by Annie O'Neil
“I told you, he’s the obstetrician who was in the elevator. The lift,” she corrected herself.
“Where you had the babies.”
“Yes! Didn’t you listen to anything I said the first time?”
“Of course I...” Harriet faltered. Of course she had—but the news was so huge and with her mind still buzzing with her own pregnancy it was all a bit overwhelming. “I’m an auntie!” Tears sprang to her eyes. A mix of elation and sorrow that her sister had had her babies but that the birth had been so fraught with danger. Six weeks early and trapped in a lift. Things only Claudia could turn into silver linings.
“Harri...is everything all right?” Claudia had always been able to read her mind, even at long distance.
“Of course. I just...” I’m having a baby and the man I love doesn’t want me. “I can’t believe you had to go through so much.”
“I must admit I’m actually grateful I wasn’t conscious when everything happened with the hysterectomy. I think Patrick went through more trauma than I did—and I will be eternally grateful for what he did for me and my two little baby boys.”
“Of course. He sounds—”
“Lovely,” Claudia finished for her.
Hmm... Not necessarily the word Harriet would’ve chosen—but now she knew what her sister thought of her Doctor in Shining Armor. A double birth in a lift chased up by a hysterectomy that had ultimately saved her life. But it meant she would never have any more children. It was hard to believe her sister sounded so...so...vital! Then again, that was Claudia through and through. Vital. Brave. Undeterred. Instinctively, her hand slipped to her own belly, feeling a rush of gratitude for the microscopic life blossoming within her. You really never knew what life was going to throw at you.
This was her sister’s moment, though. She would wait to tell Claudia her news another day.
“Well, I definitely owe him a thank-you card for saving my sister!”
“And you’re still having the time of your life in Argentina?”
Tears began to trickle down Harriet’s cheeks as she nodded. That was one way to put it.
“Harri? Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Of course!” Her voice squeaked a bit as she regrouped. “I’m just so happy you’re safe and the babies are safe and I just wish I could be there for you.”
“Don’t worry, little sis. We’ll be together in London before you know it. Now!” Her sister’s voice turned uncharacteristically schoolmarmy. “I know you and I am officially telling you to quit worrying about me. Go out and enjoy Buenos Aires with that hot doc of yours!”
“I never said he was hot.” Harriet bridled.
“You didn’t have to.” Claudia laughed and then gave a sharp gasp.
“Claudy! Are you okay?” Harriet fretted, instantly forgetting her sister’s instruction.
“Yes. Yes—just testing all my new stitches. Harri, everything’s fine with me so just go and enjoy yourself for once! No need to worry. I’m in good hands.”
Something about the way Claudia’s tone shifted indicated to Harriet a certain Dr. Spencer may have just entered the room. She felt comforted and a bit bruised by the realization her sister seemed to have someone else in the role of caregiver. She’d always been the one who was there for her sister when things went topsy-turvy. Hadn’t she?
“Love you, sis.” Harriet swiped away a fresh whoosh of tears.
“Love you, too, little sis!”
“It was only by a minute!” Harriet wailed by rote.
“Yes. Which makes me older and wiser,” Her sister retorted. “Now, go on, have a steak for me! And a dance! Tango under the stars, Harri. Make sure you live a little.”
And the line clicked off.
Harriet’s fingers instinctively began toying with her locket. For the last ten years it had just been the two of them. Harriet and Claudia against the world! Or, more accurately, Harriet on standby while Claudia took on the world. Now it would be Claudia, her two little boys and maybe...a Patrick?
Was it finally time to stop living life’s Big Moments through her sister? Have moments of her own? A child. A family?
Her hands slipped down to her tummy. Planned or not, she had the baby part covered. Just no Mr. Right.
An image of Matteo popped into her mind...all lean, sexy, smiley... He was Mr. Right for All the Wrong Reasons. Like it or not, she knew in her heart she was in love with him and would just have to live with the fact the love wouldn’t be returned.
Her fingers traced a circle round her tummy before returning to the laundry, her hands folding on automatic pilot as she processed all the new information.
An auntie! A mother... Of all the things she’d never let herself imagine she would be, she was going to be a mother. The news was going to take a while to feel anything close to real, let alone something she would tell people. And by people she meant her sister.
“Someone looks happy!” Matteo called from the courtyard, the usual stream of children following in his wake. She stared at him as if he wasn’t real, only to realize he was still speaking. “If I’d known folding made you so smiley, I would have put you on laundry duty from the get-go.”
Play along...just play along for now. There’s time. “Yes, it’s the first thing I mastered in Nursing 101.” She pushed up from the blanket where she’d been sitting to a kneeling position and considered him.
Was this how they were going to deal with things? Ignore the baby elephant in the courtyard? It would be tough but, then again, they hadn’t even had a day to process what was happening. Besides, she was English. Suppressing emotion in the face of adversity was her forté. Time to fly the Union Jack for baby Monticello! Or Torres. Monticello-Torres? No...that sounded pretentious. She shook her head clear and looked up with a smile as he approached.
“I’ve just had some very good news, actually.”
“Ah! Good news! That’s something we enjoy here.” Matteo’s smile hit her straight in the heart and did its usual warm twirly journey around her insides. There was no point in fighting it. He gave her a funny tummy. That’s just how things were. But winning his heart as he had won hers? There was no chance of that happening. Zero.
“Eh, bribónes! Vaminos.” He shooed away a gaggle of boys starting up a game of football on the edges of the arbor. “You should all be having lunch now. Make your bodies and brains grow a bit more before we get you back to school, ai?”
Harriet smiled. It was nice to see him with the children. He was a complete natural. Funny sometimes, serious when he needed to be. Reliable. She understood perfectly the complexities of working in an orphanage—and it warmed her to see the abundance of affection the children received here. Matteo obviously held the respect of all of them. He wasn’t a cuddly presence but he was a loved one. What was it that stopped him from loving babies? Their baby? Suppress, suppress, suppress! More time to digest...that’s what we need.
“So...” Matteo settled on a bench across from her, grabbing an armful of laundry from her pile as he did so. “What’s this news?”
She opened her mouth to tell him and found herself mimicking a goldfish. What took precedence here? The birth of her nephews? The lift? The doctor? The hysterectomy? The fact her sister didn’t want her to jump on a plane was the one that hurt most. Harriet the One Woman Support Team her sister always called her. But not this time.
Her sister had always wanted her.
Tears popped into her eyes and she knew if she spoke, they’d start cascading down her cheeks.
Uh-oh. Too late. No speaking required.
“Hey.” Matteo was kneeling beside her before she had a moment to understand what was happening, the back of his hand wiping away the freshly spilt tears. She batted his hand away. Feeling his touch was too close to affection. Something she didn’t want to get used to.
“It’s my sister,” she managed, surges of emotion tightening her throat.
“What’s happened?” He was all alertness now, ready for action. Despite herself, she smiled through her tears, a hiccough working its way to the surface before she managed to speak. She felt about six years old—a first! And her untamable sister was a mother!
She looked at Matteo, knowing that if he was only willing, there were a thousand possibilities lying right there within his arms. But allowing herself to dream would only lead to more heartbreak. She sucked in a breath and refocused. This was about her sister. Not about a romance that was never going to happen.
“She’s had her twins.”
“Amor! That’s wonderful. Congratulations to you all.” Before she knew what was happening, Matteo’s cheek was on hers, kisses being planted on first one side of her face then the other, lips shifting past hers in a happy blur of scent and sensation. She became aware of his hands holding her shoulders first close to him then further back so that he could inspect her.
“So these are happy tears, yes?”
“Of course, yes,” she replied, swiping at her wet cheeks, masking her face with her fingers so she could regroup. “It’s just...”
She felt him watching her expectantly, looking so vital as he waited for information. He wasn’t to be her lover. Or a father to their child. Was she ever going to learn to be near him and not ache for more?
Despite a very early morning email to St. Nick’s insisting she already knew Casita Verde fitted the criteria for a new clinic, Dr. Bailey had insisted she stay the agreed duration. Told her it would be good for her. Torture was more like it!
She really needed a friend right now and her choices were startlingly limited. She peeked at Matteo through her fingers. Could she shore up her emotional reserves to face a friendship with him with no promise of love? Maybe if she’d been some sort of elegant film star from the nineteen-thirties...or a rock star...or... Harriet Monticello, Nurse At Large?
Matteo sat next to her, patiently waiting for her to collect herself, pulling one of her hands into his, a thumb idly stroking across the back of her hand. She kept her eyes on his thumb shifting this way and that as she made her decision.
“It wasn’t an easy birth,” she began. Then the story poured out. The dramatic birth in the elevator, the emergency services, the doctor who had miraculously been in the lift with her at the time, the hysterectomy that had followed.
“It must’ve been difficult for her, to have had that decision made on her behalf.”
“Yes. I can’t imagine not having any control over whether or not I had children.” The words were out before she’d thought them through.
Matteo placed her hand back in her lap and began to pluck away the petals of a fallen flower, discarding them one by one as if they were thoughts he was no longer interested in. “It sounds as though it’s all turned out well, though?”
Harriet dipped her head, swatting at a stray tear. “Yes, that’s true. She’s got the twins, healthy and sound. So it’s not as if she has no children. And she has me,” she added, trying to add a bit of chirpiness to her tone. “I told her I’d jump on a plane tonight.”
“Oh?”
It was difficult to tell what meaning his tight response held.
“You’d want to be with your sister if she’d just had a baby, wouldn’t you?”
It came out defensively. And was meant to have been hypothetical. But she knew in an instant she’d hit on something much closer to home, something deeply, deeply painful.
She started to form an apology but didn’t know how. She didn’t know what she’d be apologizing for.
“She is very lucky. To have a sister as dedicated as you are.” Matteo smoothed past the fractured moment with a cursory pat on her knee. One you’d distractedly give to a child who’d just found out they’d done well on an inconsequential exam.
What’s hurt you so badly? Is it why you want nothing to do with me? With our child?
“Well, I agree,” Harriet shot back, injecting a bit of righteous indignation into her voice. Feeling the need to keep up the facade that something hadn’t just happened. “But that’s the part...” Her voice caught in her throat again. She couldn’t believe how hard it was to say the words.
“Harriet.” Matteo’s brow furrowed with concern. “What is it?”
“Oh, blimey—it’s almost ridiculous! I’m behaving like a child, but...” She all but choked the words out. “She said I shouldn’t come.”
“What?” Matteo’s eyebrows shot up, indignant on her behalf. “Is she not grateful to have a sister so concerned?”
Harriet waved away the shock of his response.
“No, no. I didn’t mean it like that. Of course she wants me to meet the babies and things, but she said not to come right away, she’s being taken care of. She knows I’ve only got a few weeks here and she was planning to come to London anyway. You know, once I’m done here. It’s just weird not to be helping. It’s...um... It’s...” She blew a steadying breath between her lips, unsuccessfully stemming the flow of more tears. “It’s what I’ve always done! Been there for her. I’ve always been the one she could rely on!” The words flew out as a plaintive cry, but were very heartfelt. If she hadn’t been feeling so overwhelmed by everything, she’d be feeling like a Class-A idiot. Crying like a child because things weren’t going The Way They Always Had.
C’mon, Harriet! She wants you to live your own life. Not in the shadows of hers.
* * *
“Of course you want to be with her. It’s only natural.”
Matteo pushed himself up from the ground where he’d been kneeling beside Harriet, sitting well back on the deep bench, elbows dug into his knees, hands holding his chin in support as he thought how to respond. He couldn’t bear seeing Harriet cry, but was in no position to make decisions for her. He’d all but denied paternity of their child—and was humbled she was speaking to him at all.
He forced himself to focus on the immediate scenario. If Claudia had been his sister he would’ve been on a plane in an instant. But that choice was not—and never would be—available to him.
“Your sister is your only family, sí?”
Harriet nodded, accepting the handkerchief Matteo tugged out of his pocket, twisting it back and forth in her hands after she’d dabbed at her nose and eyes.
“If you want to go, you must go. Family is paramount.” He all but flinched at his own words. He could have a family if he wanted. With Harriet. Yet he’d made it clear it wasn’t an option. Was choosing a life alone really the answer?
“But she’s the one telling me not to come!” Harriet reminded him.
“Is her health in danger?”
“No, no.” Harriet gave a tiny shake of her head. “She’s in good hands. Receiving excellent medical care. I’m sure of that. It’s just—it’s not so easy as just hopping on a plane.”
“Sure it is. My parents go back and forth to America all the time. They have a company jet. If you need to go, you will go with them. Just say the word.”
Matteo tried to keep his expression neutral. He wasn’t in the habit of offering rides on his parents’ private jet, but this was important. Even they would see that. A stab of guilt accompanied his thoughts. He hadn’t rung them in a while. Too long. Perhaps it was time to practice what he preached a bit more proactively. Try to heal the wounds that were smarting like hell right now.
“I didn’t mean like that—the logistics.” Harriet stuffed his handkerchief into her pocket, making no acknowledgement of what he’d just said about his parents, and began briskly folding the clothes, as if the quick motions would help her thoughts collect and reshape into the best solution.
“Then what do you mean?”
“I mean... Ooh!” She released a cry of exasperation. “Unless y
ou’ve been a twin to the most amazing sister in the world you just wouldn’t understand!”
“Why, Harriet Monticello! I thought you said your sister was the dramatic one.” Risky tactic, but...ah...there’s the light in her eyes I love so much.
“I think she’s trying to tell me something by saying I shouldn’t come straight away. In fact, I know she’s trying to tell me something.” She gave a short, self-effacing laugh. “Mostly because she said as much. Claudia was never really one to mince words.”
“She wouldn’t be the older twin by any chance?” Matteo smiled, pleased to be building a more complete picture of who Harriet was. How she ticked.
“Only by one teensy-weensy minute and she never—and I mean never—lets me forget it!”
“So why does your older, wiser...” he tucked the word into air quotes “...sister think you should hold off coming to see your brand-new nephews?”
He leaned back against the thick wooden beam of the arbor, trying to give her the time, and the space, to think. Regroup. Something he should no doubt be doing himself, but ignoring everything was working pretty well for him so he was going to go with it. He put everything she’d said into order and considered...
Harriet and her twin sounded like chalk and cheese. The portrait she’d painted of Claudia conjured up a woman who never took no for an answer, who ate life up with an insatiable relish. And Harriet? She embodied kindness. Was the definition of gentleness. Heart. That was more like it. She was one hundred percent heart. And if he wasn’t careful, she could so easily work her way into his.
A smile tugged at his lips as she yanked item after item off the diminishing pile of unfolded laundry and whipped it into shape. Her mind was obviously reeling with putting things in the right order—the emotions she was experiencing playing out on her face as she did. First a smile, collapsing into a frown, chased up by a lifted brow and lips pressed together to shift this way and that as if tasting the air for the hint of a solution.
He was willing to wait all day if that’s what it took.
Que? When did that seismic shift occur?