Winner Takes All

Then she understood what he’d said. Big brother. Except he wasn’t and the way he saw their relationship hadn’t changed at all.

But she had.

Or she could if she wanted to, and this trip was her shot to show him and prove it to herself.

Starting right here, on the side of this mountain, where they both might be pulverized together if they didn’t get a move on.

“Okay. What can I do to help?” Now that she was breathing properly, she was ready to do whatever she could to get them moving again.

“Get back in the truck.” He turned away, pretty much assuming his order would be carried out quickly.

“Can’t get back in the truck. I’m helping.” Forcing her hands to her side was a strong first step. From there she could...do something.

When Daniel turned around, his impatience was impossible to miss. He raised a single eyebrow in response.

“I’m lending moral support.” She motioned at the narrow space between the truck and the mountainside. “You won’t even notice I’m here.”

Unexpectedly, his lips were twitching when he let out the long beleaguered sigh that had often been his response to their shenanigans.

“Stay there, between the truck and the mountain. If someone comes around that curve, I don’t want you out in the road.” He pulled the spare out of the back of the truck along with the jack, and once again she was reminded that now he was the sort of doctor who did heavy lifting. Obviously. Watching him work was pleasant.

“Well, since you asked so nicely...”

Then she focused on what he’d said. Someone else might be coming around that curve? She leaned over the hood to try to gauge the chances of another car making it around them. “We’re all going to die.”

His rough chuckle was easy to hear even as he worked the jack. “Nobody’s going to die. I have patients to see tomorrow.”

She thought about explaining how that made absolutely no sense, but she didn’t want to distract him. Instead she stared out over the vast space between the road they were on and the amazing mountain opposite them. Nothing but air and dirt and a tiny little ledge that cars and people were supposed to move along.

“Are you still with me?” Daniel asked. He must have had to repeat himself because he was standing next to her, wiping his hands on a towel that couldn’t have been much cleaner than his grease-covered palms.

“Ready to go?” The shrill tone didn’t please her, but maybe Daniel gave points for effort because he didn’t tease her or show any impatience. He nodded, walked around the truck and slid onto the driver’s seat.

The cold bottles were sweatier than her hands, but Stephanie took them out of the cup holders and handed him one. “Nice job, Doc.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your support.” His warm smile reminded her of other sunny days, other adventures. Everyone else thought he was so serious.

Was she the only lucky one to see this side?

They clinked the necks and Daniel started the truck. The shot of cold and sweet settled her jitters, and she was able to concentrate on how smoothly he negotiated the road.

“That didn’t even bother you, did it? Change a lot of flat tires on your Mercedes back home?”

He yanked off his cap. The wind blew through the window, ruffling his sweaty curls and Stephanie tried to remember if she’d ever seen them before. Daniel wasn’t answering her question about his former pride and joy, and she needed a distraction from her calculations on how long they could travel without meeting a car coming the other direction, so she said, “Not breaking any rules. That has nothing to do with Holly Heights Hospital or being fired, although if you’d like to talk about it, we certainly can. If you’d told me what a rotten day you were having, I would have never added to it by propositioning you.”

And she might not have to wonder if her invitation, which had bordered on a declaration, was one of the things keeping him away from Holly Heights. The poor guy might have made it home sooner if he hadn’t been afraid there’d be a lovesick fan waiting right behind his sister.

“Propositioning me? You asked me to dinner. Choose your words more carefully, English teacher.” He navigated a sharp turn in the shadow of the mountain. She watched his lips tighten and he rolled his shoulders slowly. “Flat tires are just another day around here. The first one rattled me, but I’ve learned I can handle them. That’s one good thing about this life. You find out pretty quickly you’re capable of more than you ever imagined.”

So he was going to skip over the parts he didn’t want to talk about. That made a lot of sense.

She’d already started doing more than she’d imagined. She’d had her doubts whether their friendship would be enough to get her into the truck. If she’d known about the condition of the road, Stephanie was certain she would have believed herself incapable of riding shotgun without gasping at each turn. By the time she landed in Texas again, what else would she be have mastered? “You going to teach me how to change a flat?”

He slowly shook his head. “Not until I show you how to drive on these roads, and neither one of us is up to that.” He shot a look at her death grip on the handle over the door. He was right, but she wouldn’t let him know that.

“Pretty sure I could handle it.” Just like that, she had to eat her words when they met not a car but a truck filled with people coming the other direction. Daniel immediately stopped his truck and eased it back to a dip in the mountain wall. “First rule of passing: hug the mountain.”

“Let them take the outside? Got it.” They both watched as the truck eased around them with shouts and waves from the passengers, and then Daniel pulled out of the dip and hit the gas.

Stephanie picked up the bag of chips, forced herself to let go of the handle and calmly shoved a handful in her mouth. By the power of carbs, she’d make it through this. When they rolled to a stop in the small main square of the next town, she’d managed to work her way through the bag, her Inca Kola and the Coke. And she felt better.

“Proposition, to propose something, like a date. I am good with words, Dr. Lincoln. In fact, I’d say we’ve already had our dinner date. We just shared a bag of chips and a drink. That’s almost a meal—a really cheap date with spectacular scenery.” She waved a careless hand to demonstrate how un-terrified and well-adjusted she was at this point in the trip and her life.

The fact that she’d actively plotted a way to prove her lack of injury, years after the incident, might not support her claims.

“Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll take you to the hospital for the restroom as soon as I get the tire patched.” Before she could salute smartly, Daniel was out of the truck. She glanced back in time to watch him lift the tire out of the back. He was tall and strong and didn’t seem much like the hotshot doctor she remembered. Dirty jeans and tan skin were a good look for him. The dark frown on his face was a lot more familiar. After he walked down the middle of the street and turned the corner, she checked on her suitcase, gasped in dismay over the solid coating of dust, and settled back in her seat.

“Stay here. Don’t move,” she grumbled. His voice wasn’t easy to copy but the frown was. “Big brother or dictator? It’s a fine line.”

That was when she noticed a line of schoolgirls forming on the sidewalk behind the truck. Dressed in adorable navy and gray uniforms, they watched the truck closely and giggled.

Small town Texas or mountain village in Peru, giggling eight-year-olds must have been universal.

Digging around in her bag from the convenience store, she grabbed the candy she’d picked up and then took her camera out of her backpack. One more glance showed impatient mothers joining the kids. Even better. She could ask permission to give candy and take photos.

If she could remember that much Spanish.

Maybe they knew English.

Stay here. Don’t move. Those had been his orders and she couldn’t claim she’d forgotten his second rule with a straight face. So this was going to make him mad.

Would he be shocked to learn that his disapproval wouldn’t keep her from doing what she wanted? Maybe. She was sort of surprised herself. Living in Holly Heights meant spending a lot of time pleasing the people in her life.

They loved her and wanted the best for her, but the “best” was always safe, predictable and matched what they wanted, too.

The freedom felt so good.

The straggling line of kids dressed in school uniforms was right outside her window, practically begging to be her first adventure in bad Spanish.

She grabbed the candy and eased out of the truck, not quite convinced her plan was solid but more certain staring out the window because she was afraid to take a chance was a serious fail.

No one on the sidewalk moved.

“Would it be okay if I—” She held up the camera and mimed taking shots. The women in charge of the group turned and spoke in rapid-fire Spanish. Stephanie had no hope of keeping up and cursed this trip and its lack of planning. If only she’d had time to cram. Visiting Peru would have been a lot less intimidating if she could do more than ask where the bathroom and library were.

Finally the women agreed and gathered the children into a neat group. The backdrop of the dusty street and the church across the square filled the frame with a real slice of daily life. Stephanie snapped the photo and then turned the camera around to show the women. “Very pretty. Bonita.”

They nodded and answered her. Waving her hands, Stephanie said, “Lo siento. No hablo espanol. Malo.” She was sorry. The questions she wanted to ask burned on her tongue. This once-in-a-lifetime chance to make friends and her inability to do it would bother her for a long time. More than anything she wanted to ask about school, what they were studying and how they liked it. She could ask the mothers about their days and what it was like living with all this beautiful sunshine.

Meeting people and being unable to connect was torture. She didn’t want to let the opportunity slip away.

You won the lottery. There’s no reason this has to be your last chance, Stephanie.

Reassured that her dismal language ability wouldn’t hold her back forever, she grabbed a handful of candy and offered it to the women. In a heartbeat, the kids had cleared all the inventory and lined up for seconds. Their beautiful grins made it impossible to say no.

While she was rummaging in the truck, the commotion behind her turned from quiet giggles to happy squeals and cries of “Doctor! Doctor!”

She was busted.

Not that she’d had any intention of trying to pretend she’d followed his orders.

Still, it might have been nice to have the choice.

Determined to show him that she was different, even if she had to learn how to be different on this trip, Stephanie straightened her shoulders and tossed a bag of candy to him. “Found it.” Then she smiled brightly in response to his complete lack of expression and picked up her shield, the camera.

With the lens between them and a circle of kids surrounding him, his features softened. Instead of impatient, Daniel was happy. Kind. Following the excited conversation was beyond her, but it was clear that he knew these kids, remembered their names and could tease them into more laughter.

She’d seen him striding down the halls of Holly Heights Hospital. In a white coat and a dark tie, he’d been intimidating, even awe-inspiring. The kind of man it was impossible to argue with or doubt.

In his dirty jeans, ragged shirt and messy curls, Daniel looked more like an adventure guide than a man who’d performed complicated surgery in sterile operating rooms.

He also smiled like a man who enjoyed every single minute of his life.

Maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d come to Peru to make a change.

She should take a page from his book.

With her luck it would be written in Spanish, but that didn’t make reading it impossible.

All she needed was a translator.

CHAPTER FOUR

DANIEL KNEW HE should have expected Stephanie to ignore his rules.

She’d never been afraid to bend the rules to get what she wanted. Most of the time, all she’d needed was a charming grin and an easy laugh. Stephanie was always the spokesperson for the group, and whenever he’d needed to be taken down a notch or two, she was the best at administering the blow almost painlessly. If his sister was a feather, Jen was a hammer and Stephanie was somewhere in between.

Now Stephanie was standing in the middle of a dirt road in the Andes Mountains. She couldn’t speak the language, had no concept of the dangers the town or its people might present, and she’d still waded in against his advice.

But she fit perfectly surrounded by happy kids.

Before he’d left Texas, he used to attend the Friday night football games. After all, the Holly Heights Mustangs were always a strong team. When he’d finished medical school and returned to Holly Heights, he’d been pretty sure watching the hometown heroes tear up the football field was less important than making his mark as a surgeon.

Unless his sister asked.

And he’d been proud to see the way the students flocked around Rebecca, dedicated school counselor, and Stephanie and Jen. Here, Stephanie had managed to spark giggles with a little effort and a jerky conversation made up of a mix of English, Spanish and odd sign language.

He caught her eye and shook his head, reminding her of his second rule, and then focused on his patients. He checked to see how wounds were healing. Bright eyes and clear noses indicated the meds he’d left were working. And all the mothers nodded when he asked about the basics: washing hands, brushing teeth and plenty of time to play. The mothers understood. Following up might help the kids believe, too.

This town, Manzana, was an example of what clinics could do. It had been his first stop and his focus for the first six months. It was time to schedule a dentist and an optometrist. The beginning of the dry season was the easiest time.

“Stephanie, do me a favor. Make a note. I need to talk to Dr. Wright about a clinic here. Manzana. Before September.” Then he gave a little boy, Hector, a high-five. He could hear her thinking loudly in his direction, but to his surprise, she pulled out her journal, made a note and shoved it in her backpack without a single comment.

Growing up, he’d been able to count on hearing exactly what all three girls had thought about his clothes, his hair and his orders whenever it occurred to them.

This time she smiled brightly. “At least you said favor.”

“September. It’s when the rainy season starts. Hard to travel.” He wasn’t sure why he was explaining, but she pursed her lips and nodded as if everything made perfect sense. That felt better than it should. “I need to check in at the hospital.” He turned to survey the crowd of kids and the people lurking in the small doorways. His arrival always stirred up an audience. Almost never did he have to worry about what to do about it.

This time he had the feeling if he left Stephanie here on her own, she’d either be elected mayor or wind up an accidental bride. “You better come with me. There’s a restroom.”

Her reluctance to leave the center of town and the excited kids was easy to read. When she walked, she did so slowly. He shook his head, took her hand in his and headed for the hospital.

The gaggle of girls whispering and pointing was his first clue something was up. His second was Stephanie’s cheeks, which had turned pink. Her glance at the crowd and then down at their joined hands helped him finally do the math. Amused at how little it took to make them the center of gossip, he squeezed her fingers. “Keep up, okay?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Just like that, a whole town’s romantic hopes are dashed on the rocks of impatience.”

He shook his head. “Doubt it. They don’t speak a lot of English.”

Her laugh matched her steps: slow, reluctant, but he was glad to hear it. He squeezed her hand. When she squeezed back, he was surprised at how nice it felt to be holding her hand, his little sister’s partner in crime and one of the few women in the world whose good opinion mattered.

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