of this noisy, crowded Casualty waiting room for an hour and nobody had approached him. He got the impression that if he stayed quiet he could stand there all night and nobody would; this, however, was not his intention.
He had a plan, well, not a plan exactly—for the first time in his life Rafael was winging it.
Another thirty minutes passed and the novelty value of being invisible began to lose its charm for Rafael. It occurred to him as he shifted his weight from foot to foot that he might have taken the under-the-radar approach a little too far.
His jaw clenched as he continued to scan the room. He had still not caught even a glimpse of her dark head and he was losing the struggle to control his frustration.
Inaction was not his thing for a reason—it was a very unproductive method of achieving a desired end.
And his desired end remained elusive. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and wondered how she worked in this place surrounded constantly by all this ugliness and suffering.
Rafael watched a man dressed in a security uniform approach, stop a few feet away and wait expectantly.
‘Can I help you, sir?’
Rafael flashed him a look. ‘I should not think so.’
The security guard, who had all the responses to belligerent or threatening behaviour—not that he wasn’t extremely relieved that this tough-looking customer was displaying neither—struggled for a response to this polite but unhelpful reply.
‘Have you given your details at the desk?’
‘I am waiting for someone.’
‘I’m afraid… Mr.?’
‘Castenadas,’ Rafael supplied.
He watched the inevitable flicker of recognition in the other man’s eyes, and gave a philosophical shrug. Security guards tended to have a lot of time to flick through tabloids.
‘Do I know you? Your face…’
Rafael was saved the necessity of responding because a smashing sound, loud enough to be heard over the general babble in the waiting area, followed by raised voices caused the man to break off.
Like everyone else Rafael turned in the direction of the sound, then he heard the cry—a cry of pain followed by the distinct sound of breaking glass.
Rafael, responding to the rush of adrenaline that flooded through his body, hit the ground running. He was through the swing doors and parting the curtain before the security guard had finished summoning help.
The scene was chaos: an overturned trolley, broken glass, instruments all over the floor and a large thug slurring a string of loud abuse at the figure crouched on the floor.
Some gut instinct had told him the cry had come from Maggie’s lips. Even so, seeing her there made him reel as though a blow had landed through his defences.
She lifted her head, saw him, gave a sob of relief and said, ‘I’m fine!’ despite the evidence to the contrary.
He advanced and felt his foot slip; he glanced down, saw the blood on the floor and the colour seeped out of his face. It only took him a second, a second that was long enough to realise that the gore came, not from Maggie, but from her attacker, who was standing barefoot in the broken glass, oblivious to the pain.
The realisation that the thug was going to feel it once his anaesthetic of choice wore off afforded Rafael a brief moment of savage satisfaction before he placed his hand on the man’s collar and hauled him across the room.
Rafael, grimacing in distaste, moved his head back as he was hit by alcohol fumes.
He glanced over his shoulder and was relieved to see that Maggie was getting to her feet, helped by another nurse.
The drunk did not understand a word of the staccato Spanish directed at him but he did recognise the cold light in those eyes.
Rafael’s lip curled in distaste as he watched the rapid transformation from aggressive to pathetic when the drunk recognised he had lost the upper hand.
The two security men relieved him of his burden and Rafael swung back to Maggie.
‘What are you doing here, Rafael?’ Something twisted hard in his chest when he saw her face.
He struggled to control the rage lodged in his throat. ‘I am not a medic, but if you want my unqualified opinion I’d say ice might be a good idea.’
‘What are you doing here, Rafael?’
Of course she knew, she had known the moment she saw him standing in the waiting area and pointed him out to Security as a dangerous-looking character.
He was here to speak on behalf of her birth mother, Angelina Castenadas.
She could think the name now, even say it out loud, and she’d had a series of long discussions with her mum. The discussions had involved a lot of tears but she felt less threatened by the situation. It definitely helped that she now believed Mum and Dad would not feel she was being disloyal if she did have contact with her birth mother.
‘Other than saving you?’
She studied his dark face hungrily, loving every strong plane and hollow. Seeing him again had made her realise that she would never be over him, she would smile, she would laugh, she would seem normal, but there would always be an empty space inside her that she knew he was meant to fill.
‘Thank you, Rafael.’
Her brow furrowed with concern she struggled to conceal. There were lines around his mouth she had not seen before, and shadows under his eyes that made them appear haunted.
Had he lost weight?
Had he been ill?
‘Who saves you when I am not around?’
‘These things only happen to me when you are.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Look, I can save you time and energy.’ She lowered her eyes as her composure slipped and added huskily, ‘I know why you’re here.’
He stiffened, wariness sliding into his grey eyes as he met her candid gaze.
‘You’re here to plead my birth mother… Angelina’s case.’ Maggie bit her lip. ‘I know I sent her letter back unopened, but since then… I’ve thought about it a lot and spoke with Mum and I can see that I have been unfair. I know she had reasons for giving me up and things couldn’t have turned out better for me. I have a marvellous family. I would like to meet her…later…’ She still struggled with the idea that it could be the positive experience her mum suggested, but she was willing to try.
The silence stretched.
‘I’m sure that Angelina will be pleased that you feel this way, but that is between you and her.’
‘But I thought.?’
‘I came because we had something that…it was not over.’ And until it was he would remain unable
