One Night, Twin Consequences (The Monticello Baby Miracles)

by Annie O'Neil

  It had felt, for the first time since her sister had left years ago, lonely.

  She had been missing something. No, that wasn’t it. She’d been missing someone.

  She looked beyond Dr. Bailey’s feet, a bit surprised to see the stapler had been flung to the opposite side of her office—but at this stage in the game anything could have been anywhere. Last night had been... Last night had been just about the most scrumptious, unreal thing she thought she’d ever lived through.

  “Bit late for a spring clean, isn’t it, Harriet?”

  “What? Sorry?” Harriet scrambled up from the floor, her mind shifting into work mode after a decidedly X-rated journey elsewhere. “Sorry, Dr. Bailey?”

  “I said it’s a bit late for a spring clean.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “It being July and all.”

  “Ah. Yes!” She put on her bright, efficient voice, realizing her office was still looking a bit more post-cyclone than uber-organized. Her normal mode. As if she had a normal any more now that she’d had such a wickedly wonderful night with... Matteo. She couldn’t even think his name without her belly launching into a heated pole dance.

  “Well, it’s a good thing you’re setting your office to rights as your replacement will be needing everything clearly laid out.”

  If eyes could actually boing out of their sockets Harriet was certain hers would’ve chosen this moment to do so. Was she being fired?

  “I beg your pardon?” There weren’t cameras in the offices, were there?

  “You’ll be off soon.”

  “Off?” She felt as dumb as she was certain she sounded. A spinster and jobless? She should’ve stayed under the desk.

  “Yes. To Buenos Aires.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. Wow. Tongues really did go dry when shocking news was received.

  “Do you fancy a cup of tea?” she croaked.

  “Don’t you mean yerba mate?” Dr. Bailey chortled. “You’ll be wanting to hone your Spanish skills, my dear.” Dr. Bailey gave her a warm smile before nodding towards her wall calendar. “The board would like you to head out to Buenos Aires to work at Casita Verde in a fortnight or so—at end of the month at the latest. Time enough for a handover and a quick Spanish course.”

  “But I was terrible!”

  “Well...” Dr. Bailey coughed away some embarrassment. “I did hear things might have gone a bit better. But we received an email this morning from Dr. Torres saying the two of you had had an in-depth talk afterwards and his impressions were all very favorable.”

  Too right!

  Harriet made a nondescript noise, hoping it said, Yes—we spoke academically all night long. Nothing naked happened here. No nakedness at all.

  “It’s your work, not your public speaking the board is really interested in. So—if you’re up for a risk, a bit of excitement, you’re heading to new climes.”

  “Great!” she said in her fake happy voice, taking a slurp of day-old tea that had survived the night’s cyclonic lovemaking.

  “You did get along with Dr. Torres, didn’t you, Harriet?”

  “I’m sorry?” Harriet all but spat out her tea before realizing he’d not said “get it on.” Ooh, subconscious! Quit your trickery!

  “So you wouldn’t mind working with him?”

  It was, of course, in that moment that Harriet eagle-eyed one of Matteo’s socks, which was hanging from the filing-cabinet drawer. She sidled over to block it and put on her best casually delighted face.

  “No! Absolutely not. Fine. Just fine.”

  “Well, that’s just fantastic! I was hoping you’d be pleased. The two of you have so much in common.”

  Like the smokin’ hot passion we gave in to all because we thought we’d never see each other ever again!

  “Now, Harriet. Don’t look so worried. We’ll look after everyone and everything here as if you were doing it yourself.”

  Harriet was feeling the foundations of who she believed herself to be crumbling away. When her parents had died and her sister had left town, St. Nick’s had filled her need to be needed, and now Dr. Bailey was saying everything would run smoothly without her? Oh, no, no, no! Wait. The twins! Her sister was coming back. She couldn’t go. No. She wouldn’t leave.

  “What about my sister? She needs me!”

  “When is she coming?”

  Honesty forced an answer. “Ten...maybe twelve weeks from now? But I have to change so much in the house. Child-proofing...washing sheets...” Even she knew she was waffling now.

  Dr. Bailey slung a fatherly arm across her shoulders as she snatched Matteo’s sock from her filing cabinet and stuffed it in her pocket. “Plenty of time to go to Buenos Aires and come back again. We’ll miss you, of course—but change does a person the world of good sometimes.”

  “I can’t wait!” she squeaked through a frozen smile. Nothing like a bit of change.

  * * *

  Harriet was feeling an awful lot like Maria von Trapp.

  Casita Verde’s flagship center was big. Grand, actually. And here she was, standing outside, suitcase in hand, with an endless stream of questions yet to be answered and absolutely no ability to play the guitar or make dresses out of drapery. So perhaps a bit less like Maria von Trapp than she’d originally thought.

  At this juncture? She was willing to try... Or to run after the taxi driver and beg him to take her back to the airport.

  She tilted her head back and looked up. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d expected, but an enormous stone edifice with beautiful tile mosaics of trees, flowers and other happy-making shapes hadn’t exactly been what had popped into her mind. The huge front door was a deep green. Like Matteo’s eyes.

  Her stomach churned.

  If she’d had any confidence in her singing she might’ve burst into some sort of plucky song in a vain attempt to give herself courage or confidence or whatever it was she needed in order to reach out and press the brass buzzer.

  Why, why why had she agreed to this?

  She was supposed to be at home, finishing up baby-proofing the house for her sister. Only six tiny little weeks to go before she would officially be an aunt, and she was here in the land of tango and voracious carnivores? And Matteo.

  She gave herself a little shake.

  She’d be home in four weeks so she would still have time for the finishing touches but... She took in a deep breath. How does air smell different? She shook her head in disbelief. Being here was something she’d never, ever in a million squillion years imagined herself doing.

  Then again, quite a few things had been falling into that category lately. Having naughty sex in her office with just about the most amazing man she’d ever met was pretty close to topping the charts at this juncture. Her body responded with a shivery reminder of just how nice it had been. Not that she’d heard so much as a whisper from Matteo since he’d disappeared That Night. What a confidence builder!

  Not that she’d expected daily contact. They’d made no promises to one another and certainly she’d never expected to see him again. It was probably one of the reasons she’d been so brazen That Night. Who was fooling who here? It was all the brazen she had! And using it all up in one go when she wouldn’t need it anymore? Not the sharpest of moves.

  When she’d received Matteo’s invitation, via Dr. Bailey, to work at Casita Verde, it had been as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of her body and replaced with helium. She hadn’t even been able to answer. She had just nodded. A lot. Matteo wanted to see her again.

  And then...nothing.

  Unless you counted a politely worded informational PDF sent via “Administrator” with no personal add-ons other than a reminder that it was winter in Buenos Aires so she’d best pack a warm coat and summer clothes as the weather was variable.
She’d harrumphed at the computer.

  At least “Administrator” had cared if she got frostbite.

  And she’d said as much to the non-English-speaking taxi driver on her way into Buenos Aires after thanking the heavens she’d printed out the address of Casita Verde in large print on a huge piece of paper. Preparedness was key when you had no idea what was coming. Two weeks of intensive Spanish classes weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

  “I doubt he even knows I’m arriving today.” Harriet had begun, her voice not particularly audible above the blare of a tango song filling the cab. At least it had made talking to herself less embarrassing.

  “Dr. Bailey probably made the entire thing up to see if I was brave enough to leave St. Nick’s for the first time in, well, forever. It was almost like he didn’t want me there! He practically booted me out the door!” She’d given her best astonished face in the direction of the rear-view mirror and continued, the taxi driver taking no notice of her whatsoever.

  “I mean, honestly! I really needed at least—at least—a month, maybe two, to hand over everything to the staff nurses, and what did he give me?” She’d looked into the rearview mirror again, half expecting to see an eyebrow lifting with curiosity.

  Nothing.

  The driver had been too engrossed in his radio sing-along. Typical. Sign number two she shouldn’t have boarded the plane. Not beyond passport control more than half an hour and already she was invisible.

  She carried on.

  “Three weeks! Can you believe it? Three weeks to hand over a decade’s worth of diligence. Or...well...a lot of years. And diligence. And having no life, even though that part might be my fault. But seriously? What does he think I am? A pair of castanets on overdrive?” She gave the rearview mirror another indignant look. She was on a roll now.

  The car lurched and Harriet’s hands flew to her stomach. She’d been sick on the plane and had put it down to nerves—but as the car zigzagged through the thick morning traffic she was beginning to wonder if she didn’t suffer a bit from motion sickness. She blew her breath into her hand and sniffed. Thank goodness for that little toothbrush and toothpaste they give you on the plane. The driver unleashed a flurry of what she expected were ruby-colored unpleasantries as a lorry all but took the front of the taxi off. Sign number three?

  “You want to take a guess at what Dr. Bailey said when I protested?” Harriet didn’t bother pausing. This was obviously a soliloquy and she was going to make the most of it.

  “Go on! Get out of here and go buy yourself something Argentinian to wear! Whatever that might be. It’s not like the streets of London are flooded with...with whatever Argentinians wear.”

  Her voice petered out with her confidence so she pressed her nose against the window finally taking in all the sights and sounds she hadn’t even begun to imagine. Including floods of sleek-looking ebony-haired Argentinian women looking all sexy and chic while she just felt rumpled and jet-lagged.

  A sting of tears threatened as the newness of it all hit her.

  When Dr. Bailey had all but shooed her out of the office she hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry. He’d practically chased her out of the ward as if she’d been a bad smell. So what if she was a homebody? Or, more accurately, a St. Nick’s body. She loved it there. It was her life! And, from the looks of things, her “all” hadn’t been enough for her boss and mentor.

  “There’s more to life than St. Nick’s has to offer!”

  Those were Dr. Bailey’s words that had felt the stabbiest. Akin to betrayal.

  When her parents had died ten years ago she’d shifted from useful daughter to useful sister. Claudia had taken their parents’ death as a cue to grab life voraciously by the collar and shake as much fun, passion, and drama out of it as she could. “If I go down? I want to be in a plane flying across the savannah of Africa, too! I am going to go down sucking the very marrow out of life!”

  In fact, when she’d rung Claudia to tell her about her ignominious booting out, her twin had all but offered to trade places. Her voice had lowered and gone all are-you-freakin’-kidding-me? on her. “A month with a sexy Latin doctor in Buenos Aires? You’d be mad not to go!”

  “But what about the house? About my job? About your twins?”

  “What about them?” Claudia had asked, as if jumping on the plane was a done deal. “I’m not due for weeks yet and won’t be flying with them straight out of the womb. Chill!”

  Too much California or just plain nutter?

  Then again, what else was it her sister had said? She ran a finger over the door’s buzzer as if it were a magic eight ball. “Finally!” Her sister’s voice reverberated through her memory. “Acting from your heart and not that overactive head of yours!”

  Little tingles of delight shimmied through her tummy as if to back up her sister’s words. It was true that when she’d been with Matteo it had felt incredibly...liberating.

  Tears swooped into her eyes as she stared at the brass doorbell some more.

  No-o-o-o!

  This was not how she wanted Matteo to see her. It would be, she imagined, exactly the scenario he had anticipated. Why he’d put “Administrator” in charge of her welcome. She was a nerdy, change-resistant, too-fragile-to-take-it-on-the-chin research nurse.

  She turned away from the epically huge wooden door and shook her head, willing the emotions squeezing at her chest, her throat, her eyes to leave her be. Give her a moment’s respite to be brave. She stamped her feet and gave her shoulders a shake.

  C’mon, Harriet. Channel your sister if you have to, but you did not just spend twenty hours having a four-year-old kick the back of your seat only to go running back home with your tail between your legs. It is time for you to stand on your own two feet!

  “¡Cuidado!”

  Harriet’s head whipped to the left just in time to see a swarm of children careening towards her at high speed. Her Spanish might not be up to much but she was pretty sure she was being told to get out of the way—and fast.

  She took a step back and immediately regretted it. Her foot hit a slick of wet leaves with no intention of staying stationary. Her arms windmilled to gain balance as her knees buckled against the bulk of her suitcase. As she somersaulted over the back of it she felt a microsecond’s regret she hadn’t brought the one with wheels.

  “Whoa!”

  Harriet’s battle with gravity was being lost in a slow-motion collapse towards the pavement. Her hands hit the ground with a skidding jolt. She was already feeling the abrasion’s initial burn as one of her knees took a hit of gravel. Looked like her “good impression skirt” had been a bad idea, then.

  There would be a need for tweezers in her immediate future.

  What she hadn’t expected was such an apocalyptically klutzy landing that she’d received a face full of dirt, more gravel and— Oh... Actually, those were some very nice tiles. What a beautiful blue!

  Her eyes remained focused on the ground, but she could hear the children circle her, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish. Her brain was too addled by the fall to make much sense of what they were saying. After a moment’s assessment that, no, she hadn’t broken anything, she took a slow breath, regrouped and turned herself round to face her spectators.

  Standing above her, backlit by a clear blue sky, was none other than... Matteo Torres.

  “Harriet! I see you’ve met the children.”

  Who made him behave like a bemused Captain Von Trapp? Had someone sent a memo?

  She pulled her hand away from her face. Could she really feel any more like an idiot?

  Well.

  She could be naked.

  She yanked at the hem of her skirt to make sure she wasn’t doing a fresh pair of underwear display to boot.

  Her tummy did its own special gymnastics routine. The sexy kind. Who knew her in
sides were capable of feeling torrid? The fuzz of memory shifted into a connection between her eyes and brain. Matteo was offering her a hand up. He did not look amused.

  Awkward!

  “Thank you. Gracias,” she mumbled, reaching out her scraped hand with not a little mortification.

  “Good to see you have such a command of our native tongue.”

  Matteo’s face was unreadable but she would’ve put money on his tone: Smug.

  “Bueno verte tambien, Dr. Torres.” Harriet tugged her hand out of his with a sniff.

  She hadn’t spent the entire flight watching the Spanish language films without subtitles for nothing. Y Tu Mama Tambien that!

  She wiped her hand uselessly along her filthy skirt. Jaunty riposte or no, she got the message. Matteo didn’t want her here.

  Without a second glance at her, she watched as he briskly began dispensing children hither and yon. Some through the big green door, some down around the corner and a couple of youngsters who were... Oh! Picking up her suitcase and her carry-on bags, lugging them through the stone portico into...

  Oh... The most beautiful courtyard she thought she’d ever seen in her life. It was...bewitching.

  A fire lit in her chest. If she’d not left home, she never would have seen this magical place.

  Red terracotta tiles bedecked a covered walkway encircling a large—huge!—central green, dotted here and there with what she guessed were fruit trees, each ringed with gorgeous mosaics made from a mishmash of broken ceramics.

  Had the children done those? Amazing.

  In fact, now that she’d given herself a few moments to take it all in, the entire courtyard was bedecked by one art project after the other. Tables and benches made of reclaimed wood. Were those old pallets made into a tree swing? Genius! Broken bits of mirror, pottery and pebbles bedecked the columns holding up a second-story walkway. It was brilliant. If this place was anything like St. Nick’s, there were breakages aplenty. And to turn them into art? Inspired.