She didn’t trust her voice. “Yes.” It was a whisper, fragile but full of hope.
“But I said that we needed more time. A second school term. That we should wait until we could know what is the right thing to do. So that both of us could be sure.”
Rachel Marie waited, her pulse beginning to throb insistently. “Go on.”
He took both of her hands in his own. “Rachel Marie, my dearest friend, if my love for you was just because of your beauty, or because of the excitement of our friendship . . . or because you filled up my . . . lonely places, and I filled up yours . . .”
He grappled to formulate his thought, and she breathed a silent prayer.
“ . . . Then, yes. It would take a second year for such a kind of small love to grow into real love. Because we would not want to rush into a mistake.”
“You’re right.” His hands enveloping her own were so solid, drawing her into the vision of this shared adventure.
Carefully and deliberately, he let go of them and placed them in her lap. Falling to one knee, he looked up at her. “Rachel Marie, I love you for beauty, it is true. Even with a scar on your arm, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. You fill my mind. And I love you for your kindness, and for your wise thoughts, and for your excellence as a teacher. And for our pleasant times together. But”–and suddenly his eyes were brimming with tears–“I love you most of all because we have grown to be partners in God’s work. You brought me to Jesus Christ. Together you and I can bring many others into his kingdom. Our love is born of God. So I already know.”
He reached into his pocket with his left hand, dabbing futilely at his eyes with the other, and then set a small box in her lap. “Rachel Marie, I am sorry. I cannot wait until next year. I cannot wait until tomorrow. I cannot wait five more minutes. I cannot bear to think of you getting onto an airplane until I have this ring on your finger and your promise.”
Ask me! Ask me! Every fiber within her, her heart, her mind, every piece of her soul, even the tattered bits of skin neatly stitched together on her mangled arm, cried out to respond to the question she had dreamed of in the hospital bed.
“Will you marry me?”
There it was. A joy like she had never known flooded her and she put her face in her hands, holding the tiny jewelry box to her cheek.
There was a holy pause, an interruption in the saga, as she reflected back to this journey. California to Bangkok. For months she had nurtured a realistic anxiety about one thing: chemistry. What was it that brought excitement and zest and breathtaking joy to a marriage? What was the vital ingredient, the crucial, unsearchable element that a woman should weigh and seek for?
The answer had begun to form and coalesce in the hospital bed, and now with a rush of glorious realization she knew it. Chemistry and lasting love came from her Lord, from his hand and from following his will. She loved this man, Khemkaeng, because they had blended their journeys in him. Good looks and flirtatious exchanges and heart-melting kisses were pleasant sparkplugs to start the firing of an engine. But only the Lord, only a shared walk with Jesus, and a shared vision for serving him, could ever give her a chemistry that would last for all time.
Rachel Marie held the box in her hand but did not open it. The question waited in the still Bangkok air between them like the first tuning note before the overture of a grand symphony. Will you marry me?
She gazed into his eyes and made him wait for just a moment longer, a teasing twinkle coming into view. “Yes,” she said simply. “I would be proud to be your wife.”
He pointed to the box. “Please open it then.” A grin.
Rachel Marie pulled the lid back and then gasped. There, resting on its tiny blue pillow, was the ring from Chiang Mai, the golden band with three small diamonds. To see the very jewel of her dreams flooded her with mystified pleasure. “How did you ever . . .”
“Put it on first,” he suggested.
He helped slip it onto her finger, pleased at the perfect fit. “It looks more wonderful on you than I could have ever dreamed,” he confessed. “Please, my lovely wife-to-be, I pray you will never take this ring off.”
“Never.” She looked at it admiringly, then drew his hand to her lips and kissed it. “But tell me how you knew.”
“When you were in the hospital,” he explained, “I found your cell phone. It was in the car. I called your brother Bucky and told him what had happened. But also that you would be all right.”
Her eyes misted again as she envisioned her big brother in Boston, hearing the wrenching news. “Then what?”
Khemkaeng nuzzled her. “I shared with him how much I loved you, and also of my plans, and he told me which ring you liked. So my father called that store and they sent it to Bangkok yesterday.”
She pursed her lips. “I realize now there are secretive, sneaky men on both sides of this family. My brother . . . your father. Now I trust no one.”
“How about me?”
She shook her head. “I trust you least of all, sir. Unless you kiss me this very moment.”
Khemkaeng complied, then took her hand and slowly pulled the ring off. “This one time only . . .”
“How come?”
He handed it to her. “Read.”
She twisted the small band of gold around until she could see more clearly in the light. In fine precision lettering were the two words: Amazing Love.
“You are right,” she whispered, her heart rapturously full. “Thank you, Jesus.”
Her betrothed climbed to his feet and enveloped her in a careful hug. “I pray for you to get well,” he murmured in her ear, “so I can hug you at full strength.”
“I’m working on it.” Suddenly she wriggled out of his grasp. “Wait a minute! You said you had two presents for me. This little ring . . . and then something really important. Enough kidding around, Mr. Chaisurivirat. The future Mrs. Chaisurivirat wishes to receive her second present. I am waiting.”
He laughed and pulled a long white envelope out of his coat pocket. “It’s nothing, really.”
“I’ll decide that.” She carefully pulled it open and slid out a familiar document. “I don’t get it. My plane ticket home. So?”
He pointed down. “No. Read more carefully, English teacher.”
She squinted in the soft evening light. “‘Khemkaeng Chaisurivirat.’ What’s this? What are you doing with a plane ticket? To Seattle?”
He took the ticket back and pointed out toward the Bangkok sky and the distant continent of America. “You are far too fragile to fly alone,” he observed. “Plus–you have met my parents. I think I should meet yours.”
Rachel Marie laughed, pleased and excited as she gave him another kiss. “Well, you know what? It’s a wonderful idea. But first you are going to answer one question for me.”
He led her to the door and the now exquisite evening outside. “Anything, my queen. Anything at all.”
“Okay, then.” She took his hand and gazed into his eyes. “The last time I wore this black dress, we went to an expensive French restaurant. Do you remember?”
He grinned. “Yes. A little bit.”
“Here is my question. I paid the bill that night. But it seemed like a very small bill. Maybe too small by exactly one thousand baht.”
He said nothing, but a guilty smile played around his lips. “What is your question, Miss Stone?”
“Did you, sir, leave a thousand baht underneath a seat cushion at that restaurant? I told Bucky and Lisa I wasn’t going to ask you until our fifth wedding anniversary, but I can’t wait that long. So just tell me. Would the man I marry do such a sneaky and wonderful thing?”
Khemkaeng shook his head, amused, as the moonlight cut through the palm trees and bathed his face. He took her in his arms. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
VOCABULARY GUIDE
Thai is a fascinating language, made more challenging by the demands of learning five “tones”: high, low, even, rising, and falling. But even learning a few key words and phr
ases will make your experience reading the Rachel Marie series a lot more sanuk (fun).
Delicious Aroy
Little bit Nit-noi
Home Bahn
Student Naak-rian
School Rong-rian
Teacher Kruu
Hotel Rong-raem
Street Thanon
City Muang
Bangkok Krung Thep
Jesus Pra-Yesu
God Pra-Jow
Church Bhode
Heaven Sawan
COMING SPRING, 2016
BOOK TWO OF THE RACHEL MARIE SERIES
And a Happy New You
Despite her secular mindset, Rachel Marie’s cousin, Samantha Kidd, is drafted to join the BCS team to fill in for a semester teaching calculus and trigonometry. Recently divorced and seething with bitterness, she arrives with seven-year-old Paloma in tow, and struggles to meet the Thai cultural norm of soft-spoken tranquility. Not entirely sure she’s ready to embrace Christianity, Samantha soon begins to fall for Tommy Daggett, the school’s joke-loving choir director. Readers are pulled into a pulse-pounding adventure involving a cherubic seventh-grade orphan named Pranom, who needs rescuing from Thailand’s rampant sex industry.
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Love In a Distant Land: Rachel Marie Series Book One Page 30