Barbara Hannay - Expecting Miracle Twins

The flat was in darkness when Jake arrived home some time after midnight. Last night he’d tripped over something in the dark, so he turned on a light this time and he blinked as the living room came to life, blinked again when he saw the clutter on the coffee table.

Surely Mattie, the neat freak, hadn’t left this mess?

Curiosity got the better of him and he moseyed over to take a closer look.

Blow me down.

The table was covered by a painting, which Mattie had obviously left to dry. It was a pen and ink sketch, coloured with pretty watercolours in a soft wash, and it showed the corner of a bathroom.

A little girl peeped out of a sea of bubbles in an elegantly curved, claw-footed bathtub. Bright rainbow-tinted bubbles drifted over the edge of the bath and onto a white fluffy mat on the floor, where a pair of pink-and-white-striped socks with lacy frills lay abandoned.

The long sleeve of a blue jersey hung over the edge of a wicker laundry basket and the cheeky face of a black cat peeked out from behind the basket.

It was such a simple little scene, drawn with an economy of lines and coloured delicately, but there was something utterly fascinating about the picture. Jake looked again at the little girl’s mousybrown curls and beady blue eyes and he chuckled softly. She looked incredibly ordinary and yet unexpectedly appealing. Not unlike her creator.

Mattie woke next morning to the unexpected sound of pots and pans being rattled in the kitchen, and when she opened her bedroom door she caught the distinctive aroma of mushrooms frying.

She’d slept in, after staying up much longer than she’d intended last night. When she’d finally finished work on her painting she’d lain awake for ages, thinking about the rest of her book, but she hadn’t heard Jake come in, so he must have been very late. How extraordinary that he was up already.

She dressed quickly, pulling on a T-shirt and jeans, and she made a hasty stop in the bathroom to wash her face and tidy her hair, then she entered the kitchen cautiously.

Jake was whisking eggs and he turned and grinned at her. ‘Morning.’

‘Good morning,’ she returned carefully.

‘I let Brutus out into the garden,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’ She blinked with surprise when she saw that he’d also filled Brutus’s bowl.

‘How did such a tiny mutt end up with a name like Brutus?’ Jake asked as he watched the little dog crunch miniature biscuits.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Mattie admitted. ‘I guess his former owners had a sense of humour, even if they were careless.’

‘Former owners?’

‘I have a good friend, Lucy, who’s a vet. Someone dumped Brutus on her doorstep and she needed to find a new owner.’

Jake stopped whisking eggs. ‘And you offered.’

‘Yes.’

For a long moment, Jake watched her with the slightest hint of a smile lurking in his eyes, then he pointed to the frying pan. ‘I found some leftover mushrooms in the fridge so I’m making an omelette.’

He looked rather pleased with himself, but Mattie refused to be amused or impressed. Last night she’d been shocked by her reaction to this man and she’d vowed to remain unimpressed by anything about Jake Devlin. With a little willpower, she could rise above the attraction of his broad manly chest, his sexy smile and his flashing dark eyes.

There was simply no point in getting hot and bothered about him. Apart from the fact that he already had a girlfriend, or possibly several girlfriends, he brought back memories of the one time she’d fallen disastrously in love and she’d vowed never to put herself through that kind of agonising heartache again.

Besides, no matter how attractive Jake was, he would be gone in under a week. And, very soon after that, she would be pregnant with someone else’s baby.

No man on earth would be interested in her then.

Not that she minded. This was her year for living chastely. She was dedicated to a higher cause, to Gina and Tom’s baby. When she was old and she looked back on her life, she would see this gift to her friends as one of her greatest triumphs.

With a breezy wave of her hand, she smiled at Jake. ‘You’re welcome to the mushrooms.’

‘Would you like to share this omelette?’

‘No, thanks. I’m allergic to eggs.’

He shot her a sharp, disbelieving glance and Mattie shrugged. ‘I usually have oatmeal.’

He looked momentarily disappointed, and she couldn’t suppress a spurt of triumph. Touché, Mr Devlin.

But then he gave an offhand shrug. ‘Bad luck for you. My omelettes are legend.’

As Mattie spooned boring oatmeal and water into a bowl and stuck it in the microwave, she asked, over her shoulder, ‘So where did you learn to cook?’

‘In Mongolia, on the mine site.’

She turned to him. ‘Really?’ In spite of her vow of indifference, she was intrigued.

‘We have this fabulous cook—a French Canadian called Pierre—and, whenever I’m at a loose end, I pop into the kitchen to lend him a hand.’

‘I don’t suppose there are too many ways to spend your free time on a mine site in Mongolia.’

‘Not unless you can get a lift into the capital, Ulaanbaatar.’ Using a spatula, Jake skilfully folded the omelette in two.

‘Are you a geologist like Will?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m an enviro.’

‘What’s that?’

‘An environmental scientist.’

‘So it’s your job to make sure the mining companies don’t wreck Mongolia?’

He grinned. ‘More or less.’

‘I guess that must be rather satisfying.’

‘It’s not a bad job.’ Jake lowered the heat beneath his frying pan.

The microwave pinged and Mattie gave her oatmeal a stir.

‘What about you?’ he asked casually. ‘What do you do?’

‘Oh, I haven’t been to university, and I don’t have what you could call a career. I tend to drift from one situation to another.’

‘But you paint.’

‘Well…yes. I suppose you saw the mess I left last night. Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise. I was actually glad to see stuff lying about. Now I know you’re normal.’

His sudden smile was so charming that Mattie felt a dangerous flutter inside and she was grateful when a burst of song from the cage by the window distracted them both.

She darted across the room and removed the cover from the cage. ‘Morning, Pavarotti.’

Jake snorted. ‘Pavarotti?’

‘That’s his name. Like the opera singer.’

He shook his head as he skilfully tilted the pan so that the omelette slid smoothly onto a plate.

At the cutlery drawer, Mattie fetched him a knife and fork and got a spoon for herself, and then they sat opposite each other at the small kitchen table—and Mattie knew she was in trouble.

Her insides were twittering in time with the canary’s warbling.

Jake nodded towards the bird cage as he cut into his light and fluffy omelette. ‘So you’re a fan of opera?’

Remembering the heavy metal music he’d played, she almost said yes, just to provoke him, but her habitual honesty prevailed.

‘My gran was the opera fan,’ she explained. ‘She named the canary. I wanted her to call him Elvis, but he was her bird so of course she had the last say.’ Mattie realised that further explanation was necessary. ‘My grandmother died last year and I inherited Pavarotti.’

Jake nodded slowly. ‘You were close to your grandmother?’

‘Oh, yes. I lived with her and looked after her for the last two years of her life.’

Across the table, his dark eyes registered surprise and then, eventually, an unexpected sadness. He scowled and looked more like the gruff man Mattie was used to and the flutters inside her settled. She was much more comfortable soothing other people’s worries than dealing with her own fluttery insides.