Toward the Sunrise (10 page)

Her heart thudded faster as he spoke, all of her childhood dreams stirring and reawakening. It was almost as if she could feel the cools winds of the high Eurasian steppes on her face. She’d never met anyone else who understood these dreams, but Ashton knew. He understood.

It was going to hurt when this week was over. He would have been a good friend. A good partner. A part of her sensed that he could be much more than that, but she couldn’t let herself toy with those dangerous emotions. Women who chose the life of a medical missionary rarely had husbands. When she’d accepted a commission to work abroad, she knew it meant she probably would be a spinster for the rest of her life.

She had never questioned that decision, but looking at Ashton, so handsome and earnest as he sat across from her on the floor of a goat barn, made her long for more. She longed for
him
.

“Did you know that female physicians who become missionaries are almost always spinsters?”

The question seemed to take him aback, but he recovered quickly. “It had never occurred to me.”

“I think it strange . . . no, I think it
unfair
, that we are expected to tromp off into the world without knowing what we are passing up.”

He quirked a brow. “What about that fireman in Philadelphia? You seemed quite friendly with him.”

There was the faintest trace of jealously beneath his words, and it flattered her. “Ross McKinney had a fine toboggan I wanted, but nothing else.”

She wanted Ashton Carlyle. His integrity, his intelligence. His willingness to roll up his sleeves and face the challenges of the day with humor and a sense of adventure. She leaned forward, tilting her face close to his, and was thrilled at the flare of attraction in his eyes.

“You know I can’t leave New York,” he said. “No matter where your adventures take you, I will remain in the city with my father.”

“I know,” she whispered. One of the things she now adored about Ashton was his big-hearted, affectionate relationship with his father. Ashton was a man of honor, one who could be trusted to care for his family. It made him even more attractive to her.

She leaned in to kiss him; he met her halfway. They grabbed each other so hard she almost fell off the stool, but he held her tight and kissed her until they were both breathless.

“This is probably a bad idea,” Ashton whispered against her lips, but he was smiling as he said it.

“It’s a wonderful idea. Kiss me again.”

He did, but it didn’t last long. The incessant bleating of a Toggenburg goat reminded them they still had two dozen goats to safely deliver. But as they tended to the arrival of six newborn kids that day, they laughed and kissed as though the rest of the world had stopped existing outside the safety of this idyllic goat farm in the middle of rural New York.

7

The moon was high and the night so chilly she could see her breath in the air, but Julia did not want to go to bed. There were a million stars overhead, and sometimes she simply liked to gaze up at them. She sat on the bench a few yards from the barn, where she would be close enough to hear a goat in distress but far enough to enjoy the blessedly sweet air. From here she could see Ashton moving inside the barn, dimly lit by the single kerosene lantern that gave the barn a warm glow and seemed to soothe the goats. It was cool enough that he wore his yellow vest and suit jacket, refilling all the water troughs in his Italian leather shoes. She really ought to go help, but she was so tired, and quite frankly . . . she liked looking at him. How many men could negotiate international contracts one day then deliver a baby goat the next?

He had been a good sport about things. After agreeing to help her with the kidding, he never once complained and they made a good team, but they were nearing the end of the grand adventure. Only seven more goats were still to deliver, and after that she would have to figure out what she intended to do with the rest of her life.

A thud came from the barn as Ashton replaced the water bucket by the pump then headed her way. All she could see was his silhouette as he crossed the yard. Crickets chirped in the distance, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world as he joined her on the bench. He followed her gaze upward.

“Sometimes it is hard to imagine those are the same stars and moon people look at from China,” he said in a wistful voice.

Who would have guessed that Dierenpark’s spick-and-span attorney would have this deeply buried streak of a romantic adventurer inside?

“Someday I’ll get there,” she said. “I don’t know how, but I know I’m not destined to spend the rest of my life here.”

He sighed and leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “Then what are you destined for, if not to get back into medical school?”

“Not that again.” There weren’t many things that frightened her, but the prospect of traveling to Philadelphia with a fine attorney at
her side and still failing to be readmitted to college had been keeping her awake at night. If she failed, she didn’t want an audience when it happened.

“I’m just not sure I’m meant to go back to medical school,” she hedged.

“What’s holding you back?” Ashton prodded. “And don’t say it is because you are thinking of veterinary school. No missionaries are sent overseas to treat animals. If you want to be a medical missionary, you need to become a physician.”

She fidgeted on the bench. “I haven’t exactly told you everything about what happened at my expulsion hearing,” she admitted.

Ashton stiffened. “Let’s hear it,” he said grimly. When she hesitated, he dropped some of the scary tone and spoke softly. “You’ve got the benefit of attorney-client privilege. I promise not to tell a soul, but I really do need to know everything.”

Sitting on the goat farm’s only bench, she told Ashton what she had said that terrible day. She had been invited into the conference room to make a brief statement and answer questions posed to her by the members of the Board of Trustees. She did her best to explain her actions, but Dean Kreutzer had been entirely unsympathetic, her face grim as she reprimanded Julia for operating on a living creature without supervision, compounded by the theft of the dog. Julia knew it had been wrong to break in to the operating room, but she had done the right thing in getting that dog out of the city. She called the dean a heartless and cruel woman who didn’t deserve the title of “doctor” if she would knowingly consent to placing a living, breathing animal back in the hands of Ross McKinney and his dog-fighting friends.

Dean Kreutzer, a woman who had done so much to open the medical profession to women, had turned white when Julia insulted her. The college’s entire board had been at that meeting, and Julia was stunned that every one of them supported the dean. How could men and women devoted to medicine be so heartless?

She stood at the end of the conference table and held up her pinky finger. “I’ve got more courage in this little finger than the lot of you put together,” she had said.

Ashton’s eyes widened, but he didn’t condemn her, just waited in silence for her to finish the story.

“Things didn’t go so well after that,” she admitted. “They asked me to leave the room while they made a decision, and I did. It only took them five minutes to decide I wasn’t a suitable candidate for their school.”

She was embarrassed and ashamed. Not for saving the dog, but Dean Kreutzer hadn’t deserved the childish temper tantrum Julia had unloaded on her. It had been a frightening and stressful situation, but doctors needed to learn to master their emotions, and Julia had not done so.

“After thinking about it, I really don’t want to go back and face them,” she said.

Ashton’s laugh was mildly amused. “I imagine not.”

She brightened. “You understand, then?”

“I understand, but you still need to do it. If you were childish and undisciplined, you need to go back and own up to it. That’s more a sign of maturity than hiding on a goat farm.”

Her gaze strayed back to the barn, where the muffled sounds of goats moving about mingled with crickets and the occasional bleat of a baby kid. It was safe here, and she’d relished every moment of this past week with Ashton. It had been a haven from the stress and disappointment of Philadelphia.

In her heart she knew Ashton was right, but for now she wanted to carve each moment of these last days on her soul, for she knew this week would forever linger in her memory as one of perfect, idyllic happiness.

All the goats had been delivered. In the past two weeks, Julia had helped deliver over a hundred newborns and had only lost three kids that never started breathing. Her work here was probably done, but she and Ashton walked the grounds with Mr. Hofstad to be sure.

The old goat farmer still wore his arm in a sling but seemed quite pleased with the burgeoning herd. She wasn’t sure what he babbled in Dutch, but Julia figured it must be good given the warm approval in his tone.

Claudia’s morning sickness was no longer quite as bad, so she walked the farm with them, one of her baby sons draped over her shoulder. She did her best to provide translation.

“Mr. Hofstad says you have done a fine job,” Claudia told them. “He offers you each the pick of the litter if you’d like to keep a goat.”

Ashton spewed a mouthful of the cider he’d been sipping from a flask. He coughed, but Julia sensed he was covering a laugh as he swiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“There is a very clever Alpine,” he said. “My father could probably use her to chart baseball statistics.”

Claudia provided the translation, and Mr. Hofstad took a few steps toward the pens of Alpines before Ashton interrupted and tried to communicate he was only joking.

Julia prodded him. “Go on. You know you’ll miss her once you are back in the city.”

“I’ll miss you, and I’ll miss Sophie’s cooking, but I’ll be glad to see the last of a goat who unties my shoelaces, noses into my pockets, and has learned to unlatch every gate on this property. As of today, she is officially Mr. Hofstad’s problem again.”

But he was smiling as he said it. She wanted to keep listening to him talk. Even when he was annoyed, Ashton couldn’t hide the streak of humor that lurked just beneath the surface. It was fascinating and attractive and annoying. She wished she could stop her thoughts from running along these lines.

But most of all she hoped Mr. Hofstad would find something else that needed doing at the farm. She didn’t want her work here to end. It would mean facing Philadelphia and Dean Kreutzer. It would mean confronting the possibility that her medical career really was over.

And it would mean losing Ashton Carlyle forever. He would go back to his office in Manhattan and forget his week on a goat farm with the country girl who could never fit into his world even if she wanted to. If she became a medical missionary, she would ultimately board a ship and sail toward the sunrise until she reached Asia. And Ashton would remain in the city, working in a skyscraper, living in his comfortable townhouse, and going to baseball games with his father. She would never see him again.

Even thinking about it was painful. She pushed the thoughts from her mind and looked to the old goat farmer.