Just In Time For Love (Stanton Falls #1) (3 page)

Aaron parked his car in
the general parking area of the small hospital and walked inside.  When he
stopped by her house earlier in the day, her parents told him that she was at
work.
 
So there he was at the hospital to
talk to her about the other night.  When he walked inside and asked for
her to be paged, she hurried from the back and immediately turned to go back
into the restricted area when she realized it was him.  

“Wait Emily, don’t go.
 I just want to talk to you for a minute.”

“I don’t really have
anything that I want to talk to you about Aaron.  Especially when I know
you will probably just look at me like I have the plague again.”

There it was.  He
hadn’t meant to hurt her the other night, but he was caught completely off
guard.  

“C’mon Em, I just need a
minute or two of your time.”

He had called her the
nickname that he had used for her since the day that they had first started
seriously courting each other.
 
Until he
had broken up with her.  When she stared into his eyes, she could tell
that he hadn’t meant to hurt her.  She knew who he was and if she was
being honest, she knew it the other night.  She was just looking for a
reason to avoid interacting with him because she really did still enjoy his
brand of care for her and would rather not experience that again than to have
him reject her because of her child.  She thought it might be pretty nice
to talk to him after all but she really was pressed for time.  

“Aaron, it’s just not a
good time right now.  You have to go.  I just started here a few
weeks back, you have to know that.  I can’t goof off with you right now
because I need to make a good impression.”

“Then I will wait here until
you have a minute or two.”

Still persistent as
ever, aren’t you Aaron?

“That’s just it.  I
won’t have time at all.  We’re really backed up in here and the only way
you are going to get more than a minute of my time today is if you are injured.
 Now I have to go.  I’m sorry.”  

She walked back into the
restricted area and back to work.  Fifteen minutes later she returned to
the lobby at the call of the desk staff, to find him sitting there.  She
walked over to the staffer and pulled his chart.  She looked at him
incredulously.

“Really Aaron!  A
stomach ache?  Couldn’t you at least be a little more creative?  I am
going to have you discharged right now.”

“Then I’ll just come
back until you see me.  Maybe a scratch next time.  Roll around in
some poison ivy.”

Emily looked at him and
smiled.  She knew it was true.  

“I don’t really know if
a minute or two of my time is worth poison ivy.  Anyway, you are beyond
incorrigible.  I tell you what.  It seems that there is no way you
are gonna leave unless I give in.  How about you promise me that you will
stay away from the poison ivy if I meet you after work.  
 
I
can do dinner at Martin’s, your treat of course.”

He paused as if
contemplating and for a second.
 
She
thought he was really trying to decide if it was worth it, until he nodded in
agreement and beamed at her.

“Lady you have yourself
a deal, but if you bail on me I promise I will find a patch of poison ivy and
roll around in it first thing tomorrow.  The good, itchy kind too!”

“Oh, then I am off the
hook.  I don’t work tomorrow!  Should have quit when you were ahead…”
 She playfully pushed his shoulder “You know I will be there.  I get
off at seven thirty.  I’ll just need to stop by the house and get
freshened up and let my parents know that I’ll be out tonight.  Something
tells me that they will be more than fine watching Ashleigh when I tell them.”

Aaron laughed, knowing
that he had gotten off easily.  He doubted that there was a price that
would have been more than he would have been willing to pay.  He just
wanted the chance to talk to her.  He’d finally gotten his opportunity to
let her know just why she was still supposed to be with him. 

***

Emily had just finished
getting ready when she heard the doorbell ring.  She knew it was him immediately.
 She was surprised at how excited she felt.  It had been years since
she felt excited about being around a guy but then again it was the same Aaron
that she was as completely head over heels for as a teenager.  When she
had told her parents that she was going to be out with him that night, her
mother just told her to have a good time.  She opened the door to his
handsome face, littered with a light stubble that she thought made him look
older, in a nice way.  His face was framed by his well-kept, rustic blond
hair.  

“You couldn’t meet me at
the restaurant?”

“Nope.  You know my
dad always taught me to pick up a lady at the door and drop her back there at a
decent hour of the night.  And chivalry aside, you are a flight risk.
 I am not giving you a chance to not be there tonight.”

“Geez, stalk much?”

Aaron saw the little
girl run up from behind and hug onto Emily’s leg.   He could clearly
see the resemblance then.  Ashleigh was definitely hers.  She had the
same button nose, curly blond hair and dark brown eyes.   He thought
to himself that she was going to grow up one day to be beautiful, just like her
mother.  He bent down to talk to the little girl.

“Hi Ashleigh.  I
didn’t get to meet you properly last time.  My name is Aaron and I’m a
friend of your mommy.  Do you mind if I hang out with her tonight?”

“Ok but not too long.
 Mommy is tired.”

Emily laughed as she
stooped to talk to her daughter.

“Oh, so you do hear when
I tell you I’m tired don’t you, you just don’t apply those rules to yourself,
now do you.  Come here and give mommy a kiss sweetheart.”  

Aaron stood up directing
his attention to Emily’s parents.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fowler,
great to see you again.”

“You too Aaron.
 Now you heard the young lady.  Don’t keep her out too long.”

“I won’t, I promise she
will be home before my car turns back into a pumpkin.  Now then Emily,
shall we be off?”

He held his hand out to
steady her down the steps toward his car.

Aaron pulled her chair
out for her, and Emily sat down.  It felt nice to be treated like a lady
for once rather than just being the baby’s mother.  That wasn’t bad but
there was nothing like feeling like a man really cared for her.  When the
server came and took their orders, she smiled and shook her head.

“Really?  You come
on a date to a nice restaurant with me and order a cheeseburger and fries?
 I can see that you have matured by your looks, but it seems you forgot to
tell your taste buds.”

“Hey, I like what I
like.  By the way, I never said it was a date.  I just said I wanted
to talk.  In fact, if it is a date, then
you are
the one that asked
me out!”

She had to admit that he
was right.  He had just asked to talk.  She assumed that he’d enjoy a
meal with her more than just a few minutes in the office.  

“Good try Aaron but you
and I both know that you would have turned that few minutes into hounding me
for more time.  Don’t forget, I used to date you.  I just cut out all
the red tape.”

“Correct, Miss Fowler.
 I never could beat you in a good debate.”

“See, now
you
are
a smart man.  I knew that there was something I liked about you in the
past.”

“Em, it really is good
to see you.  I missed you.  I missed you a lot and I don’t have a
problem telling you that.  I know you saw my expression the other night
and I wanted to talk to you about that.”

He saw her fidget a
little in her seat and could tell that she was still a bit bothered by it.
 

“Yeah, it’s kind of hard
when someone you have known as closely as I have known you gives you that
….look.”

“But Em, you have to
know that I didn’t mean anything by that.  That was an unexpected thing
for you to say.   Imagine how much of a loop it threw me for when the
only woman that I have loved as long as I understood what love was says to me
‘Hi, oh by the way, this is my lovely daughter.’  That was just me trying
to wrap my head around what I had heard.  It was not me saying that you
were or are a bad person.  I had always imagined you with children, only I
expected that they would be mine.”

Emily was embarrassed by
how blunt he was, as her cheeks turned a slight pink in color.  

“Wow.  I forgot
just how much you speak your mind.  In the interest of full disclosure, I
always felt the same way before she was born.”  

Now it was his turn to
blush.  She smiled when she realized that she still had that effect on
him.  

“Why does it surprise
you?  Do you remember that time in the back of the church when I told you
that I wanted you to be my wife and that we were going to have a lot of kids?”

“No, you didn’t say a
lot of kids.  You said exactly nine kids.  A statement that my body
now cringes at.  Having the first one was painful enough; eight more times
would be crazy.  With that in mind, that proposal kind of lost all credibility
with me.”

“I was completely
serious.  Even as a fourteen year old I knew what I wanted in life.”

“Well, that was so long
ago.  You can’t possibly hold yourself to that statement, and even if you
did, I don’t think I deserve that kind of ...unconditional love.  And I have
a baby on top of that.”

“Of course you deserve
that kind of love.  We all do.”

Apparently her years in
college had affected her self-esteem.  He would take his time working on
that.  He was just happy that she was even talking to him again.

“So tell me more about
Ashleigh.  I mean you have a beautiful baby.  I can’t imagine that it
was easy for you to get her father to let you just leave with her and move back
home.  Do you guys have something worked out?”

“In fact we do.
 It’s called he’s a deadbeat that has never even met his daughter before.”

“How is that possible?
 Does he know about her at all?”

Emily’s answer was short
and very to the point.  She really didn’t like talking about him at all.
 

“Of course he does.
 He’s a lowlife jerk.”

Thinking of how sweet
that little girl was the last time he saw her, Aaron felt his anger starting to
rise.  He couldn’t imagine not being there for his child.  

“No offense to you but
that really bothers me.  What kind of man doesn’t even want to hold his
own daughter?”

“Like I said.  He’s
a jerk.  He even wanted me to abort her when I told him.  When I said
no, he told me that he didn’t even think she was his and that he didn’t want
anything else to do with me or her.  I guaranteed him she was his baby
because I had never been with anyone else before.  I figured we were
better off without him so I decided to go ahead and raise Ashleigh on my own.
 That was all before I came back here.  It’s a lot better with my
family supporting me.  It’s nice to have people around her that really
care for her wellbeing.”

He found it strange to
be talking to her about a guy she had been intimate with but they had always
had a relationship built on being able to talk to each other.

“Not just your family
Em.  You’ve got me.  You always have and I know that you have always
known that.”

Emily felt her eyes
begin to well with tears.

“I’m sorry for being so
emotional.  It’s just that everything my family has done and the things you
just said.  I don’t see how you all can feel this way about me.  It’s
so ironic.  This whole thing is ironic.  The man I had my child with
wants nothing to do with me and here you are begging me to take your heart.
 It should be the other way around.”

She gazed into Aaron’s
kind blue eyes and felt supported and cared for like she hadn’t in years.
 

“I owe you an apology
Aaron.  I never told you why I stopped talking to you all those years
ago.”

“I did always wonder but
when you got back that was the last thing on my mind.  Now that you
mention it, I am curious to know what happened.”

“Well I remember it just
like it was yesterday.  I had gotten to school and didn’t know anybody out
there.  It was so different from here where the neighbors are friends and
the principal of the school was your mother’s high school teacher.  It’s a
different world out there.”

“You’re telling me.
 Try four years in the middle east.”

“Ouch!  That makes
my story seem like a walk in the park.  But still it was hard for me.  You’d
think that college was meant to educate people and get them prepared for the
real world as adults.  It did a little of that but half of the time it was
about relationships, drinking, and parties.  There definitely wasn’t much
Christian influence on campus and the influence that was there had to compete
with every other religious viewpoint that was sprayed all over campus too.
 I’d call it the anti-Stanton Falls.  Now, my roommate was in a
sorority and was always trying to get me to join up.  The first year I was
able to stand my ground but like they say, peer pressure is no joke.  The
more alone I got there, the more I just wanted to fit in.”

Her words trailed off as
she stared into the distance, nervously biting the corner of the bottom lip.
 Aaron placed his hand gently on hers in a show of support for.  She
looked up at him and he nodded for her to continue.  

“No judgement, I
promise.”

Looking at him, her
features softened slightly and she released a long breath.  

“Thank you.  Well in
my junior year, I did join a sorority and it was fun at first, and clean.
 Then just like with everything else, the pressure to drink was too much.
 Every night it seemed like there was party or a keg at someone’s house.
 Funny, I never even liked the taste of beer.  Still don’t but I
drank it anyway.  The things that we will subject ourselves to in order to
fit in amaze me.  Eventually I did stop drinking but …”

She looked into his eyes
and continued as he gently squeezed her hand in encouragement.

“Let’s just say I didn’t
stop drinking because of any self-realization or an epiphany.  I don’t
know if you remember this or not but around the beginning of my junior year was
when I stopped talking to you.  I had gone to a beginning of semester blowout
party that one of the fraternities on campus was throwing.  I got drunk
and had unprotected sex with a guy that had been trying to … get to know me
better, if you know what I mean.  Literally one time and...boom.  I
wasn’t textbook promiscuous but it was enough to get me pregnant.”

Aaron knew all too well
the kind of guy she was talking about.  Men that took women for nothing
more than sexual objects.  He’d met a few guys like that when he was in
the marines.  They didn’t give value to the woman, only quenching their
desire.  It was kind of hard for him at times to watch the back of a guy
he thought was pretty low as a person, but they were on a team.  He
listened as she continued on.  

“That was when I had
decided to break it off with you.  You had always treated me like this
clean, perfect woman.  I betrayed that image you had of me and just
couldn’t take it.  Every time we would talk you would go on about how much
you loved me and how you wanted to marry me when you got back.  I knew
before then that I wasn’t the same person you loved, but after that weekend, I
felt like I was someone that you would not even recognize.  I didn’t even
recognize the person that I had become.  Considering that, I didn’t think
I deserved someone like you.  That was when I broke the relationship off
with you.  Two Months later I found out I was pregnant and now there is my
little Ashleigh.  So you don’t have to pretend that I am the same person
that you used to love. You probably see me in a completely new, negative light
now.  Maybe we should just call it a night.”

Emily turned to grab her
purse but Aaron hadn’t released her hand yet.  He was still looking in her
eyes.  Loving.  Gentle.  Confident.  

“Is that why you stole
almost four years of my time with you from me?  Not one word said could
change anything I feel about you.  In fact, I think I am more proud of you
now than I have ever been before.”

“How can you say that?
 Were you
listening
to what I just told you about me?”

“You know I was.  I
heard a lot of wallowing in self-pity, which is understandable when you think
that your life as you know it is over.  I also heard a person who realizes
that they had made a few mistakes, certainly more than you would care to have
made.  But it sounds to me like you don’t give yourself credit for making
the really hard decisions.  It would have been the easy way out to just
abort your baby.  No one would have been the wiser.  You made a hard
decision and have done nothing short of being amazing.  You finished
school and still became a nurse, all while caring for a new born baby.”

She had never considered
it from that vantage point.  

“But you are the very
same Emily that I knew when I was a scrawny teenager trying to act cool for you
at school, and the same one that prayed God’s protection over me the night I
shipped out for my time in the marines.  I have a million character
stories that far outweigh what you did at school.  No you aren’t the same
person you were when you left, but none of us are.   Right now, what
I am truly happy about is that all of the decisions that we both have made have
brought us together at this point in time.  Right here.  Right now.
 And believe me when I tell you that we have all made some bad decisions
and done some things that we wish we could take back.”

Aaron watched as Emily
started to giggle and then full out laugh at him.

“I was just giving a
serious, Nobel prize worthy speech.  What did I say that was possibly this
funny?”

Emily wiped the tears
from her eyes as she tried to respond, still laughing.  

“I just realized as you
talk about us all making bad decisions that I am getting advice from someone
that works for Nick Dellinger, of all people!”

He joined in with the
laughter.
 
Whenever she laughed like
that, it was contagious for him.  He tried to stop himself but something
about seeing the joy on her face just brought it out in him too.  It had
been a long time since they laughed like that together.  Too long for his
liking.