One Night, Twin Consequences (The Monticello Baby Miracles)

by Annie O'Neil

  A little shiver worked its way along her spine despite the mild winter weather. What did they call the summery winter? El veranito de San Juan? The guidebook had warned of it and she’d scrambled to take off her sensible tights on the plane. She chanced a glance at her grubby legs. Who knew she’d need kneepads at the ripe age of twenty-nine?

  Hiding her grimace, she continued to soak in the details of the courtyard. It wasn’t opulent—wonderfully comforting was more like it. Exactly what she would have done in England if it were more like...right here. Green wooden doors nestled within the walkway, signs on the outside of each door delineating bedrooms, offices and—

  “Like what you see?”

  Matteo materialized in front of her. Uh. Why, yes, she did, thank you very much, indeed.

  The fact she could only nod was probably a giveaway on that front. His dark hair, still a rumpled, silky swatch of perfection, was all but begging to be touched. So close she could see there were shadows beneath those green eyes of his. Her fingers itched to reach out and stroke his cheeks, feel the scratch of his five o’clock shadow making an appearance too early in the day. He turned to face the courtyard, reminding her she was meant to be commenting on the casita.

  “Beautiful.” That was all she managed.

  “I think you might want to come with me.” She felt Matteo’s hand press against the small of her back, steering her towards a nearby door with a large red cross on the front of it. She fought the urge to crane her neck and see what his face was doing. Confirm he was as grumpy as he sounded.

  Her back gave a little quiver as his fingers shifted a bit closer to her bum when she stepped up into the doorway. Talk about verboten! She’d have to have a talk with her body about that. Sexy, sexy, naughty nursey couldn’t undo her hairpins here. In fact...sexy, sexy, naughty nursey was someone she thought she’d never see again. Curious. She just managed to catch sight of the door sign before she entered.

  Enfermería.

  The clinic.

  Perfecto! Just the reunion she’d been hoping for! Scraped knees and a stone-faced Matteo in a clinic...about seven thousand miles from anything and everything that was familiar to her. Except medicine. Her tried and true friend.

  “You want me to start right away?” she asked hopefully, pushing open the door and scanning the room. Nice. Simple, but nice. She was a bit tired, but if popping her into the clinic to keep her out of harm’s way was how things were going to be, then she was ready to roll up her sleeves.

  “No, you silly goose.” Matteo’s voice deepened, hinting at the warmth she knew it was capable of. Harriet spied the odd pair of dark eyes darting in and out of the doorway with an accompanying giggle. Children were just as curious here as they were at home. Matteo gave her a self-effacing smirk as he spread out a clean swatch of paper on the exam table. When he moved to ease her up onto the table via a children’s footstool—how helpless did he think she was?—his scent flooded her nostrils anew. “I thought we’d see to your cuts and scrapes before you met the boss. He’s very strict about welfare. And hygiene.”

  Why did he have to smell so nice?

  “He doesn’t seem all that welcoming either,” Harriet chanced, presuming they were discussing Matteo in the third person. Which was weird. He was being weird! She might be klutzy, but this version of Matteo was not the relaxed, passionate man she’d met less than a month ago. Had it all been an act for funding? The thought didn’t sit right. She knew she didn’t excel at a lot of things but was certain about her skills at judging a man’s character.

  She narrowed her eyes and squinted at him. He was busily opening a cabinet and gathering an arsenal of bandages and cleaning agents. “What are you doing? It’s only a scraped hand and a knee full of gravel!”

  “I’m trying to be civil.”

  “Civil?” She couldn’t help bridling. “How about friendly? Maybe friendly would be a nice way to treat someone who’s just flown halfway around the world to lend a hand?”

  Matteo said nothing. Harriet felt a bit shell-shocked herself. She never spoke out like this. She was mousy, quiet Harriet, not a lippy demander of pleasantries.

  “I’m trying to...” he began, then stopped.

  “Trying to what?” She was going to go with this demanding-answers vibe that had bubbled up from somewhere she’d never tapped before. It felt good to speak so openly. So freely. “Why not issue me with a whistle and a set of guidelines and just be done with it? Then you can get on with your life and I can get on with mine.”

  Matteo pressed his hands into the counter where he’d been laying out anesthetic wipes alongside some tweezers and froze.

  So she’d hit the nail on the head. Terrific! She’d finally taken a chance—an absolutely bonkers chance that, admittedly, she’d actually been kind of forced to take, but never mind that—and had flown all this way to discover Matteo didn’t even want her here. Absolutely brilliant.

  She swiped at the tears falling from her eyes. Her feisty say-it-out-loud self was taking a nosedive back into Insecurityville. A fleeting case of false bravura. Nothing more.

  She tilted her head up to heaven, grateful Matteo wasn’t looking at her. Thankfully, it also helped stem the onset of tears. Every cloud had its silver lining. Right?

  * * *

  “I invited you in a spur-of-the-moment decision.” Matteo’s eyes were still glued to the counter. He was making a right and utter hash of this. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to greet Harriet. Not by a long shot. Hell. Who was he kidding? Fifty percent of him had been hoping she wouldn’t come. The other fifty percent?

  He turned to face her. Might as well know the truth.

  Sí. Still sucker-punched by her beauty. By the impact she’d had on him in such a short time. Even if she did have dirt smeared all over her face and grimy hands and knees, like one of the children. Unexpectedly, he started laughing.

  “What?” Harriet’s purse-lipped response preceded an erratic once-over of her injuries before she hobbled from the table to examine herself in the mirror.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” She rounded on him.

  Matteo was fully laughing now.

  “What? That you look like one of the children who scavenge for garbage?”

  “Yes!”

  She was irate now—hands on hips, blue eyes wide, open demanding an explanation—and for some reason it fueled his laughter even more.

  “Because, amorcito...” he stuffed a fist in front of his mouth, trying to fake-cough away his laughter “...you look like an angelic urchin with your blue eyes and blonde hair. The children will think you are from heaven.”

  His voice trailed off, leaving a silence humming with expectation. It would’ve been so easy to pull her into his arms. Cup her face in his hands and kiss her sweet rosebud of a mouth. Laughing children and the buzz of activity could be heard out in the courtyard as they stood there, eyes connected to each other’s as if they could stay that way forever. But that’s not how things worked here. How he worked. Even so...another moment wouldn’t hurt.

  Slowly, but very surely, he saw the puff of indignation in her deflate. A smile started to tease at her lips, gradually climbing into her eyes. Unexpectedly, she too began to laugh.

  “It looks like I’ll have a shiner by the end of the day. Whatever day it is. Is it Sunday or Monday?”

  “It’s Monday, chuchura. You must be exhausted. Come here.” He patted the exam table. “Up you get.”

  He might have been using the same words he would with one of the children, but when she slipped up onto the table, and he pulled his wheelie stool over so that he was in prime position to pluck the grit out of her knee, image after image of their night in her office flooded his mind, making it virtually impossible to focus.

  “Scraped knees aren’t contagious, you know.”

  “I know. I am ju
st thinking of the best approach.”

  “For a scraped knee?” Harriet wasn’t convinced by his peculiar expression. “Do you want me to do it? Give me the tweezers.”

  “No! Not unless you want to do it. I’ve got things to do.”

  What was he doing? Playing medical table tennis?

  “If I’m keeping you from something...” Her defenses flew up at the increasing level of testiness in his voice.

  “No! No.” He forced himself to level his tone. “You’re good. I’m good. We’re all good.”

  Harriet tipped her chin to the side and shot him a dubious look.

  “Somehow I don’t quite believe you.”

  What could he say to that? She was absolutely right. The fact that she was here had upended everything. And it wasn’t exactly as if he could say that, could he? He’d been the one to invite her here and now he was giving her the cold shoulder?

  He was going to have to face facts. Having Harriet here would challenge everything he’d set so solidly in stone after his sister had died. And he didn’t want things challenged. Wasn’t ready for change. And yet...it had been his invitation that had brought her here.

  He barked out a hollow laugh into the tiled room. What was it his mother always said? If you ask, then you shall receive?

  “Harriet, I—I need you to know I don’t normally have...” He opened his eyes a bit wider as if it was some sort of magical code for one-night stands.

  “What? And you think I do?”

  Apparently it was.

  “No—not at all.” He didn’t. Not in the slightest. What had happened between them had been special. Singular. He knew it in his very core. He hoped she knew it. But saying as much could mean opening the doors to further possibility and that’s not how he worked. How life worked.

  “Because if that’s what you think of me, then you can just think yourself right out of that thought.” She gave him a prim nod and pressed her hands against the exam table as if to dismount then stopped herself, as he was directly blocking her exit route. “You know what?” She started over with a brusque shake of her head, blonde hair forming a halo round her face. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to say it.”

  “You don’t even know—”

  She held up a hand to stop him. “Yes, I do. I might not get the wording exactly right, but you want what happened between us to be...what happened between us. Niente. Nada. Nul. No more. I know. I get it.”

  She had more courage than he did. Saying out loud the words that coming from him would sound so...so arrogant! Dismissive, even.

  A twist of self-loathing shot through him. She didn’t deserve this.

  “I can’t offer you what you want.”

  “How do you even know what I want?”

  Her expression was defiant. Defensively so. Had he meant something to her in so short a time? Stupid question.

  She wasn’t someone who had casual sex. Neither was he. And she meant something to him. That’s why he was doing this. Setting boundaries. To keep both of their lives in order.

  At least that’s what he would keep telling himself.

  He clapped his hands in a let’s-get-going way and took up the pair of tweezers. “Shall we get you cleaned up so you can meet the children?”

  “Absolutely.” He watched as she forced on a bright smile. “The children are why I’m here. Aren’t they, Dr. Torres?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HARRIET STABBED THE long number into her mobile, knowing her phone bill would be about a trillion pounds when she got home, but she didn’t care. She needed a dose of Claudia. Strong-willed, deeply passionate, problem-conquering Claudia. She gave her freshly bandaged knee a rub. Staring at Matteo as he had plucked the bits of gravel out of her as if she were a rascally five-year-old had been a test. The first of many, she imagined.

  As the click and whir of the number began to go through, she suddenly noticed the time. It was still morning in Buenos Aires and Argentina was well ahead of Los Angeles. Being overtired wasn’t something she wanted to add to Claudia’s list of pregnancy woes. She probably already had fatigue mastered without an insecure sister unleashing a stream of worries on her. No. Check that. Harriet wasn’t insecure—she was just overwhelmed with “new.”

  “New” was Claudia’s specialty. Same old, same old was Harriet’s. They balanced one another. The yin to the other’s yang. Or whichever way round that was meant to work. Claudia would be the exciting-as-they-come mother and she’d be the reliable auntie.

  A shot of excitement at her impending auntie-hood brought a smile to her lips as she pressed the hang-up symbol. Six weeks, two days and a handful of hours from now she would be Auntie to two little boys! Who would, no doubt, be gorgeous, like their mother.

  Their mother, who was in stupid Los Angeles, not helping her out of this stupid mess with Mr. Stupid right here in the heart of Stupidville.

  Not that she was a grown woman or anything who could sort out her own problems. Right?

  A little moan of self-pity escaped her lips as she leant back on the wooden bench she’d found tucked away in this far corner of the courtyard. She traced a finger along a thick plank. It, like most of the furniture she’d seen, looked solid. Well crafted. Beautiful.

  One of Matteo’s resources?

  No doubt. She imagined he had fingers in all sorts of fruitful pies.

  An image of him lifting a forkful of glossy cherry pie in her direction sped across her brain.

  That wasn’t going to get her anywhere, was it?

  She tried to cut the image into bits with each lazy swing of the overhead fan. Chop. Chop. Chop.

  Not working! Picturing an imaginary Matteo being obliterated by the world’s slowest ceiling fan was not a problem solver.

  Frustration began to nibble away at her already frayed nerve endings. Why did Matteo have to be so...so...? So... Matteo?

  She was going to have to regroup. Block That Night from her mind. It, after all, wasn’t the reason she’d leapt onto a plane as if it were the beginning of a magical rainbow-laced journey.

  The reason she’d come was because of Casita Verde’s children and the good that would come of a new clinic. Nothing to do with the dark-haired, golden-tanned, green-eyed hunk of gorgeousness who ran it. The one who’d run his hands just about everywhere over her naked body before—

  Stop it.

  Fantasizing about what had been didn’t make right now any better.

  A flash of irritation shot through her. One acknowledging that Matteo was right.

  If they were busy having a delicious romance, all of their time, all of their energy wouldn’t be going to the children. St. Nick’s was making an investment in her. In her work. And if she came up trumps, Casita Verde would get a new clinic and she could go home to follow exactly the same routine she’d been following quite happily for her entire adult life. Back to the status quo in no time. Just what she wanted. So! Harriet shook her head and forced on a smile, Operation Crush the Crush was going to have to be put in motion.

  An unexpected rush of children into the courtyard brought her to her feet. She saw a woman being ushered in and— Oh, no!

  Harriet quickly wove her way through the children to reach the heavily pregnant woman’s side. She was young. Teenager young. Fifteen, sixteen maybe? And letting out the most extraordinary howl of pain Harriet thought she had ever heard. Her arms, legs, face...everything about her looked unnaturally swollen.

  Pre-eclampsia. It had to be. Common in teenaged pregnancies. The only way to prevent the swelling from causing this woman’s death was to deliver the child immediately.

  She took hold of the young woman’s arm and steered her the handful of steps up into the clinic.

  “Cómo te llamas?”

  “Carlita,” the young woman managed to gasp.
/>
  “Carlita. That’s a lovely name. Hablo Ingles?” Harriet wasn’t going to risk her limited Spanish on an emergency like this if she didn’t have to. She scanned the courtyard, which suddenly felt as large as an aircraft hangar.

  Where was Matteo? She asked a couple of young boys to find him.

  “Sí.” She began again after blowing a steadying breath through tightly pursed lips, “Yes, I studied it in school.”

  “I’m just bringing you to the clinic. How far along are you?”

  “Maybe thirty-six weeks. I’m not sure.”

  Harriet winced. Carlita very likely hadn’t been receiving check-ups. Thirty-six weeks was early but not too risky. Any earlier than that and the child could face severe medical issues.

  “How long have you been having contractions?”

  “Bring her in here.” Matteo materialized in the doorway, the expression on his face completely devoid of light as his eyes hit Carlita. This was a side to him she hadn’t seen. Her heart clenched tight. There was something personal in his response to the young woman.

  He indicated they enter a room Harriet hadn’t seen yet. When he swung the door open her eyes widened.

  “Were you saving this as a surprise for later?”

  “I was saving it,” Matteo replied matter-of-factly, “for someone who was about to give birth.”

  The immaculately maintained obstetrics room might not have had every single bell and whistle but it was well equipped enough to handle, at the very least, straightforward situations.

  “Can you get a urine sample and then prep her on the table, please? I just need to make a quick call.” Matteo had a phone tucked between his chin and shoulder as he scanned the medicine cabinet.

  “Are you happy to give an intramuscular injection?”

  “Of course.” Harriet tried not to take offense at his tone. This was an emergency. Not the time to quarrel about how much she could and couldn’t do.