“Are you sure you don’t want to make this a double weddin’?” She opened her eyes to see Mrs. Hayes staring warmly at them. Meera blushed and stepped out of Jake’s arms, suddenly realizing the number of eyes on them.
Mrs. Hayes leaned forward. “Don’t even try to give me some hogwash, little girl. I saw that look on your face.” Meera covered her face with her hands, unable to look at Mrs. Hayes. She shook her head.
She heard Jake laughing behind her. “Give her time, Mrs. Hayes.”
Meera felt herself being hugged and released her face to put her arms around the older woman. “Darlin’ girl, welcome to Hell’s Bells. You’re one of us now.”
Meera glowed.
The band struck up a popular country song, and there were hoots as the crowd began to dance. “What else is going on?” Meera asked.
“Well, it’s a weddin’!” Jake said. “Mr. Cregg and the rest of us set up a barbecue...and we checked the vent.” She laughed. “And I’m not letting you outta my sight for even a moment.”
“You promise?”
She stood on her tiptoes and put her arms around his neck. Suddenly, she didn’t care who was watching or what they might think. She pulled his head down and kissed him with everything she had.
They danced with the rest of the town, letting the moonlit night charm them into a state of bliss.
After Lily and Joe left, they helped the town clean up. It was late at night by the time everything was done and most people had headed home. Meera and Jake walked hand in hand, enjoying the sudden quiet.
I’ll miss this town. Never thought I’d say that, but I’ll miss more than just Jake. She knew he knew, but she had to say it out loud. This is as good a time as any.
“Jake, I have a plane ticket back to London next week.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MEERA PATTED JAKE’S BACK as he coughed. He seemed to be gasping for air.
“I meant just to talk to my parents.”
He looked up. “What?”
She smiled reassuringly. “I need to go back and tell my parents, and Raj, in person.”
“Tell them what, exactly?” he asked breathlessly.
“To tell them I’ve fallen madly in love with this redneck cowboy and plan to go back to a town that’s inexplicably called Hell’s Bells to work as a country doctor whose patients pay her in clothes.”
He leaned over and brought his mouth down on hers. She felt his relief and love the moment their lips touched.
When they came up for air, she grinned. “Why is it called Hell’s Bells, anyway?”
He laughed. “I’ll show you.” They began walking and making plans. Meera would go home in a week and talk to her parents. She would come back a few weeks after that, and they would figure out what to do with the ranch and her research in London. Not all decisions had to be made right now. They needed some time to think things through.
She believed they could be together. Surely, there would be a solution that would let them merge their lives? If it could happen for Lily, it could happen for her.
For the first time in her life, Meera felt content. There was an inner peace she’d never felt before. She realized her constant headaches and ever-present anxiety were not hardwired into her.
Jake led her to a bell tower that was easily a hundred feet tall. Meera had driven past it before.
“Back when this town was founded, people believed it was haunted. They installed the bell to warn folks every time there was evil in and about town. Legend has it that every time the bell’s rung, something bad happens. That’s why we call the town Hell’s Bells.”
“So no one ever rings it?”
“Oh, teenagers on Halloween will, or the stray tourist. Freaks people out—it’s actually fun to watch.” His eyes twinkled, and he wiggled his eyebrows.
She shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m not tempting fate.”
“Come on, you’re a scientist. How can you believe in crazy myths like this?”
“No way. Besides, the rope is too high for me.”
“I can fix that.”
She yelped as he lifted her.
“Jake, you’re such a bad influence on me.”
“I try, princess. I try.”
She reached as high as she could and grabbed the rope. She tugged and the bell rang out, clanking as the rusted clapper connected with the rim.
“Ok, now let me down!” She giggled.
“Hmm, I don’t know, I like holding you hostage like this.”
“Meera? Is that you?”
Meera froze. Jake’s arms tightened around her hips. It can’t be! She turned her head as if stuck in a bad slow-motion movie.
“Raj?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HIS FIGURE LOOMED against the moonlight, his head cocked to one side as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Jake’s arms loosened around her, and she slid down. As soon as her feet touched the ground, he stepped away from her. Raj approached them, taking in the scene. He was wearing jeans and a polo shirt, and yet he looked way too formal and out of place. She smoothed her dress.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Meera swallowed. Her mouth was completely dry.
“Raj! I was just ringing the bell...the rope was too high for me...and Jake... Oh, meet Jake Taylor.”
Raj narrowed his eyes but stuck his hand out. “Raj Sharma.” Jake shook it and the men appraised each other. Meera got the distinct impression they were squeezing the life out of each other’s hands.
“What’re you doing here? How did you even find me?” Meera broke in.
“I helped him.” Meera turned to see Gloria standing behind Raj and bit her lip to keep from saying something nasty to her. It wasn’t Gloria’s fault Raj was here. Meera had brought it on herself.
Raj turned toward her and closed the distance between them. He placed a kiss on her forehead. A chill swept through her body.
“Well, nice to see you, too, Meera. I thought I would surprise you. Perhaps it’s not as welcome as I thought it would be?” He glanced meaningfully at Jake and then returned his attention Meera.
Meera suppressed her annoyance. How could he? “Raj, you know I’m not good with surprises. Why didn’t you ring to say you were coming?” She hugged herself and noticed that Jake had stepped even farther away from her.
“I did ring you. I thought it best to come here and see for myself how you’re getting along.” He had called her since their last conversation, but she had refused to pick up, texting him to say they’d talk in person. She should have known he would show up.
Meera rubbed her temples. “I was coming home next week, anyway.”
He pressed his lips together and held out his hand. “We should go to your hotel room and have this conversation in private.” He looked pointedly at Jake.
Meera stared at his outstretched hand. She swallowed again and turned back to Jake. His face was a mask, his arms crossed. He was watching her closely yet seemed a thousand miles away.
She took Raj’s hand, and he yanked her toward him. Her legs turned to rubber. She tugged on his arm. “Wait, I left my purse in Jake’s truck.” Her voice sounded shrill. Raj stopped and spun around.
“It’s okay, I’ll drop it off at your front door.” Jake’s voice was completely bland. And yet she could hear a thousand unspoken feelings in those words. His eyes bored into her as he stepped back into the shadows. Her throat closed.
“Meera!” Raj’s tone was urgent.
She hadn’t heard the thunder over the pounding in her head, and she didn’t feel the raindrops until they started coming down hard. She let Raj lead her to his rental car. Rain pelted the windshield, and Raj started the wipers. Her face was wet as she stared into the night.<
br />
“What’s going on, Meera?” Raj’s voice was calm but tense. “Who is he?” She couldn’t see him, but she knew Jake was standing in the rain looking at her.
Meera squeezed her eyes shut as pain twisted her insides.
“He’s the love of my life, Raj.”
She expected him to curse, to get angry at her, to berate her, even. Instead, he calmly turned the ignition and put the car in gear.
“Give me directions to where you’re staying.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “You can’t ignore it, Raj, all roads lead to Jake. I’m staying in a cottage at his ranch.”
His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. He took a purposeful breath. “Meera, I care a great deal about you. I was worried, so I dropped everything back home to fly over here to check on you. I come here to find you in the arms of another man. I know this month was supposed to be a kind of Rumspringa for you, but this is a lot to take.”
Meera closed her eyes. He was right. She should have told him much sooner, when she first started having feelings for Jake, after that first kiss. Why had she put it off?
“Now you’re telling me you’re in love with a man you’ve known for three weeks.”
Her stomach flipped. It was exactly the way her parents would see it.
“Whatever you feel, or don’t feel for me, we’ve been friends for a very long time. Can I please ask you to show me just a little respect? I’ve been traveling for the past twelve hours. I’d like to take a shower and rest before we get into what sounds like a life-altering decision...for both of us.”
Meera nodded. It wasn’t Raj’s fault she had fallen in love with Jake. She tried to put herself in his shoes; he hadn’t been expecting to find her the way he had.
When they got to the ranch, she opened the cattle-guard gate. It was raining heavily, and she was drenched by the time she returned to the car. Raj stared stonily ahead, as if in a daze.
She directed Raj to the carport and led him to the cottage.
“So this is his property?”
She nodded. “He lives in the big house we saw on the drive up. This is the guest cottage. You can sleep in here.” She opened the door to the spare bedroom.
“I’m going to take a shower. Is there a place to get tea?”
Meera nodded, grateful for an excuse to go see Jake. As soon as she settled Raj with towels, she ran to the main house, rain pelting her the entire way. She sighed in relief when she saw Jake’s truck in the carport.
Meera sloshed into the kitchen, and Jake nearly knocked over his chair as he stood to greet her. She flew into his arms and burst into tears. He held her tightly. She was dripping wet and so was he. It could have been a scene out of The Notebook. They held each other desperately.
“I’m so sorry!” She gazed at him pleadingly. “He’s tired and wants to rest, so we’ll talk tomorrow but I told him I loved you as soon as we got in the car.”
Jake kissed her head. “This can’t be easy for you.”
“I just wish he hadn’t come here. I planned to tell my parents first, to make them understand. Raj...” She buried her face in Jake’s shirt, needing his strength. Jake held her for some time and she let him.
“I’d better make some tea and head back,” she said finally. “I don’t want to make things more awkward than they already are.”
He nodded and got the teapot out for her. They had bought it together. He helped her find a tray and load it up with the teapot, cups, milk and sugar. She couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her face. At least the thunderstorm had passed; she could no longer hear the incessant pitter-patter. She knew everyone in town would be ecstatic at the end to the summer drought, but for her it felt like the end of something else.
“Meera?”
She turned, and her heart squeezed tightly at the look in Jake’s eyes.
“Do what’s best for you, okay? I’m not asking for anything.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“AM I RIGHT in assuming that your parents don’t know about these...new developments?”
Meera shook her head. She felt like a schoolgirl sitting in the principal’s office. They were in the living room drinking tea. Thunder clapped in the distance, threatening more rain. She had dried her hair and changed clothes. Her tea was colder than she liked, but she didn’t want to walk back to the kitchen. She was wrung out.
Suddenly remembering that Raj had been traveling a long time, she asked if he wanted dinner. To her relief, he shook his head.
He set his cup down. “Well, I’ve had quite the day, so I’m going to turn in. We can talk tomorrow morning.”
“I would like to personally tell my parents.”
He turned from the doorway of his room, his face impassive.
“We’ll discuss it tomorrow.” He closed the door behind him. Anger boiled inside her. What right does he have to dictate terms to me? But the tone in his voice was familiar, and Meera realized that she was the one who had set that dynamic between them.
She thought of how she and Jake fought all the time. She’d initially considered it a sign of their incompatibility. I’m myself with Jake—I feel comfortable standing up to him.
She turned off all the lights, then looked out the window at the second-story balcony in the distance. Was it her imagination, or could she see Jake’s silhouette?
She slipped under the covers, pulling them around her. She didn’t even have the energy to change. She cried herself to sleep.
* * *
A LOUD BANGING woke Meera in the middle of the night. She ran to the door—it was Jake. She looked at him in alarm. Raj came out of his room. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Lily. You left your cell phone in my truck.” Jake handed the phone to Meera, and she held it to her ear.
“Dr. M., my water broke. It really hurts, I can’t move, I can’t even get up to go to the hospital.”
“Stay calm, Lily, I’ll be right there. Just breathe like I taught you. Is Joe with you?”
Lily confirmed that Joe was there, but she told Meera the contractions were on top of each other, even though her water had just broken moments ago.
“What’s going on?” Raj was rubbing his eyes.
“My patient is in labor, and she’s had no prenatal care.” Meera grabbed her bag and slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops.
“Are you going like that?”
Meera looked down. Her dress was rumpled but otherwise intact. Raj appeared perfectly pressed in his pajamas and dressing gown.
“I need to get to my patient.”
“I can drive you,” Jake said, and she nodded. She didn’t care what Raj thought. She had to get to Lily. It was her first baby, and the contractions shouldn’t be that bad so soon after her water had broken.
Raj put his hand on the door frame. “I’ll come. Perhaps I can help.”
She hesitated. “Okay, I’ll text you the address. You should be able to find it using your GPS.”
She walked out. Jake drove fast through the empty town. Meera barely waited for him to stop the car before running through the open front door. Lily was on the couch, writhing in pain. Joe was holding her hand and pressing cold washcloths on her forehead. Meera examined her.
“Something’s wrong, isn’t it? I can feel it.”
Meera nodded. “The baby is breech and probably in distress.”
She remembered that the paramedics would take thirty minutes just to get to Hell’s Bells and the hospital was two hours away. Her heart raced. She tried to move the baby using the techniques she had read about in her medical textbooks. Lily moaned in pain but the baby didn’t move. Meera tried to keep calm—she would never forgive herself if something happened to Lily. She should have encouraged her to go to Fort Bragg; they had a hospital on base. This co
uld end very badly.
She heard someone enter the room. “What’s happening?” She turned to see Raj and felt an immediate sense of relief. She gave him a recap of the situation, and he examined Lily. “Okay, Meera, I dealt with this on one of my rotations. We can do this together.” Raj explained the procedure and began to talk her through it.
“I feel the cord around the neck. I’m slipping it off,” Meera told him.
“Good, Meera. I feel the baby moving.” Raj had his hand on Lily’s abdomen.
Lily was groaning in pain. “Almost there, Lily, just hang in there.” Meera saw the head come out and nearly cried. She took out a bulb syringe and suctioned the baby’s mouth and nose.
“All right, a couple more pushes and the baby will be out. You can do it!” Raj’s voice was strong and reassuring. Lily took a breath and pushed. Meera grabbed the baby as he came out and wrapped him in a towel, suctioning some more. She rubbed the baby, getting him warm. He started to cry.
A collective sigh of relief and excitement went through the room.
“Lily and Joe, meet your new baby boy.” Raj showed Joe how to cut the umbilical cord. Tears were falling down Joe’s cheeks. Once cut, they wrapped the baby in more clean towels and handed him to Lily, who was also crying.
Raj checked the infant in Lily’s arms while Meera took care of Lily.
Lily and Joe took barely any notice of the doctors’ work as they studied their newborn baby. The love in the room was palpable.
“You’re crying,” Raj said softly to Meera as they washed up at the kitchen sink.
She chuckled. “Lily has been a special patient. I thought...I thought I had almost... Thank you for your help. I really don’t know what I would have done. I’ve never delivered a breech birth before.”
He nodded and held out his arms. She hugged him.
She looked up to see Jake standing in the doorway. He nodded at her and Raj.
First Comes Marriage Page 19