Laurie Campbell - Wrong Twin, Right Man

“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?”