Falling Again in El Salvador

by Julie Danvers

  As the rider pulled up beside her, his half-shaven face hidden by splattered mud and thick goggles, she allowed herself a moment to appreciate the aesthetics of such a beautiful machine.

  The body was powerfully built, gracefully compact and radiating an almost-magnetic heat.

  The bike was nice, too.

  The rider simply sat next to her for a moment. Cassie felt as though he were staring, but she couldn’t read his expression—the goggles completely covered his eyes. Then he cut the engine and eased his body off his motorcycle. He was six feet of lean, angular muscle. He wore a leather bomber jacket and jeans that hugged his thighs. A shock of brown hair flopped over his forehead, which he pushed up as he lifted the goggles to the crown of his head, revealing deep-set brown eyes. They were eyes Cassie recognized: pools of tenderness in an angular face.

  Eyes she hadn’t seen in five years. Not since her surgical rotation. Eyes that belonged to...

  “Bryce?” she said. She wasn’t prepared for the well of emotion that sprang to her voice.

  “Hey, Cass,” he said. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Dear Reader,

  I’m a huge believer in second chances. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without them. As a writer and as a human being, there are so many times when I’ve been grateful to have a second chance...or a third...or a twentieth. Somehow, even the things we know intimately can look different with a fresh start.

  Cassie Andover is certainly hoping for a fresh start when she joins Medicine International in El Salvador. But the minute she begins her new job, she’s met by Bryce Hamlin, an old flame she hasn’t seen in five years. Cassie can’t help noticing that Bryce has changed. The cautious man she once knew is now tearing through the jungle on a motorcycle and delivering medical supplies via helicopter. Cassie and Bryce have a complicated past...but if they can start over, they just might have a beautiful future.

  Falling Again in El Salvador includes so much of what I love about medical romance. Writing this book brought some much-needed excitement into my life, and I hope it will for you, too. Stop by my website, juliedanvers.wordpress.com, and let me know! And you’re welcome to follow me on Twitter @_juliedanvers.

  Warmly,

  Julie Danvers

  Falling Again in El Salvador

  Julie Danvers

  Julie Danvers grew up in a rural community surrounded by farmland. Although her town was small, it offered plenty of scope for imagination, as well as an excellent library. Books allowed Julie to have many adventures from her own home, and her love affair with reading has never ended. She loves to write about heroes and heroines who are adventurous, passionate about a cause, and looking for the best in themselves and others. Julie’s website is juliedanvers.wordpress.com.

  Books by Julie Danvers

  Harlequin Medical Romance

  From Hawaii to Forever

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  To my best friend, foxhole buddy and partner in crime.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EXCERPT FROM HIS BLIND DATE BRIDE BY SCARLET WILSON

  CHAPTER ONE

  CASSIE ANDOVER HAD been waiting at the Miraflores bus stop for almost two hours before she decided that her ride was not going to show up.

  She was on the last leg of an increasingly arduous journey. After a tearful goodbye to her parents at the airport in Manhattan, she’d rushed to make her flight to El Salvador, only to learn that it had been delayed. By the time she arrived in the capital city of San Salvador, she’d missed the first bus to Miraflores, and the second was so crowded that the driver wouldn’t allow her to bring her overstuffed hiking backpack on board. The third bus had been blessedly empty, and she’d dozed off for most of the ride, only waking when the bus jerked to a halt.

  Now, as she felt the sudden jolt of the bus stopping, she blinked her sleepy eyes open. The bus window revealed a landscape of lush green coffee fields over rolling hills. In the distance, she could see mountains wreathed with blue haze...and nothing else. No buildings, no sign of a town and no other people.

  The driver swung the bus door open and waited. When Cassie made no motion to move, he said, “Miraflores,” expectantly.

  “But that can’t be,” Cassie said. Six months ago, when she’d accepted her new job as an obstetrician with Medicine International, she’d started intensive refresher courses to improve her Spanish. Her preparation served her well now as she argued with the bus driver that this could not possibly be Miraflores.

  “Miraflores is supposed to be a small town,” she said. “There’s no town here. There’s nothing. There’s barely even a road.”

  “Miraflores is a small town,” the driver replied. “But this is the bus stop for Miraflores. You want to go to Miraflores itself, you’ll need to walk two miles east or find a ride.”

  Cassie looked at the patch of grass the driver had referred to as a bus stop. There was a knee-high concrete stump that seemed to be a road marker, but otherwise the dirt road that stretched into the distance appeared no different than it had for the past fifty miles.

  “You’re sure this is the right bus stop?” she asked again. “If someone said they would meet me at the Miraflores bus stop, then this would be the place?”

  “It’s the only Miraflores bus stop that I know about,” the driver said. “You’re welcome to stay on board, but I won’t be stopping again until we get to San Alejo.”

  Cassie glanced at her phone. No bars. She might be able to make a call from San Alejo, but that would mean several more hours on the bus, and after a full day of traveling, she needed a rest. Even if that meant sitting by the side of an unknown road in the middle of nowhere.

  She wrestled her giant backpack off the bus and settled down to wait as the driver left in a cloud of dust.

  The sky was clear, and the air was still and quiet, punctuated by occasional notes of birdsong. The road ran along a hill, which deepened into a valley below, revealing coffee fields that stretched all the way to the mountains on the horizon. To the right of the road, tall ferns quickly thickened into a deep tropical forest.

  Aside from the neat green rows of the coffee fields, Cassie could see no other signs of civilization. She was completely, utterly alone.

  Well, almost alone. A single chicken emerged from the thick jungle foliage, pecking its way through the grass at the roadside.

  You wanted to get away from New York, Cassie reminded herself. You wanted to reconnect with what really mattered to you. Now that it’s just you and the chickens, maybe you’ll get your chance.

  Cassie had come to El Salvador in desperate need of a change. Being known as the best ob-gyn in New York City came at a price, and years of meeting the demands of New York’s society mothers had left Cassie feeling burned-out and disillusioned with medicine.

  She’d never imagined that delivering babies could lead to burnout. Cassie had been born with a congenital heart defect, and it meant the world to her to be able to provide infants and mothers with the care they needed, just as Cassie and her family had needed extra care when she was born. But as Cassie’s reputation as an obstetrician had grown, her career had taken an unexpected turn, and she found herself increasingly in demand with New York’s wealthiest and most well-known families. When she’d started
her job, it wasn’t unusual for patients to make special requests for mood music and underwater births, but it had become increasingly common for mothers to welcome their infants into the world with live string quartets, and the pools for the underwater births were filled with expensive water filtered through volcanic rock. Cassie’s clientele wanted designer maternity care, and the mothers she worked with were not shy about voicing their displeasure when their demands couldn’t be met.

  “I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore,” she’d told her best friend, Vanessa, a fellow obstetrician. “All I do is run myself ragged while my patients complain that the walnuts in their macrobiotic salad are unevenly chopped, or that the lactation consultant can’t figure out their custom-fitted Louis Vuitton breast pump.”

  “That’s what you get for being the best,” Vanessa had replied. “When you’re providing maternity care for the wealthy, they think they can have anything as long as they can pay for it. Last week I had a senator’s wife yell at me for thirty minutes because I refused to give her baby his first bath using San Pellegrino sparkling water—she got the idea from that pop star who had twins a few months ago. She said I’d be hearing from her if her kid didn’t get into Collegiate.”

  Cassie shook her head. “I always thought that by the time I turned thirty, I’d have a relationship I cared about and a career that meant something to me. But now I wonder if I’m even supposed to be a doctor.”

  “Maybe you just need a change,” Vanessa had proposed. “We get so much pressure from hospital administration to cater to the whims of wealthier patients. Instead of focusing on medicine, we’re forced to meet the demands of parents who are acting like babies themselves. That’s why you don’t feel like yourself anymore—you’re not connecting with what really matters to you about medicine. Maybe you just need to work in a different setting.”

  Vanessa’s words had haunted Cassie for weeks. She had to admit that her heart leaped at the idea of leaving Brooklyn General Hospital for something...more. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure what something more might be. She had a steady, secure job at a hospital with the best obstetrics department in the city. If this wasn’t the right setting for her, then what was?

  Her job at Brooklyn General was safe and dependable. It made no sense to leave. And she might have stayed there forever, if she hadn’t been offered the promotion.

  They’d asked her to be the head of Brooklyn General’s Obstetrics Department. But just before she agreed, a vision of the next ten years flashed before Cassie’s eyes. Longer shifts at the hospital, with fewer days off. Endless deliveries of babies born with a higher net worth than she had in student loans. Hours spent soothing the feelings of new parents not because they were afraid or in distress but because their decaf no-foam latte lacked the exact amount of cinnamon they’d requested. Explaining to mothers that they didn’t have to keep the placenta and that no matter what the latest internet celebrity had done with hers, it was probably against all medical advice.

  As Cassie envisioned her future at the hospital, she couldn’t deny the sinking feeling in her stomach. Or that nagging little voice in her mind, the one that reminded her of how her heart had soared at the idea of something more. That voice wasn’t so little anymore. In fact, it was louder than ever.

  Her lips had parted to say “yes” to her safe, predictable future...but the words that had come out instead were, “I quit.”

  She’d used her new abundance of free time to research options for doctors who wanted to work abroad, and she learned about Medicine International, a relief organization that placed health-care professionals into community agencies around the world. They had a need for good obstetricians.

  Six months later, she found herself sitting on an unknown road in El Salvador with only a chicken for company. Wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

  It had been a long time since Cassie had taken such a risk. Growing up with a heart defect meant that she’d spent her childhood surrounded by well-meaning adults who wanted to protect her. Her parents were constantly telling her to slow down and be more careful, even when she’d wanted to do things as commonplace as playing tag or riding bicycles with other children.

  She knew that her parents had good reason to be overprotective, but she couldn’t help chafing against all of the rules and restrictions that governed her life. The result was a serious daredevil phase by the time she entered medical school. Her heart was finally as healthy as anyone else’s, and for the first time in her life, she was determined to live without fear. In pursuit of this goal, she threw herself into every daring activity she could think of. She bought a motorcycle and explored the countryside surrounding New York. She took a class on rock climbing and rappelling, loving the thrill of pushing off from high places. She visited karaoke bars and belted out terrible songs at the top of her lungs.

  She also started dating the surgical resident supervising her clinical rotation.

  Residents and medical students weren’t supposed to date, but Cassie was fed up with rules. For the first time, she was following what was in her heart rather than obsessing over how to protect it. And it was glorious...right up until she made a terrible mistake.

  Her professors had always praised her ability to make quick, bold decisions in clinical situations. A bright and gifted medical student, heady with freedom and confidence for the first time in her life, Cassie never hesitated to argue a point if she believed she was right.

  And she’d believed she was right that night to push the surgical team into taking a risk with a patient. She may not have been responsible for the final judgment call—that had been the chief resident’s decision—but she was certain that if she hadn’t pushed, if she hadn’t convinced him to take action, that he would not have made such a risky decision.

  Then again, maybe if they hadn’t been in a relationship, he simply would have pulled rank and ignored her protests.

  And then maybe none of the heartbreak that followed would have happened.

  Even though the patient survived, they both faced disciplinary action. He was put on probation and denied a competitive fellowship he’d applied for, while she received nothing more than a stern dressing down from the hospital’s training committee. It still made her cheeks burn to think how lightly she’d gotten off, while someone else suffered for her reckless behavior.

  Riddled with guilt, she’d broken things off with him. She’d already put his job at risk and cost him a prestigious fellowship. If anyone found out they were dating, it would be the last straw for him. She couldn’t cause any more disruption to his life.

  She left him a note, trying and failing to put all she felt into words. She felt a little guilty about sneaking off into the dead of night, but she knew that if she faced him, she’d never be able to go through with the breakup. And she had to go through with the breakup. She could handle her own heartbreak, but she couldn’t handle the thought of causing a good man even more pain than she already had.

  She took a leave of absence from medical school, and returned home to live with her parents for a while. She resumed her clinical training the next fall. And while she still couldn’t let go of her guilt, she could at least vow to be more cautious and careful.

  It wasn’t difficult to keep that vow. She was at a new hospital, and everyone she’d known had moved on with their lives...including, apparently, the young surgeon she’d fallen for. There was no sign of him anywhere in the New York medical community, and Cassie was determined not to look for him. She’d broken the rules by dating him in the first place. He was part of a reckless phase in her past that she intended to leave behind.

  It was the best way to ensure that no one else got hurt, in her love life or in her professional career. She threw herself into her work, devoting herself to her job and to her patients. Instead of going rock climbing and singing at karaoke bars, she worked twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. Her colleagues noticed her
dedication and admired her for it, but she never felt she deserved their recognition. She’d only begun working so hard in the first place in order to repair her reputation after making a huge mistake. Nevertheless, her hard work paid off. Five years later, she was the most in demand ob-gyn in New York.

  She was successful, respected in her field...and very much alone.

  As she let work take over more of her life, she had less time for the things she enjoyed. But that craving for something more still nagged at the back of her mind, no matter how often she tried to swat it away.

  She was certain that if she had accepted the promotion and stayed in New York, she would have said goodbye to her adventurous side forever. Instead, for the first time since medical school, she’d decided to take a risk. And this time, she was determined to make the most of it. Without anyone else getting hurt.

  Now, as she gazed at the mountain in the distance, she couldn’t help feeling a thrill, despite her fatigue. She’d read that El Salvador was one of the most beautiful—and dangerous—countries in the world. She could see that everything she’d read and heard about El Salvador’s beauty held true, and she could already feel the part of her that craved excitement coming alive again.

  But before Cassie could find her adventurous side, she needed to find a way to get to the medical outpost. She frowned at the sun, which was beginning to dip lower toward the horizon.

  Where the hell was her ride?

  She stood up from the road marker she’d been leaning against and gave her arms an experimental flex. Resting by the road had done her good after so much travel, but she needed to get moving. It was one thing to be enchanted by the thought of rain forests, rugged terrain and wildlife during the daytime, but Cassie didn’t relish the idea of waiting out in the open after nightfall.

  Her monolithic backpack loomed beside her. She felt a twinge of longing for her motorcycle, which she’d had to sell before leaving New York. Not that she’d ever made time to ride. Her Kawasaki Z650 had sat neglected in a garage while Cassie worked sixty-hour weeks at the hospital.