Forever Ashley Read Free Page A

spent their entire courtship
waiting. Joel was always in surgery, making rounds, or with a patient. Granted,
some people might think she was being petty, even selfish, but she was tired of
hanging around a doctor’s lounge until all hours of the night in order to spend
a few, brief moments with the man she was engaged to marry.
    After all, wasn’t an engagement period a time when the two
participants got to know one another better? That was how it was supposed to
work, wasn’t it? But in the three months she and Joel had been engaged, she
could count on one hand the times they had been able to share an evening alone
without the phone or the beeper interrupting.
    “So now what have you done?” Sue said hopelessly.
    “I left him a note...with the ring inside the envelope.”
    Sue looked aghast. “Oh, Ashley. Not again. Every time you
get near an altar you back out!”
    “That’s not fair. I don’t ‘back out,’ I just change my
mind.” Well, yes, she did back out—maybe more like run out—but marriage to one
man seemed so...permanent.
    “Ash, you’ve had more marriage prospects than most women
dream about, yet you continue to cast men aside like dust balls. Are you nuts?
You love Joel. This time it was the real thing!”
    “Maybe....” Ashley swallowed the lump in her throat. Joel
was different; Sue didn’t have to remind her of that.
    “First there was Jon—”
    “Jon was a two-timer. I caught him with another woman, and
he had the nerve to say she was a secretarial prospect.”
    “Didn’t he hire her?”
    “Well, yes, but—”
    “And Eddie? What about Eddie?”
    “Eddie wasn’t ready to make a commitment.”
    “He asked you to marry him, didn’t he?”
    “Well, yes, but I don’t think he meant it.”
    “What about Lon? Lon was a prime husband candidate if I ever
saw one.”
    “Maybe, but he wanted to move to California and I
don’t—besides, being married to a senator and living separate lives...well,
that isn’t what I want either.”
    “And then there was Joel.” Sue shook her head sadly.
“Honestly, Ash, Joel’s perfect for you, and now you’ve let him go. How many
chances do you think you’ll have to find true happiness?”
    Ashley didn’t feel good about what she’d done, and wasn’t at
all sure it was the right thing—but it was done, and she couldn’t undo it. By
now Joel had found her note and the ring. Besides, another man would come along
in a few months, and she would think she was in love with him too. It always
worked that way.
    “I’ll admit that maybe I should have given this engagement a
little more time—but my mind’s made up. I never see Joel. And once we’re
married, it’s not going to get any better.” She shrugged lamely. “I’ve had to
cancel so many parties that most of my friends believe Joel’s a figment of my
imagination.”
    “Ashley...he’s a doctor, and he just happens to be
everything you want in a man. You’ve got cold feet again, tell the truth.”
    Ashley’s chin firmed. Joel was almost everything she wanted
in a man—except that he was already married. To his profession. Call her
selfish, call her shallow and unreasonable. Was it wrong to want to be called
Mrs. Joel Harrison, and have a man to back up the claim?
    Another clap of thunder shook the building as Ashley looked
anxiously to the windows again.
    “You’re a fool, Ashley Wheeler. Men like Joel aren’t
shooting out of the ground like mushrooms,” Sue warned, glancing at the crowd
that was wandering about restlessly now.
    “Well, mushrooms have a tendency to give me the hives,”
Ashley returned lightly.
    “Sheesh.” Sue straightened her mobcap again. “You’re
hopeless.”
    “I have to go,” Ashley murmured. “My car is probably
floating down Huntington Avenue by now.”
    “So go—big chicken.”
    The two exchanged forgiving grins.
    Turning, Sue addressed the group once more. “Ladies and
gentlemen, my name is Sue and I will be continuing the tour with you.