of the farmhouse. Cal hadn’t seen Harold for nearly a year but he looked the same as always. His impeccably cut silver hair was brushed away from his forehead in a suave, sophisticated style that didn’t move even in the stiffest breeze. His skin bore the perennial suntan of a man who played golf, sailed and skied. Not that those activities were pleasure-oriented. Cal knew that everything Harold Porter did revolved around his work. And sometimes the only place a business meeting could be worked in was on the slope, the deck of a boat or a superbly manicured green. Hal Porter did whatever was necessary to get the job done, which was how he had risen through sales and marketing departments to become CEO of a prominent pharmaceutical company that was headquartered in the Research Triangle Park.
“Sir.” Cal shook his father-in-law’s hand and escorted him inside. Despite the fact it was a Saturday morning, Harold Porter was decked out in an expensive suit and tie.
“I can’t stay.” Harold shrugged out of his cashmere overcoat and handed it to Cal. “I’ve got a flight to Chicago later this afternoon, but I wanted to drop in and see you and Ashley before I headed to the airport.”
Cal wasn’t surprised. Harold traveled at least five or six days every week. Many weekends, he didn’t make it back to North Carolina at all.
Cal hung up Harold’s coat. “Ashley will be down in a minute. She’s just waking up.”
Harold frowned and glanced at his Rolex in obvious disapproval.
“She’s still on Hawaii time,” Cal explained, wishing Ashley’s father wasn’t so hard on her. “Can I get you some coffee or juice?”
Harold waved off the offer and regarded Cal soberly. “Actually, I’d like a word with you privately, if I may.”
Aware this couldn’t possibly be good, Cal led the way past the unfurnished rooms at the front of the house, to the family room at the rear. After Harold sat on the leather sofa, Cal took an easy chair and waited. The curt admonition wasn’t long in coming. “I thought I had explained this to you when you asked her mother and me for her hand in marriage,” Harold began sternly.
Cal was beginning to think of that conversation as the Devil’s Bargain. One he never should have made in order to get their blessing for the union.
“Ashley is very much like her mother and me,” Harold continued matter-of-factly. “She will never be happy unless she is free to be all she can be professionally. I know, because for the first six months after Ashley was born Margaret tried to give up her career goals and aspirations and be a full-time mother because she thought that would please me. She was never more miserable, nor was I.”
Which meant Ashley couldn’t have been happy, either. Cal knew that to have a happy baby—and a happy family—you had to have happy parents.