by Livia Ellis
“I’m taking you for lunch. I’ll be there at one.”
“Might be tricky.”
“Do your best. I’m getting dressed then I’ll drive you to work.”
“You want to drive my car?”
“It's that or carry you on my back.”
Her car. The first true test of whether or not she was ready to really let a man into her life. “Are you a good driver?”
“Henna,” he said. “It's just a car.”
****
Henna spent her morning seeing patients until it was her turn to be a patient. Simon unpackaged the prepared injection of birth control that would last her the next three months. Time enough to think about the future.
“You let him drive your car,” he repeated. “You must be in love.”
“I am in love.” She pulled up her skirt, giving Simon access to her thigh. She looked away from her thigh to the collage of pictures of each baby he'd delivered on his exam room wall. There had to be five hundred babies on that wall. Perfect to focus on when getting a shot.
“Have you been having unprotected sex?” Simon asked.
“I really don't think that's any of your business.”
“Henna. Look at me.”
She turned and looked at him. He held up the shot. “Just trying to do my job.” He might have been her best friend, but he was still a professional.
“Right,” she said. “Yes. We aren't exactly using condoms anymore.”
He put the shot down. “Pee or blood? Choose your bodily fluid.”
“You're really going to give me a pregnancy test?”
“Yes. Your period hasn't started. I'm not going to shoot you up with hormones without confirming you're not pregnant.”
“I never get a period when I'm on injections.”
“Blood or pee?”
She hopped off of the exam table and snatched a specimen cup off a stack before going to the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, she sat on the exam table.
“Henna...” Simon broke the silence.
“Don't talk,” she told Simon. “Do not say a word.” She pulled off her white lab coat then quickly rolled up the sleeve of the deep purple silk blouse she'd put on that morning.
Simon didn't say a word as he prepped her arm then drew a tube of blood. “I'll put a rush on it.” He dropped the tube into a plastic bag. “We'll know this afternoon.”
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She checked the screen. “Eduardo.”
“I'll give you a minute.” Simon left the room with the bag.
She answered the call.
“I'm here to take you for lunch.” His voice sounded odd and somewhat surreal over the phone. There was distance between them.
“I don't—”
“Henna. Please. I want to see you. I don't want you getting pulled back into your work and forgetting about me. I miss you. Come have lunch with me.”
“I miss you, too,” she said. “Where are you?”
She found him sitting on a bench, just as he said. Next to him, a large bag from a local place she often bought her lunch rested. Everything about him was familiar. She knew every line of his face and the way his clothes molded to his body. Why did he seem so foreign and out of place to her?
“You have a strange look on your face,” he said.
“Do I?” She sat next to him, with the bag between them. “It's strange seeing you here.”
He shrugged a little. “Don't think I don't know you're trying to talk yourself out of me. I know you better than you think you do.”
“What's wrong with me? I love you. I do. I'm really my own worst enemy.”
“And I'm your staunchest ally.” He opened the bag and handed her a salad. “Don't worry. You'll get used to me being in your space soon enough.”
“How is my car?”
“Fine,” he said. “I've driven though Paris at rush hour. I think I can handle San Francisco. I bought you a present.” From inside the bag, he pulled out a box and handed it to her.
She looked at it for a moment. “You bought me a coffee maker?” Sure enough. It was a French press. Slowly, one millimeter at a time, her head turned to him. “Did you learn nothing when I told you about the blender?”
The grin on his face told her he had. “Open it up.”
Inside was a French press and a box from Tiffany. “Clever.” She took out the box and pried it open. “Oh.” Inside was a ring. A giant rock of a ring that sat like a shiny blue pillow on a circle of platinum.
“It should fit.” He plucked out the ring and picked up her finger. “I took one of your rings with me.”
“I love sapphires, but—”
“It's a diamond,” Eduardo told her. “It's a blue diamond. Not a sapphire. It's as rare, precious, and beautiful as you are.” He slipped the ring on to her finger. It fit perfectly.
“I'm not ready to get engaged.” The ring sparkled and sang to her. A small wicked part of her wanted to shove it in her sister's face and chant something diabolical and childish like mine is bigger than yours.
“Did I say it was an engagement ring? No. It's just a ring. A present from me to you to show you how much I care for you. If you don't like it, I'll get you another present. Maybe a toaster. Or a microwave.”
She laughed a little then tried to stop. The laugh wouldn't stop. It grew until there were tears running from her eyes. Eduardo put his arms around her. “Why are you crying?” he whispered into her hair.
“Because I love you,” she said. “And that scares the hell out of me. What happens if you stop loving me? What if it doesn't work out?”
“At this point, aren't we already in too deep to worry about what if? Our lives are already tangled together.” He pulled her tighter to him, and her arms draped over his shoulders. The blue diamond on her finger sparked and twinkled like a star.
“You really have no idea,” she said. “I love my ring. How did you manage this so quickly? Don't tell me they have giant blue diamonds in stock.”
“I have my ways.”
“It looks like an engagement ring,” she said.
“Do you want it to be an engagement ring? It can be if you want it to be.”
“I might like that,” she said. “I think I'd rather know now that you want to marry me for me instead of some other reason.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do. Not anytime soon, but yes. Someday.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “When you're ready, just let me know.”
After lunch, she sat in her office, watching the sun reflect off of her ring and bounce against her wall. There was no point in trying to get any work done. The four stacks of files on her desk would have to wait.
Just before she was due to see her first afternoon patient, a knock on her door roused her from contemplation of her ring and the way the sunlight caught it. Simon walked in, wearing scrubs instead of the polo shirt and chinos he'd had on that morning under his lab coat. Someone had gone into labor. There was a reason she liked being a fertility specialist. The hours were much better and the patients she didn't shift to Simon when they were pregnant, generally gave birth on her schedule.
“Why do you think women like to have a woman gynecologist, but a male obstetrician?” she asked him. She looked at him and tried to see him as a pregnant woman might. Tall, solid, warm eyes, caring smile, big hands that wouldn't ever drop a tiny baby. She knew who was going to deliver her baby.
He had a paper in his hand. “I've thought about that, and I have a couple of theories. Mostly, women think that a man is going to be more sympathetic than another woman. Another woman is just going to tell them to suck up the pain and push. A man is going to feel guilty about the fact it was a man that got her in that position in the first place. Maybe be a little nicer. Who knows? If I figure it out, I'll tell you. Do you want me to tell you what you already know?”
“Go on.”
“You're pregnant,” he said. “Based on your blood l
evels, implantation occurred about ten days ago.” He offered her the paper which she took. She was pregnant. No doubt about it.
“I'm pregnant. How the hell did that happen?” Lucky sperm. Unbelievable.
“The usual way I suspect,” he said. “No method is a hundred percent.”
“You're going to lecture me on birth control?”
“Nope,” he said. “I'm going to do whatever you need me to do. Just let me know what that is.”
“I'll do that.”
“Nice ring. I wonder how many shots of espresso that cost.”
She looked at the ring on her hand. “It's a blue diamond. As rare and precious as I am. That's a quote. Not me being a snot.”
“You are rare and precious.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I've got to go.” Simon gave her a kiss on the head, then left her alone with the results of her blood test and the four stacks of files that needed to be reviewed.
“I need to go, too,” she said.
Chapter Sixteen
Henna stood on the balcony that looked out over the fields behind the colonial hacienda Eduardo had called home his entire life. He'd left hours earlier before sunrise as was his custom leaving her in bed to wake when her body was ready. It had become her custom to get out of bed, ring the kitchen to bring her breakfast then drink her coffee on the balcony as she studied the many moods of the mountains. She loved them the best when they were covered in mist.
True to his word, he'd spent a month with her in San Francisco. He'd bonded with Simon, laughed at her method for folding fitted sheets, sat on her couch during the day, watching soccer while she worked, prepared her dinner when she came home then took her to bed. She knew after two weeks that she never wanted to be apart from him.
Making plans to leave her life behind had been easier than she thought it would be. Her patients had been redistributed to other doctors. A week after deciding to follow her heart, the people in her department were throwing her a going away party. Simon assured her they were not happy to see her go.
When she first arrived in Colombia, Eduardo had brought her onto the balcony to show her his world. He swept an arm in front of them as his other arm held her tightly. “Here. As far as you can see and then farther still belongs to my family.” Once she'd arrived and saw his world through his eyes, she knew there was no going back, only moving forward.
After a couple of days in the house, she learned quickly that the platoon of women who ran the place looked at her as if a question mark hung over her head. When she'd asked Eduardo for a solution for her problem with the staff, his suggestion was that they get married. One solution for all of her questions about her place in his life. For this reason, she'd hesitated for longer than she should have to tell him that he was three for three in paternity, and in fact had the luckiest sperm ever to swim up a uterus.
Any suggestion that they refuse to get married on principle, make a united stand against the tyranny of middle-aged women who had a tendency to judge and wield marriage like a stick to beat single women with, had been met with laughter. Eduardo was clear in his attitude. She was not going to change the beliefs of a group of people who had been raised and lived with a certain set of values by refusing to conform.
If she didn't want to marry him, that was her prerogative. He wasn't going to force her. He was a grown man and didn't need to win the approval of his employees if he decided to have a woman live with him who wasn't his wife. He wasn't the one they would look down on. This fact had to be accepted whether she liked it or not. He made it very clear to her that if she went down that path then she would have to accept the fact that she was the one who would remain on the outs.
After two weeks in Colombia, they traveled to Switzerland so Eduardo could conduct business with one of his biggest buyers. In Switzerland, life had been perfect. Nobody cared if they were married or not. But their life wouldn't be lived in Switzerland if they stayed together. In Colombia, people got married then they lived together and had babies. The decision to get married had come quickly when they were in Switzerland.
After about two months together, he figured out she was pregnant. Or he'd made an educated guess based the fact she'd never actually had a period in their time together. Confronting her with a pregnancy test he'd bought at a pharmacy probably wasn't the best way to handle the situation, but she knew him well enough at that point to know he occasionally had the subtlety of a cudgel when trying to make a point. So, with him standing over her, she’d peed on the stick. When the test delivered the result she knew it would, she was as convincingly shocked and overjoyed as he was. And in truth, at that point, she was overjoyed. She wanted to be with him.
A positive pregnancy test had been enough to push her into agreeing to get married. For Eduardo, there was really no other choice. What she hadn't counted on, was getting pregnant first month around. She expected to have at least a couple of months to ease into the idea. But no. Her fate had been sealed.
When they'd returned from Switzerland and announced that they were getting married, the women had warmed slightly to her. This one act of compliance had been enough to earn their contingent approval. They still gave her a look that told her they knew why she and Eduardo were getting married. That, more than anything else, annoyed her. As much as she wanted to be with Eduardo, she didn't want her choice dictated to her to appease the moralistic sensibilities of the women who worked for the Salazar's.
The door to the bedroom opened, but she didn't bother turning around to see who it was. Warm hands landed on her bare shoulders, followed by soft lips on her neck. Eduardo always returned mid-morning to discuss the day with her.
“What do you see?” Eduardo asked from behind her.
“It's going to be a hot day,” she said.
“It's going to be a very hot day,” he responded. “How do you know?”
“You've had the workers move higher up on the mountain. You do that when it's going to be particularly hot in the valley.”
“You're learning to know me,” he said. “Get dressed. We're going riding.”
“My family is arriving today,” she reminded him again.
Before leaving San Francisco, she'd extracted promises from each of her friends to visit. Simon had been the first. He'd arrived before they'd gone to Switzerland and slipped right into a new life. Waverly's adamant refusal to hear that they would never get married had prompted him to flee town. It was possible he might never leave. Eduardo paid him well and the idea of working with patients who actually needed him appealed to him.
When Simon arrived, or fled the machinations of Waverly as he preferred to think, Eduardo gave them an outbuilding to use after he'd had it painted, installed air-conditioning and windows, and somehow had managed to have their applications for a license to practice medicine in Colombia fly though all government channels faster than a phone call. There were things about how Eduardo managed his affairs she just didn't want to know. What she did know was that when they really needed an ultra-sound machine, a new one was delivered within a day.
Since teaming up, they'd delivered four babies, tended to the needs of nearly a dozen pregnant women, did the best they could with what they had to reattach a nearly severed finger, treated an almost epidemic level of the clap, had a firmly worded conversation translated by Inez with the two women who were purveyors of the world’s oldest profession about the need for condoms, arrived too late to be of any use after a drowning, and treated enough snake bites to ever make her comfortable walking around in sandals on the plantation.
As much as it galled her to admit it, having Simon around helped her. His terrible Spanish was better than her nonexistent Spanish. Plus, despite the fact he'd run away from Waverly rather than confront her, technically he was still a man. There were far too many people in their rural stretch of Colombia who would quite literally rather die than go to a woman doctor. Simon also willingly went out into the mountains to make house calls.
“We’re supposed to go and pick t
hem up. I'd love to go for a ride, but it's going to have to wait.”
“I already sent Alberto and Domingo to the airport.”
“I really wanted to go to the airport to meet them.” Only the threat of not seeing her oldest daughter get married had gotten her mother to come to Colombia. Like only a mother could, she had extracted many promises from Henna, mostly surrounding indoor plumbing and security. Meeting her mother at the airport might be essential to securing a repeat visit.
“Is there actually a reason why you can't take me?” She reserved becoming irritated until Eduardo responded. He might actually have a legitimate reason. Colombia wasn't San Francisco and it was not safe for her to drive on her own from where they were in the Andes mountains to Bogota. But she could have gone with Alberto and Domingo. After getting used to the fact they carried guns with them wherever they went, she frequently traveled with two of the men Eduardo used for security when he wasn't available.
“The bruja wants to meet you. She sent a message down the mountain that you're to come to her today.”
“I don't want to meet the bruja.” She dreaded meeting the bruja. Everyone she had met since arriving in Colombia revered and feared in equal measures the bruja. “I especially don't want to meet her today. Why now? We're getting married in...” She looked behind him at the clock on the wall. “Eleven hours. Oh, my god. Eleven hours? No. I'm not going to meet the bruja today. The last thing I need is for her to put the whammy on me. I'm nervous enough as it is. I still think we're rushing this.”
“Are you still frightened?” Eduardo turned her away from the view of the mountains to face him.
She glanced into his eyes then looked at his chest. He wore one of a hundred or more battered work shirts paired with faded jeans and cowboy boots that comprised his work uniform. She liked him in linen and wool, but nothing compared to how Eduardo filled out a pair of jeans. “I might be just a little afraid.”
He kissed her on the forehead as he drew her against his chest with his arms wrapped around her. “Don't be. She's just an old woman. Nothing more. We will go and pay our respects to her because it matters to the people who live and work on my land.”