Winner Takes All

“Pack your bags,” Rebecca sang as she hugged Stephanie. “It’s time to make a wish come true.”

Stephanie tipped her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “You’re talking about seeing Peru, right?”

“Sure.” Rebecca blinked slowly. “What else could I be talking about?”

“Fine, but you’re going with me,” Stephanie muttered. And added through gritted teeth, “My treat.” If she was going, she was certainly going to take a buffer with her.

“Can’t.” Rebecca held up her hand and ticked off the points. “No passport. No tranquilizers. No airplanes. No way.” Her fear of flying was well documented. They’d tried it the first summer after her parents moved to Florida.

It had gone badly. Very badly. Now they took road trips.

“And Jen’s out. She signed up to teach summer school.”

Before Stephanie could argue that Jen had no need to pick up the extra money, Rebecca added, “This is your thing. You don’t need us.”

Oh, yes, she did. It was fine to dream big on Rebecca’s sofa. Actually going to a foreign country all alone might be too big.

And the fact that she was sitting on the edge of panic over the trip instead of dancing in celebration over winning the lottery was something to think about. Later.

“Are you matchmaking?” Stephanie asked. “Because...”

“I love you. I love him. The two of you together, I don’t know about, but you’re in a rut. This ought to fix that.” Rebecca wrapped her arm around Stephanie’s shoulders. “And if I know my brother, his rut’s deeper than yours, even on a mountaintop. Of the three of us, you were always the best at getting him to do what we wanted.”

“But what do we want him to do?” There had to be an ironclad excuse to get out of this.

“Simple. I want him to be happy.” Rebecca shrugged. “And you, too. What if the best way to stop turning dates into friends is to make a friend...something more? I dare you to give this a shot. One trip. Easy.”

Stephanie was speechless as she considered Rebecca, who had walked away to pull a casserole out of the oven that was now living on borrowed time. Rebecca was her best friend. They would be friends until the end of time. But she might have been breathing in the oven fumes for too long.

Still, she could go, see Daniel and return with the message that he was happily saving the world one vaccination at a time. The trip also would prove that her feelings had been settled, once and for all. He was a friend. He’d stay a friend.

And having a purpose made the trip a little less intimidating.

But only a little.

Ready or not, she was headed for Peru.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f4ea2242-a5e5-50dc-a933-8749e90ad358)

“WHY ARE YOU updating now, you stupid piece of junk?” Daniel rubbed his forehead, watched his laptop count up slowly and tried to think happy thoughts. Before he’d settled in to start and finish the overdue fund-raising report, he’d checked his parents’ Facebook page. The cruise to Alaska was going well. But there were no other updates. Nothing from his sister. He would’ve called her to check in, but his recent uptick in homesickness wouldn’t be helped by hearing her voice.

Since he’d been about half a second away from hitting the medical recruiting sites he’d started checking now and then, just to see who was hiring close to home, he should thank his computer for saving him the angst.

While giving him a whole different bucket of angst, of course.

His life was in Peru. He missed home and his sister more than he’d ever admit, but he was a grown man. He’d deal. There was plenty to do here to keep his mind off what he was missing in Holly Heights.

Daniel scanned the small lobby restaurant and watched three guys in business suits working happily on laptops with better timing than his. At least he wasn’t trying to do this in a necktie and white coat. The doctor’s dress code had been replaced with comfortable jeans, his favorite Baylor T-shirt and a dusty ball cap that kept the sun out of his eyes.

Most of the time, he was the lone doctor in town. He had the freedom to dress the way he wanted and run the best clinics he could.

That had to be the unlikely silver lining to his flameout at Holly Heights Hospital. Refusing to discharge a patient whose insurance wasn’t up to par—against his sound judgment as a doctor—was one thing. Insulting the hospital administrator in front of the board was where he’d stepped over the line. And as a result the hospital’s summer job shadowing program for high school kids—the one his sister had drafted and he’d called in every single favor he could to get approved—had also been axed.

Letting Rebecca down had been a hard way to learn the lesson, but he’d never again make the mistake of believing his skills made him bulletproof. Even worse was imagining the disappointed kids who might have missed out on finding their calling.

In Peru he didn’t have to worry about offending any number crunchers in expensive suits. Well, except for the guy watching him over the top of his newspaper.

Daniel shoved the computer out of the way, yanked his breakfast plate closer and scooped up a heaping tower of fluffy scrambled eggs. At least this meal was on his schedule. That was one of the perks of this business-class hotel in Lima. Everything ran on time. Reliable electricity. Running water twenty-four hours a day. And hot water whenever he turned on the tap. City life definitely had its bonuses.

When the laptop finally whirred back on, he sighed and reopened the document he’d been staring at for long minutes before his computer had taken its life in its hands by shutting down and restarting without his permission.

He smiled at the woman who kept his coffee cup full. After she’d gone, he ate his toast and tried to come up with the next paragraph of his fund-raising report for HealthyAmericas.

The patterns on the ceiling hadn’t changed since the last time he’d stared up for inspiration. “I should have found someone else to work on this report.” Not that he’d really trust anyone else with something so important. He was the project leader. The success or failure of HealthyAmericas outreach in the Pasco region rested squarely on his shoulders.

“And success depends pretty heavily on money, so you shouldn’t have put this off, idiot.” He surveyed the room to see the other diners shooting glances at him out of the corners of their eyes and decided talking to himself was a habit better left to long hikes in the Andes Mountains. Apparently it made the city people nervous.

“The clinic in Alto continues to serve the population of the town and the surrounding region through vaccinations and basic...” Boring. Why would anyone care about these colorful, three-dimensional people when all he could give them was gray, flat statistics? “I could write a report about one patient, make it clear how donations help an individual. People love to hear feel-good stories. Especially about cute kids.”

The businessman seated across from him wrinkled his nose as though he wasn’t quite convinced, and the idea of starting all over again made Daniel want to escape. Head back to the mountains. Get his hands dirty and make a difference the best way he knew how.

But coughs needed medication, cuts needed stitches, and there were babies and mothers and little ladies with arthritic hands or worse all depending on this funding.

Why did good medicine always seem to come down to money?

When his email dinged, he seized his chance to do anything else and clicked to open the message from his sister.

“Won the lottery?” Daniel laughed out loud in relief. His sister would write a check, no problem. “And Jen and Steph, too.” His fist pump froze all activity in the restaurant while everyone waited to see what the crazy American would do next. He waved his arms broadly. “Good news!”

They all smiled awkwardly in return and kept on watching him surreptitiously.

He went back to the message and reread it. “A big investor coming here? Today? I don’t have time for that.” He tried to imagine what sort of businessperson would come all the way to Lima to check out his operation and decided it didn’t matter. He needed donations.

The plate of scrambled eggs and toast was demolished in a flurry of happy bites before he fired off a congratulatory email with the standard “make a donation now” request. Then he quickly drafted another message for Dr. Wright, a medical school colleague who’d founded HealthyAmericas, to let her know big donations were on the way and that his fund-raising letter would be delayed but he’d have it ready for the big donor event in two months.

“Or else,” Daniel muttered. He added his regrets that he couldn’t make it back to Texas in time for the event before he hit Send. She wanted him to be the face of the doctors serving in South America. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to show his face around there. Too many people would remember him leaving in disgrace. Austin was close to Holly Heights and it was a small, small world.

He clasped his hands behind his head, stretched in his chair and studied the ceiling again. “Definitely a case study. Maybe a few, with pictures to show the real-life benefits of having medical teams making regular stops. That’s the way to go.” He ignored the curious stares and tried to think of someone who could do a good job with the report in order to free up his time for more patients. “I should request an intern or something, somebody who’s good with a camera and a computer.”

Making a mental note to add that to his budget for the next year, he closed the laptop, shoved it in the beat-up bag he carried with him at all times and pulled out his wallet to leave nuevo soles as a tip. He smiled at the waitress again. “Gracias.”

Before he could head back to Alto, he had to check out of the hotel and make sure the truck with the medical supplies was scheduled to deliver next week. And now he needed to come back to the hotel to meet with this investor. Flights arrived early from the States, so he should still be able to make it to Alto. He’d leave a message at the desk with a time and hope whoever it was checked in soon.

Every day he had a long list of things to do, so he was glad to push off the report that was making him crazy. When he made it back to Lima in another two weeks, he’d do it. Definitely.

A husky laugh drew his attention to the lobby desk where Paulo was talking with a tall blonde dressed for African safari. She was khakied and cargoed from head to toe, although silky hair trailed down her back. Something about her was familiar, but that could be attributed to the homesickness that struck now and then. He was happy in Peru, but that didn’t mean he never dreamed of going back to the way things were, when he was such a skilled surgeon he could bend the rules as he liked. As always, he shoved aside the disappointment and stood as the blonde turned away from the desk.

“Stephanie?” He had to sit back down before his weak knees made him stumble.