Catching Preeya (Paradise South Book 3) (28 page)

CHAPTER 42

I
t we
nt fine.
Really fine. Some interaction and questions even, a few asking about his travels with DWB, one about the Jetta Air flight—it had apparently made local headlines—and a few questions on the course material. Ben felt in his element, and a new exhilaration drifted up his body. He tingled almost. Alive—in the right place, right context. Just,
right
.

But as the hall emptied, the world’s future doctors filing out to their next classes, that feeling began to leave him. These students would move on to a next class, like everyone moved on with everything. And like Jamie had moved on from this world,
his
world. And like Preeya had moved on, leaving him without a picture for himself. An unwritten future.

Jesus, Ben. Get a
handle.

He put together his notes, tapping the sheets down on the podium. The noise, and his steady breath, echoed throughout the great hall.

Except for a clank in the far left corner of the massive amphitheater. The back of a female student lifting her computer bag to her shoulder. A
jet-black
ponytail down the length of her back. It reminded him of Preeya. Jesus, he couldn’t get away from the constant damn reminders of her.

He bent down to grab his bag from the podium, stood up, made sure the mic was off, and almost ready to leave the hall, he glanced up.

At the student in the farthest back row. Facing him…

*

His heart halted, frozen in his chest.

Not a reminder of Preeya Patel at all. It was the
living-flesh
pain, in person.

Fuck you, Stacy.
She just had to call her.

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. From nerves and fury and embarrassment and hurt. He forced them steady, shoved his papers in his bag, then targeted the side exit door.

“Ben, please.” Her voice crashed into him, a melodic and unwelcome tidal wave.

But he focused on zipping his bag, difficult with his shaking, betraying fingers. He yanked the zipper so hard that it caught midway.
Fuck it.
He hiked the strap up onto his shoulder with the help of his opposite hand, and headed for the side door with attempted calm and confidence.

“Ben, please.”

Ignore and
go.

Oh, so no “grown up,” Ben?

Shut the fuck
up.

Only five more long strides to the door.

“Didn’t you get my messages? I went to stop you that morning.”

He stopped short but didn’t look at her. “I know you went to Stacy’s, Preeya,” he stated in an
ice-cold
rasp that surprised him. He sounded foreign to himself, cowardly. “She told me and, well…you see that I’m fine and alive. So”—he turned his head but made no eye contact—“
good-bye
and take care.” And two more steps got him to and through the exit door.

He walked up three steps. Then two at a time after that. Up to the front of the building toward his bike.
Get to the bike, head home
. His mind was blank but filled with scratchy white noise at the same time.
Just get to your
bike
.

God, he could choke his sister. Unless Preeya had decided on a whim to reenter med school, and—what?—she coincidently got placed in his class? The thought made him laugh out loud.

Quick-paced
footsteps grew louder behind him. But he wasn’t stopping.

How inappropriate, Preeya showing up at his work. To tell him to his face that she’s moved on? Why didn’t she make an announcement
during
the lecture, for Christ’s sake?

As if he’d blacked out several steps in time and place, he was at his bike. His trembling hands—
damn it, get it together
—took on the challenge of unlocking his bike lock. Jamie’s birthday, 0506—God, he should really change the code already.

And at attempt number three, Preeya Patel was now panting over him, unable to talk but standing close. Too goddamn close. He couldn’t help but inhale her scent of sweet coconut and lime.
Damn
it.

Just move the hell away from me—you’ve already moved on. Now let
me!

“Damn it, Ben.” She bent forward, hands on knees, even closer to him now. He stood up, giving up for the moment on the bike lock. He just needed to gain some space—Jesus Christ, he needed her away from him.

Then he turned his back to her, and he walked. He didn’t know where to, exactly, but he needed to. He had to gain more than space but real distance. A stone bench, fifty paces away. That became his focus.

“I am in love with you, Ben Trainer!” she called out across the courtyard.

He stopped midstride. And from his peripheral, he was very aware of the others who’d heard. Lingering students, a few faculty members, a gardener, and a custodian
mid-sweep
on a winding garden side path. They all appeared frozen in time.

He spun around, still fuming.
What fucking game is this?
What the hell was she doing?

“I am. I am madly in love with you. I want to be better because of you. I reenrolled in med school because of you, because of your influence, Ben.” She looked at her hands, then up at him again. “I mean, I want to be better for
me
…and for
you
. It’s the truth.” She began to walk toward him, and whether he was mad, moved, melting, or just feeling insane, his feet wouldn’t take him anywhere.

She got to him, there in the center of the swirled cement courtyard in front of the triumphant entrance of the medical school’s lecture hall, and placed her hands on his chest. Her right hand directly over his heart, which she must have felt pounding its way out of his rib cage.

“I saw you. Preeya, I saw you yesterday.” He glared into her eyes—those bewitching goddamn eyes.

“At registration? You knew I’d be in your class? God, Ben, I called your cell so many times, and Stacy’s, too. I was so worried…and I am so sorry for attacking you, that morning in Vallarta. What you did for her, for Jamie…you are the bravest person I—”

“No, Preeya.” His chest heaved. “I didn’t see you here on campus. I saw you with a man. At a coffeehouse.” He tried to clear the thick knot of disgust lodged in his throat, but it wasn’t budging. “Holding hands. The man who had texted you?”

He watched her visibly swallow and hold her stomach at the same time. Like she was going to be ill. She had been called out by him, and now? Now she had to take this entire melodramatic grand gesture back. Because he was sure that it meant nothing.

He shook his head at her. “
Good-bye
, Preeya.”

“Ben…that was Evan. I was confronting him. So he’d stop trying. I had ended it with him when he’d proposed almost two months ago…but he wouldn’t let up. Instead of running like I always do, I met him
face-to
-face to tell him again that it was never going to be between us. Because I had found someone. Whether you ever returned my calls, Ben, you were—you
are
—the one. There is no other.”

He stared in disbelief while his head spun. A rush of what he knew, as a doctor, to be dopamine mixed with adrenaline, shot from his head to his heart, down to his gut, then exploded through his entire body. He pictured it all happening in an instant. An emotional MRI.

Her hand went to his face, slid up his cheek, then his jaw—

But he caught and paused her hand, then glared at her.

“Ben, there is no one but you. For me.”

Her hand still held in his against his clenched jaw, his eyes still narrowed, unsure—unclear if this any of this was real.

“Only you. And me.” She brought her other hand up to his face, raked it through his hair. “Ben, I’m not going anywhere.”

He shook his head…and the next instant he took her. In his grasp. And devoured her mouth like nobody and nothing else existed but Preeya and him, locked together after too many seconds and minutes and days and fucking weeks apart.

He was whole, an entire man once again.

*

Applause finally slowed their kiss. And he let her vibration resonate on his lips, unable to let her slip from his embrace.

“Preeya Patel, you drive me mad. And I want you to do that to me for the rest of my goddamn life. Do you hear me? The rest of my life.”

She nodded, her eyes glistening wet, happy—glowing. He wiped away one tear and licked it off his thumb. Salty and real. Not an illusion, not a dream. He sighed a relief he’d never felt before.

Her cell phone rang loud and wide and startled him out of their
real-life
fantasy.

*

Her heartbeat echoed so loud that her phone hadn’t registered until the second round.

SafeHaven.
It rang through her
do-not
-disturb setting, which she turned on for her morning classes.

She hesitated. Just froze in place.

Why? It’s probably just Prana, the nurse connecting her through. To chat. On a Friday, late morning?

Their new schedule was every Saturday at nine. Before breakfast.

“Breathe, Preeya, and answer the call.”

She wasn’t breathing?

“Go on…” Ben urged, his hand thankfully on her back. A firm, strong support. Without it, she thought she’d whither like a leaf down to the hard concrete.

She took a deep breath in, then worked to breathe out that mysterious hovering fear. The exhale lodged in her throat as she accepted the call.

“Hello, this is Preeya Patel.” Her voice—it sounded like her, but not. She shuddered again and her shoulders hit her ears.
Seven-year
-old Preeya. That’s whose voice she’d just heard.

CHAPTER 43

S
he was silent
and shaking, and he was honestly worried that she’d pass out like she’d done in Vallarta. Ben took her car keys and got her into the passenger’s seat.

“
Nononono
. Please, God,” she muttered to herself, eyes closed tight like she was stuck in a nightmare. He took her hand, locked their fingers, and tried to infuse her with all his strength. He felt her pain so sharply; all he could do then was squeeze the fear out of her hand. And she let him.

“We’ll get there, Preeya. We will,” he said, merging onto the highway. Through traffic, luckily not rush hour, but still. Thirty minutes if no accidents. Then to grab a flight. Jesus.
Just drive, Ben, and get her
there.

Then her phone beeped. Preeya opened her eyes slowly and glanced down at the screen.

“News?”

“A text from Gigi…” She gulped loud. “Oh God, Ben. Oh God.”

“What, Preeya? What does it say?”

“Gigi wants me to call her and…to stay calm.
Oh Jesus
.” Sobs erupted.

“What? I don’t understand—”

“I told you about Gigi, remember?” Preeya’s whisper sounded almost irritated for his confusion. “She sees things…two things as clear as crystal. Oh God, Ben. Please drive faster. Just go as fast as you possibly can.”

He still didn’t quite follow but wouldn’t dare add another questioning word to her obvious panic. “Just hang on for me.” He got over to the far left and hit ninety in a matter of seconds.

“Please, Lord, just not yet. Not yet,” she whispered as she took her hand from his and raked her fingers through her hair, her entire body rocking forward and back. Lulling herself while he weaved in and out of traffic. He’d get her there. He’d get her to
Sea-Tac
then to SafeHaven—God willing, in one piece.

He watched her rocking begin to slow and he slid his right hand to her back. She leaned forward then—her hands moving to cover her face, her face in her knees—and just shook her head from side to side. Side to side. Like a young child denying a horrible
adult-world
truth, not letting it enter or settle in her head.

Then she wailed.

He swerved and the blue sedan to his right slammed on his horn. He recovered and straightened out,
white-knuckling
the steering wheel.

“She’s gone. My baby sister’s gone.”

“You don’t know that…” He glanced at her for a millisecond, then back on the road. “You don’t know anything until we hear—”

“I do. In my marrow, I know.”

CHAPTER 44

S
he opened the
door before Ben could actually bring the rental to a complete stop. Her father was in the lobby. Blinking too slowly. Too damn slowly.

Stop that! And say something, damn
it.

Say something instead of just standing there blinking your fucking
eyes.

“
Bitay
, come.” She ran into her father’s arms and screamed her sobs into his chest. Wailing her sorrow so Prana could hear her. To come back. To come back to the world. “She was in no pain, my love. She was in no pain.”

She felt her father moving his feet, guiding her somewhere, but he didn’t let go of her. His grasp stayed firm and tight.

Please, Daddy, don’t let go, or I’ll fall. I will just fall forever and
ever.

He began to fold himself and her into a seat. Onto a cushiony seat. A soft, velvety one. His whisper in her ear matched the feel of the fabric on her hands and legs. “She stayed in bed later than usual today. Reading.” He paused then. And when he resumed, his tone had raw, guttural emotion in it. “And when the nurses came to check on her, she had her book on her chest. She had just drifted out of her body. Poof, just like that.” She could hear her father’s heart racing, her ear mashed to his chest. Then he swallowed—she heard that, too. A cavernous echo in an endless cave.

Her father shifted, his arms loosened, his hands went to her face, lifting her eyes to his. But she didn’t want to look at him. She couldn’t. She just kept her eyes shut tight. Like her life depended on it.

“She was reading your book,
bitay
. Yours and hers. You were there with her, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. Just couldn’t have…and I thank you for being such a beloved heart to my youngest girl. My Prana.”

She opened her eyes when a water droplet hit the top of her head. And there on her father’s face were a stream of tears plummeting to their death off his
hard-angled
jaw. She pulled her father in to her. A hard, powerful embrace in honor of their sweet Prana.

*

“I will get you both some water,” Sylvia said softly, touching Preeya on her shoulder.

“Thank you, dear,” Preeya’s father whispered, slowly unhinging himself from Preeya’s reciprocal hold.

Preeya wiped her face but kept her eyes softly shut. She took a huge, empty breath in. And there she sat, as if floating in space. She didn’t want to open her eyes. To see her surroundings. Not ever. Her world now without…

But, Ben.

Her eyes sprang open and there he was, sitting in the armchair next to her.

“Ben.”

“I’m here.” He reached for her hand and grasped it tight.

She patted her father’s arm and stood up. Ben stood, too, and pulled her in with his strong, decisive arms, and just held her. She had no more tears to cry; she was just an empty reservoir in drought conditions. Not even a well of springs beneath her surface.

He moved his hands to her shoulders to give enough space for him to look her in the face. He said nothing with words. Just the warm love told in his amber eyes made her know he understood. He, of all people, understood her pain.

“Daddy…” Her voice scratched to a start. “This is Ben, Doctor. Benjamin Trainer…” She moved to Ben’s side. Not another word of explanation was needed to know who he was to her. Obvious and raw, a blind person could see. “Ben, my father, Doctor Indra Patel.”

“A true pleasure, Doctor Patel.” Ben held his hand out to her dad. She watched her father—an even newer version of the man—take Ben’s hand and they shook. Then, to Preeya’s complete surprise, her father pulled Ben into him and hugged him hard. Gave Ben a firm pound on the back.

She let out a puff of a laugh, her heart leaping to her face. But in the span of a breath, it drifted back down into her chest, mimicking her father’s glow morph back to stoic. For her—and for her father, it seemed—the introduction of Ben, the man who’d won the heart of Indra Patel’s
now-
only
daughter…well, it was
heart-wrenching
and heartwarming in the very same beat.

She sighed and looked up at Ben as he returned to her side. Bittersweet, she thought. With infinitely more sweet than bitter. She melted into his arms and they all stood in silence. A surrendered peace descended and told her it would all be okay. Eventually.

*

Another round of introductions were made when Sylvia came to join them with waters and a clipboard of paperwork for her and her dad to complete. As she stared
glossy-eyed
at the heading on the first page—
Deceased
—she felt a tinge of nausea.

Fingertips to lips, she sat straighter to try to settle her—
oh
God.

Oh my God.
The
baby.

Her baby. She hadn’t gotten to tell Prana. Her sister left before knowing about the miracle growing inside her. Preeya’s breath started racing. Panicked, she felt the greater impact of Prana’s departure then, like a firestorm—hot, sharp agony.

Then
light-headedness
.

“Preeya? Are you all right? You look…washed out and…”

“I didn’t get to tell her…she’ll never know. And it would’ve made her so happy. I didn’t get to tell h—”

*

Ben laid Preeya out on the couch while detailing the Vallarta
fainting-episode
to Dr. Patel. “She’d
come-to
fairly quickly, though.”

But in his own mind, he thought her reaction strange, such a stark uprising from what had become an almost floating,
slow-motion
state of being. For all of them, it seemed. Strangers, but tied tightly in a web of love and loss, past and present.

But new beginnings out of that web.

“Preeya. Come back to me,” he whispered between light kisses to her forehead and temple.

What had she forgotten to tell her sister that had upset her so much?

Sylvia came with an ice pack and placed it under her neck.

She gasped awake. “Ever?”

“Preeya,
bitay
?”

“Ever—what, Pree?” Ben took her hand.

But she ignored him. All of them. She just scrambled for her phone in her purse, and at the same time, as if on cue, it buzzed.

“She’ll be okay, Dr. Patel,” he said while Preeya studied her phone screen as if obsessed. He needed to get her grounded.
Alone.
“But would you guys mind…getting her some crackers or a piece of toast, maybe? Low blood sugar could be contributing…”

Preeya’s father nodded his agreement before Ben could finish, then took Sylvia’s hand and they left him and Preeya in the sitting area to speak with someone at the front desk.

Still glaring at her phone—a new message?—he wiped a stray strand of her mussed
midnight-black
hair from her stunned and flushed face. “Preeya,” he whispered.

A beat passed, then another. He couldn’t rush her. After the next moment came and went, he cleared his throat.

She finally looked up at him, a slow smile forming on her lips. A wide, now ecstatic smile.

“Preeya Patel, what is it?” he asked, getting slightly impatient.

“Gigi. It’s Gigi.”

“No, not who…what? What was bothering you, Preeya?”

“I remembered that I had news—news to tell you, Ben. But then when I realized that I’d never get to tell my sister the news…God, if fate had just waited a few hours—but it’s all okay now. I know she knows,” she said, holding up her phone,
near-giggling
, tears pooling in her eyes. “She already knows,” she said, then took his shirt collar in her grasp and pulled him closer, within inches of her face now. “Ben,” she whispered, then swallowed and sighed a light, blissful sigh. “You and I…we’re having a baby.”