LITMIR.BIZ

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he was drowning in it.

      “Go run your errands, Gabriel,” she said gently. “I think it’s all catching up with you and maybe getting out for a little while, taking a walk, clearing your head, will do you some good.” She handed him the list. “I called the front desk and was told there’s a little mercantile two blocks over that will have everything Ana Maria needs.”

      “You always think of everything, don’t you?” Another time, another place, she could have been the one to change his mind about so many things. “Look, Arabella, I appreciate this more than you can know. It’s all too new to me. Nothing I’d planned for, nothing that I’d really wanted at this point in my life, nothing that really fits into my lifestyle, and it’s going to take some getting used to.” He pulled the adoption agency papers from his pocket, crumpled them and tossed them at the trash can next to the door. Then he stepped forward. “This won’t take me long.”

      “Go do your errands, Gabriel. Take all the time you need. We’ll be just fine here.”

      “Thank you,” he said, reaching out to brush her cheek. He wanted to touch her, to feel the softness of her skin, but he caught himself in time and pulled back. Then Gabriel walked out the door, shut it firmly behind him, took five steps toward the elevator, and slumped against the hall wall, breaking out in a profuse sweat. Shaking hands, tight chest, wobbly knees, sagging shoulders…it was all finally beginning to sink in. This was happening to him. Really happening to him.

      As if on cue, the baby started crying the split second Gabriel closed the door, to which Bella responded by pacing back and forth across the room, cuddling and rocking her. “It’s going to be just fine,” she reassured the infant. “Your daddy will get over his jitters and the two of you will get along just fine. I know it’s tough not having a mother. I didn’t have one for very long. But you’ll have a good life with your daddy as soon as he calms down.” Was Gabriel a man who’d counted on his wife doing all the parenting? Was that why he was such an emotional mess when it came to the baby? Or perhaps he hadn’t wanted a child at all. He’d said something about not planning on this? So maybe there’d been problems with his wife over her pregnancy then, when she’d died, the remorse over it had set in. They could have argued the way she and Rosie had argued that last time…

      That was a bitter guilt she understood very well.

      She’d done everything but cope with her sister’s death these past weeks and, even now, when she was on the verge of coming face-to-face with the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life, she was avoiding it every way she could. Including getting involved with Gabriel and Ana Maria. That’s why she recognized that Gabriel was avoiding the inevitable right now, because she was the expert at it, a virtual master of pretexts and avoidance.

      “It’s not easy, forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do,” she said to the baby. Did he love his baby? Maybe he blamed for her mother’s death? “I know you don’t understand what I’m saying, but be patient with your father. He’s dealing with a tragedy no one’s ever prepared for. When you lose someone like he has…like I did…you lose part of yourself, too. Then it becomes so hard getting up in the morning to face the normal things you’re supposed to. People stare at you and whisper, they pity you and they mean to be kind, but it hurts so much and you have to put on this brave face and pretend that you’re doing well when everything inside you wants to crumble. You don’t know what to do, yet life has to go on even when it doesn’t make as much sense as it used to.” She sighed. “So that’s why you have to be patient with him. Your daddy’s starting over again, and his footing isn’t very sure yet.” Like hers wasn’t. But something about holding Ana Maria made it seem better. Maybe it was because she already missed her medical practice, missed the one solid thing in her life that had never let her down, other than her sister, and Ana Maria reminded her of that stability. “You just wait. It will get better gradually, and pretty soon neither of you will remember the first few clumsy days.”

      Pacing over to the door, Bella was about to turn and pace back to the window when she glanced down at the papers Gabriel had tossed at the trash can and missed. After she’d bent to pick them up, it had been her intention to throw them away, but what she saw caused her to pull Ana Maria to her chest even more. It was an adoption pamphlet. No! That couldn’t be right. Gabriel couldn’t be… Was he actually thinking about giving up his child for adoption? Giving away his baby and start over? “No,” she gasped, throwing the adoption information in the trash. She’d thought his detachment would disappear once he was over the shock. It was too soon to make this kind of decision—too soon, too reactionary. But she’d been wrong about Gabriel, and this went far beyond not thinking clearly.

      She looked at the trash can, wanting to kick it she was so angry. Those brochures were crumpled and intended for the trash, weren’t they? Could he have considered the idea, then changed his mind?

      Or maybe he’d already signed the adoption papers and didn’t need the information brochures any longer. It was a thought that turned her stomach.

      “Gabriel,” she whispered, the full weight of a sadness she didn’t even grasp dropping down on her as she dragged her way back to the window. It was such a beautiful sight out there, with the neatly manicured gardens below. Beautiful green grass, perfectly sculpted shrubs lining the walkways, flower-beds all done in reds and whites, white wicker benches on the lawn. All of it made so much sense. Went together the way it should. But glancing down at Ana Maria, who’d settled into her arms to nap, she couldn’t find any sense in what she feared Gabriel was about to do. No sense at all.

      Just like there was no sense in the way she was feeling over it—betrayed.

      “You didn’t touch the pastries you ordered,” Gabriel commented casually an hour later. Entering the hotel room, he wasn’t bogged down by the bundle of packages she’d hoped he might be bringing. Packages full of baby clothes would mean he wasn’t going to give Ana Maria away. But all he had with him was a small bag with a couple of new sleepers in it. Nothing else, and she’d had so many things on her list—receiving blankets, newborn soaps and lotions, bootees. Which only served to refuel all the raw emotions she’d been feeling from the moment she’d found his adoption literature.

      No, she wouldn’t do this. Wouldn’t get involved. It was none of her business and she meant to keep it that way. She had her own problems to fix, her own hard decisions to make, and getting involved in his life in any way was just crazy.

      Sucking in a sharp breath, Bella squared her shoulders, marched past Gabriel and straight out the door, without so much as a glance backward or a goodbye. Tears welled in her eyes all the way from his room to hers, and she fought them back, biting hard on her lower lip, hoping the pain would distract her emotions.

      But it didn’t. Back in her own room, of all the things to do over a stranger, she collapsed on her bed, drew herself up in a ball and cried like she hadn’t cried since the day she’d heard about the airplane crash. She had no right to those tears, neither did she understand them, yet once they started they didn’t stop for nearly an hour. And at the end, when her eyes were all puffy and red, her face blotched, and she was dabbing cold water on herself, she glanced at the distorted face in the mirror, wondering who’d she been crying for. Her sister? Ana Maria? Gabriel?

      Or her own broken heart over so many things she knew and possibly some she didn’t?

      Bella searched her own eyes for a moment, then bent low over the vanity sink and splashed more cold water on her face. Better that than finding the answer she was afraid she’d discover if she kept on looking.

      CHAPTER THREE

      BELLA glanced at the map, then at the road ahead of her. This wasn’t what she’d bargained for. Rutted pits that passed for roads, a rental car that just barely passed for a car, a map that was more of an artist’s impression than a factual interpretation of the topography—it should have been easier. That’s all there was to it. Her trip to Lado De la Montaña simply shouldn’t have been this difficult. But she was four hours into what should have been a two-hour journey now, her back ached from all the bumps, her head ached from

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