The Good Mom Read online

  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, a
t 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.

  Aidan, however, faced a completely dead plot, with spaded-up earth as desolate as a grave.

  She felt sorry for him. Carefully, she headed over to his bench. The cold water bottles were sweating in her palms, and he glanced up at her as she sat.

  She had no idea what to say or even how to begin talking to him. But now that she saw him in person, deeply grieving, she decided to just speak from her heart, and see where things went from there.

  * * *

  AIDAN STARED AT the pale, auburn-haired waif who’d had the nerve to follow him outside. “You tracked me down here for a haircut?” he said, incredulous.

  “No.” She smiled brightly at him. “I’m not giving you a haircut today. I’m just bringing some water while we wait.” She handed him a cold water bottle—which he really was dying for—and he gladly accepted it.

  In spite of himself he laughed. It seemed that this Ashley woman was good at surprising him.

  She smiled wistfully and cracked open her own water bottle, then took a long drink. Sighing, she pressed her hand to her lips. “Don’t tell anyone I just did that,” she confided. “Staff aren’t supposed to drink the Evians and Perriers. That’s protocol.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Maybe. But life isn’t always fair, as they say.” She fiddled with the label on her bottle, her eyes lowered to his. “I heard you just came back from overseas,” she said softly. In the sunlight her hazel eyes were even more spectacular than he’d noticed. Speckles of copper and green. She had a faint—very faint—smattering of freckles, too. “I’m sure it must be an adjustment for you.”

  “Did you talk to my grandmother?” he asked.

  “No.” She smiled winsomely. “I haven’t even seen her yet. I...don’t keep up with the news as much as I should, so I’m sorry I didn’t realize who you were right away. I certainly wouldn’t have babbled on about my son like that if I’d known.”

  “You still want your kid to be a doctor?” he couldn’t help saying bitterly.

  But she didn’t take it wrong. She just smiled gently, as if understanding his anger at his situation and excusing him for it. “It’s not about me,” she said. “If he wants to be a doctor, then it’s my job to help him through his schooling so he can get there.”

  He glanced sideways at her. “Are you married?” he asked bluntly.

  “No,” she murmured.

  “Divorced?” he asked again, even though he knew it was over the line. Knew he was pushing it with his rudeness.

  A small smile came to her lips, as if divorce was, for her, a silly thought. “No,” she said.

  “Widowed?” He had to ask—he was curious now.

  She shook her head, but she had a flush to her cheeks this time. The color just heightened the fact that she was pretty. It didn’t matter at all to him that she was a single mother, and he might have told her so, if he didn’t think it would embarrass her to hear it.

  He opened the water bottle she’d brought him. It was good stuff; he’d been drinking boiled bracken tea for so long in the camp they’d set up that it felt good to have fresh, cold, bubbly water slide down his parched throat.

  He couldn’t stop drinking. He finished it greedily.

  Then he sat and stared at the label on his bottle. He hadn’t exactly chosen his situati
on in life, either, even before Fleur’s death. She’d been the driver of the whirlwind, and he had tagged along for the adventure.

  In the end, nothing had been what he wanted.

  Maybe he and Ashley were in sort of the same boat.

  “I never expected this to happen with Fleur,” he found himself muttering aloud.

  “Losing someone I love would be my worst fear,” Ashley agreed.

  He squinted at her, the harsh sunlight in his eyes. “You worry about your son, don’t you?”

  “All the time,” she confessed.

  She was being honest with him. He got the sense that she wasn’t being manipulative as he’d feared. He hated manipulative people. And it really did impress him that she cared so much about her boy.

  Aidan wasn’t usually sentimental. In fact, at Wellness Hospital, he’d been known as somewhat gruff. He knew what others said of him, and it didn’t bother him. Usually.

  He sighed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go back to the salon with you. I’ll talk to the owner and make sure you don’t get in trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Actually, I have another suggestion. You see, Aidan, I’m really good at washing hair.” She gave him such a sweet smile that he didn’t know how he could refuse her. “And this salon has a nice men’s shampoo. You could face the world feeling cleaned up and relaxed. You could close your eyes and for fifteen minutes, forget about everyone else in there, including me.”

  He just stared at her.

  “No one will bother you, Aidan. I promise.”

  It sounded appealing, actually. He was tired. He didn’t want to go out to lunch with his grandmother right now, but he’d committed himself.

  He stood. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but okay. Just so you keep your job, so your kid’s all right and you don’t have to worry about him,” he clarified.

  She smiled at him. “Thank you. But I really am very good at what I do. I’ll take good care of you in there. You’ll see.”