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him—through his Chicago office, at the hotel, through Dr. Navarro, and she’d picked up the phone a dozen times to do that, to ask him to take some time to rethink his decision. Each time, though, she’d had second and third thoughts about getting involved in his life, especially now, at a time when her life was on the verge of some drastic changes.

      She’d come here to see about setting up the clinic Rosie had wanted to set up, and that had to be her single focus. Rosie had loved this area when she’d first come here with a traveling medical company a couple of years before. After that her heart had been set on returning. And she’d almost got here… She was here, somewhere. But the plane wreckage had never been found. Nurse Rosie Burke and three other medics had perished somewhere in the Andes and now Bella was here to…to, well, she wasn’t sure why yet. She told herself it was to see about setting up Rosie’s clinic, and that had been the motivation that had finally gotten her here.

      “I should have hired a guide,” she muttered, wadding up her map and throwing it into the car. Backing up to lean against the driver’s door, Bella raised her hand to visor her eyes and squinted up at the mountain looming ahead of her. As mountains went, it was impressive. Beautiful. Lush green. Alive. And so frightening. Another thing to avoid.

      Sighing, she took a drink from the bottle of water she grasped in her hand then turned to open her car door just as a battered old truck wheezed its way round the curve and nearly swerved into the back fender of her rental. Its driver threw on the brakes and hit the horn at the same time as the truck fishtailed all over the dirt road and finally came to a stop on the opposite side in the grass.

      Bella’s first reaction was anger over what had almost happened, but her second was concern for the people in the truck, which propelled her across the road and straight to the driver’s side. “Gabriel?” she sputtered, pulling open the truck door at the same time he tried shoving it out.

      “What the hell?”

      “You almost hit me,” Bella shouted, on her way round to the passenger’s side.

      “You were sitting in the middle of the road. Didn’t it ever occur to you that someone could come around the curve and run into you?”

      “I was pulled off to the side. There was plenty of room to get around me if you were paying attention.”

      “You were pulled off in a spot with absolutely no visibility from where I was coming.”

      “On the shoulder. There was no place else to stop.” She reached for the baby the same time Gabriel did, but she didn’t give way to him. Instead, she took Ana Maria out of the child carrier and did a quick check. She looked good. The little jostle hadn’t upset her. In fact, the instant Ana Maria settled into Bella’s arms, she went straight to sleep like that was where she was meant to be.

      “She’s OK?” Gabriel asked, climbing across the seat, then getting out.

      “Perfect, no thanks to the way you were driving. What were you thinking?”

      “What I was thinking was that nobody would be stupid enough to stop along this road.”

      Granted, it was narrow. The visibility wasn’t so good either. But coming up from behind her, Gabriel had had plenty of time to see her and stop, which made her wonder where his attention had been fixed. On the baby? Or on his wife?

      Or maybe on the adoption agency he was going to give Ana Maria to? No! It wasn’t any of her business. She had to keep reminding herself that she wasn’t involved in this. “Ana Maria’s not hurt, and the rest of it doesn’t matter, OK?”

      “Except you could have gotten us all hurt. Or killed.”

      “I wasn’t the one not paying attention, Gabriel. I don’t know what you had your mind on, and I really don’t care, but you’re the one who nearly ran into me, not the other way around. So don’t go blaming me, and don’t take out whatever hostility you’ve got going on me either.”

      “Hostility? You’re calling me hostile after the way you stormed out of my hotel room this morning?”

      That much was true. She had. And even now, thinking about what he wanted to do with his baby brought her blood right back to a boil. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you, Gabriel. In fact, I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I know you’ve gone through a lot these past few days…more than most people could cope with. And I’m sorry for that. But I didn’t come to Peru to deal with…with people like you. We all face situations the best way we know how, and I understand that. But what you’re doing… Look, instead of standing here on the side of the road, fighting about something that’s none of my business in the first place, if you’ll just head me off in the direction of Lado De la Montaña, we can both get back into our vehicles and go our separate ways.” That seemed reasonable enough. A clean parting. She would do what she’d come here to do and Gabriel would… No, she didn’t want to think about what he would do.

      Bella stepped forward to hand Ana Maria back to Gabriel, but he didn’t take her right away. Rather, he squared his shoulders like he was about to square off with her. “That’s not possible,” he said, as a tiny smile crept to his lips.

      He thought this was funny? Apparently Dr. Gabriel Velascos wasn’t all the man she’d considered him to be. “What’s not possible?”

      “Separate ways. Not possible.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because I’m going to Lado De la Montaña, too.”

      Bella opened her mouth to speak, but shut it again. This couldn’t be happening. Just couldn’t be. Of all the inconceivable coincidences, how was it that this man seemed to be everywhere she was? The clinic, the hotel, the tiny mountain village near where her sister had been killed. “Why? Are you following me? Is that what this is about, Gabriel? You saw the connection I made with Ana Maria and now you’re thinking that maybe I’ll be the one to take her off your hands?” The words poured out before she thought about what she was saying, but she didn’t regret them. Maybe what she’d said was right. Gabriel could have seen her as the solution to his little problem and followed her, hoping she’d be the one to adopt his daughter. For that matter, what was to keep him from getting in his truck right now and driving away, leaving her here with the baby?

      “What are you talking about?”

      “Giving up your daughter for adoption. I saw the papers from the agency, Gabriel. And after you told me you didn’t want her…”

      “My daughter?” He glanced down at Ana Maria briefly, then shook his head. “She’s not my daughter, Bella. Didn’t Dr. Navarro tell you?”

      “Tell me what?”

      “Ana Maria is my sister’s daughter. Lynda died in childbirth and the child was given to my mother, who can’t care for her.”

      “Which is why you’re so quick to give her up for adoption. Now I understand.”

      “You don’t understand anything! I never said I didn’t want her. I said I’d never planned on having a child, that she didn’t fit into my life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want her, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean I’m going to give her away.”

      “Then what about the adoption brochures?”

      “The nurse in Raul Navarro’s office thought it might be a solution for me. That’s all. When Señora Hernandez from the adoption agency came to the hotel this morning I told her that I wouldn’t even consider giving away my sister’s child.”

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