Wrong Twin, Right Man

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.