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Oh, dear God. Not only had she lost her sister, but this man had lost his wife.
“Are you okay?” she blurted.
The question seemed to startle him, because he let go of her hands and sat up straighter in his chair.
“I’ve had a while to get used to it,” he answered with such deliberate steadiness that she knew he wasn’t okay, but that he wasn’t about to say so. “Anyway, I know Beth would want me to make sure you’re all right.”
Which explained why he’d been coming every day for the past eight days. Beth must have wanted the certainty that her loved ones were taken care of.
“Anything you need,” Rafe continued. “The insurance and everything, I took care of that already. But anything else…I want to help.” And then, as if he knew at the same moment she did that nothing sounded better than sleep, he stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I mean it, Anne. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”
He did mean it, she knew, even before he rested a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned to move his chair away. And she knew why it mattered to him…which meant she must be remembering the essence of her sister.
“Someone has to be there for the people she loved,” Anne whispered. Because somehow she already knew that, even while Rafe was looking out for her, she needed to be there for him, as well. “That’s how Beth would want it.”
That’s how Beth would want it.
The phrase stayed with him over the next few days, promising a faint hope of making amends to his wife. If he could just continue taking care of Anne until she was back on her feet, he could take comfort in knowing Beth’s wish was coming true.
At least one wish.
“Feeling better?” he asked Anne each afternoon for the next week, and her responses grew gradually more coherent. To the point where he could finally tell her, “The nurse says you’ll be ready to leave, day after tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to get out of here,” she said, shifting in bed with considerably more ease than she’d shown only a few days ago. “Back to…well, real life.”
But she looked uncertain about the prospect, which he suspected meant there were still some gaps in her memory.
“Look, don’t push yourself,” Rafe warned. He’d already phoned Dolls-Like-Me to warn everyone that Anne needed time to recover, and had accepted their condolences with the careful guard he’d perfected over the past two weeks. “If it takes a while for you to remember things, the doctor said that’s normal.”
“I know, but I hate not knowing things! Yesterday someone named Marc sent this strange letter saying he wants to give his marriage another try. Except I can’t believe I’d be dating a married man.”
He had no idea who this woman might date, but she seemed so disturbed that he hurried to offer the first reassurance he could think of. “Maybe the guy didn’t tell you he was married.”
Anne contradicted him with a rueful smile. “Or maybe I’m a really bad judge of character.”
No, that didn’t fit with what he knew of her. “Beth always said,” he offered over the knot that still rose in his throat whenever he spoke her name without preparing for it, “there was nobody in the world as smart as you.”
Without warning, he saw her eyes fill with tears. But unlike himself, she seemed to take such weakness for granted.
“More than anything,” Anne whispered, “I miss her. I don’t remember what we used to talk about, or even her phone number, but I remember having the other half of me. I can’t believe she’s gone!”
Losing someone you’d known since before birth, he realized, must be even more traumatic than losing your memory. And while time supposedly made every loss better, you sure couldn’t prove that by him.
But he was fine, Rafe reminded himself hastily.
He knew how to get through this.
“If only I’d stayed with her,” she continued, twisting the edge of the hospital sheet between her fingers. “If we’d been together when the train crashed—”
“You’re not blaming yourself, are you?” he interrupted. He’d done the same thing when Gramp died, and again when Carlos was shot, but she couldn’t possibly be responsible for a train wreck. “It was an accident, Anne. One in a million.”
“I just…I wish I’d done something different. I don’t know what,” she said, and her voice broke on the edge of a sob. “But to let my sister die, and not me…that’s not right. It’s just not right!”
Her loss was even worse than his own, Rafe realized with a tug of compassion. Maybe he was hurting, but at least he knew how to take care of himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, leaning forward to take her hands in his. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Her tears spilled over so easily that he found himself almost envying her—which was crazy, because this woman didn’t have anything to fall back on. Nobody to protect. But after a few minutes, she straightened up and wiped her eyes, looking so much like Beth that he felt his heart twist all over again.
“I shouldn’t keep—” she began apologetically, then broke off. “You’re going through the same thing.”
Not exactly, because Anne had never failed the sister she loved. Never woken up reaching for Beth before remembering, once again, how cold and how distant their parting had been.
But there was no point getting into any of that, no point in encouraging her sympathy.
He didn’t need it.
“Yeah,” Rafe muttered, “but at least I can remember where I live.”
She gave him a startled glance, and then the same wry smile he’d seen on Beth a thousand times—making his heart lurch for a moment before he realized that identical twins would naturally share similar expressions. Seeing Anne’s smile, though, he was struck once again by the astonishing resemblance between the sisters, and for a wild instant he wondered whether there could have been some mistake.
But an old friend had identified Anne to the trauma team, and they’d reported finding Beth’s watch and handbag with her body. Besides, this woman’s hair was different and the ring she wore wasn’t Beth’s…which meant, Rafe knew, he was spinning impossible fantasies.
“I sort of remember where I live,” Anne told him. “And I know, once I see it, everything will come back. I just need to get home, and the hospital social worker’s coming to talk about that tomorrow.”
But his phone calls to Chicago had revealed that Beth’s original assessment of Anne was correct. As a woman completely dedicated to business, she’d never bothered with close friendships.
At least not with the kind of friends who would take her in while she completed six weeks of physical therapy. Everyone who’d inquired about her had sounded cordial yet harried, and not one had offered her a place to stay.
The way Beth would have, in an instant.
“Look,” he said, “before you talk to the social worker, there’s something I want to run by you. Because while you’re doing your physical therapy, you’ll need a place to stay.”
“I have an apartment in Chicago,” she told him, then gestured toward a small red purse on her bedside table. “I keep looking through my wallet for clues, and I live at—”
“Yeah, but you need a place where there’s someone to look after you.” Maybe not around the clock, but at least someone who could be on call throughout her recovery period. “I think you should stay in our guest room,” he told her. “I can drive you wherever you need to be, or you can use Beth’s car as soon as you’re driving again. And anything you need help with, I’ll be right there.”
She looked a little hesitant. “I…”
“Or if I’m working,” Rafe continued hastily, “I’ll have the phone with me.” The phone Beth had urged him to use, and though he hadn’t honored her request at the time he could damn sure make up for it now. “You can call anytime. Anytime. I mean it.”
Anne regarded him with a sober gaze. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” she observed.
Because it was his only way of making amends to Beth. The only possible way to keep himself strong. To protect someone who needed it—and she did need it.
“Well, it just makes sense,” he said. “For the next six weeks, I think this would be the best thing for you.”
“Maybe it’d be the best thing for both of us,” she said, which startled him. Anne didn’t need to worry about what was best for him.
But as long as she was willing to let him take care of her, Rafe reminded himself, there was no point arguing about it. And already she was nodding in agreement.
“All right, then. Thanks,” she murmured, and he felt a rush of relief shoot through his veins. “For the next six weeks, Rafe, I’ll come stay with you.”
Rafe was as thoughtful a host as anyone could possibly want, Anne decided after he’d left her alone to “settle in” to the guest room Beth had reportedly decorated with her in mind. The room wasn’t quite as cozy or relaxing as she might have liked, but surely her sister had known her tastes.
Which meant, she realized while rearranging the bewildering jumble of faxes on the desk, this room was just one more example of how the accident had changed her character.
It was nothing to worry about, Dr. Sibley had assured her. People always changed after some kind of trauma, and the changes seldom lasted.
So this feeling of being slightly off balance, of not recognizing clients and names she had apparently known for years, was sure to disappear soon.
As if he’d sensed her disquiet, Rafe called from the hallway outside her door, “Anne, you all right? Can I get you anything?”
“I’m okay,” she called back, then realized he must be deliberately keeping out of her room. “Come in…I was just looking at all these faxes.”
He frowned when he saw her hunched over the desk, but refrained from comment. Instead he said, “I’m going to make some coffee, if you want any.”
Coffee sounded surprisingly good, although she hated to have him waiting on her after he’d already disrupted his entire day to bring her home from the hospital, past the physical therapy clinic for a first meeting with Cindy, and finally here.
“I’ll do it,” Anne offered, and he stopped her with a quick gesture.
“You’ll be on your own tomorrow morning, remember? Don’t push it.”
She had insisted that he maintain his usual schedule at the legal clinic, even though it meant taking a cab to her therapy session, and Rafe had reluctantly agreed to keep his early-morning appointment with a pregnant teenager. This man lived for the street kids he served, Anne suspected, and her rueful awareness of such devotion meant that Beth must have complained about it.
As a third party, though, she couldn’t help admiring his heartfelt dedication to the job.
After all, from the tone of the messages on her desk, she apparently shared it herself. Which made it all the more disturbing that none of these faxes made sense.
“I’d better save the coffee break for when I get caught up,” she admitted, and Rafe hesitated in the doorway.
“Take it easy, okay?” he cautioned her, evidently viewing the warning as even more vital than the coffee. “Give yourself time to get back on your feet.”
Good advice, she knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to ignore the pile of papers on her desk. She picked up the stack again, wincing at the thought of all those decisions to be made. “I just feel bad thinking about everyone in Chicago, waiting for me to get back—”
“Anne,” he interrupted, crossing the room to pull the papers away from her and jamming them into a drawer. “Stop it. They’re lucky to have you alive, period, and they can wait another couple months to have you back.”
She should probably take offense at such high-handed behavior, but for some reason all she could feel right now was gratitude. Because this man, however dictatorial, was right. What mattered was being alive.
And everything else could wait.
“Thanks,” she murmured, then saw the wreath of straw flowers in the drawer he’d left open. That Southwestern cluster of turquoise and coral blossoms mingled with twigs was part of the guest room decor, and its absence had puzzled her. “Oh, the desert wreath! I was wondering what happened to—”
But that didn’t make sense, she realized with a sudden jolt of shock, and saw the same incredulity on Rafe’s face before his expression grew softer.
“Beth must have told you a lot about the house,” he observed.
That did make sense. Far more sense than feeling as if she and Beth had somehow traded places.
“That has to be why I know where everything goes,” Anne agreed. And why she felt so very much at home here, as if she belonged in this house. It was the same sense of belonging she had felt when Rafe brought her Beth’s clothes to wear home from the hospital—their luggage from the train was still lost somewhere—and she’d been overwhelmed with a sense of familiar comfort. “We must’ve spent so much time talking, it’s like…well, kind of like she’s still with me.”
He regarded her curiously for a moment, but she saw no hint of doubt in his dark, watchful eyes. “Yeah?”
“I know that sounds weird, but—”
“No,” he said gently, “not for twin sisters. And you two were pretty close. You talked every week.”
They must have, because otherwise she couldn’t possibly have known that Beth kept pencils in the file cabinet.
But how could she be so clear on pencils, on how to jiggle the bedside lamp switch, on the names of her sister’s closest friends, and so vague on the details of her own life in Chicago?
“I wish I could remember more,” Anne told him. “I know it’ll all come back, but so far almost everything I remember is from when we were little.”
“Give yourself time,” he repeated, then sat down on the foot of the copper-varnished bed, facing her with a mingled look of resolve and entreaty. “Meanwhile, is there anything I can do?”
He’d done so much already that she hated to ask for more, but seeing her sister’s wreath had reminded her of the need for a traditional farewell. She would never say goodbye to the memories of her twin, which seemed even stronger here in Beth’s home, but after missing the funeral she needed to make some kind of gesture.
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind…I’d really like to take Beth some flowers.”
Rafe hesitated, and she saw his neck muscles tighten.
“It’s okay,” she said hastily. The man didn’t need any more reminders of what he’d lost. “I can do that later.”
“No.” He stood up, squaring his shoulders. “No, you need to say goodbye.” Then he glanced at his watch. “Let me just—”
“Rafe, not now!” Surely he didn’t think she meant him to drop everything and escort her to the cemetery this very minute. “I just meant, when you get time.”
But apparently he was already recovered from that moment of hesitation, because he asked, “How about tomorrow?”
After more than two weeks since her sister’s death, there couldn’t be any rush about saying goodbye. And yet visiting Beth’s grave might let her start working through the grief, accepting the loss and moving on.
“Well,” she said softly, “if that’s all right with you.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. It’s fine.” He walked back to the door, then turned to face her again, as if he needed to explain himself. “I haven’t been there since the funeral.”
“You don’t have to—” she began, and he cut off her protest.
“No, I do. How about, I pick you up from your session with Cindy and we’ll stop for flowers on the way.”
Suddenly the man was sounding more like an attorney than she’d ever imagined him—more decisive and also more determined—yet somehow she had the impression that his take-charge demeanor was only a facade.
“Is that all right?” she faltered. “I don’t want to put you through—”
“Anne, come on.” Even his posture had changed; he was standing with an attitude of confidence that bordered on defiance. “I can handle it.”
“Well, it’s just…”
“I can handle it!”
“Because you’re Mr. Tough Guy,” she offered, and he responded with a startled expression.
