“You’ve got Teddy in the car. And then we can get some pizza, okay?”
He didn’t say anything, instead turning his eyes to his reflection in the elevator doors. Sophia was quiet too, as if still recovering from the shot.
The doors opened and I hurried through the lobby with the twins. A few people we passed cooed over them. I stopped to make sure their coats and hats and gloves were on tight, then we went outside into the cold, January air. The sky was grey, a few flutters of snow falling onto the asphalt.
I checked my watch, seeing that it was a little after five. If I hurried, I could be home with the pizzas and spend the rest of the evening in front of the fireplace, getting some work done and trying to forget about seeing the man who’d unknowingly fathered my twins.
But Finn was on my mind as I helped the kids into their car seats, fishing Sophie’s unicorn off the ground along with Sam’s teddy bear. The two stuffed animals worked their magic, and I climbed into the driver’s seat. Before leaving the parking lot, I opened the app for the local pizza placed and ordered a large cheese, a large pepperoni, and a meat lover’s for Dad. Once the order was in, I set my phone down and let out a long sigh.
Finn. The father of my children. Did he know? Sam…God, Sam looked so much like Finn it wasn’t even funny. And Sophia has his enthusiasm, his eager energy. Both were very much their father’s children. More than that, it wouldn’t take genius to do the math and figure out that they had been born nine months after our little fling.
After the shock faded, fear took its place. What if Finn wanted to be in the twins’ lives? What if he wanted them all for himself to make up for the time he’d missed? What if he wanted to take them back to Ireland with him?
No way, I said to myself, turning over the engine. Not a chance in hell he ever sees them again.
I glanced back, making sure my babies were settled in and ready to go, then I pulled out of the parking spot. So eager was I to get away from the clinic that it took all the restraint I had to drive carefully. Once at the exit, I put Gio’s Pizza into Google Maps and pulled out onto the main street.
I wondered what would happen if I were to turn around, to go back into the clinic and tell him the truth about Sam and Sophie. No doubt he was at that moment wondering about them. And he was no dummy – it wouldn’t take much for him to put it all together.
Hell, he could even ask for a paternity test. One question on his part and he could turn the life I’d so carefully built over the last few years upside down.
Doc McHottie, I thought, shaking my head. It had to be you, huh? Of all the sexy, Irish doctors in the world…
The appointment played over and over in my head, and I found myself thinking of him, this time how damn good he was with my children. The man was a natural! No doubt Sam would pester me for a toy monkey of his own before too long.
But the main point still stood – Finn didn’t need to know about them. I’d done a hell of a job raising the twins on my own up to this point, thank you very much, and the last thing I needed was adding a father into the mix, one who maybe didn’t even want to be part of their lives to begin with.
There hadn’t been a ring on his finger, and for all I knew he was still pulling the same routine, picking up random women in bars and giving them a night of passion.
I pulled into the parking lot of Gio’s, locking the twins in with the engine still running before heading in and grabbing the pizzas. They smelled delicious, the boxes nice and warm against the cool air. I used the keypad on the outside of the drivers’ side and set the pizzas in the passenger seat. I took all the restraint I had not to eat a slice on the way home.
Sam and Sophia both conked out during the last fifteen minutes back to the house, Sophie’s unicorn dangling from her tiny hand. At a red light, I let Mom and Dad know I was almost there via text.
When I pulled up to the house, they were waiting for me on the porch.
“Grandpa!” Sam shouted as he toddled towards the porch, looking so freaking cute in his puffy, slightly-too-big winter coat.
“There’s my tough little guy!” Dad said, scooping Sam off the ground. “How were your pokes?”
“Bad!”
I slid the pizzas off the seat, glancing up to see the first few flurries of the evening’s snow drift down from the slate-gray sky above. Sophia hurried over to Grandma, who led her into the house.
“They’ll make you good and tough, kid!” Dad said. “And I’d say you earned your pizza!”
Still carrying Sam, Dad came over and helped me with the pizzas. Finn was still on my mind as we made our way back inside.
“You alright?” Dad asked. He always knew when there was something going on with me.
“Just something weird happened at the doctor.” No sense in trying to pretend everything was fine.
“Weird? How so?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. Let’s eat.”
Dad gave me a suspicious look, one that seemed to say, “don’t think I’m going to forget about this.” There was no sense in lying to the old man – he was as canny as they came.
But what the hell was I supposed to say? That the pediatrician just so happened to be the father of my children? Knowing Dad, he’d want to pile in the car and drive right over to Finn’s office, ready to make things right.
Mom and Dad set the table as the kids took off their coats and boots. Flames crackled in the fireplace, filling the house with cozy warmth. My mind was on my plans after dinner, curling up in my favorite chair with a hot mug of chamomile, maybe some guilty pleasure romance book on my Kindle. Nope, I reminded myself. Work first, then romance.
Minutes later, the pizzas boxes were open on the table, plates passed out all around, organic fruit juice in front of the kids and a couple glasses of red wine for Mom and Dad. The smell was delicious, my stomach grumbling and reminding me I hadn’t eaten anything but a Luna bar I’d shoved down between calls at work.
But I didn’t have a chance to sit. My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and a check of the screen let me know the boss herself was calling.
“Don’t even think about taking a work call during dinner,” my mom scolded.
“It’s Gia,” I said, my eyes on the phone.
Dad stepped over to me, a glass of red in his hand. “Do what you gotta do, kiddo.” He handed me the glass, the wine looking to me at that moment like the most appealing thing imaginable. “We’ll save you a couple of slices.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I followed this up with a smile, doing my best to not seem totally exhausted and ready to collapse. Wine in hand, I hurried upstairs into one of the guest bedrooms, shutting the door and calling Gia back.
“Hey!” she answered.
“What’s up?” I sat on the edge of the quilt-covered bed and sipped the wine, the relief almost instantaneous.
“Listen, I’m so sorry to be the kind of boss to call during dinner time, but I just heard back from Heart to Hand and I figured you’d want to know about it as soon as possible.”
“What’s up?”
“So, it’s going to be a little more…intense than we were expecting.”
“Uh-oh. Intense how?”
“Well, first of all, they want to move the event up to Valentine’s Day.”
Shocked, I choked on my wine. After coughing, I wheezed, “Valentine’s Day? That’s…not even five weeks from now.”
“I know. And believe me, I tried to tell the woman in charge that getting a major event put together on that short of notice is tricky. Not to mention expensive. She’ll be paying a premium with whoever we hire to get them clear their schedules.”
“That’s rough. But it’s doable. Right?”
“If we had the entire staff available to handle it, there’d be no problem. But as confident as I am in your ability to kick ass and get it done…I don’t know.”
As she spoke, I did a mental inventory of the days ahead, trying to put together a schedule that would work. “It’s possible,”
I said. “Not easy, but possible.”
“And that’s why I wanted to call you ASAP. I was hoping to give you a slightly challenging gig to show me you could handle partner responsibilities. I know we talked about Girls in Charge, but I think this is the one. It’ll be the gig of your career.”
I allowed myself a small smirk. “G, you have to know when you put it that way, you’re only going to encourage me to do it.”
She chuckled. “Maybe this is my way of reverse-psychologizing you to say yes. But seriously, I wanted to give you the chance to back out. You’ve got twins and a million mom things going on, and I wouldn’t hold it against you in the slightest for not feeling up to the amount of work this is going to be.”
“And what happens if I say no?”
“I’ll recommend another planning service. It’d kill me to do it, but I’d much rather do that than overwhelm you.”
“Not even an option,” I said with total confidence, not missing a beat. “You need me to step up to the plate, then I’m not only going to do that, but I’ll hit you a home run.”
“Wow, nice sports metaphor.”
I laughed. “Price of hanging out with my dad too many afternoons watching Rockies games.”
A beat of silence hung in the hair. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to send you the information in an hour.”
“An hour? Go ahead and send it now.”
“Not doing it,” she refused stubbornly. “Because knowing you, you’ll skip dinner and read it.”
“You know me all too well, G.”
She chuckled. “You get it in an hour. And when you’ve read it all, give yourself the night to think about it. If you still feel up to the challenge, we can discuss it tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect.”
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Uh-oh. You said that with the ‘I know you’re not going to like this’ tone.”
“Because you’re not. The theme for the event? True love.”
I groaned, tilting my head back and running my hand through my hair. “You’re kidding.”
“Valentine’s Day, girl. It’s the one day of the year when everyone’s free to indulge their corniest, most syrupy-sweet impulses about love.”
“It’s not a deal-breaker – but it’s close. I don’t believe in any of that crap. But being the consummate professional I am, pretending is just part of the job.”
She laughed. “Sounds good. Well, except for the not believing in true love part.”
“What, you do?”
“Don’t forget you’re talking to a very, very happily married woman – a happily married woman who never in a million years thought she’d ever be a happily married woman.”
“But that’s an exception. For most people love is a rush of chemicals that gets them to make totally dumbass decisions.” Like sleeping with some Irish rando and getting knocked up by him. I kept that part to myself.
“You know, Ken, I’ve always thought it was funny how you’re the most positive person in the world about everything except for the absolute best thing in the world.”
“I am positive about the best thing in the world – my babies.”
“Okay, fair point. But the other best thing in the world.”
“Don’t need it. I’ve got the twins and work and I’m lucky enough to have great friends and family. What more do I need?”
“Regular sex.”
I laughed. “Gia!”
“What? It’s true.”
“Well, they have these things now - I don’t know if you’ve heard of them - they’re called vibrators. And they make them in exciting colors and shapes,” I told her, listening to her laughter. “They’re just like the real thing, in fact, except they don’t raid your fridge after they’ve made you come.”
Her laughter was nearly hysterical before she calmed herself enough to speak. “Yeah, but they don’t tell you they love you afterwards either.”
“I don’t know. I was looking at these Japanese vibrators…they’re getting pretty high-tech.”
More chuckles. “Alright, alright. Just don’t forget I’m going to be there to say, ‘I told you so’ when you finally do meet that perfect guy.”
“If,” I corrected. “Big, fat if.”
“Oh!” she said, something else occurring to her. “You’ve still got Saturday cleared for the get-together at Annie and Duncan’s, right?”
I’d totally spaced on the potluck that weekend. “Um, sure. Maybe.”
“Ken, no maybes about it. You’re not going to spend the entire week working. And don’t even think about using the kids as an excuse – there’ll be tons of other kids there, so they’ll have more than enough little pals to keep them occupied. Plus, Gilly and Oliver want to see them.”
Part of me did want to spend the day working, getting ready for the event ahead. But Sam and Sophia getting a chance to spend some time with their little buddies was far more important than me putting together spreadsheets.
“I’ll be there. And I’ll make sure to text Annie to see what she wants me to bring.”
“Oh, I can tell you that right now – your pineapple upside down cake. It’s a smash every time.”
“And I can make it with my eyes closed. Perfect.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up.
I sighed as I slipped the phone back into my pocket, stepping over and watching the snow fall harder outside.
It was going to be the month to make or break my career.
And all I could hope was that a certain Irishman didn’t distract me and ruin it all.
Chapter 5
FINN
“Aiden, eh? I like that – good Irish name.”
Baby Aiden cooed, but his mother didn’t say a word; her attention was totally taken up by her texts. Young people these days were obsessed with their phones, but this was damn ridiculous.
“Ms. Martin?” I asked, waving my hand in front of the young mother’s face. “Got your attention?”
She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Hold on.”
“Hold on? Something more important ya got to worry about than your kid?”
Little Aiden was the last appointment of the day. Actually, that wasn’t even true – it was an extra appointment I’d tacked onto the end of my day. A woman had called during lunch, asking if there was any way I could squeeze in her young daughter – a girl who’d recently had a baby – to give her a checkup and some newborn mother tips.
That was no problem for me, of course. I didn’t get into medicine to score a buck – I did it to help. But while I most certainly didn’t expect my patients to fall over themselves thanking me for my expertise, the tiniest bit of gratitude didn’t hurt. I wasn’t getting that from Megan, the barely seventeen-year-old girl seated across from me.
Hell, I wasn’t even getting her attention. Her eyes had been glued to her phone since she’d walked into the office. Her mother, on the other hand, was all ears, listening carefully as I spoke. The baby, who I had to admit was damn adorable, was in his carrier in the seat next to her. Every now and then the poor kid would reach out his chubby little hands towards his mother, who didn’t even notice.
Megan sighed one more time, turning off her phone and making a big production out of putting it away as she looked at me and said, “What?”
“Megan, this is you boy we’re talking about here. There a reason you’re acting like I’m your teacher going over the weekend’s homework?”
“You’ll have to excuse her,” her mother defended, looking defeated. “She’s really tired from the baby. And on top of that, she just started her senior year and…”
It didn’t take a family therapist to see what was going on here – classic case of spoiled kid and enabling parent. But they could sort out that little dynamic on their own time.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I just want to make sure she knows-”
Right in the middle of my talking, Megan’s eyes lit up as if something very important had occurred to he
r. She yanked her phone out of her pocket so fast she nearly whipped it across the room. Then, smiling and chuckling to herself, her thumbs blurred as she typed.
I couldn’t handle it, so I reached forward and yanked the phone out of her hands. The look on her face when she realized what had happened was the most interest I’d seen from her since she’d stepped into my office.
“What the hell?” she asked. “You can’t do that! Give me back my phone!”
“Megan, your mother’s paying good money to get you in here, and I’m cutting into my free time see you. The least you could do is put away the phone fer twenty minutes.”
She turned to her mother, an expression of total self-righteousness on her face. “Mom!”
I wasn’t about to get into the middle of a conflict like that. I reached over and handed the phone to her mother, who took it.
“You can have your phone back. But you need to pay attention, okay?”
“I can pay attention and text at the same time. Geez, my generation grew up with phones – you old people don’t get it.”
“Old people?” I asked, tilting my head to look at her. “I’m not even forty.”
“That’s old,” Megan informed me in a snotty tone. “Like, super old.”
It was all I got from her before she grabbed the phone from her mother and returned her attention to it.
Well, I tried. No sense in trying to get blood from a stone.
“Anyway,” I said, ignoring Megan and turning to her mother. “Megan’s healthy. Good weight, good vitals, and little Aiden is healthy as a horse, too.”
Her mother smiled; Megan’s attention was still wrapped up in her phone.
“And as far as tips…believe it or not, Megan getting a good night’s sleep and eating well’s gonna go a long way. She’ll have more energy, and the nutrients will make their way into Aiden through breastmilk. Being patient with the wee one’s important, too.”
“He’s so annoying sometimes,” Megan said, finally deciding to chime in. “He cries every night at exactly two.”
“That’s a baby for you,” I said, grinding my teeth against the scathing comment I wanted to make. “They don’t know about bedtime yet.”
The Irish Doctor’s Secret Babies: A Secret Baby Romance Page 5