Her Secret Valentine

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…