One Night, Twin Consequences (The Monticello Baby Miracles)

by Annie O'Neil

  * * *

  “Well?” Matteo looked up from his paperwork without so much as a greeting when Harriet finally returned to the clinic.

  It had been a long afternoon at the hospital. Her Spanish was still very basic and communicating via a dictionary and her own limited vocabulary had taken it out of her. She was bushed. A smile and a nice cup of tea would’ve been incredibly welcoming about now.

  “We won’t know for at least a day. If not two.”

  “And Theresa?” Matteo craned his head as if Harriet had been hiding the pregnant girl behind her.

  “She’s gone back to her dormitory.”

  “Dormitory?”

  “She’s at university. Her parents don’t know,” she added before Matteo had a chance to question her. “I’ve got her mobile number and a promise that she’ll meet me for the results when we get the call.” She put up a hand when she saw Matteo was about to interrupt her. Give a girl a chance, why don’t you? “Here. And, yes, I went back with her to her dormitory so I know how to find her if she doesn’t show up. We also obtained permission from the doctor for the results of her tests to be phoned to us here at the casita. She said she’d prefer to come here than the hospital. Oh! And I bought her some prenatal multivitamins.”

  “Oh?” He pulled open a drawer and shifted things around until he unearthed a small yellow pad. “I can get you a reimbursement right away.”

  Harriet waved it away with a smile. “This one can be on me. I have a daily stipend from St. Nick’s and since I haven’t been out at all since I arrived it’s not a problem.”

  “Were you planning on doing much sightseeing?” Matteo leaned back in his chair, an eyebrow quirked with curiosity.

  Harriet stayed silent, fighting the urge to scream. Or cry. She’d fought that urge frequently over the past few days. She obviously knew him less well than she’d thought, but, goodness gracious, Matteo really knew how to bring out the heavily ignored ends of her emotional spectrum. The sting of tears threatened as her fingers crept up to give her locket a rub. C’mon Harriet! You’re the calm, rational, steady-tempered twin. And yet she was already beginning to feel worn, careening from one emotional extreme to the other. This was all new terrain for her and if Matteo would just take a few moments to behave with a bit of much-needed compassion, it would be much easier to approach the next few weeks with Mr. Grumpy with a smile.

  “No,” Harriet amazed herself by replying in a bright voice. “As I said on the first day, I am here to work. So, if you’ll excuse me...?” She didn’t even wait for a reply, just turned on her heel and swiftly left the clinic.

  She needed to get to her tiny little room, and fast. Its cozy interior had given her comfort in the past few days as she’d adjusted to the new surroundings, the new language, the new Matteo.

  Miraculously, she managed to maintain the tiniest grip of emotional control until she reached her room. The last thing she was going to do was let Matteo see her cry. Let him know how much she longed to be with him. Because that was what was happening. She was fighting desire the way a musketeer fought baddies. With every ounce of energy she had.

  Harriet shut the door to her room behind her, only just making it to her bed before the tears began to flow in earnest. It was all she could do to stop the sobs burning her chest from filling the room. She stuffed her head into her pillow and poured the tumult of emotions into the downy silencer. She cried until there were no more tears. Her emotions spent, she rolled onto her back and stared into the growing darkness of her room.

  They worked well together, her ever rational side told her. And that’s what she needed to focus on. All the emotional tension bouncing between them had stood in the way of her really putting her nose to the grindstone for the assessment she’d promised Dr. Bailey.

  She pushed herself up in surprise.

  She hadn’t thought of Dr. Bailey or St. Nick’s, not really, for...days. A whole week! The world she had thought completed her own had all but disappeared since she had been here. It didn’t take much divining to know it was a “who” rather than a “what” that had opened her eyes to so much more in the world.

  She lay back on to the quilt with a heightened sense of awareness of just how much she had seen and learned in such a short time.

  Her mind drifted and wandered and she realized with a start she must’ve dozed off as her room was cloaked in darkness. The night was still warm and her small window was cracked open enough to smell the fresh scent of the late-night air. She’d have to be fully awake in a few hours, ready for a new day. A day where she and Matteo would behave with professional respect towards each other and nothing more. Just as the Queen herself might’ve behaved.

  An ironic smile hit her lips in gratitude for her English stoicism. Her ability to behave as if everything was perfectly all right, even if everything inside her was devastated by a romance that could never be.

  She stood to undo her blouse and skirt, uncharacteristically letting them drop to the floor. She lay back on the bed, focusing on the sensation of the well-worn cotton sheet against her skin. The softness of it. She shifted a leg, imagining the soft caress of the sheet was, in fact, Matteo’s hands. His fingers skimming along the length of her thigh. A warmth began to grown within her. She knew she should fight it, but didn’t. Just this once.

  Her hands shifted across her belly. She was surprised to feel how soft it was. The tiniest of arcs upwards, instead of the gentle slope and swoop it normally made. She hadn’t remembered eating more than she usually did. Sure, the food here was good but... She laid her hands on top of her belly as if it would help her divine if her body really had changed or if she was imagining things.

  A thought came to her. A shocking thought.

  She lifted her hands and moved them so that they hovered above her breasts. When she finally raised the courage to touch them, feeling the added plumpness, recalling the slight hint of blue veins she had noted but dismissed that morning, she knew instantly what she needed to do. Inching herself out of bed as if she were surrounded by a floor full of sleeping children, she moved with exaggerated stealth. After tugging on a T-shirt and her skirt, she decided to forego flip-flops and, as quietly as she could, made her way to the clinic.

  By the time she arrived, her stomach was churning. She clicked the door shut as quietly as she could, hoping the light wouldn’t disturb anyone in the courtyard. She checked the wall clock. Three a.m.

  All being well, she would have the place to herself for a while.

  Good. She would need the privacy for what she was about to do.

  She went to the cupboard to get the nail-file-length stick, sheathed in its protective foil wrapping. They preferred to let teenage girls who needed the test to use these at first. It brought them some privacy. Some time to register what might or might not be happening in their bellies.

  The door to the loo gave an eerie creak as she pulled it open and scanned the room, as if the noise would suddenly bring all of the children running. She waited a few moments, just to be safe, then closed herself in the small room to take the test.

  It was nearly impossible to keep up with surge after surge of thoughts and images racing through her mind as the seconds ticked past at an interminably slow pace.

  Sitting in the loo wasn’t helping, so she pushed out of the door and back into the clinic just as the front door opened.

  “Que paso? What’s going on?”

  It was Matteo. Green eyes dark as a forest, worry lines creasing his forehead.

  Harriet’s heart all but stopped beating, a shiver of goose pimples shuddering down her arms as she met his beautiful eyes again.

  “Harriet?”

  She looked at him, the test dangling from her fingers, completely tongue-tied. She knew and she didn’t. All it would take was one look.

  “Harriet?” Matteo asked again, the c
oncern in his voice growing tighter. “Is everything all right?”

  She lifted the test between them, holding it so that they could both see the little window where there either would or wouldn’t be a brightly colored plus sign.

  Both of them stayed stationary as the result of the test registered, first visually, then cognitively, and as her body began to tremble, Harriet returned her unblinking gaze to Matteo’s wide-eyed expression and spoke the words they both already knew.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  * * *

  The words rang and rang in Matteo’s ears.

  Words he’d thought he’d never hear in his wildest dreams.

  And not just hearing. Seeing the proof!

  Everything he’d counseled the countless teens he’d seen in the same situation completely left him. For the very first time he knew exactly how they felt. Lost. Bewildered. Hopeful. Terrified. Microseconds away from panic gripping every one of his carefully controlled sensibilities.

  He pressed his lips together to stop himself from asking the questions he already knew the answers to. They had used protection. She hadn’t been with anyone else. So the “mistakes happen” adage was true. It was his child. The child growing in Harriet’s belly was his.

  His eyes fixed on her hands, protectively crossed over her tummy, the maternal instinct already alive and well within her.

  A primal urge to erase the fear racing through her eyes took hold of him but his gut checked him. And in the instant he hesitated he could see resolve harden in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve already figured out that you don’t want children.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not blind.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You keep the children at arm’s length. You are kind but you certainly aren’t cuddly with them.”

  “What does any of that prove?”

  “You don’t like to get close to them. I mean, what kind of pediatrician doesn’t like to hold babies?”

  The words struck him physically, rendering him speechless. All he could do was return her wide-eyed gaze. Had he really been that transparent?

  Harriet backed away from him, her voice a steady confirmation of the decision she must’ve made in an instant. “I’m going back to England soon enough. In just a few weeks, maybe sooner. No one has to know.”

  “Harriet, we don’t need to make any decisions tonight. Give me time. Time to—”

  “Time to want this less than you do right now?” She shook her head in stiff, infinitesimally smaller shakes. If he hadn’t felt hyper-aware of her every movement, he might have missed them. “No one has to know. It’s not your problem.”

  His hands clenched and released. Clenched and released. None of this was right. The last thing he wanted was for Harriet to have this moment—the moment she found out she was pregnant—feel like a problem. But he had vowed on his sister’s grave never to have children. Had closed his heart to the possibility.

  “Is that what you want? What you’re happy with?” He could’ve cracked his head against the wall at the selfishness of his questions.

  “It’s not as if I’ve had much time to make sense of this! You just walked in on me.”

  “I thought someone was breaking into the clinic so I—”

  “You thought I was a criminal?” She all but recoiled.

  “I didn’t know who it was. I just saw a figure and...” He stopped himself. Being argumentative with a woman—the woman who was pregnant with his child—when she’d just found out was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

  “I think I’d like to go to my room.”

  “We can talk about this. Mi amor.” The words came naturally. The feelings were real. He cared for her and it surprised him to realize just how much.

  She shook her head at his words, rejecting his affection. “Harriet,” he corrected himself. He’d told her there was nothing between them when she’d barely disembarked from the plane and now he was proving it.

  “No. We can’t talk about it. I have to decide what I am going to do about my baby. Alone.”

  It nearly broke his heart to see her skirt round him to get to the door as if fearful that touching him would cause her pain.

  He reached out to her, hoping for... Who knew what—a moment of stillness? A moment to absorb the enormity of what was happening?

  Harriet pressed herself against the wall, raising her hands as she did so.

  “I think it’s best if I go to my room now.”

  Tears were glistening in her eyes. He ached to reach out, soothe them away. Tuck the little stray honey-blonde twists of hair away from her eyeline. Caress away the deep furrow tugging her brows tightly together.

  She was right, of course. To back away.

  The idea of being a father... He felt his lungs constrict. It was the one thing he had been certain of since his sister had died. He did not want children. He’d said it like a mantra over the years. He did not want children, and yet—

  “You don’t have to do this alone.” As the words came out he knew they sounded pathetic. He was unconvinced so how on earth was she ever to believe him?

  “Don’t worry, Matteo.” Harriet turned round once she’d reached the safety of the doorway, a bitter-sweet smile tipping up the edges of her lips. “You’re right. I won’t have to do it alone. I have my sister.”

  The words were like a knife in his heart. She had a sister.

  Harriet couldn’t know how cruel her choice of words was. And how perfect a reminder they were of why he’d vowed to never have a family of his own. How could he when he hadn’t noticed his own sister’s extended absences? Hadn’t pinned her down, demanded an explanation, showed her the unconditional love a brother owed a sister? If he had well and truly been there for Ramona, she’d be here today. And Harriet’s news could be... It would be good news.

  He cursed under his breath. They’d used protection! He should’ve taken a cue from the monastic lodgings and practiced abstinence. He’d never imagined himself leaving a woman in the lurch, but, more pressingly, he’d vowed to never have a child. He had nothing to offer.

  At least Harriet wouldn’t be alone. She had family. A loving sister with newborns just a few weeks away. It would be a chaotic household but there was little doubt it would be a loving one. Her family would be there for her, comforting, supportive. There, in every way that he couldn’t be. He leant against the closed door and sank to the floor, head bowed in his hands as the numbness of grief began to settle in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HARRIET STARED AT the phone in her hand, not knowing whether to feel shell-shocked or elated. Perhaps a bit of both? What she did know was she had about a gazillion questions to ask her sister. And another gazillion she wasn’t quite ready to answer.

  It was fitting, she thought, that she was up to her elbows in babygrows and stacks of muslin squares when the telephone call came. After a handful of hours when she hadn’t even bothered to try to sleep, she’d overheard Matteo telling the casita’s matron he was going out for the entire morning on business, so she’d been folding the casita’s never-ending stack of laundry in the courtyard, hoping the fresh air would help clear the chaos playing out in her mind. Apart from that, hiding in her room wasn’t exactly going to make her un-pregnant. Pregnant with Matteo’s baby. Right here, right now. And he wanted nothing to do with it. With her.

  She’d just closed her eyes to take in a waft of the floral scents exuding from the arbor she’d tucked herself in to avoid the midday sun when her phone rang.

  Her sister’s news had come in a torrent and the phone call had ended as abruptly, leaving Harriet reeling in her hidden nook of flowers and vines. The arbor shielded her from the rush and buzz of life in the courtyard. Which was exactly what she needed right now. A bit of privacy
until she knew how to respond. Which, realistically, she was not going to figure out how to do until she spoke to her sister again.

  She punched the long number into the phone and waited for the foreign ringtone to sound in her ear.

  “Harri!” Her sister answered before the first ring had finished sounding. “Are you all right?”

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question or jumping on a plane or practicing my double diaper changing skills?” Harriet felt the tension slip from her shoulders at the sound of her sister’s laugh. She’d always derived such strength from her. Claudia’s passion, drive and overall joie de vivre were unparalleled. The fact she couldn’t be with her now was almost physically painful.

  “Don’t be silly. I told you I was in good hands.”

  Oh.

  They’d always been there for each other. Harriet had made sure of it. But this time...did her sister not need her? She shook away the thought and forced on a sunny voice.

  “I know, I know. But I think I was in a bit of shock when you told me everything. So...this time I need a blow-by-blow recap.” And that was putting it mildly. Harriet was experiencing shock at news of her own pregnancy. Shock at the turn of events in her sister’s life. It was a wonder she hadn’t lost the plot entirely.

  “Where do you want me to begin?”

  Before Harriet could respond she heard her sister give a happy exclamation. “Ooh! Beea-uuu-tiful!”

  “What?” She ached to be in Los Angeles at her sister’s side, experiencing the highs and lows of life vicariously, just as she had done throughout her childhood...always a bit too painfully shy to experience her own.

  “Sorry, Har! A nurse just came in and faked a faint at my flowers. My big beautiful bouquet of flowers that he sent.”

  “Who?” Harriet all but squealed.

  “Dr. Spencer.” Her voice softened. “Patrick.”

  “Patrick?” Harriet’s defensive sister radar went on high alert. “Who’s Patrick?”