by Dianne Drake
“I know this is a trying time for you, Doctor. But let me make it clear what we do. We place children in good, loving homes where children are wanted. Our waiting lists are long, our clients worthy and we do an extensive search of their backgrounds. For people such as yourself, it’s an ideal situation.” She handed him a packet of information. “I’d like you to consider what we have to offer your niece. Getting her into a nice, stable family situation where she’s wanted, and doing it at such a young age, is to her benefit. So, please, just read the brochures, and I’ll contact you in a day or two.”
“I’m not letting anybody take Ana Maria!” Adoption wasn’t a solution he’d considered, wasn’t even a solution he liked. Not for his flesh and blood. But if worse came to worst? Could he turn over Lynda’s child?
Not a chance in hell! That answer came to him in a fraction of a second, which surprised him because he hadn’t realized his feelings were so strong. But they were. Something else would work out, but it would have nothing to do with giving Ana Maria to strangers. Even the thought of that made him sick to his stomach. “Look, I appreciate your coming here like this, Señora Hernandez, but I don’t think…”
She laid a comforting hand on his forearm. “It’s too early to think, Dr. Velascos. That’s why we urge our prospective clients to take all the time they need. It’s a serious situation, giving up a child, and we certainly don’t want anyone making a decision they’ll later regret. So, please, just read the information. That’s all I’m asking you to do right now.”
Gabriel drew in a sharp breath. Too much, too soon. He wasn’t prepared to deal with any of this yet. “I know you’re only doing your job, but I’m not going to have anyone adopt my niece. Whatever Melaina Juarez might have thought I meant was incorrect, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience I’ve caused. I was under stress and I may have said some things that were mistaken as an intention to give away the baby, but that’s certainly not what I’m going to do.” It seemed abominable, but there was no need being brutal to the woman.
“It’s never easy, Dr. Velascos. But think about what’s best for Ana Maria.” She stepped back. “I have appointments in a few of the villages near Lado De la Montaña over the next few days, so I’ll be back in touch with you in due course.”
He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no. And maybe he should have. But the image running through his mind as Señora Hernandez walked away from him was one where she was taking Ana Maria with her, and that caused such a sudden and unexpected pain in his gut he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t utter a single word.
“Breakfast?”
Bella nodded. “I called room service. But since I didn’t know what you’d like, I had them bring several different things.”
He looked at the cart full of sweet rolls and various juices and tea, but he just didn’t have the stomach to eat any of it.
“And they brought up the formula, too.”
She pointed to where the stack of cases was sitting next to the door, but he was more interested in watching the way she stood at the window, rocking Ana Maria back in forth in her arms—the perfect picture of motherhood. It made him sad, and angry all over again. Not at her, but at…everything. And the baby formula was just another reminder of how his life was changing in ways he couldn’t control. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, Arabella, but I can’t keep depending on you the way I’ve been doing. We’ve taken up too much of your time.”
“I have nothing but time. And I thought you wanted to go buy some baby clothes.”
He looked at the way she’d tied Ana Maria into one of his T-shirts. There were so many things he needed to do, and shopping for baby clothes was only one of them. “We’ll manage.” Easy to say, but not easy to do.
“Why don’t I stay here for a little while longer? Taking care of Ana Maria makes me feel like I’m back in my element, and I’ve needed that.”
Under the circumstances, the best he could do was offer Bella a stiff nod. Now that the formula was here, it was suddenly all about the days ahead of him. He was on the brink of raising a child. There was nothing to put off any longer. This was his new reality, his new life, and 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 reminde
d 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 the frustration of the situation she’d put herself into, and on top of all that she couldn’t get her mind off Gabriel and his daughter. What he was going to do bothered her, no matter if he actually intended on going through with it or was merely thinking about it. Either way, it made her angry.
She did know where to contact 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 t
his. “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.
