Her Secret Valentine. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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