Читать книгу Her Secret Valentine - Cathy Thacker Gillen - Страница 11

“Thanks for meeting me at the office on a Saturday afternoon,” Ashley told Carlotta Ramirez, a petite beauty with dark hair and eyes and olive skin. Carlotta had been Ashley’s “big sister” when she’d entered medical school—the fourth-year student assigned to help Ashley adjust. Now an obstetrician-gynecologist with a thriving private practice in Holly Springs, Carlotta was also married to another doctor, and the mother of three children: one born during her undergraduate years, the next while she was in medical school and the third during Carlotta’s Ob/Gyn residency.

“No problem.” Carlotta unlocked the door to her office suite, flipped on the overhead lights to dispel the wintry gloom and led the way inside. “I heard you and Cal were back this morning and I’ve been dying to see you. So how was Hawaii?” Carlotta continued as she shut the door behind them. “Beautiful?”

Ashley thought about the white-sand beaches, blue skies and even bluer ocean, the lush vegetation and a temperature that never varied much below seventy degrees or above eighty. “Very.”

“I envy you the chance to do your fellowship there.” Carlotta shook her head in awe. “Talk about paradise.”

It had been, Ashley thought. But it would have been so much better if Cal had been there with her. Maybe then she wouldn’t have felt such soul-deep loneliness the whole time she was there.

“So how long have you been feeling lousy?” Carlotta asked as they walked through the deserted inner office.

Ashley paused as Carlotta stopped at the linen closet and got out a soft pink cotton gown and a folded linen sheet, and handed both to Ashley.

“I just started throwing up this morning,” Ashley said, telling herself that what she was worried about couldn’t possibly be true.

“But—?” Carlotta prodded, experienced enough to know there was more.

Ashley confided reluctantly, “I’ve been tired and over-emotional and I suddenly can’t fit into my pants.”

“Any chance you might be pregnant?” Carlotta asked casually.

Yes, as a matter of fact, there was a slight chance—even though Ashley kept telling herself it couldn’t possibly be true. “Cal and I were together in mid-November for a weekend in San Francisco,” Ashley admitted with a rueful smile.

Carlotta grinned. “Sounds romantic,” she teased.

Romance involved feelings, which Cal and Ashley had both been careful to keep tamped down. “It was certainly passionate, anyway,” Ashley joked right back, aware her palms had begun to sweat as she faced finding out the absolute truth of her situation. A truth she wasn’t sure she was ready to deal with.

Carlotta paused at another cabinet, and withdrew what she needed to do a screening test for iron-deficiency. “Did you two use protection?”

Ashley blushed as Carlotta tore open an antiseptic packet. An Ob/Gyn, too, she knew these were the kind of questions she should be asking others, not answering herself. “I’ve been taking oral contraceptives.”

“And that’s it?” Carlotta asked.

Ashley cleared her throat, embarrassed to find herself in this position. “Right. Which was foolish, I know, since nothing is absolutely foolproof in and of itself.” How many times had Ashley counseled her own patients in the women’s clinic to use two methods of contraception simultaneously, and not just one, if they wanted to make absolutely sure they did not conceive?

Looking back, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t followed her own oft-given advice. But she had missed Cal so desperately, and making hot, wild love with him had always been the one sure way the two of them could connect, even when every other method of communication failed abysmally. Not wanting anything between them, she’d told him to forget about condoms and had been a little reckless.

“Well, there’s one way to find out.” Carlotta swabbed the end of Ashley’s third finger with the antiseptic wipe, then pricked her finger. “I can do an in-office urine pregnancy test for you right now and, if that’s positive, of course, we’re going to want to take some more blood to send to the lab for a complete prenatal work-up and screening.”

“Sounds good.” Ashley watched as a dot of blood appeared on her finger and waited for Carlotta to fill a small plastic cylinder with a sample of her blood for the iron-deficiency screen.

Finished, Carlotta swabbed Ashley’s finger again, then gave her a small plastic cup.

By the time Ashley emerged from the bathroom with the cup full, her blood sample was already in the machine that would render the results. Carlotta completed the in-office lab tests while Ashley undressed in one of the exam rooms.

“Well, you’re not anemic,” Carlotta announced, breezing in. Her cheerful grin confirmed what Ashley already knew in her heart. “And it looks as though the stork is going to be paying you two a visit next August.”

Ashley drew a deep breath as her old friend started the physical exam by taking her blood pressure and listening to her heart and lungs.

“You’re sure?”

Carlotta nodded. “Even without the test, I would have known. I’m surprised you and Cal didn’t pick up on the signs. Your breasts appear swollen and you’ve got blue and pink lines beneath the skin.” Carlotta moved to the end of the exam table while Ashley slid her feet into the stirrups and slid down.

Carlotta donned gloves and continued the physical exam. “Your uterus is enlarged and soft. Yep, you’re definitely pregnant, all right.”

Finished, Carlotta gave Ashley a hand and helped her sit up.

Ashley sat there, completely stunned. “Why don’t you get dressed and then we’ll talk in my office?” Carlotta said gently.

A few minutes later, wearing the same comfortable pale-blue sweats she had worn on the plane back from Hawaii, Ashley entered Carlotta’s office. “Well,” she said, as she sank into a seat. “This certainly explains why I’ve gained over five pounds in two months and suddenly none of my pants with waistbands fit.”

“I take it pregnancy wasn’t in the plans you and Cal have been making?” Carlotta said delicately.

Ashley shook her head. “We haven’t even discussed children since the first couple of months we were married.” Then they had both thought about having a child, except it hadn’t worked out, and shortly after that, the troubles in their marriage had begun.

Carlotta handed Ashley a month’s supply of prenatal vitamin samples. “You think he doesn’t want children?”

Ashley hesitated. She was bewildered to discover she no longer knew the answer to that. “It’s just…”

“I understand. It’s a life-altering event, no matter how it occurs. But for the record, I think Cal would be very happy.” Carlotta paused. “I mean, you are planning to tell him, aren’t you?”

Happiness bubbled up inside Ashley, followed quickly by fear, and a disturbing feeling of déjà vu. “Yes, of course I’m going to tell Cal, as soon as I hit the three-month mark and pass the danger of miscarriage.”

Carlotta blinked. “You’re sure you want to wait that long?”

Ashley knew from her own patients that most women couldn’t wait to tell their husbands.

“Yes.” For very good reason.

Carlotta did some quick calculations, and grinned as she jumped to the logical conclusion. “Valentine’s Day, huh?” Carlotta teased.

Ashley smiled. Now—heaven willing—she knew exactly what she was going to give her husband for Valentine’s Day. And it beat the heck out of any car, even a red ’64 Mustang convertible. “Promise me.” Ashley looked Carlotta in the eye and did her best to quell her nervousness. “Not a word to anyone, even your husband, until I give the okay.”

Carlotta crossed her heart. “You have my word. Now, is there anything else you want to discuss?”

Ashley sobered. “As a matter of fact,” she related unhappily as she prepared to fill her friend in on the most private parts of her medical history, “there is.”

“YOU HAVEN’T HEARD a word I’ve said, have you?” Cal said in frustration several hours later.

Ashley flushed guiltily and looked across the kitchen table at him. They’d been having dinner for a good twenty minutes now, and although he had been talking nonstop about the case he’d seen earlier and the difficulties the surgery presented, she had heard only a smidgen of it. Which had been most unlike her. Usually, she loved hearing about Cal’s cases, and vice versa. Medicine was the one thing they could always talk about.