Kitabı oku: «The Good Mum»

CHAPTER ONE

NEW JOB, NEW LIFE, new home.

Today was only her second day on the job. Ashley LaValley still wasn’t used to this hair salon’s setup. So different from her old life.

She glanced toward the photo of her son, never far from her workstation. There it was—by the sleek bottle of high-end shampoo. A recent photo, Brandon smiled proudly in his newly bought, preppy St. Bartholomew’s School blazer. The light of Ashley’s life, her son had straight, sandy-blond hair and ruddy skin. Nothing at all like her features.

“Ashley, there’s a man here for you,” her young coworker Kylie said, approaching Ashley’s little corner workstation with a pen in her hand. “He’s a walk-in, so he’s not on your schedule.”

And just like that, a little thrum of worry passed through Ashley. Ridiculous, she told herself. You’re doing fine.

Putting her hand to her stomach, she breathed out slowly. Worrying was the big issue of her life, it seemed. No matter how much she worked and tried and strove, her old fears always resurfaced—usually when she was facing a change. She’d been through enough counseling to recognize what was happening, but this one-day-at-a-time stuff sure did challenge her. And of course she was being challenged—she was dealing with major life upheavals. All the biggies. New apartment. New job. New school for Brandon. New routine.

“You look kind of pale,” Kylie remarked, tilting her head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am.” Honestly, she needed to pull herself together. She had worked hard to find this job within walking distance of Brandon’s new school in Copley Square, Boston, and she couldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.

She stuck a smile on her face for Kylie, the young receptionist who controlled the front desk at Perceptions, the sleek salon where Ashley needed to keep working for the next two years, at least until Brandon graduated from his private middle school. “I’m just getting used to my new workstation is all. Let me clean up a bit first.” She picked up her broom and began sweeping up snips of blond hair from her last client. “Who’s the man I’m taking?” she asked as casually as she could.

“I didn’t ask his name.” Kylie’s brow furrowed, perhaps catching her mistake. Ashley got the distinct impression that Kylie was somewhat new, too. She eyed Ashley’s broom. “I don’t think you’re supposed to do that. We have interns to sweep up hair.” Maybe Ashley imagined it, but she thought she saw Kylie roll her eyes ever so slightly, as if Ashley was a hopeless rube.

It was true Ashley had never worked in a salon like this one before. For the hundredth time that morning, she glanced uneasily at the gleaming surfaces of the upscale space, so different from the homey blue-collar haunt where she’d happily worked for the past twelve years. Going to work there had been like being at home. Where everybody knows your name, as the old theme song went. Her old boss, Sal, hadn’t run a place patronized by intimidating customers who seemed to ooze money and privilege. The lady getting foil highlights in the cubicle next to Ashley’s had set down a handbag that cost three thousand dollars. Ashley had noticed it in the window of the boutique next door. That was more than three times the monthly rent in her old neighborhood.

“Ilana specifically asked me to give you this client,” Kylie explained. “He came in with his grandmother, and I think she’s important. At least, she’s in the private treatment room with Ilana now.”

Ilana was the owner of Perceptions, and Ashley’s new boss. She’d also informed Ashley that for her first two weeks on the job, she was on probation until she proved herself.

“Okay.” Ashley blew out her breath and squared her shoulders. No pressure here. “I’m on it. Do you know what he wants? A trim and a blow-dry?” she guessed.

“Um, I don’t know,” Kylie said, “but he really needs a haircut. Just wait until you see him.”

“Oh, my.” One of Ashley’s fellow stylists murmured beneath the hum of her blow-dryer. She’d probably been eavesdropping, and was now craning her neck toward the front of the salon. Ashley couldn’t see what she was looking at because of the L-shaped placement of the workstations.

As the new girl, Ashley was tucked into the farthest corner, out of view of the waiting area. She was also set back from the spectacular floor-to-ceiling views of bustling Newbury Street, the Fifth Avenue of Boston. That part she didn’t mind.

Setting down her broom, Ashley followed Kylie. When they rounded the corner and she had her first unobstructed view of the waiting room, Ashley stopped short.

Her next client looked as out of place in the salon as Ashley felt.

He was tall and broad, almost wild-looking. His handsome face was sunburned, and his wild, dark hair fell to chin level. He seemed gruff and untamed and not at all like the well-groomed city types who usually came in here.

Fascinated, Ashley watched him. While he paced the room, his hands tore through his hair. He wore a drab-colored, collarless, button-up shirt with an olive-toned canvas vest. His cargo pants were utilitarian, and they fit him...very well, she thought with a flush. His shoes were something new to her. Sort of like work boots, made of nice, though somewhat battered, leather. Higher end than she would have expected.

As she watched, wondering what to make of him, he sat in a chair in the far corner. Alone, he leaned his back against the wall and closed his eyes.

The stylist beside her sighed, and Ashley understood why. Even from this distance, her next client exuded a raw sexuality.

With his collarless shirt partially unbuttoned, and his tanned forearms crossed across his wide chest, he appeared completely uncivilized. He gave her the impression of wanting to be outside, free and unbound. His appearance didn’t seem important to him at all.

She swallowed. What would it feel like to be so free?

Ashley shook herself. It did her no good—in fact, it was dangerous—to feel curious about any man, even if just physically. She was far too careful in her life to risk doing anything that might negatively affect her son.

“How much time do I have to cut his hair?” she asked Kylie. She was thinking about her probationary status. “Ilana will want me to be finished by the time his grandmother is ready to leave, I assume?”

“Um, yeah.” Kylie nodded. “I heard his grandmother tell Ilana they were going out to lunch afterward. She said she hasn’t seen her grandson in a year because he was overseas with the Doctor’s Aid volunteer group. I think they just came from the airport.”

“Wait, he’s a doctor?” Ashley asked.

“That’s what she said.”

Ashley’s heart sped up. Her sister was a doctor. Brandon desperately wanted to be one himself. Hence their odyssey to a new, scary life that was so far out of Ashley’s league that she felt terrified half the time.

Except maybe she didn’t need to feel terrified with this man. She knew doctors. Knew what they needed. Knew what they wanted. Understood how they preferred to be treated.

“I’ll have him ready in thirty minutes,” Ashley said.

“Don’t forget our protocol,” Kylie murmured.

Ashley tried not to snort. She threaded her way toward him past rows of swivel chairs and stylists’ sinks, briefly thinking of her old friends who would have made fun of Perceptions’ snooty attitude. Protocol, indeed. In Sal’s shop, Ashley had had the freedom to use her own personal style. Just a lean against the cabinet in her workspace cubbyhole, with her legs crossed, a casual smile for the client. Easily sliding her feet in and out of her comfortable leather clogs that she’d owned forever. While she encouraged new clients to talk, Ashley would take in the shape of their faces, the forms of their features. With her fingers, a quick, impersonal assessment of the texture and condition of their hair.

Perceptions’ rules were different. Lead the new client to the special consultation room. Offer them tea or water. Complete an assessment worksheet. Above all, dress and act the part of a hip, cutting-edge stylist. Ashley felt as if she was dressed for going out clubbing, which she did not do. That young, carefree, confident girl had vanished, years ago, the day she’d discovered she was pregnant and had to make the biggest decision of her young life. Thirteen years later, here she was. Struggling to maintain control.

She stopped at the threshold to the waiting area. As if on cue, the door to the private treatment room opened, and Ilana stuck her nose out.

Ashley clasped her hands and did her best to smile at her perfectionist boss, who was so exacting she often scared her employees—but Ilana just gave her a curt nod in return. Ashley responded with another smile she didn’t quite feel. Fake it until you make it.

She turned to face her new client, determined to make a success of it. Up close, she saw that her mysterious, handsome client was clearly tired, zonked-out from his long flight.

In fact, he had dozed off into sleep.

* * *

AIDAN LOWE HAD fallen into hell. He’d slipped into the fog of the old dream. So real that fragments still haunted him. He could taste it in his mouth.

The grit of the desert. The constant dryness. The heat and the sand perpetually in his eyes. She was there, of course, smiling at him. And he walked toward her, as he always did in his dreams. Reached out his hand to touch her...

She turned away from him. Then there was a wave, the concussion of earsplitting silence. A wind that kicked up her blond hair. Her blue eyes focused on his. And then a bright flash of a light, brighter than anything he’d ever before seen.

When he woke up from the dream she was gone.

His whole body shook, and he jerked in his chair. The upheaval, the shock and the pain of the past year flooded back. It never seemed to leave him for long, no matter what he did to chase it away. Maybe if he dropped everything and left...

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in Afghanistan anymore, but in the brightly lit room where he was waiting for his grandmother.

He rubbed his face. Felt the rasp of razor stubble and a small speck of drool at the corner of his lips. He wiped it away, closed his eyes and wondered what he was going to do next.

He was back in Boston now, but Fleur was dead and it wasn’t home to him anymore. He wanted to leave town as soon as he possibly could. As soon as he was satisfied that Gram was okay, that he didn’t need to do anything on her behalf. That was his one job this morning. His one small focus on the present reality.

He heard someone softly clear her throat beside him. He opened one eye, just enough to notice a woman sitting to the side of him, so close their knees were almost touching.

“Hello,” she said, giving him a bright smile.

He felt himself frown. How long had she been there, her brow creased in concern, watching him?

As he stared at her, she swallowed. A door opened off to his other side, and the woman’s gaze flicked nervously in that direction. He turned, too. The woman who owned the place—he was in a salon, he reminded himself, waiting for Gram to get her hair set so he could take her to lunch—stood in the doorway.

She gave the slight woman sitting beside him a short, pointed look—similar to the way that Fleur had communicated with the underlings in her medical practice.

Aidan glanced back to the seated woman, just to see what she would do.

She gave him another nervous smile.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked her.

“I...understand you’re here for a haircut.”

“Who told you that?” he said, confused.

Her smile faltered. “I assume your grandmother arranged it with Ilana. My name is Ashley.” She smiled again as if under the assumption that this so-called haircut would be happening.

He rubbed a hand over his face again. Maybe his father was right—Gram really was slipping. The sooner he solved the answer to his question, the sooner he could leave Boston. “What do you think of my grandmother?” he asked. He’d forgotten the woman’s name already, but that didn’t matter. “Have you seen a change in her lately?”

“I...” She gave him a blank look.

He shook his head. She obviously had no idea if his grandmother seemed to be suffering from dementia or not. She probably didn’t even know his grandmother. Gram didn’t often talk to people outside her inner circle, especially now that she was in her mideighties. He should have realized that to begin with, but his brain was still feeling the effects of the long flight, followed by the shock of returning home.

“Never mind,” he muttered.

But she didn’t take a hint. She actually scooted closer to him, tilting her head and giving him a charming smile, which he hated. Because since that day nearly a year ago in Afghanistan, when Fleur had been caught up in a war-zone bombing, nothing could melt his heart.

“My sister is a doctor, too,” the woman said in a confiding tone. “I know how stressful her life is. I promise not to take long. I’ll have you ready before your grandmother even finishes with her appointment.”

She didn’t get it. A haircut was the last thing on his mind. It was absurd that Gram had even thought to arrange it.

He stood abruptly. “No,” he said in a clipped tone. “Thanks,” he remembered to say, just to pretend that he was still human. He took a step to make his getaway, but she jumped in front of him.

He blinked, shocked. He was even more shocked when she placed her palm on his chest. His top two buttons were undone, and her palm landed partially on his bare skin.

He stopped short. Her eyes widened as if she was shocked at herself, too. At her own audacity.

He stared directly into her eyes. She was shorter than him by a few inches. Her skin was almost translucent and looked as smooth as porcelain, like a doll’s. She had long auburn hair pulled back from her forehead. Every emotion played clearly across her dainty features, and at the moment she appeared terrified of him. Her hazel eyes were round, the pupils slightly dilated.

Something about that made him pause. He wasn’t a monster, and...she seemed so vulnerable. He’d thought he was a mess these past months, but she didn’t seem as if all was well with her, either.

He gave her some space, waiting for her to speak.

Swallowing, she removed her hand from his chest, but held his gaze. Aidan had been told that he didn’t have the best bedside manner in the world. He’d never cared before.

“My son is a cancer survivor,” she explained hesitantly. “Childhood leukemia.”

She had a son? He didn’t know why, but this surprised him.

“What’s your name again?” he asked her.

“Ashley.”

“And your son?”

She swallowed. “Brandon. He...wants to be a doctor when he grows up.”

He crossed his arms. His whole damn life he’d been expected to become a doctor, like the rest of his family. “Okay.”

“And...” She bit her lip. Those vulnerable hazel eyes still desperately latched on to his. “What’s your name?”

Dr. Lowe, he almost automatically said. But now that he was home, he wasn’t going to be a doctor anymore. “Aidan,” he answered.

“Well, Dr. Aidan, my son wants to become a cancer doctor to children—an oncologist—to help other kids the way he’s been helped. He still visits the hospital—he wants it so badly. He got the opportunity to attend a private school here in Boston, close by, and we’ve just uprooted ourselves and relocated to this neighborhood so that he could take advantage of the scholarship. This week is, well...it’s his first week in his new school and my first week in a new job.”

In his fogged mind, he put two and two together. “You’ve been ordered to cut my hair, haven’t you?”

She had the grace to laugh at their predicament. “Silly, isn’t it?”

The fact that his grandmother was ordering people to cut his hair was out of character, for sure. But he didn’t think it was a sign of dementia. The fact that he even had to consider that his grandmother could have dementia gave him a small moment of sadness.

“I’ll take good care of you,” Ashley said quickly. “I promise I’ll make it as fast and painless as possible. No chatter.” She smiled at him, putting her finger to her lips.

He stared back, determined not to look at those lips. They were tempting, and he didn’t want to be tempted.

“I’m sort of debriefing,” he said. He felt a sudden wave of anger and pain, and he almost faltered on his feet. He was very much debriefing.

And he doubted that even standing here talking to her was a good idea.

* * *

ASHLEY WAS BEFUDDLED as she watched the look on Aidan’s face move from wariness and confusion to anger. But there was no mistaking his feelings, because with a grimace of pain and a short shake of his head, he stood and walked away.

Without even pausing. Without even looking back at her.

She froze for a moment, her heart sinking, staring at Aidan’s retreating back. With a defiant gesture, he raked his hand once through his wild tangle of dark curls, as if he couldn’t have bothered about anyone in the salon, and then he opened the street door and left. Not a backward glance.

Ashley stood, shaking, her mouth opening and closing, debating what she should do. To do nothing was not an option—her new life depended on her doing something. Ilana would at some point want an account of what had happened, and if she decided that Ashley had been in the wrong—that she’d angered a client’s grandson and failed to sweet-talk him into going along with his grandmother’s wishes, then Ashley’s employment would be jeopardized, fair or not.

She couldn’t let that happen. How to fix it?

Maybe, to start, she should figure out what he’d meant by debriefing. That seemed the key to it.

She whirled for someone to ask about him. Kylie was seated at her receptionist station behind the front desk. She wore a headset and a wide-eyed expression, as if she couldn’t believe that Ashley had dared to touch a client’s chest. Ashley barely believed it herself. The thin cotton shirt he wore was no barrier. His skin had been hot—warm with pulsing blood that beat beneath a layer of muscles. She had been fascinated and scared, but also self-conscious and somewhat horrified that she’d been so tacky as to attempt to physically stop a customer from leaving.

Ashley placed her palms on Kylie’s desk. “What do you think is going on with that guy?” she whispered.

Kylie’s wide-eyed look came back. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe something happened before he flew home, at Doctor’s Aid? Could we go over everything his grandmother said this afternoon? Each word? Maybe there’s a clue.”

“Um, okay.” Kylie knocked at her teeth with a pen. “Well, his grandmother said that they came directly from the airport. Then they were going to lunch together, at a restaurant by the Aquarium, and she wanted him to get a haircut while she had her regular appointment.” Kylie smiled to herself. “I can see why. He really needs it.”

“Did she say anything else?” Ashley prodded.

Kylie scratched her head. “Well, Ilana walked over and looked in the appointment app and said, ‘Ashley is free.’ Then she told me to go get you and tell you that you had a walk-in. And I did.” Kylie looked up at Ashley with liquid brown eyes.

Ashley smiled reassuringly at her. “You did well.” Honestly, if she owned a salon—her dream business—she would never terrorize her employees. She would be pleasant to them all the time.

Sighing, she ran over her conversation with Aidan again in her mind. “Kylie, he asked if I’d noticed a change in his grandmother. Do you know what he meant by that?”

“Um...” With a bewildered look, Kylie turned to the computer screen that showed their bookings. Ashley gazed over her shoulder.

“Vivian Sharpe!” Ashley exclaimed, reading the entry in the computer. “Aidan’s grandmother is Vivian Sharpe?”

“Who’s that?” Kylie asked.

Only one of the richest and most influential people in Boston. Ashley groaned. In her more naive days, she’d once attempted to meet Vivian through Brandon and her sister—but the elderly woman had gone to great lengths to keep to her private entourage.

Vivian Sharpe—and her grandson Aidan—were on a whole other rarified level from Ashley. Vivian sat on the board of directors at Wellness Hospital. She had a particular interest in running the Sunshine Club, the cancer charity that Brandon volunteered for. Even worse, she owned the New England Captains, the professional baseball team where Ashley’s brother-in-law used to play, until he was traded to San Francisco. Brandon was over the moon about the Captains.

“Do you know this lady?” Kylie asked.

Ashley sighed. “Not really. I know of her, but that’s about it.”

Ashley communicated with the Sunshine Club office only through intermediaries—usually Susan Vanderbilt, a public relations manager at the hospital. Ashley hadn’t understood the etiquette at first, and she’d actually dared to approach Vivian once early on, at a fancy hospital Christmas party that Brandon had been invited to attend. Vivian had barely deigned to speak to her. Ashley’s sister had told her not to feel bad—that the elderly philanthropist kept herself aloof from most people, but Ashley had sensed there was more to it than that.

It had seemed personal to her.

Truth was the woman seemed not to approve of her, and that had hit Ashley in her most vulnerable spot—the worry and shame that she was in over her head with Brandon, that she wasn’t doing a good enough job at being his mom.

Just great. She felt like weeping, but now wasn’t the time or place. Her job and maybe Brandon’s place in his new world were at stake. She wished she could call her sister—ask her if she knew a Dr. Aidan from her time working at Wellness Hospital. Was there anything about him—any commonalities that she might use to appeal to him?

Ashley took out her phone. But her sister didn’t live in Boston anymore. She was three time zones away, in San Francisco, and anyway, she was likely in surgery, administering anesthesia.

She could do this. She’d made it this far, hadn’t she?

On a whim, Ashley opened up the web browser and typed in an internet search for Doctor’s Aid, Boston and Aidan. She found her answer on the first hit.

Dr. Aidan Lowe, that was his name. There was a photo of him—his hair neater, his skin less tanned—posed beside a regal, beautiful, confident-looking woman. Dr. Fleur Sanborne. In the caption she was described not as his wife, not as a fiancée, but as his partner.

Life partner, judging by the body language. He obviously adored her.

Ashley clicked on the article. “Friendly Fire Destroys Doctor’s Aid Clinic—Hub Doctor Killed.”

Hub was the unique word that the local headline writers used for “city of Boston.” Ashley froze reading it, barely able to breathe. Her hands shaking, she could only skim bits of phrases from the newspaper article, dated last October.

Dr. Aidan Lowe, an orthopedic surgeon of this city, escaped injury during an attack that firebombed a volunteer clinic in the war-torn region of southern Afghanistan...

Dr. Fleur Sanborne, also of this city, the chief medical adviser to Doctor’s Aid, International, died this morning after succumbing to her injuries...

Gasping, Ashley put down her phone. This was horrible! No wonder poor Dr. Lowe—Aidan, he’d asked her to call him—had seemed traumatized. It had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with what he’d been through in Afghanistan.

Trembling, she shook her head. She couldn’t even imagine losing someone close to her. And she’d been so worried about a haircut?

She tucked her phone away in her pocket. “I need to go outside,” she told Kylie. “I’ll be right back.”

Kylie glanced up from her own phone. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll keep you posted, though.”

“All right.” Kylie glanced nervously toward Ilana’s private treatment room. “I’ll cover for you,” she whispered.

Ashley smiled at her. “Thanks. I’ll return the favor someday.”

On the way outside, she stopped by the beverage cart in the consultation area and grabbed a bottled water. On second thought, she grabbed two bottles, even though it wasn’t protocol. She had no idea what she was going to do. She was in too much of a rush, racing the clock, to be nervous about it.

Outside, the balmy air was welcome, and she sucked in great breaths of it. Early September in Boston was the best time of year to be in the city. Crowds of people—college students and tourists and suited financial types—wandered down the sidewalks flanking the wide boulevards lined with trees and flowering bushes. To the right was the small historic church she passed each day on her walk to Brandon’s school, but she very much doubted that Aidan had sought refuge there. He seemed angry and disoriented, wanting to leave rather than receive comfort. She didn’t know much about leaving—she’d never quite been able to find the courage to pick up and do that—but Ashley knew everything about giving comfort. It was the story of her life, and at the moment, this was the only gift she could think of to offer him.

She walked straight ahead and found Aidan sitting on a bench in the midst of a small courtyard-size garden where she’d noticed office workers gathering to eat their midday lunches. At the moment, most of the benches were deserted. The tended garden plots they faced were beautiful, yellow roses and purple flowering lavender plants scented the air. In the middle of the courtyard was a multitiered fountain that streamed soothing plumes of water.