Wrong Twin, Right Man

“Thanks for bringing me,” Anne said, startling him with the realization that he’d completely lost track of the present. But apparently she had finished crying, leaving her wreath behind, because she was standing beside him and looking a lot more composed. As if she’d unloaded whatever grief was haunting her. “I needed to say goodbye.”

“I’m glad it helped,” he managed to answer as they started back toward the car. Back to real life, with its ongoing list of demands. Which reminded him of the guy who’d come in this morning, worried about his girlfriend taking their baby to Mexico. “Listen, if I go back to work tonight, will you be okay?”

She shot him a surprised glance. “Of course.”

Maybe he was judging all women by Beth, who’d hated it when he stayed late at the clinic. “You sure? I don’t want to leave you alone if you need—”

“A shoulder to cry on?”

He hadn’t even thought of that, but of course he’d be there for her if she needed to cry. “Well, yeah,” he said, reaching for his car keys. “Whatever I can do.”

Anne waited until he’d opened her door before fixing him with a wry gaze. “Kind of a one-way street we’ve got here, isn’t it?”

What, just because he wouldn’t cry on her shoulder? “Look,” he explained, holding his hands out in case she needed assistance, “I take care of people. I don’t need people taking care of me.”

She settled into her seat without taking his hand, moving so much more easily than yesterday that he felt a jolt of admiration for the physical therapist. “Ever?”

“Well, not since I was a kid.” Not since his mother had fled the burden of caretaking. Not since he’d learned it was all his fault.

Anne reached for her seat belt, flinching a little as she stretched her arm back, and returned her gaze to his. “Tell me about when you were a kid.”

Maybe she thought it would help him let go of some old grief or something, but he couldn’t expect her to enjoy hearing about his childhood in the barrios of L.A.

“That’s a story for some other time,” Rafe said lightly, closing her door and moving to his own side of the car.

But as soon as he took his seat, Anne shifted her posture as if to get a better look at him. “All right,” she said, and in her voice he heard the same determination he used to hear from Beth, whenever she tried to nurture him. “I’ll make sure and ask some other time.”

Some other time took a few days to arrive, but she wasn’t going to let him out of talking about his life. Not when, Anne suspected, this man was carrying more grief than anyone should have to carry alone.

So when Rafe picked her up after her last therapy session of the week and apologized for having to return to the clinic as soon as he dropped her off, she told him to skip the trip home. “I’ll just go with you,” she said, and felt a shimmer of satisfaction when he turned the car around.

Maybe a visit to Legalismo would give her the chance to help Rafe Montoya.

Because there was something bothering him, she knew. And if she could encourage him to talk about it—not directly, not when he’d made it clear that he didn’t need any nurturing—she might feel more capable of honoring Beth’s wishes.

Her sister wanted the people she loved to be taken care of, and Rafe needed someone to talk to.

There wasn’t much time for talk, though, she discovered when they arrived at the clinic and he introduced her to Oscar, a threatening-looking teenager who was evidently helping him replace a window.

“Only one bullet,” Oscar told him, fingering a dent in the wall behind Rafe’s desk. “Good aim, that’s all.”

Anne swallowed a gasp. “Somebody shot at you?”

“No, we were closed,” Rafe said, rolling up his sleeves while Oscar removed a sheet of cardboard from the window frame. “This happened last night, I just never got time today.”

He sounded as matter-of-fact as if the window had been shattered by a baseball, but apparently her start of alarm raised a red flag, because he turned to her with his usual swift offer of aid.

“Why don’t I take you home and come back later? You don’t need to wait around here.”

“No, that’s okay.” If she waited, it would give her a chance to read the Legalismo flyers she’d seen on the battered coffee table. And that, in turn, might give her some clue to drawing out this man. “Really, I’m fine. You guys go ahead and fix things.”

“This won’t take long,” Rafe promised as he and Oscar turned their attention to the pane of glass in the corner, so she returned to the lobby with its green plastic sofa and dented folding chairs. And by the time she made her way through the company-history brochure, halfway listening to the dialogue in Rafe’s office, she found herself more intrigued than ever.

How did he do that? she wondered. How did a Law Review attorney, regardless of his past experience, keep up such a natural, easy conversation with a gang-tattooed boy who responded only in monosyllables?

How could Rafe do such a breathtaking job of caring for everyone around him, and refuse to accept any support for himself?

And why should she care?

But she did, Anne knew, even though she had never been much of a nurturer. That was Beth’s role, while hers was to succeed in the world. Yet maybe the loss of her sister had made a difference in her priorities…because right now this man’s welfare mattered far more than any business.

More than anything, she wanted to give him a chance to let down his guard.

“Thanks,” she heard him tell Oscar, who came back through the lobby and headed outside without even a glance at her. All right, they must be finished—which meant she could start another attempt at looking out for the man her sister had loved.

“I didn’t think lawyers could install windows,” she told Rafe when he came down the hall, buttoning the cuffs of his sleeves.

“Depends on where they practice,” he replied, then shot her a quick grin as he wiped a streak of plaster dust off his face. A simple gesture, but one which—without any warning—suddenly made her heart skip a beat. “We’re in a pretty good location for this part of town, but bulletproof glass would be nice.”

Anne caught her breath. She had no business reacting to the sight of this man—not even in the context of physical labor, which made her more aware of his powerful body—with such raw, primitive yearning.

“Is it safe,” she asked, hoping her voice sounded normal, “working here?”

“Pretty much.” He evidently hadn’t noticed any flush of warmth on her skin, for which she could only be grateful, because he was moving with his usual unconscious grace. Opening the door, reversing a sign, twisting home the lock. “I won’t let the interns work alone, but I’ve never had any problems.”

She was supposed to be offering support, here, but for the moment all her carefully rehearsed openings had vanished, leaving her with a faster pulse and the desire to blurt out any question, any distraction she could think of. “Uh, do your clients carry guns?”

Rafe held up the No Drugs/No Weapons sign he’d just removed from the door and set it on the coffee table. “Not inside,” he announced, then glanced back at his office. “I just need to grab a few things, and we’re out of here.”

“Take your time,” she told him, and used the free minute to steady her breathing, pressing her hands against her thighs until she felt herself edging back into common sense. Enough so that by the time he returned with a handful of file folders, she was able to ask a casual question.

“Was this a pretty typical day?”

“Well, it’s not every day we have to replace a window.” He gave her an apologetic smile as he turned toward the ancient answering machine on the front desk. “Sorry that took so long.”

“No, I enjoyed seeing you in action.” Which wasn’t what she’d meant to say! Although she had enjoyed hearing his conversation, even before he came down the hall adjusting his shirt—and she’d better change the subject fast. “Is Oscar some kind of an assistant or something?”

Rafe picked up the machine and shook it until a red light came on. “I’m just keeping an eye on him.”

“How come?”

“He reminds me of myself, I guess.” He met her gaze with the same half confident, half defiant expression she’d noticed the other day, then set the machine back in place. “I’d like to see him get out of here.”

So her impression of Oscar as the dangerous type had been valid, Anne realized. Because according to the company brochure, Rafe himself had grown up as a gang member in Los Angeles…until his last juvenile conviction had started him down the road toward rehab, law school and the crusade to help kids like those he’d done time with.

“I saw that fund-raising story about your background,” she told him, and saw his posture stiffen as he headed down the hall.

“That was Peter’s idea,” he said, snapping off the light switch at the end of the hallway. “Guy who put up the money. He said we’d get a lot more donations if people saw a poster child make good.”