Free The Doctor's Lady by Jody Hedlund

her belly. “I think you’ve a mind to torture me, Miss White. Staying after school with the teacher is indeed the worst punishment I could ever imagine.”
    The warmth swirled throughout her middle and fanned to her neck and cheeks.
    Somehow she managed to dismiss the class, and when the last student had finally taken leave, Dr. Ernest made his way to the front of the room.
    “So, Miss White.” Now it was his turn to amble toward her, as if he made an everyday occurrence of proposing marriage to young women.
    She inched behind her desk, needing to put something between them.
    He stopped on the opposite side, proceeded to shove aside a stack of books, and perched half his backside on the edge. “You haven’t answered my question yet.” He grabbed the apple she’d forgotten to eat at lunch and rubbed it on his trousers.
    “And what question was that?” She fidgeted with the astronomy pamphlet still open to the page she’d abandoned.
    He crunched into the apple. “Didn’t know astronomy was a standard subject in school these days,” he managed between bites.
    “It’s not a standard subject. But I like to squeeze in science when time allows.”
    He ceased chewing and raised his brow.
    “Is it so hard to believe a woman could like science?”
    He bit off another hunk. “Not hard to believe. Just unusual.”
    She turned a page in the booklet. “Dr. Ernest, why do you want to marry me today, when a week ago you told me you never would?”
    He chomped for a moment and then set the half-eaten apple on the desk. “In other words, you want to know what made me change my mind?”
    “Yes, I do.” She looked up at him, and he met her gaze straight on.
    “I’ve had a desire to go west since I was a boy and heard the tales of Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and their overland trip to the Pacific Ocean. Now, after my own exploration trip and after spending time with the Nez Perce, I can’t imagine doing anything else but opening a medical clinic in Oregon Country. And I can’t do it unless I get married.”
    “But why me? Especially after the things you said about my not being qualified.”
    “I’ve run out of time and don’t have any other options.”
    Even though his words didn’t surprise her, they still hit her chest and left a painful indentation. “So . . . you want to use me?”
    The clearness of his eyes allowed her to see all the way inside—to the truth in the far reaches of his soul. “I promise I won’t use you, Priscilla.”
    Her hands trembled, and she clasped them together within the folds of her dress.
    “I’d like to think of it more like a business arrangement. We both have our hearts set on being missionaries. But we’re both lacking the one thing the Mission Board requires: a spouse.”
    She shook her head. “I’m not sure—”
    “It’ll be a marriage in name, nothing more than that. Instead, we’ll be business partners. You can help me achieve my dreams, and I can help you. That’s it. No romantic notions, no conjugal demands, no emotional entanglements.”
    “That sounds so cold—”
    “Look—” he blew a long sigh and then leaned toward her—“neither of us really wants to get married, but the Board is making us. We don’t have to like each other, and we don’t have to, well—you know—consummate . . .”
    Heat rushed to her face, and she wished she could shrivel up and disappear through a crack in the floor.
    “What I’m trying to say,” he said, “is that we can be friends if we want. But we don’t have to make a big deal about the marriage. It’s just a means to get what we want.”
    “What you want.”
    “And you too.”
    “I’d planned on teaching in India.”
    “Does it really matter where?” The earnestness in his voice stripped away the little resistance she had left. “If God’s placed a burden on our hearts to reach out to people who’ve yet to experience His saving love, then why would it make a difference if we reach out