Perched on his brother’s couch, the scent of coffee hit his nose, and he breathed deeply as he surveyed his surroundings. Modern furnishings, almost painfully so, were strategically placed, from the black leather sofa and swivel recliner to the low black cabinet where a flatscreen television sat at eye level. A photo to the left of the set caught his attention.
Struggling to his feet while trying to ignore the fierce burning in his shoulder—a direct result of the scuffle at the hospital—he moved toward the picture.
“Do you want café com leite? Or do you take your coffee black?” Sophia’s voice came from behind him, distracting him for a second, and when he turned his head he found her peeking around the corner, a few locks of sleek black hair sliding over one bare shoulder as she leaned to the side. She flipped the strands back with a quick shake of her head, leaving a long line of tanned skin that seemed to call out to him.
Damn. He knew she had a shirt on, he’d seen it—some kind of fluttery green thing that wrapped around her just above the swell of her breasts. There were no straps, though, so right now all he could think about was how she’d look if she stood in that exact pose without the shirt. And, boy, could his imagination drum up a pretty good set of possibilities.
“Lucas?” she said. “What do you want in your coffee?”
Besides you?
He shook himself back to reality. “Just a couple of drops of sweetener, if Marcos has any.” Artificial sweetener in Brazil came in plastic bottles, he’d found, although some of the higher-end coffee shops carried packets of the stuff, along with sugar.
“Okay, I’ll be out in a minute.” A quick smile accompanied the words, and she popped back into the kitchen.
Lucas braced a hand on the television stand, swearing softly. He probably should have suggested that he hole up in his hotel room for another couple of weeks. Had suggested it, in fact, once his discharge papers had been written up, but Sophia had held him to his promise of letting her help—compliments of his brother. Again. The tattoo on his arm was a constant reminder that he kept his word when at all possible. He hadn’t been able to keep much of anything else in his life—not even his real last name—so it was the one thing he’d felt he had control over.
So he was stuck with her. For now.
Brazilian women tended to dress to accentuate their curves, and Sophia was no exception. There was no way he was going to tell her to change for his benefit. But he also hadn’t expected to be knocked for a loop by seeing her out of her customary scrubs either.
The slim white jeans she wore hugged her body, cupping her curves in all the right places. Then there was that blouse, the deep green fabric snug on top before floating down around her hips, the silky fabric molding to her form whenever she moved. It was almost long enough to be a dress—a teeny-tiny one. And those heels...
Whew.
Despite the sexy clothes, there was a youthful innocence to Sophia, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on why she gave off that vibe. It wasn’t that she was a child—he shifted his aching shoulder as he turned back toward the framed photo on the television table—far from it. But there was a certain joie de vivre that clung to her as tightly as her narrow slacks. Strange that she would give off that kind of glow, despite growing up in a bare bones orphanage. Or after what she must have gone through with her facial surgery.
The narrow scar on her lip had made something contract inside him. Maybe because he spent almost all of his vacation time treating children in developing countries with just that type of deformity. The fact that Sophia bore the telltale mark of a surgeon’s tools made his heart cramp.
There was something about the scar that struck a chord deep inside him. And touching it as she’d stood behind the desk at the nurses’ station had triggered a visceral reaction that had been both foreign and familiar. Those two sensations had warred within him for several seconds. Had he remembered the scar from their time together at the orphanage?
Possibly.
It wasn’t a real memory, per se, more a remembered emotion. Curiosity, maybe? It hadn’t been disgust. Far from it. But it seemed to mesh with his reasons for choosing pediatric reconstructive surgeries over the more lucrative types.
Pulling his focus back to the picture, he picked it up. Two adults and two children were grouped around a rickety handcart. The image was real. Not one of those staged, stick-your-head-through-the-cardboard-figure kind of thing he saw from time to time. He narrowed his eyes and tried to see the details past the sepia tones and the midline crack where the picture had evidently been folded at one time. A man stood at the metal bar across the front of the contraption and held the cart level, while a woman and baby perched on the flat bed, and the older child with a grubby T-shirt and worn flip-flops stood with his hands on his hips, legs braced apart.
Lucas swallowed. It was them—his birth family—he knew it even without being told. His mom held him close in a protective gesture, while his brother dared the world to mess with any of them.
His father already looked broken down, even back then. Staring at the picture, he tried to sense some kind of emotional connection with the figures, but felt only a vague sense of shame, which was probably left over from days gone by. His brother’s feet were the only thing that elicited a strong reaction in him. He had shoes on, while his own feet were bare. He did remember snatches of arguments he and his brother had had—with Marcos constantly railing at him for not wearing shoes in the yard.
He still preferred his feet bare, not that he got much of a chance any more with his busy lifestyle.
A soft click sounded behind him and then Sophia’s voice came again. “That’s you and Marcos with your parents.”
The fact that Sophia didn’t expect him to know what he was looking at sent another wave of shame washing over him. His adoptive parents had said they’d chosen him because the day they’d visited he’d been curled in a corner, sucking his thumb. He’d been skin and bones, and had seemed hopeless, they’d said...so much so that it had frightened them. They’d never thought about having kids of their own—although they’d worked with several children’s charities—until they’d seen him.
They’d given him opportunities that few kids in his situation would have ever dreamed of having. And that just compounded his guilt, even though Marcos and Sophia seemed to be doing just fine, judging by the high-end furniture in his brother’s apartment. In fact, the picture was the only shabby-looking thing in sight.
He set the frame back in its spot and turned toward her. “I’ll have to ask Marcos to make a copy for me.”
“Do you remember them at all?”
He hesitated. “I think I remember my father and Marcos, but not my birth mother.”
“She died when you were still a baby.” She reached back and bunched her long hair in her hand, then twisted it and tied it somehow so that it stayed up off her neck. “Your parents loved you very much, from what Marcos says. Your adoptive family must have as well.”
“They did. I guess I was lucky.”
He’d called them, in fact, after the shooting. They’d been worried sick, had wanted to come down immediately, but he’d assured them he was fine and would be back in the States soon.
Sophia turned away and walked to the glossy coffee table. “I brought the bottle of sweetener and a spoon. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted.”
Her words were tight, and he got the feeling he’d said something wrong. Was she upset because he’d been adopted and she hadn’t? Surely not. He’d had no choice in the matter. Looking back, though, he could certainly see how hard it must’ve been for Marcos to be the one left behind. But he was glad his brother had been there for Sophia.
“Thank you for