Chapter Ten #3
“Then you call me, honey,” he said in that deep, sexy voice that made her melt.
“You’ve got my number, even if you don’t know it yet.
” He winked and went on to the car. He didn’t look back, even as he drove away.
Meredith’s eyes followed the car until it was out of sight.
She didn’t cry until she was inside, behind the closed door.
* * *
She was back at work and going crazy in no time, overrun by people with everything from stomach viruses to the flu. She had a good immune system, and she didn’t catch any of the ailments, but she missed Rey terribly.
Three days before Thanksgiving, her father telephoned her from the ranch, full of excitement about his new job.
He seemed like a different person. He told her he was still going to therapy sessions, but in Jacobsville with a psychologist. He was doing much better, and he was going to make everything up to his daughter, he swore it. And wasn’t she coming for Thanksgiving?
It took real nerve to tell him the truth, that she hadn’t been able to get off because of the time she’d already missed. There was simply nobody available to replace her. She’d have Thanksgiving Day, but nothing more.
She’d tried to beg the time off to have a long weekend, but her boss hadn’t been pleased and he refused.
He wanted her on call that weekend, and she couldn’t be and go to Jacobsville.
The office held a huge clinic for the local immigrant population on Saturdays, as well as Sunday afternoons, and Meredith was competently bilingual in medical terms. It made her indispensable.
Not that she minded. These people were desperately in need of even the most basic health care, and Meredith was a whiz at preventive medicine.
She counseled them, advised them on nutrition and wellness, and tried not to let her heart break at the sight of little children with rotting teeth and poor vision and a dozen other ailments that money could have corrected easily.
The disparity between the rich and the poor was never more evident than in minority communities.
But the fact was, she had one day off for Thanksgiving and no real time for herself.
It was a reminder of just how pressured her job really was, and how demanding.
She loved what she did, but she hated being made to feel guilty when she asked for time off—something she hadn’t done since her brother’s and mother’s untimely deaths.
Actually it had been a battle royal to get time off for bereavement leave, and the funerals, and she’d had to go right back to work the day after the burials.
It had been too soon, but she’d thought work would be good medicine.
Perhaps it had been, but she was living on nerves.
The weeks at the Hart ranch had given her a taste of a whole other life.
It was one she recalled with joy and missed every day.
Most of all, she missed Rey. Now she wouldn’t even see him.
Her father said that he’d ask someone to loan him a vehicle, and he’d come to have Thanksgiving with her.
That cheered her up a little, but it would mean she wouldn’t see Rey.
It was a bad blow. She told her father that she’d make dinner, which cheered him up as well.
* * *
Thanksgiving Day came, and Meredith got up before daylight to start cooking.
She was determined that she and her father were going to have the best Thanksgiving dinner she could manage.
She’d bought a turkey and a small ham, and raw ingredients to make dressing and sweet-potato soufflé, green beans, ambrosia, homemade rolls and cherry and pumpkin pies.
She’d just taken the last pie out of the oven when she heard a car pull up in front of the house. She didn’t stop to take off her apron or run a brush through her disheveled hair. She ran to the front door and opened it, just in time to see her father and Rey come up on the porch.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Merry,” her father said, and hugged her warmly.
Rey grinned. “We thought you might like company to help you eat all that food,” he told her.
“I didn’t make any biscuits,” she said worriedly. “Just homemade rolls.”
“I love rolls.” He held out his arms. “Well, come on,” he chided when she hesitated. “You can’t treat a red-hot matrimonial prospect like me to the cold shoulder! You’ll never get me to say ‘yes’ from arm’s length!”
Her father coughed. “I’ll just, uh, check on the turkey,” he said with an impish smile and went into the kitchen.
Rey nudged Meredith back inside the house, closed the door, and kissed her to within an inch of her life. He barely stopped to breathe before he was kissing her again, enfolding her in a bearish embrace while he made up for what seemed like years of abstinence.
“You’ll smother me,” she complained weakly.
“Stop complaining and kiss me,” he murmured against her swollen lips. He kissed her ever harder.
“I’m not…complaining!” she gasped when he finally stopped.
He bit her lower lip ardently. “I am,” he groaned. “Come on, woman, ravish me!”
“Here?” she exclaimed, wide-eyed.
“Well, give your father a quarter and send him to the store for cigarettes!” he asked with comical desperation between kisses.
“Nobody here smokes,” she pointed out.
“Excuses, excuses,” he murmured against her lips, using her own favorite complaint. His arms tightened and he only stopped when he had to breathe. “What a long, dry spell it’s been, Merry,” he whispered huskily. “Come back here…”
She kissed him and kissed him with no thought of the future. It was wonderful to be held and cuddled and wanted. She thought she’d never felt so much joy in her whole life as she did here, in Rey’s hard arms.
“There’s that carpet you mentioned when I left here last time,” he said breathlessly, indicating the floor. He wiggled both eyebrows. “We can lock your father in the kitchen and you can ravish me, right here!”
“Not on your life.” She linked her arms around his neck. “I won’t ravish you until you agree to marry me,” she managed unsteadily.
“Is that a proposal?” he murmured huskily.
“Sure. You can have a ring. I think there’s a ten-year-old cigar around here somewhere with a band on it…”
He was still kissing her between words. “I’ll phone the minister first thing tomorrow.
You can have a blood test at work. I already had Micah Steele do one on me.
He said he’d love to have a nurse practitioner of his very own, by the way, if you’re interested.
We can have a Christmas wedding in Jacobsville. ”
Her mind was spinning. She couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. Of course, he was kissing her and she could hardly think at all. “Blood test…work for Micah… Christmas wedding?” she murmured.
“Mmm-hmm,” he whispered, kissing her again.
“You can get me a ring whenever you like, but I got you one already.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out a velvet-covered jeweler’s box.
He opened it and showed it to her. Inside was a glorious emerald solitaire, and a diamond and emerald wedding band.
“If you don’t like it, we can throw it in the fishpond and go buy you something else… ”
“I love it!” she exclaimed, flustered by the sudden turn of events.
“Good. Here.” He took out the engagement ring, pocketed the box and slid it gently onto her ring finger. “Now it’s official. We’re engaged. Remember what you just promised,” he added with a wicked grin. “The minute your father leaves, I’ll let you ravish me on the carpet!”