Her Secret Valentine. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 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 СКАЧАТЬ