Catching Preeya (Paradise South Book 3) (29 page)

CHAPTER 45

H
e
only squinted
his
sun-kissed
eyes at her. Speechless. A muddle of emotions waxing and waning across his face all in one
forever-moment
.

She sat up straighter on the lobby sofa of SafeHaven and searched his eyes. To be sure he’d heard her right. “Ben? Did you hear what I said?”

“I just don’t want to wake up. If this is a dream, I’m scared I’ll wake up from it.” He brushed his finger down her cheek. “Marry me, Preeya Patel. Be my wife. The mother of my child. Of our child…oh God, this is a dream.”

She stroked his face, catching a lone tear on its descent, and took his hand to her belly, and held it there. “No, it’s not a dream, Ben. You have me—I mean
us
. God, it feels amazing to say that—
us
!” She kissed his mouth with a force he couldn’t possibly mistake to mean anything but yes, she’d be his wife.

“To avoid confusion, my Preeya—as we’ve had some in our extremely short time together—I need to hear you say it.”

She laughed hard, from her gut. So maybe he’d always need clarification, confirmation, but she loved it. “I will be your wife. Yes. I am so in love with you, Ben Trainer.” She kissed his lips over and over again. “I can’t breathe, I love you so much.”

He grabbed her and squeezed her tight. Like he never wanted to let her go. “Preeya …I have no words for how I feel about you. But I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you. Showing you and our baby.”

“Baby?” Dr. Patel asked, standing in front of them with a small, round plate of crackers.

CHAPTER 46

F
ive Months
Later

She put the dish in the dryer rack and looked at her wrist, at the moon tattoo she’d get removed after the baby arrived. “I can’t believe how many things the OB says I can’t do.”

Ben gripped her ass and pulled her into him, spun her around, then nuzzled her neck. “Oh, but what about all the things we can do?”

She giggled then threw her arms up and around his neck, getting his collar wet with suds but neither of them caring. She pressed her lips to his, unable to get enough of him.

“Hey, though.” Ben pulled back, his mouth curled. “The doctor also said that you can fly…for another two months.”

“I knew you’d catch that.” She hadn’t been to an OB appointment without him yet. It was sweet how involved he wanted to be. “It’s just…an airplane. I don’t want to deal with the restrooms, the seats—I mean, look at me!”

“You’re perfect.” He lifted her onto the kitchen counter and pushed her hair back away from her face. “And gorgeous. I could look at you every second of every minute of every hour, of”—he kissed her neck—“well, you get the idea,” he said through incremental kisses along her collarbone while his hand slid down her baby bump, under her blouse, and slowly up to her heavy right breast.

Preeya hummed, then he tweaked her nipple and she squeaked then giggled.

“Mmm, that giggle of yours. And your scent.” With his nose nuzzled in the crook of her neck, he inhaled. “And your sensuous, glowing body—carrying
our
child,” he said, pulling her into him—into his hard, pulsing need—and moaned into her ear.

She loved that he couldn’t seem to control his desire for her.

For her, back pain and exhaustion aside, she really loved their constant and mutual hunger, their foreplay, and,
oh Lord
, their lovemaking.

“I want you with me, is all,” he whispered, then noticing the time on her wrist, stepped back with a reluctant groan and pulled a coffee mug down from above their heads.

“It’s a conference.” She shifted to face him. “You’ll be busy the entire time.”

His lecture series on campus would end in a few weeks, and as an attempt to keep him connected, if only domestically, Doctors Without Borders had asked him to do some training, speaking, and
fund-raising
.

“Well,” he said, waggling his brows as he filled his coffee mug, “not at night…”

She smacked his shoulder.

He smirked. “Hey, other than working lunches, I’ll be all yours for meals, and…you’ll be all mine.” He nipped her ear.

She sighed, reached for a kiss, then slid off the counter to get back to the dishes. “We’ll see,” and began to pour the glass of milk she could no longer stomach down the drain. She cringed and flinched from the milk’s resonating odor. “Wow. So, forget about the tight squeeze on a plane, just the crazy random smells that set me off, Ben…the food, the people…then the recycled air and colds… ” She swallowed and blinked to settle her rumbling gut.

He nodded, took her cheek, and stroked his thumb across her brow. “Well, babe, I’ll just have to put it off until after the baby comes.” Yes, he somehow had organically begun calling her “babe”—and she loved it. Funny how perspectives and associations changed. “Babe” from Ben’s lips had a completely different connotation.

“You’re too much,” she said before slamming him with a kiss. “But I am fine alone.” Her monophobia hardly flared up anymore. Maybe because—she rubbed her belly—she was never really alone anymore.

“I know you’re fine alone. I just don’t want to be without you.”

*

Seattle’s sun eeked through the clouds, which it seemed to do more often these days, despite autumn’s full swing. Ben locked the door behind him and hopped on his bike, ready to ride to campus, and to scheme.

If he could plan it right, take her father up on some
long-overdue
fatherly attention and means—though Ben was financially set, pulling in a doable guest professor’s salary plus his past savings—he had no qualms about asking Indra Patel to help carry out his plan. With a child on the way and all the traveling he and Pree discussed, Ben didn’t think twice about delegating the expense of a private jet and a beach ceremony in Puerto Vallarta to “Dad,” as Preeya’s father preferred Ben call him.

Yeah, a jet would address all of Preeya’s flying concerns. A white sand ceremony on the bay, then off to their hidden beach at the Marietas…perfection for his Perfection.

So, she’s five months along now.
She can travel through her seventh or
eighth.

His surprise could actually work.

Now, she’d said again and again that she didn’t want the real wedding, the ceremony, the party—but he knew she’d just said that for his benefit. Her huge heart, sensitive to his feelings, thinking he couldn’t handle a big, traditional thing, too reminiscent of…his first wedding. But he had already reconciled everything: his love for Preeya, this chance with her—a second chance at love he could have never imagined possible. And there also wasn’t an ounce of doubt that Jamie had wanted this for him.
This
love.

The courthouse or a bank notary or, hell, an alleyway would’ve done it for him. He’d marry her, make her his, any way he could. But this would be her first and only marriage, so help him.

He would keep it small and intimate, immediate family and some friends. He only had Stace and the kids, and Stanton and Zoe…but their new baby? So they might not make it. But Amy and Darren and maybe her FA friend Amanda, though she just gave birth…and Gigi—who had given him a look or twenty for not insisting on a real wedding in the first place. But Gigi was farther along than Preeya.

So it would be a seriously small gathering. All the better.

Oh. He’d use the picture Preeya kept of her sister, the one on her nightstand, and blow it up, frame it. Set it at the altar so Prana would be
present
.

Perfect.

And with Preeya’s father walking her down the aisle, it would be, for Preeya, a closed loop—all the pain of her past culminating in her life, their life, anew. New and beautiful and together.

CHAPTER 47

“
O
f course you
know that I—I mean
we
”—Preeya’s dad looked in Sylvia’s direction and winked—“will pay for it,
bitay
,” her father said, his face tilted, a convincing plea in his tone.

Why she and Ben had decided to do the
courthouse-thing
was beyond her father. She grinned at Ben as she took her dad by the elbow and pulled him to the next row of strollers, trying to keep the topic away from her fiancé and to redirect it to something less redundant and more digestible. She’d been tired of hearing the contests from her father and Gigi and Amanda…Amy, too. “Look at these. They fold up to nothing but open to become…an RV!”

“Your marriage should be celebrated, Preeya.” Her dad patted the
stroller-supreme
but
spoke-on
despite her distraction attempt. “Yes, it should be celebrated in front of your family and friends.”

Sylvia kept up with them, nodding like an overly eager stepmother, supporting her father’s genuine desire to see his daughter walk down the aisle. Ben hung back a row, maybe to avoid hearing the tired topic rehashed, and maybe, too, for the allure of toy medical kits for toddlers.

But Preeya might have disliked talking about their “unceremonious” wedding plans more than Ben had. Embers of guilt rekindled in her just thinking on it. She pictured Ben with an inevitable resurgence of grief on the day they’d legally wed. Her chest tightened. That grief he’d feel would be magnified a
thousand-fold
if they had a large ceremony—with Ben standing at a grand altar in wait of a bride, a different woman in white, a bride different than
his
Jamie.

Other valid justifications covered up this predominant fear. Her family. She had no mother or “mother’s side.” And she’d hate to have Champa poisoning her day, and she couldn’t very well carve her out with her father
insisting
on paying for and hosting it—he’d have the wedding venue bill
and
hell to pay.

Ben’s only living relatives were his sister and her kids, then their combined handful of friends, and her dad and Sylvia. How silly to have a grand wedding with hardly any attendees.
And we surely couldn’t have a
party.

Honestly, she could skip it all—she and Ben and a blanket under the stars at Gas Works Park would be a dream for her.

Sylvia took Preeya’s free arm, natural as could be. Her dad smiled, so pleased. “You know I’d love to go dress shopping with you, Preeya. No children of my own, it would be a pleasure. And having just done the research,” she said, motioning to her lacking bust since the double mastectomy, “I know a few places that do custom gowns specializing in rare body shapes.” Sylvia winked, now referencing Preeya’s belly, though without judgment…just
matter-of
-fact. Preeya had begun to really like Sylvia, though she’d probably not call to chat or anything.

But thinking on rare body shapes, she rubbed her
twenty-five
-
week-old
baby bump. A dress? It gave her heartburn just imagining the fitting and measurements. What, an adjustable wrap for the long, elegant train? And for her
ever-blooming
breasts? She laughed to herself. She could see the shamed
secret-section
of some glamorous gown shop—a pathetic sign handwritten in marker: For Pregnant Brides—posted at the entrance of the back mop closet.

“Preeya, what do you think?” her father asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“I really don’t want one, Dad.”

“You don’t want a stroller now? That’s what we came here for,” he said, tilting his head the other direction.

“Oh,” she laughed, “right, the stroller.” She looked over her shoulder to find Ben so he could be part of the decision. No longer at the mesmerizing toy aisle, she caught him ogling her
more-than
-generous backside. It also had grown, and it surprised her how intrigued she was by the preparation her body took. No doubt Ben was intrigued, too.

She glared at him then lifted a seductive brow, followed by a head bob to come and join the discussion. “Hey, you.” She took her arms back from her father and Sylvia and patted then squeezed Ben’s ass before settling her arm around his trim waist. “I like the joggers, I think. I can get out there and exercise with the baby…but the storage capacity on the standard one, wow. What do you think, babe?”

Her father put his hand on her shoulder. “I could get you both,
bitay
, if you want?”

She glowered at her dad. Ben squeezed her hand, the one situated on his hip. God, she loved how he knew her thoughts, her anxiety at the moment of impact. She took a deep breath. “No, Dad, we’re okay.” Her father sometimes got carried away, forgetting she wanted her father, not his money. Always had.

And actually, they were more than fine. She and Ben were so on the same page with finances—frugal and conservative, they held most things priority above material wealth. Life and living, travel and impacting the world—oh yes, so “Mother Teresa” of them as band manager Dawn would have said. She laughed out loud at her life then compared to now. A hundred and eighty degrees.
This, now
was the thrill, the adventure she’d been seeking. Ben had helped define it for her.

Anyway, the itch for exploration, growth—it vibrated through them both and made Preeya even more certain of how right they were together. It connected them.
One of many things that connect us
, she thought as she squeezed him to her, his tight, lean waist in her grasp, sending a wave of heat from her chest to her core in a nanosecond. Her cheeks burned the next instant, but her father had been paying attention to
his
better half and so Preeya escaped the bout of embarrassment.

Sylvia fell back to walk with Preeya while her dad went to check out men’s ties. “Preeya, would you like to go with me to the café, grab a drink and a snack for the two of you?” Sylvia sent a warm glance toward Preeya’s belly. “And we can bring your father back a latte…and something for you, Ben?”

He nodded at Sylvia and smiled. “I’d love a double espresso, thanks.”

Preeya noticed how easy the two were around each other. The fact that Sylvia had survived cancer and Ben had intimately understood the fight, must have connected them on another level. Preeya didn’t have that with Sylvia. She hardly knew her dad yet, so to build a bond with a new
stepmother
was, again, not high on the priority list.

“Okay, sure, I could use a muffin or two.” Her stomach rumbled loud enough for the three of them to hear. Her cheeks heated. “Someone agrees.”