Hi guysssss. Thank you so much for 7k reads!!! I'm so excited 🥳🥳, I wish that would translate to another chapter on Monday, but I can only say, Keep your fingers crossed.

Happy Reading! I was so excited to write this chapter!

"That patient almost had a flat line o, thank God for CMD. He had to resuscitate her immediately. One minute her sister was talking to her, the next minute she had a flat line showing. God abeg oo." Folake raised her hands up heavenward in a heartfelt plea. 

"Alhamdulilah, she didn't die." Folake picked the drugs that the pharmacy had dispensed, picked out the woman's dose for that morning and went off with it. 

Nadia sat there watching, wondering what would have happened if the patient had died. Her entire day would be ruined, not because she had not had patients who had died before, but because the woman's case was special. At just twenty nine, she had had six miscarriages, all from falling or hitting or slipping somewhere. 

It made no sense, but the situation was what it was. Nadia had long suspected a case of domestic violence, but this time around there was enough evidence to support her husband being arrested. And he was already cooling off in a cell at the police headquarters. 

When Folake returned, she washed her hands before coming to sit next to Nadia. Silently, they noted all their patients, placed their files for easy reach for those on duty after them and shut down the computers. 

Once those on afternoon duty arrived, Nadia and Folake left the building they'd arrived in as early as six am. Their early morning shift ran from six am till one pm. It meant they would be on duty throughout the month with only two off days, but Nadia didn't mind, it have her time to focus on her knitting business. 

"So! How excited are you?" Nadia shook her head. Ever since she told Folake a few days before that she had accepted to go out with Alhaji Bindawa, Folake's excitement over the matter helped overshadow her own nervousness. 

"I'm scared. What if I mess up and he doesn't talk to me afterwards?" Folake rolled her eyes as she sat beside Nadia and buckled her seatbelt. 

"At least you have bragging rights of dating one of the most powerful men ok the planet. You get to see how you deserve to be treated and expect better afterwards, how's that?" Nadia's laughter was in bursts, she would have laughed freely if there was no nervous ball in her lower belly. 

"Bragging right?" She asked Folake as though she didn't hear right. 

"Yes, if your next date, read: boyfriend, messes up, you tell him to get out because you know you deserve better. Period." Nadia forgot her nervous feeling for a moment and laughed with abandon as she drove out of the hospital gates.

"You're a case Folake Akinwunmi." Once they got unto the expressway they both went silent, each with their thoughts. Nadia dropped off Folake at her bustop before moving on to her uncle's house.

Nadia pushed the button to her trafficator just as she reached the junction to her uncle's street. The moment the gates were pushed open by the gateman, she drove in and parked behind her uncle's car. He had travelled to Cote D'Ivoire on a government errand. 

The doors burst open and UmmulKhair and Sarah flew out, they flew out because it was the only way Nadia could describe the way they'd come out of the house Hijabs billowing. 

"Are you guys okay?" Nadia rolled her eyes in the direction as she took out a carton package she had delivered to her workplace. Sarah took it from her and put under her armpit while UmmulKhair took Nadia's bag. 

"What is genuinely going on here?" She looked at the radiant, identical faces of her cousins. Her loss of understanding needed to be changed immediately. 

"Well, you're going on a date with Maymunatu's dad. Don't tell him I told you oo, she made me swear but you're my own family member, so I feel like I can tell you she told me." Nadia rolled her eyes and began walking inside the house, her cousins behind her. 

"I told your dad and mom though, I told them." Sarah gasped and came to her front to look at her with so much indignation and surprise. 

"You told Baaba and didn't tell us? Why?" Nadia pursed her lips and went silent, she didn't know why herself. Maybe it was the pessimism that struck her everytime she thought of the lunch date. It made her apprehensive, about the future, what it held or didn't hold. 

"Because I don't think it's going to go anywhere." UmmulKhair dumped Nadia's bag on her bed and shook her head. 

"I don't think Alhaji, It's Alhaji Bindawa we're talking about here? He's principled. I dare say, if he didn't care about your feelings or if he were a man who went on casual dates we wouldn't be talking about him like this." Nadia sighed and flopped unto the bed. UmmulKhair was being more logical and sensible than she had been all week. 

"Do you want to help me choose my outfit? I didn't eventually decide between an atampa faux skirt and blouse or an Abaya." She motioned for Sarah who was closest to her closet to open it. 

"Atampa all the way. You're going out with an older man, yes, he's not as traditional as other men his age, but he'll still be a Hausa man at heart." Nadia made a wry face in UmmulKhair's direction. 

"You're so smart, with logical sounding arguments." They all laughed but watched as Sarah brought out the blue atampa gown and the accompanying veil Nadia had ironed and folded with it.

"Next time you guys go out, wear that." Nadia sighed and watched as Sarah brought out the pink abaya with white embroidery on it. The sleeves were embroidered with twinkling titanite crystals. 

"This is perfect really." Nadia looked from Sarah to UmmulKhair, she narrowed her eyes at their joint agreement and took out her phone to call Hajarah. They'd talked earlier in the day and she needed to join the dress question. 

A few minutes later, Nadia was showing Hajarah both outfits, Sarah held them up. 

"The Abaya. I know Atampa is a classic hit, but you're going for casual and beautiful. That pink abaya will do that for you." Nadia took it from Sarah and walked to a corner where UmmulKhair had set a small magic coal to burn. 

Together they added lemon gardenia incense to the coal and watched as the light smoke went into the ironed and steamed Abaya. 

Nadia pushed her cousins out of her room a little later, prayed Zuhr before taking a long shower. 

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Nadia shut her room door and heard feet shuffling very quickly as she climbed down the stairs. Her slippered heeled sandals in white was making it difficult for her to navigate the stairs she normally took two at a time.

She focused on her feet until she reached the bottom of the stairs to see her cousins with their eyes wide and hands clasped under their chin in amazement. 

"What is wrong?" UmmulKhair shook her head. Sarah opened her mouth and closed it, then she whispered, "Ma Sha Allah. How did this beauty gene miss me!" Nadia raised her hand and hit Sarah's shoulder, she wanted to say something but she let it be. 

When she stepped off the stairs, she twirled in her abaya for her cousins who nodded like proud mothers. 

"Can I take pictures of you?" Nadia nodded quickly but she looked at the time, it was a few minutes to three pm, just around the time the car Alhaji said he was sending would arrive. 

Nadia sat on the high backed chair near the main living room window and smiled while UmmulKhair took several shots with her camera. Sarah held the reflector and told Nadia what poses to make. 

Suddenly, she dashed off to look outside. UmmulKhair shook her head and looked through the pictures she had taken. 

"These are enough. I'll send them to you once I've edited them." Nadia nodded shakily, nothing was coming from her. 

"The driver is here! The car is black and the plate number is KUJ879BA. So, you can go now." Nadia chuckled and stepped out of the house shakily. She was nervous to a tee. She had no idea why, normally dates didn't fill her with so much fear, but this one did. It made her want to make it work. 

The gateman opened the smaller gate for her to pass through and she gingerly stepped on the broken interlocking at the pedestrian gate, holding the gate's pillar very tight. 

The driver stepped out of the car as soon as she appeared, a woman in her fifties was the driver. Nadia blinked, slightly surprised but she greeted her cordially and let the woman usher her into the backseat. Nadia whispered a Thank you to her as the driver shut the door. 

On the seat next to her was the source of the beautiful scent that the car had asides the evident scent of expensive leather. A box of white roses wrapped in what looked like a circular cardboard box was sitting pretty waiting to be touched. 

When the driver was seated, she pulled out a white square envelope from the glove compartment and handed it to Nadia. 

"Oga said I should give you that." Nadia nodded and dropped her white with pink accents Aldo purse to take it. 

She opened the envelope and read the words, "These are for you, see you soon." She looked at the back and saw that it was written, not typed. She nodded to herself and added that to the list of things she knew about him; he could write in calligraphy. 

"We are about to move, we're on our way to Noir Farms, it's about thirty minutes drive from here, as long as we don't encounter traffic." Nadia nodded and the woman pressed the start button, the car glided like spoon on smooth butter, joining the road that led out of her uncle's street. 

The sun hit the flowers right and Nadia fell in love with them all over again, she picked up her phone and took a picture of the flowers alone, then another, then one with her in the frame. She sent it to the group chat Sarah had made for them and named 'Gossip gurls'. 

Ma Sha Allah! UmmulKhair responded almost immediately, Nadia smiled, she saw that Hajarah was typing so she held unto her phone. 

White roses? Does he know they're your favorite flowers? Something suddenly clicked in Nadia's head and she put down the flowers to type. 

@Sarah, did you sell me out to your friend?

Sarah didn't respond and suddenly she vanished from typing. Nadia shook her head, in a conversation with Sarah the previous week she had spilled that she liked white roses. It made her smile, though it was a cluster of information that got to the right person. In all their time together, Ammar never bought her the right flowers, he either bought potted frangipani, or lilies which she hated. 

Nadia raised her eyes to see a black automated gate open to the most scenic driveway she had seen in a long while. Low hanging ripe clementine oranges, tangerines and citrus oranges were densely packed together with raffia basket carrying workers plucked them after looking at them. 

Nadia pressed her face nearly to the glass to take in the whole scene, afraid that if she blinked it would pass by her. It was ethereal. 

"Why have I never heard of this place?" She said lowly, the driver chuckled and then said, "It's a private farm, very few people know of it." Nadia nodded and looked at more workers milled around a tree, taking off ripe clementine oranges from them. 

"We're here." There was one more thing to take Nadia's breath away. A Neem tree had stretched itself so that it made shade over a small space that had now been turned into the perfect date spot. Nadia cradled her flowers and let her bag hand from her shoulder and simply gawked at the beauty of what was prepared for her. 

"Assalamualaikum." Nadia stopped staring and turned to Alhaji who was standing a few meters away in a light blue Kaftan and dark blue hula hat perched on his head. 

"Walaikum Salam sir. Where is this heavenly space? How have I never heard of it." He laughed and motioned for her to come along. He crossed and moved into the space where a table was set with two chairs, two candles were burning in clear glass bottles of water. 

"This place belongs to an older friend of mine, I'm lending it for the day. Looks like had the effect I was hoping for. And please drop the sir." Nadia didn't hear him, she was looking round, inhaling the fresh air and trying to take it all in. 

Then she turned to him and said, "I can't stop calling you sir, I was raised better than that." Alhaji frowned in her direction and cocked his head in question. 

"Really?" She nodded firmly and he didn't say anything else. A waitress appeared and helped Nadia into her seat. 

"So, how are you?" She nodded, thinking of how to say how she was. 

"I'm fine, I don't know again why I decided to be a nurse again." Alhaji looked at her and said in the most serious voice, "That means I got the better end of the stick by being a pharmacist?" Nadia laughed at the joke and caught herself a few seconds later. 

"That was a good joke, but pharmacists are there to temper the overinflated egos of doctors. We nurses thank you for doing that." It was Alhaji's turn to laugh heartily. He asked her how working in Abuja was different from Kano. 

"Well-" The waitress that had left appeared again with a tray in her hands. She set down an orange drink that smelled so nice in front of Nadia and set something tht looked like sparkling water with mint in front of Alhaji before placing a ceramic tray of spring rolls before them. 

"What is this called?" She asked the waitress. The young woman smiled and said, "It's sparkling water ma, just that it was made with clementine oranges, that's why it's colored that way." Nadia nodded and took a sip of the drink. A refreshing feeling went down her throat to her belly, it was just the right drink for the slight afternoon heat. 

"Do you like it?" Alhaji asked after the waitress had left, Nadia nodded and took one of the spring rolls. She had not eaten lunch and was now hungry. 

"You asked how working in Abuja is different from Kano?" Nadia asked in Hausa, Alhaji who had taken a gulp of his sparkling water nodded quickly and dropped the cup. 

"Well, people are much more receptive to nurses here, they don't override the instructions you give by waiting for the doctor before they take their medications. I honestly don't miss Kano except for my parents." Alhaji smiled, he knew what nurses went through in the hands of doctors and even those that the same nurses cared for. 

"How did you ever become a scientist, I've been meaning to ask you that." Alhaji leaned back in his chair and said, "Well, I wanted to be a doctor. You know in those days doctors were so respected and I wanted to be respected by my father, funny but true. Then one day, I went to a now defunct hospital in Kaduna and saw this pharmacist at the dispensary carefully explaining how drugs should be taken, I think it clicked then, that was what I wanted to be." He picked up a spring roll that Nadia had broken into two and eaten the broken half and ate the other half, chewed before saying,

"Then I began studying and found out the world needed more than a pharmacist and I rose up to be a scientist." He took another sip from his cup, this time nearly draining the glass. 

"Do you truly enjoy it?" Alhaji firmly nodded. He didn't hesitate to answer, his answer was instant. 

"I do. I go into the laboratory and forget to eat sometimes. It's how hard I work myself to see a particular experiment to the end." Nadia smiled and went quiet. 

Then a man in his forties came over, with a clean shaven head in a chef's uniform, interrupting their discussion. 

"Good Afternoon, Lady and Gentleman. I'm Chef Rozây and today, I have prepared for you tilapia in spicy soup for starters, Creamy Chicken Alfredo pasta as the main course and you can choose the dessert of your choice from the collection I have with me. Enjoy your meal experience with me." Nadia and Alhaji nodded and he left. 

"Did you do all this just for this? We could have gone to a restaurant." Chef Rozây was a popular chef with a chain of restaurants in Abuja and Lagos. Nadia's face must have betrayed some her anxiety because Alhaji smiled wide to make her feel better. 

"Well, I wanted to do this, how do I say it?" He stopped to find his words. "In a place that was semi-private, not in the full glare of the public eye. If we were in a restaurant, we'd be accosted by people who know me and have no concept of timing. Here I'm just anyone else and I'm sure the workers don't even know me." Nadia looked around, most of the workers had raffia wide brimmed hats on their head and were focused on harvesting the orchard. 

"This is a beautiful gesture, thank you so much." Suddenly remembering the flowers, she said, "How did you find out I like white roses?" 

"I'm not above bribing the right people to know the right information." Nadia laughed, knowing the right people he meant were Sarah and Maymunatu. 

"And I didn't have to bribe Maymunatu, she willingly volunteered this information. Including warning me not to wear white as it would clash too much. I don't see why though." Nadia thought of it and wondered as well, a question popped into her mind and she asked without thinking, 

"Does Maymunatu know you're here?" Alhaji nodded firmly with a small smile playing on his lips. They stopped talking while the waitress pushed over a cart, took away the spring roll plate and adjusted their utensils to place a bowl of steaming fish pepper soup in their fronts. Alhaji thanked her and she beaned, rolling away the cart. 

"This looks good." Nadia watched the plate in front of her carefully, a large piece of tilapia fish was cooked to perfection and steam was lazily going into the atmosphere from it. 

"Eat some of it then." Alhaji said, digging into his own food with a soup spoon. 

"About Maymunatu, maybe she's really your biggest cheerleader." Nadia who was swallowing some of the delicious fish stopped and stared at the man in front of her. She took a sip of the sparkling water in front of her to ask, 

"How so?" Alhaji chewed some more, sipped from the glass that the waitress had topped up when she came earlier before answering. 

"She knows how seriously I take things and me bringing you here is no joke or to waste your time." Nadia's heart thumped erratically, she knew if a stethoscope was set to her chest, they could make a beat out of it. 

"I'll explain." He put down his soup spoon and swallowed his food delicately. Nadia shook her head, with him eating felt like an art. "I called you here to ask you if I could go see your parents, ask them for permission and request your hand in marriage." 

Nadia's spoon dropped. It tinkled loudly against the fine china and Nadia could swear she didn't hear it. She blinked severally to get herself back. 

"Marry? Why? What?" She spluttered, unable to make coherent speech. Alhaji leaned back in his chair and watched her. He let her clasp her hands together and calmly ask,

"Why?"

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Soooo! What do you think?

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I'll see y'all as soon as I can and we'll move forward with the Love story of Alhaji and his baby.

Till then, I'll give you flowers from the garden of the love I planted.

TheOmoope ❤️❤️