mean anything to her. Not anymore.
But Eli meant the world to her, and her smile came easily for him.
“How’s Ruby?” she asked, having learned about his wife’s heart attack from Megan, who worked with one of the doctor’s neighbors.
“She’s doing well. Thanks for the beautiful flowers. She was so tickled that you remembered gerberas are her favorite.”
“I was hoping they would brighten up her room and her spirits.”
“The did both,” Eli confirmed. “And remarkably well, I’d say, since she’s scheduled to come home tomorrow.”
“You must be so relieved.”
He nodded. “We’ve been married forty-two years. After that much time, you start to take certain things for granted. But I’m not taking anything for granted anymore.”
Ashley wondered if she would ever know that kind of deep and abiding love, and realized that she still hoped she would. She hadn’t completely given up on the idea of finding someone to share her life, she’d just decided not to worry about doing so. And, in the meantime, she would happily lavish all of her love and attention on the baby she was going to have.
“But I know you didn’t really come here to talk abut me,” the doctor continued. “So tell me how you’re doing.”
“I’m anxious to get these stitches out,” she admitted.
He scanned the notes in her file, closed the folder and reached for her hand. “Let’s take a look then.”
While he was bent over her hand, she stared at the calendar on the wall on the opposite side of the room, breathing slowly and carefully as she silently calculated the days and then the hours and minutes until it was time to go back to school. She felt a few little tugs, but no pain, and as long as she didn’t think about the fact that he was pulling threads out of her hand, she didn’t feel dizzy.
She hadn’t felt anything when Cam put the stitches in, either. Of course, she’d been given an injection to freeze the site, but even without the artificial numbing, she knew her awareness of Cam would have eclipsed everything else.
“How does it feel?”
She glanced down, saw that he’d finished removing the stitches. She carefully curled her fingers into a fist, nodded. “It feels good.”
“Cam did a nice job,” Eli said. “In a few more weeks, the scar will barely be visible.”
Ashley uncurled her fist and was pleased to note that there was no residual pain in her hand.
If only the same could be said about the scars Cam had left on her heart twelve years earlier.
Chapter Five
As a child, Ashley had always looked forward to the first day of school. As a teacher, she still did.
Maybe it would be different if she taught high school, where the students were more sullen and jaded. But for a group of five-and six-year-olds, entering first grade was as thrilling an event as Columbus’s discovery of a whole new world. They were all so young and eager to learn, and Ashley found their excitement and enthusiasm never failed to recharge her own.
She didn’t usually have supervision duty on Wednesday mornings, but like most other teachers on staff at Parkdale Elementary School, it was a tradition to meet on the playground behind the school so the students could catch a glimpse of their teachers before they entered the classroom, and vice versa. She knew most of the kids who would be in her class, of course, because the majority had attended kindergarten at the same school the previous year. But there were always a few new faces, children who had moved into the neighborhood over the summer and who were even more anxious about the first day because everything was strange and unfamiliar.
It was easy to spot the new ones, and Ashley liked to introduce herself before the first bell and to meet with the mother who was usually present and in whose hand a much smaller one would be tightly clasped.
She had three new students this year and she’d already made the rounds to say hello and invite the parents to come into the classroom. Some would accept her offer and, in doing so, would feel reassured about the environment in which they’d left their children. Others would decline, knowing that it would only make saying goodbye that much more difficult for the child. Ashley was supportive of either decision, trusting that the parent knew his or her child better than she did—at least on the first day.
She smiled at Adam Webber, one of the fifth-grade teachers and the boys’ basketball coach, when he came out of the school with the ever-present orange ball tucked under his arm.
“Look at them.” Adam shook his head. “So eager and enthusiastic.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll beat that out of them soon enough.”
He grinned easily at her teasing, because he knew he was one of the favorite teachers at Parkdale. “How does your class look this year? Or should I wait until the end of the day to ask you?”
“Twenty-three kids. Ten boys, thirteen girls.”
“Twenty-four,” he said.
“What?”
“Haven’t you seen Wendy this morning?” Adam asked, referring to the principal’s administrative assistant.
“No, I came directly around the back.”
“She told me she has an updated class list for you.”
“But I just picked up the list yesterday. And I did all of the name tags and locker magnets last night.”
He shrugged. “I’m just the messenger.”
Ashley turned to go into the school, and that’s when she saw her.
The child looked the right age for a first grader, with long, dark hair and wide, terrified eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless pink dress with tiny white daisies embroidered at the square neckline and along the hem, with matching pink canvas sneakers embroidered with the same flowers on the toes.
Obviously the newest addition.
Feeling an instinctive stir of empathy, Ashley had already started forward when she glanced from the child to parent—and froze.
The man holding the little girl’s hand was Cam Turcotte.
Ashley stopped by Wendy’s office and grabbed the new class list before ducking into her classroom and closing the door at her back. She just needed five minutes alone. Five minutes to assimilate the reality that had been shoved in her face. Five minutes to accept that Cam had a child—that the baby she’d once dreamed of having with him had been born to someone else.
She didn’t want to believe it. And yet she couldn’t deny it was true. There was no doubt the little girl with the shiny dark hair and wide green eyes clinging to his hand as if he was the center of her world could be anyone but his daughter.
But how could she not have known?
Cam
