and they wouldn’t have chosen a farmer’s daughter.
Her stomach twisted and she tried to relax on the last little bit of the long trip from Canada to Kalyana, only she knew she wouldn’t feel at ease until they landed and she was cleared by customs. She was breaking her father’s promise to Lady Meleena about never returning.
You didn’t promise.
Jeena relaxed then. She was different now. She wasn’t such a pushover.
This had been her home, whether Lady Meleena liked it or not. She was going to do her job here. She had no wish to interfere in Meleena or Maazin’s life.
Even then, she wasn’t sure she could relax, visa or not. She glanced out the window again and a lump formed in her throat, tears stinging her eyes as she saw the island get closer.
Home.
This was where her family had lived and thrived on the same vanilla plantation for generations and it was all her fault that it no longer belonged to her family. All because she’d got involved with and fallen in love with the wrong person.
“You okay?”
Jeena glanced at Teresa, one of the other doctors who had come to help with the relief efforts.
“Yeah, fine.” Jeena forced herself to smile brightly. “Just missing my son.”
Which wasn’t a complete lie. She did miss her son. She’d never really been apart from him for this long and with this much of a distance between them.
He was safe in Canada with her parents. His competitive junior hockey team was in the finals and they were playing at Scotiabank Saddledome, which was a huge deal. He’d gone on and on about it for months. As had her father.
Syman was the reason her parents had taken Lady Meleena’s aid and come to Canada, and why she needed them. She couldn’t have raised him alone in Kalyana or Canada. She couldn’t have become a surgeon without their help, and becoming a surgeon had been hard even with their help.
Still, there were things Syman would never know about Kalyana. Things she’d experienced that he’d never get to, like playing on the sand of a pearl-pink beach or swimming in a turquoise sea. Running through her father’s vanilla fields or climbing a palm tree to stare out over the Indian Ocean.
Canada had been a good home for them and Syman loved his life there, even with the ice and snow that Jeena had never gotten used to. That she didn’t miss.
If you’d stayed in Kalyana, Syman wouldn’t even be interested in hockey.
Kalyana was near the Seychelles and was very traditional. Hockey wasn’t one of the sports played in Kalyana. If she had raised Syman here, he would probably be into cricket.
Or polo?
Jeena shook that thought away. She didn’t want to think about Syman’s father and how she had met him during a divot stomp at a match she should’ve never been at. She had only gone because her friend had dragged her along and during the divot stomp she’d lost her footing and been rescued by the man of her dreams.
Well, she hadn’t been completely sure when she’d first met him. Maazin had been a known playboy and she’d known she should keep away, but when he had been with her, he hadn’t been the bad boy that everyone had said he was. He had been different.
So kind and caring.
And the more time they’d spent together, the more she’d truly believed he’d loved her.
Her heart skipped a beat just thinking about him. She’d been a fool. Young and naive.
Don’t think about him.
Only it was hard not to. He was never really far from her thoughts. The older Syman got, the more he looked like his father, the more she saw the only man she had ever loved. Syman was all the good parts of his father. He was kind and caring. Also driven and stubborn.
Her heart may have been broken, but she loved Syman and she was grateful that her time with Maazin had given her her son.
“You’ll see Syman soon. And I’m sure his team will win the tourney,” Teresa said brightly, interrupting her thoughts of Syman’s father.
Jeena chuckled. “They’d better or he’ll be lamenting it until next hockey season.”
Teresa laughed and went back to her book.
Jeena glanced at the reading material she’d brought for the long flight from Dubai, which was just one of the flights she’d been on since they departed from Vancouver. She really didn’t know which way was up and given that there was a significant time zone difference, she couldn’t help but wonder if Syman had actually won his tournament. Maybe he’d already played?
I should be there.
Only this was her job and her father had taught her and given her a work ethic she stood by. Kalyana needed her and her new country, Canada, needed her to represent them in the best possible light. She understood the customs. She knew the terrain and the people.
Even if it meant facing something that she wasn’t sure that she was ready to face.
And when she closed her eyes she could still feel Maazin’s arms around her, but then she was reminded of the pain when he’d turned his back on her, when Lady Meleena had told her he’d chosen his duty over her. When Lady Meleena had told her father that Syman would be an outcast. That Jeena would be an outcast because he would not marry her, even though he knew she was pregnant.
Then, a few years later, it had been announced that Prince Maazin had chosen his bride. None other than Jeena’s supposed savior, Lady Meleena.
She shouldn’t care, but it made her angry. Jeena knew her family had been manipulated.
Don’t worry about it. Maazin isn’t part of your life.
And she had to keep remembering that.
He hadn’t been there for her when she’d had Syman. Neither had he been there when she’d scrimped and saved, worked odd jobs while attending medical school. That had been all her. She didn’t need him. She was better off without him.
Syman was better off without him.
Are you sure?
“We’re making our final descent into Huban. Please buckle up. It’s a bit windy and there has been some damage to the airstrip from the cyclone so it might be a rough landing,” the pilot said over the speaker.
“Here we go,” Teresa said, setting down her book and buckling up her seatbelt.
Jeena nodded and pulled her seatbelt tighter. She kept her eyes focused on Kalyana as it got closer and closer. She could see the damage. Trees ripped from their roots, buildings along the coast destroyed, but there on the main terminal still flew the blue, green and gold flag of Kalyana. Untouched and fluttering in the strong winds in a clear blue sky. A sight she’d thought she’d never see again.
It
