First Comes Marriage

He rubbed the back of his neck. I should talk Marty into giving her a room at the inn. I don’t need trouble.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_22368466-f54e-543f-818e-2500ec28a4b8)

IT WAS A minor miracle she made it to town without crashing the car. She’d almost forgotten which side of the road to drive on. Meera pulled down the visor and studied her reflection, checking that her makeup was perfect. She adjusted the collar of her suit dress. She’d paired it with her favorite Jimmy Choo heels and a string of pearls. Her mother always said that dressing like a princess would make her feel like she could conquer the world. And Meera already had a plan to fix her situation. She would talk to Dr. Harper about how to handle the townspeople and convince Marty to give her a room. She couldn’t stay at a cattle ranch. And I don’t need to tolerate that rude cowboy.

She stepped out of the car and took in her surroundings. There was a barbershop with the quintessential blue-and-red-striped pole, a general grocer’s displaying a table of fruits and vegetables, the silver-walled Betsy’s Diner and a post office proudly displaying the American flag. The brick sidewalks were lined with pretty trees and flowering bushes. The air was slightly dewy and smelled of fresh-cut grass. A picture-perfect small town.

Meera lifted her face to let the sun shine on it. She liked warm weather; England was always too cold and India was too hot. If one dressed properly, this weather was just perfect. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to spend the month here. She would much prefer New York, but it wasn’t that far away and she still had the month to herself. She would pack a lifetime of freedom into the next four weeks. Then she could go home fully content and lead the life that had been planned for her.

She walked up the steps to Dr. Harper’s office but paused at the door, hand on the knob. I can do this. She turned the handle and stepped in. Chimes announced her presence.

“Ah, Rose, how nice to see you again.” Meera smiled warmly at the receptionist. She had only met Rose for a moment the day before, but she seemed to be a kind older lady. Rose was wearing a flowered dress, her white hair neatly pinned in a bun. Meera could picture her serving tea and biscuits like a British grandmother.

“We don’t need you here. Please go away.” The harsh tone was so out of line with the smiling, friendly face that it took Meera a moment to process the words. Her stomach dropped.

“Rose, I’m sorry, have I offended you? I don’t understand.”

Rose wagged her finger. “We don’t need your kind of doctoring here.”

“But Dr. Harper...”

“Dr. Harper is an old coot who—”

“That’s enough, Rose.”

Meera turned to see Dr. Harper emerge from his office. She blew out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. He was a small man with bright blue eyes, a shock of white hair and a booming voice. She had seen him only briefly yesterday when he’d shown her around the clinic, then he’d left her to see patients on her own. She hadn’t expected to start work her very first day in Bellhaven, but there had been an emergency with Mrs. Harper, who was suffering from lung cancer. Dr. Harper had asked Meera to tend to his patients. He’d been rushed and distracted, but affable enough, which made sense since he was a friend of her British supervisor.

“Dr. Harper...”

He held up his hand to silence Rose. “Now, I won’t have you giving Meera a hard time. She did what was right.”

Meera stepped forward. “Dr. Harper, I don’t understand what the fuss is about.”

Rose scoffed, glaring at her with open hostility. “Derek Jenkins!”

Meera blinked. “The boy who had a concussion?” She didn’t understand. It was a simple case, and she had treated it with textbook perfection.

Dr. Harper sighed. “Meera, let’s go to my office to talk.”

Meera followed him and sat down in the chair opposite his desk. He took a seat beside her in the second guest chair. He was obviously trying to make her comfortable.

Did I miss something? She went over the details of the case in her head and ran through the treatment plan. She specialized in cardiology but had graduated at the top of her medical program and completed her consultancy training with commendations. She knew how to take care of a concussion.

“Was there a problem with Derek Jenkins?” She scanned his desk to see if he had pulled up the teen’s chart.

Dr. Harper shook his head wearily. “Meera, you provided appropriate medical treatment.”

Meera relaxed a fraction.

“But you didn’t necessarily do the right thing.”

Her heart stopped. “I beg your pardon?”

“Derek is the quarterback for the regional high school football team, and the first game of the season is this week. It’s against our biggest rival in the next county.”

Meera reminded herself that American football was not soccer. She had initially thought Derek’s injury was related to heading a soccer ball, but then he told her he’d been tackled during practice and hit his head on the ground.

She stared at Dr. Harper.

He tapped a finger on the table. “This might be hard for you to understand, not being from around here, but football is like a religion in Hell’s Bells, and Fallton is our arch rival. It’s the most anticipated game of the season.”

Meera furrowed her brows. “I know he was disappointed he couldn’t play, but the treatment for concussion is pretty clear.”

“You and I understand that, but the town doesn’t. Derek wants to play.”

“It’s a school game! Compared to the lifetime risk of exacerbating the head injury—”

“To you it’s just a school game, but as I said, to the town, it’s...”

“Worth more than Derek’s life?”

Dr. Harper took a breath. “They don’t see it that way.”

Her mouth fell open. He couldn’t possibly be serious. If she allowed Derek to play, he could make his concussion worse, and there was even a risk of death.

“Dr. Harper, surely...”

“Meera, I’m not arguing with you on medical grounds—I am telling you why the town is angry with you.”

Meera changed tactics. “What would you have done if you were here instead of me?”

“I would have done the exact thing you did. The risk to his life is greater than the importance of the game.”

Meera spread her hands, her eyes wide.

“But I would have handled the communication differently.”

He leaned forward and patted Meera’s shoulder in a fatherly gesture. “You should have walked Derek home and then talked to his father. Marty was a football star—he’s put a lot of pressure on Derek, but he’s not heartless. If you’d gone over there to explain things, he’d understand why Derek has to sit out a game or two.”

“Walk Derek home?” That was unheard of. If Meera did that with every patient, she would have no time left. She knew she was used to a different pace than Dr. Harper’s practice. She’d seen only three patients yesterday, when back in her father’s London practice, she would have evaluated five or six patients an hour.

“Meera, Dr. Thurm called me before you arrived.”

At the mention of her supervisor, Meera stiffened. Dr. Thurm had added this month-long rotation as a condition of approving the final dissertation for her research degree. It was an unexpected blemish on her otherwise stellar academic performance. None of the other students in the class were required to do this rotation. He had personally set it up with Dr. Harper after he disapproved the one her father set up in New York.

“He told me you’re the brightest student he has ever worked with. Your medical knowledge is outstanding.”

Meera smiled and blushed. Dr. Thurm was very hard on her, as he was on all his students. Coming from him, the statement was high praise indeed.